Roughly 50 videos in two weeks of this project. (Two weeks that started right after the first post about YouTube problems. This is a little delayed…) And this was me trying to keep things under control, knowing that I'm planning to write about each video that I watched.
Unfortunately, I didn’t keep on after those first two weeks. Maybe I should try to keep up the practice, though. It’s a good way to self-regulate, even if I don’t blog about all the videos that I watch.
Anyway, this list doesn't include Netflix or Disney+ or anything else, just YouTube. It's a little scary, perhaps, how much time I spend on these platforms. And makes me wonder about how I'm living my life.
What do I want to know a lot about? What do I want to be an expert in? If I want to be able to quote poetry and sing random songs like a character in The Lord of the Rings, I should be working on that, right?
But here I am, spending my life watching endless videos online, that aren’t necessarily about things that I want to care about…
Often it happens because I default into watching YouTube, when sitting down to eat by myself, or when tired from work and taking a break, or coming home and lying down on the floor. It’s easier to distract myself than to sit quietly and let my mind wander, even though I know that letting my mind wander is supposed to be great for me. (Check out this podcast episode for one discussion on the topic.)
Some things I don't regret watching, though, such as Andor, which I’ve re-watched lately. Such a good series. Makes you wonder, if a Star Wars series like this can exist, how did things like the Obi-Wan or Acolyte series get approved? (Yeah, these aren’t YouTube, but it’s part of the video content that I’ve been consuming.)
Anyway, here are the YouTube videos that I watched over the first two weeks of my experiment. I do wonder if perhaps I should write about these on facebook instead, and increase my popularity with the algorithm... But there's something interesting about compiling this here, in one place.
Bicycles and Cycling
I'm just gonna lump all these together. At this point, these are partially entertainment, partially informative (for when I buy a bike in the future), and partially 'cause they're easy to watch when I don't want to think.
I do tell myself that this is information for the future, but... how much information do I really need to know that if my bike is running and isn't likely to break, and that I need to clean it more regularly?
Bicycle tyres! Things to know for when I move back to Trondheim. Not just what kinda bike I want to buy, but what kinda tyres I should have on my bike too.
Yes, when! I'm hopeful that I'll be able to come back to Trondheim.
And if money is a little tight, how can I go faster?
Tyres, handlebars, and body position, apparently!
I do quite like the Global Cycling Network (GCN) videos. They're informative and good fun. But I have to be careful not to get sucked into watching things just for entertainment, though. Even when I'm on holiday.
If the time that I have to take it easy is preparation for the times when things are hard, I think I need to train my brain to use the time resource well. And whether or not YouTube as entertainment is good use of time, is... questionable. Rest, apparently, is a better use of time, if I’m prepping for tough times. And more mental stimulation might not quite be rest.
More information about what I might one day buy. One day. I want to type "haha!" but it's not funny anymore, how much time I'm spending on these videos.
But it is good to know that I can buy a hardtail mountain bike, stick some drop bars on it, and add aero-bars too, and go pretty fast, but still have some suspension when I want it. And I'm not gonna have to break the bank to do it.
Ok, this one I had to watch because I was actually trying to adjust some disc brakes. This video did not fix the problem. The problem was that the disc brake pads were completely worn out.
I was not successful in replacing the disc brake pads. (It wasn’t my bike… some ownerless bike at the bike kitchen I was helping out at.)
Also a video I “needed” to watch. Sorta. When I watched this, my bike’s cassette wasn’t in great shape. I didn’t get around to changing it though.
Things I Already Know and Shouldn't Watch
Being flexible… has it’s appeal. Yet I already know a lot of this information (though certainly not all of it) and so this falls into the category of “Things I Shouldn’t Watch” because if I want to be flexible, I should be working on my flexibility and mobility rather than watching YouTube videos about flexibility and mobility.
Yet Another Middle Split Video
Building on the video above... YouTube recommended me another middle split video with the same guy in it. Curse you, you algorithm!
Once again, time to stop watching and start doing.
(That said, both of these two videos above are really informative, if you’re looking to work on your splits. I’d recommend them.)
Basic/Pre-requisite Skills for Acrobatics
My backflip is still broken, and I’d like to get it back. What basics am I missing that are keeping me from getting it, and my corkscrew, back? Why do I have these fears?
Maybe I'm just not spending enough time doing acrobatics. If I spent more time training and less watching videos... (This is a theme, eh?)
Ok, maybe I don't really know much about knife steels. But I know that to sharpen a knife I need to get better at keeping a consistent angle while sharpening. That's it. I should stop watching videos about how to sharpen knives and just... practise. And maybe buy a strop.
Tech Videos
Linus Tech Tips - AMD is About to CRUSH Intel
I watched this because I want to "keep up with the news" in the tech world. Was it worth my time?
Probably not. I've been trying not to watch LTT for entertainment anymore, but sometimes I still fail. Old habitual pathways, still grooved in.
The actual news I want to find out about is whether the new ARM Windows laptops are good. Turns out (a few months after the initial writing…) they generally are! Though there are still compatibility issues with x86 programs (in other words… with lotsa programs you might need for work. Don’t jump on the Snapdragon bandwagon just yet, unless you’ve checked out compatibility for important programs you’ll need to use!)
Obsidian Tutorials by Nick Milo
I've watched some of these before, but I thought they'd be worth going through again.
Not long ago, my brothers-in-law (yes, two of them) told me about a programme called Obsidian, for taking notes and writing and all sorts of things. I've been trying to use it for school, and it's super useful, even though I'm not using it even half as well as I could be.
So I thought I'd try to learn again. It's a beginning.
Most important lesson? Just start, and then, follow through.
Seems to be the hardest lesson for me to learn.
The Fairphone 5, by JerryRigEverything
If you don't like watching electronics being intentionally damaged, don't watch this.
This was rough for me too.
I wanted to watch this, because, well, environment things. Repairable phones are good for the environment, and they’re a cool idea. They're also good for us, because they mean we won't have to keep buying new electronics when ours inevitably break from something or other.
It's a cool idea, even though some people on Reddit really seem to dislike the Fairphone 4.
This review doesn't say anything about how good the Fairphone 5 is as a phone, besides discussing its repairability, which is top-notch.
I'm excited for the new Windows laptops that are coming out with these chips. I'm watching news on these chips.
A laptop with ridonkulous battery life that's still powerful, and isn't a Mac? These are exciting times.
The media embargo lifts today, the 18th of June! So soon we'll have some real reviews to read and watch. (This media embargo is why there weren’t reviews available when I watched the first video in this “tech” list.)
Dave2D's Review of a Snapdragon Elite X Laptop!
Review embargo lifted! I can finally watch a review of a laptop with one of these chips and, surprise surprise, they're good! Exciting times for Windows users.
And I watched part of this, 'cause apparently there's a way to install alternative BIOS for my video card to make my computer faster.
But I stopped, 'cause I don't need a faster computer. = P
Miscellaneous Videos
(The formatting here is changing. It takes too much time to link to all the videos in the title of each video when you can just click through on the video itself, and… there are more important things in life. One reason why this video is going up in September instead of June is because I’ve struggled with formatting this post. No more!)
It's the NBA finals! I wanted to know what's up.
Celtics are up 2-0! Who do you have winning?
I think it'd be really cool to see that Mavs and Luka win a championship, but... it isn't looking super likely.
And the Celtics win!
Cool, the Celtics won. I like the young guys this team is built around, though I don't feel any special way about the Celtics specifically.
My girlfriend and I were joking about how we should carry each other around as a workout. We ended up watching this. And this, too:
Haha!
A while back, I read or listened to something in which a person being interviewed said he spends an hour a day learning about something he's completely unfamiliar with. This video sorta falls into that category of things that I'm familiar with.
And we should all care about what's happening to our planet, right?
This one is pretty cool, I have to say. And it's nice that the video also discusses at least one alternative perspective to refreezing the Arctic as a way to save us from catastrophe. We could be focusing our energy and money on carbon capture instead of building more ice in the Arctic to reflect heat from sunlight.
Don't have all your eggs in one basket, perhaps?
On a side note, I know people complain a lot (periodically, anyway, about how evil Bitcoin is for using up so much energy.
How much energy does YouTube use? All those random, inane or even downright horrible videos that no one ever watches, and the storage space and energy it takes to keep them in the “cloud”?
Then again, YouTube does arguably do more good for the world than Bitcoin.
My work is in part storytelling. Sure, weird, abstract stories that nobody understands, that's contemporary dance, right?
But still, stories.
And some people say most of what makes life meaningful is telling stories, and doing it well.
Unfortunately, this video doesn't do it well. There's a lot of useful information about storytelling out there, but... I quit this video halfway.
The way quotes from books are read, the way the "narrative" of this video is presented, feels a little lifeless. It's informative, sure, but it isn't inspiring. Long videos better be inspiring if they’re gonna take up so much time and brain space, and this one doesn’t quite make the cut.
I'd recommend watching something by Thomas Flight, for example, who breaks down movies and discusses what makes them good and what makes them bad. Or an interview with Chris Andersen, who runs TED. They don't just give you information, they tell you a story that draws you in, and makes you want to do it too.
I'm pretty bad at knot-tying, I have to say.
So I'm trying to learn.
Thanks to YouTube, I've learned the difference between a knot (holds on itself) and a hitch (has to hold around something, a stick, say...). This wasn't in this video, though.
And I know how to tie a figure-8 knot for climbing, and a Clove Hitch finally sorta has a pattern in my brain. So much for being a scout at one point in my life, eh?
I'm done with my assignment. My brain is not working today.
That said, there are some things I don't need to watch, probably. But some things are just good fun.
Admittedly, after watching the second Deadpool movie (I don't really recommend it), I felt like I had just spent two hours being trolled. Which as a friend pointed out, is perhaps the point of a Deadpool movie.
But Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have made some Internet gold over the years, so...
To my mother, aunties, and uncles… I wouldn’t recommend you watch this. I don’t think you’ll appreciate it.
Learn new things, right?
Though from this video, it isn't clear whether or not I learned I should cover any future car I own with dents...
About Planned Obsolescence and how we need to stop buying more things. I think I might have started to watch this after finishing my assignment and deciding to just veg out a little.
I'm not sure, though.
But worth watching! How can we buy things that can (and should!) last years and years, instead of things that frequently die?
When I see a video from Cercle, I confess it's hard not to watch it. Especially when it has such an exciting thumbnail.
I've been following Cercle for a few years now, and they make such great musical content, so I wanted to see what this odyssey would be.
It looks super cool, and definitely is something that I would like to attend at some point in time.
I needed a bit of a comedy break from work.
Turns out, my girlfriend does not think this guy is funny! I wonder if it's her influence, but I don't find this comedy bit as funny as I used to. Tastes change, right?
Also, do jokes lose their impact over time?
Sneezing Baby Panda, however, does not lose its chuckle value!
OwlKitty keeps its value pretty well too.
Guys Punching Each Other and Other Physical Feats
I like watching fights. The UFC isn't the organisation that I most want to support, but it's the only MMA league I've ever really watched. At this point, I'm just watching their free fights on YouTube.
A stoic, simple fighter taking out the "Stylebender"? This was an interesting watch.
What's there to say? If you like fighting, this is definitely worth a watch. \
Very different physical feats, here.
I remember my colleague showing me a video of this guy once. I'm definitely way past the days when I watched ballet videos regularly (those days didn't last very long), but man, this dude can jump. I was looking for a video of him doing a reverse 540, but gave up searching pretty quick.
Interesting. Didn't need to know it, but interesting.
Moral of the story: don't do the Tour de France, if you want a long, healthy life.
Exercise, but don't do the Tour de France.
I am... marginally a training nerd. There are a lot of things I know, and I'm curious to keep learning more about various things.
This one was... interesting. But more technical than I'm going to get as a dancer, I think.
Some information that was reinforced, though, was the need to keep the bulk of training (80%!) at an easy pace, and ramp up intensity the closer it gets to performance (or race) day. Ah, also, pack intense training sessions into one or two consecutive days, instead of spreading them out over a week.
If you're an endurance athlete, that is. I don't think this will always work for dance, but there are certainly good things we could take away from this, as dancers trying to perform better.
This is vastly oversimplified, and there's more information that I should perhaps think about.
I watched this, 'cause I have a really bad left shoulder. It's been bad for years, now, and I need to do something about it.
This is a useful video, but I don't know how much I can apply, because... I'm not good at regimenting myself to things. Which is bad, when I've got a problem as bad as my left shoulder.
I need to find a way to keep myself accountable to fixing it.
I needed to reference this video in an essay that I was writing.
Master's thesis on Snowboarding? Let's gooooooooo!
This is just crazy bananas. Yes, I was watching this for a paper I was writing as well. Here's how I described this video.
"Perhaps imagining the full-bodied sensation of a sharp blade slicing through a piece of paper, mixed with the pleasure of falling into a warm bed on a cold night, while watching a breath-taking sunset at the same time begins to describe my experience. To imagine and embody that sensation on a scale several magnitudes greater might bring us to an inkling of an understanding of what Rice might have felt when filming this video.
In this way, this is something that is truly aspirational, something that the vast majority of snowboarders could only hope to experience."
Hmmm, a little cringey now that I re-read it, but yes, this was in the essay that I submitted back in June of this year.
These... were tangentially related to the paper I was writing. "How has snowboarding changed differently in different countries, over the years?" That was one of the questions I was asking. And Su Yiming's medals at the Beijing Olympics, and some Reddit discussions, were what got me going on the question.
This is such a fun snowboarding video, the carving and cruising. It's how I'd like to be able to ride. I don't need the big tricks (though those would certainly be cool). Being able to carve wekk, and find creative possibilities in the little things seems so exciting.
I watched this one a long time ago. This time round, I wanted to show it to my girlfriend, 'cause she hasn't seen so much slacklining, even though she really like playing on slacklines when she can. (I, on the other hand, really like watching videos of things that I don’t do.) She's good, too, and can jump onto waist-high slacklines pretty consistently, and turn around, and walk backwards on them. Jump, as opposed to just stepping up onto them.
Watching this video is pretty stressful at times, though. And amazing. Some of the shots in the video look like genuine movie clips, only... real. No CGI, no green screens, and when Spencer Seabrook free solos some highlines, no safety gear either.
And so well made.
I wish I had been a little more daring, and a little more creative about my fieldwork. I would have asked Levi Allen if I could intern with him if I had been.
Ah well. Maybe for the next Master’s degree. Haha!
This too was something to show my girlfriend, since she likes climbing and dancing. Such a cool dance piece, too. I'd rather be in this piece than in my own, I said.
Haha!
Maybe one day.
(And since I’m posting this so late, I can say… this piece will also be performed in Singapore the same weekend I’m performing there in December!)
How do people get the funding to make pieces like this?
Am I just thinking too small, not dreaming big enough?
More stuff that I watch and don’t do! And wanted to show my girlfriend. Haha! I can't quite remember why I wanted to show her these, but it had something to do with the assignment that I'm working on. Maybe because I was writing about freeriding and how big wave surfing is sorta freeriding.
And that’s it! Two weeks of watching YouTube, presented to you here, for… an insight into my confused, distracted mind?
Maybe there’s a way to tie all these things together into a meaningful whole that can be shared. If you have thoughts, I’d be happy to hear them!
Perhaps I really should take up documenting or making notes about every single video I watch. So that information is retained, and that watching is made purposeful and not just mindless.
So that I’m put off watching certain videos because I don’t want to write anything about them.
So that I watch less, because I’ll be spending more time writing. Or be challenged by my reflections to do something besides watch.
Many thoughts.
Thanks for reading.