science

Unbox Therapy

Unbox Therapy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Unbox Therapy rather than just read about it. In short: Lewis George Hilsenteger (born May 6, 1985), known professionally as Unbox Therapy, is a Canadian unboxing and technology YouTuber. As of January 2025, The channel has 24.8 million subscribers, and its videos have received over 4.79 billion views.

Key takeaways

Unbox Therapy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Unbox Therapy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Unbox Therapy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lewis George Hilsenteger (born May 6, 1985), known professionally as Unbox Therapy, is a Canadian unboxing and technology YouTuber. As of January 2025, The channel has 24.8 million subscribers, and its videos have received over 4.79 billion views. In September of 2014, Unbox Therapy uploaded a video in which Hilsenteger used only his hands to bend his iPhone 6 Plus. The video is recognized as launching Apple's "Bendgate" controversy in which people could bend their phones in their pockets.

Early life Hilsenteger was born on May 6, 1985. He lives in Newmarket, Ontario, in the Greater Toronto Area. Hilsenteger attended the Toronto School of Art where he studied Digital Arts Photography and Video Editing.

Career Hilsenteger and Jack McCann created the unboxing YouTube channel Unbox Therapy in December 2010. Hilsenteger decided to create the channel after discovering he enjoyed watching unboxing videos. Unbox Therapy allows viewers to experience the pleasure of opening the newest technological items and not having to spend money on purchasing those items. Two early items he unboxed were a breathalyzer that integrated with a smartphone and an "unspillable cup" that he tried to push down. Unbox Therapy uploads several videos per week. The channel's videos routinely get a million views or more each. The average view count of his videos is more than 2 million as of April 2023, and he is ranked 7th in the tech category, according to Social Blade. The channel's total number of views had exceeded one billion views by February 2018; it exceeded 4 billion by April 2021. Hilsenteger runs another YouTube channel called Lew Later. As of August 2023, Unbox Therapy and Lew Later had more than 19 million subscribers combined. In 2014, Unbox Therapy uploaded a YouTube video titled "iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test" that stoked debate about whether it was likely for people's iPhone 6 Plus to bend in their pockets. In the video, Hilsenteger used only his hands to bend his iPhone 6 Plus. The video in several days was watched tens of millions of times. It became the "fifth highest-trending upload to YouTube". It is Unbox Therapy's most watched video and received 71 million views by August 2019. Although he purchased the phone himself, Hilsenteger was unafraid of demolishing it because he expected to generate sufficient YouTube advertising revenue from the video to buy a new phone. Inverse's Catie Keck called the video "a pretty damning illustration of" the bending was "a refresher on how bad this really looked for Apple". Polygon's Julia Alexander said Unbox Therapy's video is "largely credited for leading to Apple's 'Bendgate' fiasco with the iPhone 6". Hilsenteger co-created the YouTube channel with Jack McCann, a videographer who at the channel's beginning was simply known as "Jack" and whose face did not appear in any of the videos. Jack's identity was under much speculation and discussion over several years. Hilsenteger pledged to show who Jack was once the channel reached 10 million subscribers. Unbox Therapy uploaded the face reveal in a YouTube video titled "Jack" in February 2018. Polygon's Julia Alexander wrote, "It's a well-executed video that goes over the past and present of Jack's life, finally lending shape to the man who people only knew as Hilsenteger's most trusted friend and the person behind the camera". In 2018, Unbox Therapy's video titled "The ULTIMATE $30,000 Gaming PC Setup" features a computer setup resembling an airline cockpit, with four monitors, a foot massager, a recliner, expensive headphones, an adjustable weighted mouse, and a SteelSeries keyboard. The Outline's Andrew Paul wrote that the seven-minute video contained "a dizzying flurry of quick cuts" that has become common among "those who create content for the attention-fried". Paul concluded, "Maybe it's the snack crate stocked with Kettle Chips and Christie Collection's Pirate Cookies, or Hilsenteger's shilling of special edition Unbox Therapy Coke-a-Cola [sic] bottles, but on the whole, the thirty-grand rig seems like a little much." In March 2020, Hilsenteger's integrity was put into question when he left an apparently positive review for the Escobar Fold 2, which was simply a rebadged Galaxy Fold with poorly added Escobar branding. Many customers, when ordering the phones, said that they never received them, with only tech influencers actually receiving products. It has also been alleged that Escobar Inc sent bogus product orders consisting of a book, allowing Escobar Inc to claim the phone had been shipped out. In May 2020, the company released a refurbished version of the iPhone 11 Pro and allegedly sued Apple for $2.6 billion. Escobar Inc is known for its association with Roberto de Jesús Escobar Gaviria, the brother of Pablo Escobar, and various scams. Hilsenteger defended his original video by claiming he had no connection to Escobar Inc, nor that he knew anything about the product he was reviewing prior to his appraisal. The like–dislike ratio on his defence of the original video was split 31:27 as of April 2023. The original video review was made unlisted, although Hilsenteger's true rationale for its deletion are unknown.

Personal life Hilsenteger owned an Apple repair store close to Ryerson University. He is married and has a son.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Unbox Therapy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Unbox Therapy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Unbox Therapy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Unbox Therapy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Unbox Therapy

In research: Unbox Therapy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Unbox Therapy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Unbox Therapy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Canadian podcasters, People from Newmarket, Ontario, Technology YouTubers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Unbox Therapy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Unbox Therapy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Unbox Therapy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Unbox Therapy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Unbox Therapy in simple terms?

Why does Unbox Therapy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Unbox Therapy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Unbox Therapy.