Memo 11: YouTube, part 1
The reasons why this Jouissance is later in the day than usual, and having a Part 1 in the title, are interconnected: my brain feeling big empty today. This week’s big dive on YouTube will be punted to next week when I can do it justice, and the lack of proper Jouissance this week was stressing me out. So what do I use to distract myself from YouTube? YouTube! In the form of Howl’s Moving Castle theme song.
Through this, I was given a serendipitous wholesome pick-me-up when scrolling through the comments. It turns out there is a YouTube user, Anxley, who has been using the comments thread to post an update on every day of his life for the past 4 months. They are on a mission to post once a day for an entire year.
Anxley’s posts range from cute and thoughtful to incredibly honest as they mention some pretty personal parts of their life.
The entire comments section has morphed to celebrate Anxley. People check up on their comments! People come back to the comment thread specifically to keep up with Anxley’s life! People give Anxley shoutouts!
Simple as it may be, seeing someone post a bit about their day in this niche YouTube video thread while listening to a song of equal simplicity and sweetness fills the awareness-of-strangers-lives hole pretty nicely.
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
The strange story of the Southern town that Hollywood insiders are building from scratch. Inspired from the town of The Truman Show unironically, what could go wrong?
Elon Musk, His Rocket, and the Grand Scheme that Tore Apart Boca Chica. Speaking of towns becoming things with mixed opinions…
Mike Mandel’s Selfies from the Seventies. One of my favorite photo series, dare I say, of all time! SFMoma had an exhibit on him a couple years back, where they showed off these photographs and his photographers-posing-as-baseball-players baseball cards.
The Fruits and Vegetables Used to Create Gory Horror Movie Sounds. ‘Tis the fall season, so ‘tis the time to focus on fruit-based horror movie sounds!
Eight men reflect on their paths to prison – and imagine their alternative lives. I am an easy sucker for experimental short documentaries, so it wasn’t hard to get me on the hook for this, but it’s an exceptionally interesting doc. It interviews eight men in a German prison as they recount what brought them there.