I’m ill. I have been soooo (note too many letters in the word ‘so’ for emphasis) ill. Not only do I want you to imagine the sound of violins being played by angelic female orchestra members… I want you to visually imagine those female musicians. For they are not only fiddling majestically, they are also crying. I have been soooooo ill. And I am still ill. I have only now reached the point where I can type these words, any words. And what words am I going to type? Hmmmm… bear with me here!
I have been binge watching Netflix and YouTube like an incarcerated droog. Nothing wrong with that. I’m ill. I can’t go snow-boarding. There’s only so many activities one can perform in bed. And… before you start sniggering, remember… I’m ill! So I’ve been watching YouTube videos from my subscribed channels. And I have been getting angry. A kind of filtered anger, like cockroaches being pushed through a germ-infested sieve, but anger nonetheless. While I should celebrate the cause of YouTube (and all the manifestations of ‘social media’) it has allowed the idiots to run amok. Just because anyone can now publish his or her opinion (and I hate to say it but I’m mainly talking about males here) does not mean he or she should. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve wanted to choke someone out on screen… or lavish said screen with Tipp-Ex when opinions are manifested as words. Too shy for camera perchance? It wasn’t like this in the past. Idiots couldn’t get air-time, even within their own fish-bowl-sized social groups. This is the rise of the idiot.
Don’t think I don’t realise that this kind of talk sets me up for a fall. A shout in my direction of “You’re an idiot yourself! Using the very same media you’re criticising others for! What makes you so special?”. Well, I’m not so sure what makes me sooooo special. But I insist something does. It’s whether I choose to make the subject of all future videos ‘How special I am’. You know the kind of thing. Videos where I elevate myself to a seat next to Da Vinci and Orson Wells. And Bruce Dickinson if he weren’t alive. Both sides of the bizarro spectrum. The idiots and the self-proclaimed geniuses dancing in the flames, naked, singing pagan songs of love to each other. That’s how YouTube often appears to me. There are sparkling, virginal splashes of shining white brilliance out there, and I am subscribed to many. But there is a sticky tar that permeates even when the source is on the fringe. I should unsubscribe from this ugliness. Yet I’m drawn in like a loner watching a tacky soap opera.
I’m ill.
I am sorry to hear of your desperate plight, its funny how our own discomfort can make us less well disposed to those around us, but I tend to agree and my reaction is to not watch “the idiots” out there. I accept that to some I probably qualify as an idiot and that is fine, the normal reation in life would simply be to avoid each other not to stalk each other shouting insults from a safe distance. That would result in real and unpleasant conflict. I started watching youtube to learn and now I make the occasional video because I enjoy doing so, there are aspects of it which are quite rewarding. I don’t produce very much and I have nothing to sell, the truth is it is the interaction with a small number of people that I would not have met in normal life that has kept me there. People in some ways quite different from myself that have broadened my outlook and even changed my mind on a few things. I have come to my present realisation that social media reflects humanity in the same way as a funfair mirror, its all there but distorted. A strange reflection that is funny and at the same time kind of disturbing. Unfortunately the appeal of the freak show still exists in our PC infected world, the only difference now is that we are all unaware of it and the freaks just think that they are special…..
I suppose I was just giving myself a slap on the wrist. I shouldn’t allow myself to be irritated by people. I should just switch them off. Turn my head. Stop rubber-necking. The thing is… I’m not a natural rubber-necker. I can happily drive past an accident without the need to take a glance at the scene. Yes, I’m one of the select few! Ha ha! Perhaps I need to treat YouTube videos like road traffic collisions?
I understand your plight and have sympathy, it is not so easy to do, especially if some of the individuals concerned are “popular”. I think that is one reason why you sometimes see the “dormant subscriber” who does not watch anymore but stays subscribed, who knows for sure. As long as you are happy with what you choose to view nobody is in a position to judge……Unless of course they are special…..XD
Rock n roll my good man… I hope you are on the mend…. nothing worse than illness when there is “sooooo” much to accomplish!
“Orange Alert…. Orange Alert!”
“You will not escape us Num-ba Six!”
Sending the balls out to drag you back to your youtube channel we call “the Village”.
^ that was me btw…
Unbelievably, I’m still ill. But I will be making a return. I have nearly finished ‘building’ my new studio. I look forward to talking a load of bollocks again in the near future. Although there is plenty of bollocks being talked in my absence… no one talks bollocks quite like me! 😉
That rubber-necking inpulse is hard to beat, but I’ve been doing it recently and finding everything to be fine..nice, even !
Having shut off some of the noise, I’ve noticed a real slow down in activity by a lot of the ‘guitar community’ this year, which is a real shame. It seems that a lot of people have either been scared off by,or just got fed up with, the bitch fights and general shyte that goes on and deemed it not to be worth the hassle.
I don’t like Gangster Rap because to me, it’s just someone shouting in my face about how great they are. if I’m not going to listen to the music, then the idea of a full length video series is something I’m probably best off avoiding.
Yes, yes, yes. We are in complete agreement. I got into the YouTube thing just over a year ago, and I kind of fell into the ‘Guitar Community’TM. You’re right in that I see less videos than I did in those heady days. Perhaps people have just run out of things to say? It doesn’t help that some of the voices out there have just become irritating. Ha ha! One man’s irritation is another man’s gemstone!
On the positive side, I don’t necessarily feel like one of the guitar community. For me, the guitar has always been a means to an end. I want to expand out into the space like the blob in a B-Movie. On another positive note, the ‘Guitar Community’TM did re-ignite my love with that six-stringed instrument. And the tonewood thing provided a side-show. I ate popcorn and kind of enjoyed it. The overwhelming feeling though was that the comments sections of YouTube are populated by spotty teenage boys using their veil of invisibility to, basically, bully. You can almost smell their youth. And their pathetic-ness. I couldn’t and can’t be doing with all that. When one strays onto my channel (very rarely now) I delete and ban. Some like to engage. I don’t. But I just can’t currently increase my subscriber numbers. I know what I’m doing wrong… and when I make my ‘come-back’ I’m going to try and correct those mistakes, but the whole ‘popularity-contest’ is a strange game.
Kind of strayed from my point there. But I think I’m going to ask Richard to animate me an ‘Abusive Mug’. A talking mug. Hmmmmm. Why not?
I still don’t know if I’m part of the guitar community or not 😀 The lack of output from “the leaders of GC” could be explained as, that without anger and frustration which were provided by TW wars, there’s not enough emotional drive. And guitars are too broad (and at same time little bit exhausted) topic to be really connecting people in the way, that TW wars were.
I’d say I got quite good at not watching stuff that pisses me off, but still from time to time the masochistic curiosity wins and then the desire to smack (or much worse) the person, who produced that poo poo, is very strong. I might be able to write book portaraiting the process of me trying to figure out, why social media are the way they are and the reasons for all the bitch fights etc. … but somebody mostlikely already wrote that book and it didn’t change anything… My hypothesis in short is: Social media are giving the possibility to voice opinion to “everyone”, which gives illusion of importance and makes grouping of people with same opinions much easier. One of the results is that instead of disconnected idividuals with stupid idea, we have groups of people with same stupid idea, which gives them at least feeling of validation and power. => stupid ideas are propagated in much louder form.