Hello, I came across a video today and i was pretty shocked to hear what he was talking about. I thought i should come here and ask. Are people, and historians really trying to say that Scandinavian/Norse culture isn’t and wasn’t real? I feel this is a good question to ask because i was never aware that this was actually a debated topic, if what the video said was true. If it true what is the basis to these claims? If not then i just got peace of mind and the person is just looking for views.
While I'm not so sure about what exact means by 'Norse culture' in the video in question, it is true that more and more scholars are hesitant to see the popular image of Old Norse mythology and culture, mainly based on medieval (Christianized) Icelandic manuscripts, either as a proper representation or as a reasonably accurate re-interpretation of the past of whole Viking Age Scandinavia. In other words, one can say that the extant information in medieval Icelandic parchments is only an 'unofficial/ not so proper representation' tip of the very large iceberg of '(Old) Norse culture' that we have little access to any more, and is very difficult to reconstruct solely based on a small piece of the extant evidence.
Whereas I'm also willing to offer a reply to some follow-up or to clarify the problem further, I also hope that the following excellent answers on the problem lingering on the alleged 'Old Norse religion' in this subreddit might give you some idea on what I discuss above: