Some of my YouTube Crushes

Monday is movies. And TV. Today's a public holiday in NZ - so it's YouTube clips. Favourites. Some of what I call my "YouTube Crushes". Make sure you share yours too.

I love YouTube. It’s my favourite TV station of all-time, and it’s often my go-to radio. I’ve been paying for the Premium version of YouTube for years (well, since way back when Cobra Kai debuted on the platform I guess). And it’s the best monthly subscription I fork out. I’ve raved about YouTube more than once.

And I told you all a while back about how I rediscovered my favourite sport via YouTube.

YouTube is also a must if you love interviews, and there’s an interview I watch at least once a week on YouTube.

This long weekend I discovered my new favourite sport, and my new YouTube Crush, if you like. I have a few YouTube Crushes, by which I mean subjects I get mildly obsessed with. We’re all friends here, or on some level at least we should be. So I feel no shame sharing my latest YouTube Crush with you. And a few of my favourite old YouTube Crushes too.

Where would we be without YouTube? This of course is part of the moral quandary of modern life isn’t it: We loathe social media (often using one of the platforms to say so). We mock screen addiction (in others). We frown upon instant-experts (all of the other instant-experts of course). And yet where do we go when the instructions for the kitset aren’t clear? Missed the news report, or heard about the blooper, want to see a clip from the band you just bought tickets to see, heard about a 70s jazz-fusion classic but it’s not on Spotify…for all of these things, and many more, YouTube is your friend. It is the best.

If something’s not on YouTube you might argue that it doesn’t really exist.

What a strange world we’re in. But it can be a magical place too.

Allow me, people of Substack, followers of “Sounds Good!’, to confess my latest YouTube addiction:

It is World Chase Tag and it is exactly what it looks like and sounds like, grown-ass adults playing tag. It is parkour and free-running and it involves supreme athleticism and mental toughness alongside all-around agility. But it’s also some adults playing tiggy. And it fucking rules, yo!

I’ve watched it before, but this weekend I estimate that I’ve watched about three hours of YouTube clips, highlights, full matches, fails, the works.

I am not aiming to get involved in the sport, not become an instant expert, but shit it’s great to watch.

I’m not here to judge anyone’s fixations or foibles or weirdness, but I believe I’m mostly on the right side of things here.

Other favourite YouTube Crushes of the past (and I sometimes revisit) include Making A Suitcase Drumkit:

Not just this one, but dozens, dozens! Perhaps, not so secretly, I feel like me and my father can bond over building a suitcase drumkit together. He’s the DIY man, and his love-language is building things or making things or fixing things for people. I’m a mollyhawk obsessed with turning household objects into percussion instruments and/or combining very cheap non-drums with rather expensive actual drums. This is a rom-com meet-cute waiting to happen.

Typewriters (in general):

I think I covered most of my obsession here and certainly admitted to having a folder of YouTube clips, docos, songs about or using typewriters, you know, standard stuff. I got my own vintage typewriter recently, and though I still have a saved watchlist on TradeMe I’m hopeful to contain the collection to just one. So having YouTube clips to watch keeps me from the bigger instant-gratification hit of buying junked old typers and dreaming that when the suitcase drumkit project goes so well, me and the old man will move on into doing up the keys on old clackers.

There are many other things, that are probably more obvious, less fringe, the work of directors (John Carpenter, Werner Herzog), writers (Stephen King, Clive Barker, J.G. Ballard) and musical acts (Tangerine Dream, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Billie Holiday) where I’ve collected up albums, film, live performances, interviews and podcasts (where I get to watch other nutters to make myself feel more normal).

YouTube folders galore. And it’s material I’ll never get all the way through. Which is what’s so magical about it.

But anyway, I’ll leave you, as I have done before, with a few favourite YouTube longer-watches for your public holiday, or for your week ahead, or the long winter months to come…

And I’d love to know what YouTube obsessions you have? Guilty pleasures? Old favourites? New passions? Share your favourite wormhole in the comments below.

Meanwhile, feast with your whole eyes, brain and soul on some of these: