YouTube

This is Blog 25 in my A-Z Blogseries:
YouTube

Social media have become something to love to hate and hate to love. If YouTube is a social medium, I think it’s my favorite one.

It’s so easy to lose half a day just clicking from one silly animal video to the next.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is Simon’s Cat. I started watching these cute animated videos 11 years ago, when they first came out. If you have a cat (or wish you did) then I’m sure many of the scenes will look familiar in some way. The video below is the very first video Simon ever made and it’s still one of the best ones:

When it comes to news and satire I love them all; starting with the Daily Show and the Late Show all the way to Seth Meyers and Bill Maher. I also love Graham Norton from time to time.

When it comes to music I’m always excited to see a new video of the Pentatonix appear or of Walk of the Earth. When I’m looking for a good live version of a song I always go for KEXP, Mahogany Sessions or NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts.

A musical flashmob video, that for some reason brought a tear to my eye when I saw it for the first time, was this one:

Actually, now that I’m re-watching it now, I know why it gives me all the feels. It’s the fact that it’s such an ancient art form, such an ancient song and such a universal message, along the lines of “let’s just have a drink and be friends”.

I also just love it when I run into little faith-in-humanity-restoring vids like this one, that was made 3 days after the Paris attacks in 2015:

Let’s use social media for wholesome shit only, what do you say!?

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Rage against the tangerine

If I were to describe what my absolute best day would look like, it would always include several hours of brainless surfing on the internet. Time spent this way is the ultimate chill-out for me. If someone were to ask me to tell them what I had been up to during ultimate chill-out time, I wouldn’t even be able to explain. Not out of shame or lack of words, but because it’s the time my brain is in partial shut down. I watch and read stuff but don’t really bother to store any of it. Straight in-and-out. I recommend this to everyone.

I must admit I haven’t been getting enough of this brain downtime in recent weeks. This has resulted in me having a slightly shorter fuse and my jokes being a tad more cynical. The upside? Today, having a whole day (until my bf comes home) of absolute me-time, there is a treasure of unwatched videos to binge on.

The Daily Show is one of my go-to channels during brain chill-out. It does require some brain activity (compared to, let’s say, the daily squee), but I estimate that of every ten hours of video footage I remember no more than 15 minutes of it. Excerpts of these fifteen minutes will then pop up randomly during conversations as “witty” quotes or in blogs like these.

All I’m really trying to do with this incredibly long introduction, is explain why the title of this blog is referencing something I saw only yesterday but is actually from a Daily Show episode late last month…

The reason why this particular vid stuck with me, is not only because of the fact that its Rage Against the Machine reference made me laugh out loud. It was also because the realization set in that last week was the one year anniversary of Trump’s election.

Earth has somehow managed to complete a full rotation around the sun without slinging out of orbit or exploding, since he came crashing into the control room.

The video above shows how the Republican party itself is still trying to come to grips with this and that not everyone has been able to accept this new status quo. I’m not saying this out of epicaricacy (I just learnt a new word!!) but because I think it’s a very interesting process that could lead anywhere.

It may end up redefining GOP entirely, as all moderate, non-racist politicians head for the life rafts and abandon the ship. This may actually restore stability within the party. Or it may result in an out-of-control ship, incapable of staying on course.

Happy anniversary, POTUS.

 

Musical first aid

Last weekend, while visiting my parents I put on some music on their way-too-high-tech audio system and motivated my dad to cruise through the wondrous world of YouTube.

My daddio goes through phases of extreme innovation and radical conservatism; wanting to be ahead of the rest with the newest-of-the-newest technology and gadgets on one day, and only wanting to purchase things from “people you can look in the face and shake hands with” on the other. Sometimes both at the same time. It is possible. But it’s confusing sometimes. To me, I mean. To him it makes perfect sense.

Anyhow, my dad was going on a fanatic musical-melancholy tour through YouTube, watching old Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan footage and was about to go into his “they just don’t music like this anymore”-rant. Luckily, I came prepared and presented him with First Aid Kit, the wonderful Swedish duo that can restore your faith in humanity and modern day music in one sitting.

 

Oh, how I hope to get the chance to see them live some day. I’ll be heading to Roskilde festival again this year… Fingers crossed…