My mind is rattling around again and now I’ve added the madness of Dungeons and Dragons and now the world is in infinite colors. Small shadows under grass blades, the dots of butterfly wings, the sound of the “L” key softer than the rest. Everything is getting louder and thoughts more rapid like water approaching a waterfall. Tinnitus is making an increasing occurrence and I’m surrounded by at least eight projects.

Stopping is not an option. Rests are simply breaks for the night. But distracted, that is a regular occurrence, which is a curious can of frustration. So let me get into that to resolve some of this inner madness.

Here’s the thing. I now realize that I’ve paired so much action and chores around the ability to watch YouTube. It was great when I had to do long periods of cleaning or particularly large loads of laundry. It’s great in the background to repeat notes or paper cleaning. It has/had a purpose before. But now I really have to take a hard look at this habit.

Yes, I’ve had this account since 2006. I’ve gone through content creator binges and purges. I’ve started to cycle out themes from my algorithm. It’s been a large part of my media journey over the past… Oh god. TWENTY YEARS?!

Okay, existential crisis aside, YouTube has been pivotal in information accessibility and entertainment equilibrium. There are plenty of educational channels you can explore to study almost anything. I legitimately have twenty-three videos on my “Watch Later” list on how to set up and make a nice looking WordPress Website. One of these days I’ve got to actually finish one of those damn things.

There has also been a decentralization of entertainment. Yes there are clips from shows and long live streams of Family Guy. However you can navigate around the Late Night show segments and WatchMojo videos to find genuine original creators. From skits to improv, monologue dramas to full mini-documentaries with full scale production quality these are creatives in their element. They just don’t have the massive pockets or angel investors that you’d encounter on the Wall Street or average large scale media business. Self-sustaining micro-economy would be ideal in this situation, depending on the continued availability of an accessible, neutral platform for them to share material. Where is the neutral video sharing resource we so crave?

Here’s another issue I have to pick at: Local bands and musicians have a free platform where they can share their music is not necessarily where they are going to make their money. Unfortunately streaming music pays fractions of cents till the song hits several thousand plays. Great for Taylor Swift with a freaking army of fans at the ready when the album drops at midnight, but sucks for your friend who’s hammering out banger after banger in his garage. The math is just not going to be there to uplift your friend out of Garage purgatory.

Which leads into the infuriating treatment of covers and parodies. Yes, copyright is an important and valuable aspect of creative works. Let’s protect the original authors and small creatives. Let’s not forget though, that all art is derivative. Everything came from something before it, and how else do we learn to make our own sound or voice if we don’t study someone else?

Covers and parodies on YouTube were bread and butter for musicians in the late ’00s and early ’10s. These were introductions to Darren Criss and Smosh, which have grown significantly ever since! So yeah, I do feel a certain way about entertainers’ abilities to explore their craft by replicating others. There is a beauty in finding one’s range in performing “All I Ask of You” in the style of heavy metal. There is glamour in posting a parody of Lonely Island “I Just Had Sex” but make it about Chinese food. What is better than subverting expectation and creating something just as hilarious and memorable that will live in others’ minds forever? It takes a type of human vulnerability and charisma to pull off such feats, because it will establish fan-bases that Swifties would respect.

Let’s honor the sheer audacity of YouTube creators. It is one of the few places on the Internet where I have respect for others. Sure you can still find trolls and trash in the comment sections. But there are so many strong and inspirational people on there that spur me to create, to keep going in my day to day life.

So maybe I do have a YouTube problem. But my goodness, I am so thankful for it. I can keep learning water cycle science for free, discover Japanese 70’s funk, revamp my WordPress site, and have inane improv shows running in the background. Otherwise it’s a quiet day where the silence gets overwhelming.

As the world keeps spinning and everyone gets lost in the threads of their lives, I can keep stringing together my own web with the sounds that keep me going. And I can keep in my mind that “I Just Had Chinese” parody come to mind randomly and make me smirk. One of these days, perhaps I’ll come across that again or at least find something that makes me smile just as much.

Just maybe.