The YouTube Universe and its Time Travelers to the Past and Future

We are legion.  For some of us YouTube is IT!  We’ve arrived at the one destination on the Internet that has it all.   Its vast riches are there for the taking.  Naturally, there’s a lot of junk, but the Art of the Internet is to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and to have both places on the Internet as well as in “real life” that  help balance out the time spent on YouTube.  A goal of mine is to become more selective, and start reading the books I can’t wait to start but never get around to, even though they are stacked everywhere in my apartment.  I think you would agree with me that there’s nothing so fulfilling as reading a good book, and for me that means non-fiction.

But I could not possibly do without YouTube, nor would I want to.

The main drawback is that time seems to fly by faster than ever with all of YouTube’s multiplicity of offerings.  It does completely suck you in to a virtual vortex of potentially the best that the human mind has, and can create, be it philosophical discourse; endless musical discoveries; armchair travel to exotic and mind-blowing destinations around the world; lifelong learning in any subject; and a rapidly growing universe of vlogs, personal videos exploring the daily lives of YouTubers.  These countless individuals are not necessarily influencers with thousand of subscribers, but exceedingly “normal and ordinary  people, who when broadcasting their stories and experiences on the Internet, come alive to their truest selves and  awaken in them and us the otherwise unknowable talents and interesting lives of those “ordinary” people.  It’s all so fascinating and inconceivable when I was growing up pre-Internet.

The vlogs, for instance are truly addicting because they are so REAL.  Mass media entertainment seems quite boring by contrast.  I find it all intoxicating, but only wish I had more years to partake in these mind-blowing windows into countless little universes of potential wonder and discovery.

A perfect example  of why YouTube has become so indispensable  to me is that it lets me reconnect with my past through nostalgia channels, or music videos that feature artists singing favorite songs from decades ago in the 1960s and 1970s, but also going back farther to the 1950s.

One of my very earliest memories, if not the earliest, is listening to the gifted storyteller and folk singer, Burl Ives.  You gave to be of a certain age or generation to remember him, but, oh, how I do.  That utterly distinct voice and masterful storytelling was unforgettable.  I recall that around 1955 or 1956 when I was five years old and living in  Harahan, LA near New Orleans, I listened to or heard these immortal songs sung by Ives, including “The Blue Tail Fly.”  (https://youtu.be/Fq8HGr9Hyv0?si=piZmnQzrG_L6eCO0), and this timeless song he performed concert in Oslo, Norway. I am pretty sure this is the one I liked so much as a child.  Many of you will remember this.  I must have heard it on my parents’ record player or stereo, as my mother knew my younger brother and I would like it. (https://youtu.be/_jG7kdOrXdI?si=00f5_TtoitcHw7-k).

As great as Mariah Carey’s classic Christmas song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” is, it can’t top  “A Holly, Jolly Christmas.(https://youtu.be/CLr1AYRBS0A?si=TgXc_hE-5RGxW4L_).  This was Burl Ives’ greatest hit.  It came out in 1964, and I instantly loved it, remembering those  other Ives songs from the Fifties. It played on the radio constantly at Christmas time in the Sixties, much as Carey’s classic is now beloved by another generation of listeners.

Without YouTube, I’d never be able to savor and enjoy the range and scope of musical videos and memories made possible in this vast YouTube Universe I am attempting to describe.  It’s overwhelming and beyond awesome.  And yes, it’s very habit-forming, too much so, I am afraid, but it’s far superior to doom-scrolling headlines on social media, or elsewhere, or watching countless short reels on TikTok, as the youngest generations do.

Moral of the story:  YouTube is permanent, it’s our “Soma,” for better or worse, and it’s basically for all of us in the 21st century, all of us, that is, who are aware of the riches waiting to be discovered, as our hearts, minds and intellects expand in ways unheard of decades ago.

Burl Ives

“Wayfaring Stranger”

https://youtu.be/S5sHrOTXX0s?si=cU8B7O1wBL2La5u_

Among the millions of mind-blowing videos, there is this one about our awesome planet:-

https://youtu.be/gJntKcGKsB4?si=1bBj6Z9XRjVPDap4

One of my favorite nostalgia channels:

“Recollection Road”:

https://youtu.be/CLr1AYRBS0A?si=TgXc_hE-5RGxW4L_

For intellectual adventures far beyond anything I could have even imagined dreamed up in my younger years:

Third Eye Drops

https://youtube.com/@thirdeyedrops?si=uwK4Kuiwkl4n6Jfd