So cool that we can put a machine on another planet that can send videos back to us. I love this stuff.
All posts by Steve Griffin
Some people will camp anywhere.
Sometimes I don’t know what to think about Steve Wallis. He comes off as a truly affable person and his videos, while not stunning in quality, are well past the amateur level… but the guy has built his whole YouTube success around his proclivity for camping in odd places and getting away with it. I don’t even care for camping in an RV at a KOA; I sure don’t have any ambition for sleeping in an unheated abandoned building in the Canadian winter.
Tiny homes.
The ingenuity of tiny homes can be entertaining even for someone who doesn’t have any desire to actually live in one. YouTube has a seemingly endless list of people who love to show you theirs. (Side note: my wife and I giggle about how proud these tiny home types can be of their toilets. It’s a rare tiny home video that doesn’t cover the “potty issue.”)
Alternative Meteorologists.
The availability of live weather data on the Internet has spawned a small industry of online YouTube meteorologists who produce their own weather forecasts without being employed by any local TV station or broadcast network. From what I can tell, Ryan Hall seems to be the leader of the pack in this, but there are enough others out there that it’s probably a matter of opinion. Some of his forecasts are recorded, but when NOAA weather alerts break out he often goes live and even has “weather-spotter” friends around the country who do Jim Cantore-style reports live from on the scene.
Chinese street extortion as entertainment.
Peng Ci, as the Chinese call it, is a scam where a person will go out in public, pretend to be injured by another person’s clumsiness, and then try to extract money or favors from the person they accuse of injuring them. I’m sure it’s not only a Chinese thing – in fact, I suspect it even explains an odd public interaction my wife and I were confronted with right here in the US a few years ago – but this American living in China was inspired to make what is actually a pretty catchy tune out of it.
American nostalgia.
Boomer alert – it’s fun to remember the good old days every now and then.
The Cottage Fairy.
There are probably far more people who wish they could follow Paola Merrill’s lifestyle than can really pull it off. She lives out in the wilderness and shows us how to interact with nature, make your living space cozy, and seek out a peaceful pace of life. Her videos (engineered with exceptional quality by her brother) are both educational and visually impressive. Good stuff.
Don’t travel overseas without watching these people first.
As I’ve noted elsewhere, there are travel videos that are interesting because they give advice on where to go and there are travel videos that are interesting because they show you places they don’t even recommend you try to go. Wolters World is in the first category – family friendly videos showcasing vacation destinations around the world, complete with tips on where to find bargains, what to avoid, and how to interact with the locals.
Knowing your rights.
Personally, I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket since the 90’s, but I still find videos like this kind of interesting… so many of us – even those of us who support the police – are unaware of what our constitutional rights are and what requests from the police we are obligated to obey.
Free music all the time, any time.
YouTube has dozens of channels that provide background music of various styles. Some are videos of multi-hour length, others just live stream 24/7. Depending on your lifestyle and your musical interests, this could conceivably be cheaper for you than a Spotify or other subscription, especially if you’re like me and have YouTube Premium, which eliminates ads.