Also just a reminder to please (if you don’t mind) change any bookmarks and blog links to the Zone to the default WordPress URL of http://thelynnsterzone.wordpress.com/ (and for the music blog, http://lynnstersmusiczone.wordpress.com) – I think the feeds are pointing correctly (but if you’re not finding my new posts in your feed reader, please let me know so I can see what’s up with the feed). I really don’t know when I’m going to be able to get this situation resolved with my domain host and get thelynnsterzone.com pointing back here (donations welcome, LOL) but you can always find me at the default URL anyway. Thanks!
Some probably recall that I deep-sixed cable TV a few years ago. It wasn’t for financial reasons at the time, really, since I was still working a traditional job at the time with a steady paycheck; it was just simply because I was hardly watching any TV at all – cable or network – and most of what I did watch was available to watch online, albeit often a few hours or days after the initial broadcast, but I could always catch up. I just couldn’t justify paying what had grown to nearly $100 a month anymore when I never watched it, and even downgrading to a lesser package was still an expense I couldn’t justify, as little as I watched. Plus I had a Netflix account, so movie and even series watching was just more convenient that way anyway, for the most part.
So I cut cable and pretty much stopped watching TV, and haven’t regretted it since except for once, and that was Internet-related, not TV-related. When I got to the point where I’d just about had it with my increasing frustrations with AT&T and was fed up and thought about switching to Comcast, I discovered that even though it hadn’t been all that long since I’d turned off cable, I wasn’t eligible for the self-installation and Comcast was insisting on sending someone out to install it AND charge me an installation fee, so there went that idea out the window.
So anyway, yeah, I don’t watch TV. Really I don’t even watch TV online anymore, except occasionally. Time that would have in the now-distant past been spent watching some TV, like when I remember to eat dinner every two or three days (yep, I still forget to eat all the time) – instead I read blogs, or (more and more recently) look for interesting stuff on YouTube.
That in itself has its pros and cons. The best part is I have found some really amazing, fun stuff on YouTube in the past year or so. Some really funny, brilliant stuff.
The other side of the coin is that once you start watching one thing, it inevitably leads to a dozen more videos or a dozen other YouTube peeps. This is especially true if you’re a music junkie – you could easily get stuck there for DAYS – but also true of a lot of the comedy/sketch performers, and also just the plain old personal “vloggers” there are these days on the site.
The funny/comedy stuff is really, really great though, and while a lot of it is still pretty raw and rough (which is not a bad thing in itself by any means), a good bit of it’s very nicely professionally done these days as well. For me, the more immature and juvenile the humor, the better, since my sense of humor is pretty twisted and about on the level of a 12 year old boy (LOL), but there’s plenty of more sophisticated fare to be found on YouTube as well.
YouTube humor is cool in the way once upon a time way back in the dark ages, Saturday Night Live (which I haven’t really laughed at in 13 or 14 years) and Fridays (remember Fridays??) used to be cool. Or Fox in the early days, especially when Fox only broadcast a couple of nights a week (jeez, I’m old), and back when Sunday nights meant The Simpsons, Married With Children, In Living Color, and all the other hilarious shows that came and went. Sunday nights on Fox used to be the best.
I like a whole lot of different YouTubers, but the two that make me laugh the most are Matt Brown, better known as SwiftKarateChop, and Shane Dawson of ShaneDawsonTV. Both have become extremely popular on the Internet thanks to YouTube and appear to have a pretty broad following, heavy on the teenage fan side (especially girls), but many others too.
Shane (Twitter bio: “That guy from YouTube that wears his mom’s clothes…”) is an aspiring actor/comic from L.A. and is currently YouTube’s fifth most subscribed, and has a larger Twitter following than most of the verified celebs on Twitter. His YouTube channel is a mix of sketch comedy and personal commentary/vlogging. Just a really talented kid. (Following video NSFW):
Swifty is my favorite, though – (AskSwifty Twitter bio: “I talk funny”) – and I’ve spent countless hours cracking up over his videos. Fellow Nashville/Memphis/Knoxville/Tennessee/etc. bloggers will probably identify a good bit with Matt, who’s a neighbor just across the state line in North Alabama, and is just insanely hilarious and twisted, but in a really good and fun way. Between his commentary vids & collaborations with his friend and fellow Alabamian and YouTuber ChanceXplosion and Matt’s “Ask Swifty” series, I’ve just laughed until my sides ache. (Following video is most definitely NSFW):
So be sure to check out Matt’s & Shane’s YouTube channels, there’s hours and hours of hilarity there to take up all your spare time. They both also have alternate channels you can find linked from their main channels with a bit more personal vlogging-type stuff, and in Shane’s case, some pretty hilarious outtakes and bloopers.
And honestly, if they’re not your style and don’t make you laugh, both have several links to other friends and colleagues among the YouTube set that are equally funny as well and fun to watch. There’s definitely something for everyone around the YouTube humor set.
One thing that occurred to me recently, after having watched videos from those two and many other popular YouTubers for a while, is how awesome it is that all this stuff’s doable and available nowadays – but on the other hand, I’m kind of sorry this medium wasn’t around 20 or 25 years ago or so – just like I wish I’d had the kind of computer access kids do now for high school and college. We had a computer in my home, which not many did at the time, but we mostly used it to play games (heh) and not much else.
I was particularly thinking of my friend Travis Harmon of The Travis and Jonathan Show and Red State Update, who went to school with my ex and we ran around in the same crew in Middle Tennessee in my early college days. I glance now over at my bookshelf and see a VHS tape made back in 1986 and 1987 that I’ve had nearly as long, a copy of one of the first video ventures Travis filmed back starting when he was still in high school. It’s raw and rough and absolutely, utterly hilarious, and I think wow, what things might have been like had YouTube been around back then. I have another old acquaintance who did a lot of early video humor with his friends from college days and beyond – same thing for them. If YouTube had been around in the ’80s and early ’90s, what a big difference that would have made for many.
Certainly Travis has had some nice success in his career, but it’s been a long time coming and he’s worked hard for it. If he’d been able to start out on YouTube like guys like Matt and Shane are doing nowadays, that probably would have shaved several years off his work towards success. Consequently, Travis and Jonathan have a pretty nice following on YouTube now, of course.
And I hope many of these YouTubers see some great success out of their efforts – many are getting a pretty fair amount of attention just by their YouTube activity, but many of them deserve a lot more attention than they’re getting now. So go give ‘em some, subscribe to their channels, and try not to crack a rib laughing.
