2024-10-11
(My hands are a little cold today - the temperature has dropped down to 13 degrees, yet it actually feels a little colder. In fact, there is frost on the grass, so I think it probably went down a lot colder overnight.)
I do not use social media, however do still naturally have vices. In terms of content consumption, a big one still is Youtube. I sort of have it in my mind as something that I still benefit from, but I wonder to what extent that is fully true.
Now, certainly, I think that audiovisual media has a place. It has benefits above and beyond just mere words. In fact, I have in my /thousands podcast, which was something I initially wanted to do to allow myself to to progress in terms of clarifying my thoughts, and getting them out in a clear way, and with the impromptuness of normal conversation: with writing, there is a chance to pause and get thoughts together, but speaking in that form forces words out in a limited period of time. Perhaps there are a few seconds which a pause can fill, but really no longer than that. That is about creation, though. In terms of consumption, a lot of what I consume is heavily scripted, and so does not have this same benefit. In fact, it is there as educational content, and potentially to do so in a way which has political ramifications, etc.
Yet, what I really wonder is whether it actually matters, what I watch on Youtube. As a comparandum: on the train yesterday I saw a woman using Instagram. There was a lot of short content, and for instance I remember a man interviewing people on the street asking what the name is, and showing a (I believe it was) coin and a hat. People were guessing 'Pennyhat' or 'Moneyhat' or things like that and he was saying 'wrong!'. I assume that that was supposed to be in some way a surprising matter, and engender some kind of emotion response. She continued to watch it, though for other pieces of content she would skip it almost right away, or watch around half and then skip. Of course, such scrolling I don't really understand (I don't do it), and I think the idea is that it has @@[That Funny Feeling][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObOqq1knVxs] which Bo Burnham describes. Catatonia. When I watch Youtube, I feel as if I learn, yet similarly to when I listen to music... it is not in sheer appreciation or to genuinely learn, it is really as background. It's a fear of silence. A fear of nothing. It's a real fear of nothing at all. The same lack that compels that woman to scroll compels me to listen to The Smith's as I write this, or to have some (ostensibly educational) Youtube video on in the background as I write this.
In terms of That Funny Feeling, really it is a description of the human experience today, that is so odd in very many places, and contented with a malaise, alert with a pyrrhic ataraxia, barely awake with vigour, acting without action, taking without receiving.
(I think I forgot to finish this; I won't bother now. Have a good one.)