Armchair Anthropology

As I’ve said before I love to turn things over and look at them in different ways. I like to see the way things evolve and change. I enjoy observing people and how they live, what they value and what they share with the world. I think that’s one of the things that draws me to blogs, YouTube and social media in general. I also turn that interest around and apply it to myself. Introspection shall we say.

The Husband and I back when we were first married had one television so there was negotiation over what we’d watch. We both got our way on the individual must see things. We watched a lot of 30 minute sitcoms. They were popular at the time. At some point we shifted over to 60 minute dramas. We were still watching scripted programming but the storylines were more involved. The evolution from one style of program to another was slow. I don’t think we were aware that it was even happening. Isn’t that how evolution works? We then shifted to docuseries, things like Survivor, Dirty Jobs or Swamp People. Now we are watching more individual made content like YouTube and Instagram.

What I like about the content I chose to watch on YouTube (The Husband uses Instagram, I don’t.) is the passion the creators bring to the videos they made. I also enjoy seeing the different interests. The watching of YouTube is an activity The Husband and I share which in and of itself I find interesting. Our interests are vastly different but we still negotiate what we watch. While I don’t think either of us would have initially chosen to watch the videos of the other we’ve come to look forward to and appreciate the content that these people present.

I’ve read that Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone would be world famous for 15 minutes. I don’t know if that’s true but places like YouTube have given me the opportunity to “get to know” people I wouldn’t have otherwise. And to me that’s a good thing.