Love, Beauty and Addiction: my YouTube obsession
Sometimes I feel deep shame about the amount of time I spend on YouTube, watching pointless shit and reading comments. I feel like I'm looking for something and I'm disappointed. Obviously some YouTubers and their videos are more fulfilling than others and sometimes I feel like watching a video is worthwhile. I will sit and watch a two hour video just staring at someone's face with rapt attention. I will regularly pause to read comments, to see if anyone has anything to add to the discourse. I have spent hours and hours and hours of my day doing this. Then I feel shame when I look up from my phone to see the house messy and my mind hazy and the kids hungry and I don't know what month it is.
I like watching creators who have interesting things to say, new points of view, or just funny points of view on anything. I find a channel and I think: "This is the one. This is my favorite YouTuber from now until the end of time." I have even contributed to the occasional Patreon. But eventually I get bored of them, all of them, and then the cycle begins again. I spiral into my YouTube hatred and resent it for taking so much of my life away. I feel like I keep watching YouTube because I'm looking for something. What am I looking for? I don't know. And does it even exist?
Several times I have gone on a YouTube fast to rid myself of this harmful addiction. It is true, I don't need YouTube, I can waste my time just staring at the rain out the window. In fact, I can avoid cleaning the house no matter what else I'm doing. I can reorganize pretty rocks in a pretty box for hours until they look absolutely perfect. Don't judge me.
Maybe the problem isn't that I'm wasting my time, maybe the problem is that I judge my own time as "productive" or "lazy", and returning to the same lazy activities, is labeled: addictive. I pressure myself to be more "productive" than my brain or body wants me to be, which makes everything worse. This is like pressuring yourself to be a different sexuality, or forcing yourself to be in a relationship with someone you don't find attractive. (Believe me, I've been there, it is exhausting.) Which leads to more "addictive" behaviors, because you just want to run away from yourself.
Well, just a few days ago I allowed myself to desire YouTube as a valid indulgence and maybe even a necessary one instead of a useless, time-wasting, life-sucking addiction. Because sometimes my time spent on YouTube is inspiring or enlightening and feels worthwhile.
But there are limitations to its usefulness, just like eating has its limits. Eating every time I think of food will not make me feel good, neither will watching YouTube for too long, especially when the videos are empty calories. But when I'm feeling under the weather, or just feeling too brain-dead to read or write, I can pull out the old phone and watch YouTube. Fuck, I can even put it on while I actually clean the actual house. I can't clean when I'm reading or writing. See? Useful.
So right when I came to a comfortable relationship with YouTube, something else showed up that shook my world and that something was a YouTube creator called Contrapoints.
I have often wondered if I should start a YouTube channel. Maybe one day that would make sense. I would create the YouTube channel that I wanted to watch, since I was having such a hard time finding what I wanted.
She is basically an alternate universe version of me, only better at everything. She is prettier, smarter, has more education, more resources, more money and success than me. The depth at which she is everything I admire is another blog post entirely.
After finding her channel I tried writing for days and realized I felt completely inadequate. What could I say that she wouldn't say better? I have lived my life thinking I was profound, but now I realize I'm just a big dumb idiot with my thumb in my ear. I'm a pretentious bullshitter. I'm a blustering baboon. I hate myself now. Everything I thought I had to offer the world, has been reduced to meh.
When Twilight came out (whenever that was), I knew a few things: a) I probably wouldn't like it. b) Lots of people really liked it. It had a great cover, it had an interesting premise, but it seemed poorly written and dull...and yet....and yet. The public was fascinated by it and I had to admit there were fascinating elements to it, so I kept wondering if maybe I wasn't giving it a chance, but the more I tried reading the books or watching the movies, I just couldn't. What was the good that compelled me? What was the bad that repelled me?
So I started reading everyone else's opinions of Twilight. YouTube is great for this kind of thing. For decades I have watched YouTube videos analyzing the Twilight books and movies and nothing answered my burning question: Am I missing out by not participating in this craze? Is there a way to glean the good from it without actually reading the books or watching the movies?
And that is how I found Contrapoints. It was only several months ago that she posted a three hour video essay detailing everything I ever wanted from Twilight. It was perfect.
I am now binging and wondering if Contrapoints will go the way of my other YouTube fixations. After so long, will I get bored and wander away? Or is this the real thing? Is this the real YouTube love I have been searching for? Only time will tell.
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