Celebrating the Tube for You

Well hallelujah and whoop-de-doo!  Today is YouTube’s 5th birthday and I am super psyched to wish it all the best.

Remember back when you had to wait for the occasional TV show to compile a few ridiculous clips?  Remember when you didn’t have instant access too over 4,000 cat videos a day?  Remember when you just had to fondly remember the Weaver Bird song for Sesame Street?

Well, go ahead and throw that shit out.  Nowadays, we don’t have to remember anything.  Thanks to YouTube, I can now watch clips of Oddville and remember why it wasn’t really worth talking about in the first place.

And this is one aspect of YouTube which sucks.  Each of us has our own specially tailored memories of things we experienced.  My memory is probably different from your memory, as each of us have different ideals and concerns, all of which are imprinted on our recall.  We all manipulate things in our heads to fit our basic psychological needs and to allow ourselves the ability to function. 

Which brings me to wonder what happens if the YouTube concept were to be transferred into our daily lives.  What if every moment of our existence was captured somewhere, available for on-demand review at any time?  What if I could go back and rewatch my actions and evaluate the actual occurrences in my life, instead of looking at events and places through the filter of my mind?

I think one of two things would happen: in some cases, the viewer would ascend to a higher level of functioning, having been able to explicitly explore their patters, habits and skewed vision of themselves.  In the majority of cases, however, I’m pretty sure people would received a massive mind-fuck and live the rest of their lives in a cloud of self-loathing.

We all do a lot of stupid shit and our brains are there with a balance system to get us all through.  Nobody wants to realize that, for instance, while they were convinced they spent an entire workday being productive, they actually spent it on YouTube, watching cat videos.

Full circle.  Slam!