State of the Internet

There was a glorious time when lots of TV series were freely available on YouTube, and there weren't just nonsense links. That era peaked maybe four years ago, at this point in time. Piracy is obviously still rampant, but when you could rustle up a genuine, entire series on, at last resort, a Chinese or French video site – happier days.  Now you look around and your feet start kicking rebelliously at the leash. Unboxings, music videos, shout outs, 'viral videos': the entire goddamn world's PR department, is what this nonsense is. Oh look, some Minecraft videos, failblog videos, LPs, bro? Rants? No, YouTube is still of some definite worth.

I have been following at some distance The Young Turks' channel on YouTube; they always play a good hand at the stories they go after. Then there's the University of Nottingham's chemistry channel which is a nice blend of theory and sci-porn (mostly the former, obviously). There are also about 20 channels, each with three or four subsidiaries, which show up regularly (daily) in the top 100 - which as a rule I mistrust. Those view numbers are scary things, when you start thinking about the raw amount of time they represent. More or less, though, right?

Russia Today is always worth watching if you're in the habit of watching news and analyzing things as they are reported: I find that, between all the sources you are given as options, you get some shadowy idea of events, but very sharp impressions from the camera. That sounds in theory like a bait and switch scenario, right? I'm not trying to say anything that's just a consequential thought. Valid question I suppose.

And there are lots of niche channels that could appeal to you on YouTube and a fair bit of actually interesting or informative or pirated (good luck to the cyber detectives) material that can be found with the investment of a few minutes' thorough work.

Clearly, every wise person on earth would've thrown out their books if the internet was really the summit of civilization, so I think that book-apocalyptics stories about the internet, while dismally abundant, are still kind of a trite narrative device. So many noxious books have been printed and sold and hoarded and worshiped that, even counting the good ones, you have a general argument that a lot of paper was wasted and a lot of dirty solitary habits created. Some public habits, entire modes of thought, dependencies: you could go and talk about it.

But I recommend you read about it somewhere, instead.