A YouTube Short appeared on my suggestions of a man in a near-empty living room space with the words “8 months in my apartment.” My ol’ deep-thinking-when-it-ain’t-that-deep lookin’ahh thought it was going to dive into, or introduce, the difficulties of disorientation in a different living space due to deep-rooted trauma and/or another disorder.
Girl.
Unpacking Resistance: Renting, Settling In, and the Pressure to Produce Content
The man is an interior designer, or at least has a YouTube channel dedicated to his interior design projects, and was merely giving an apartment tour after 8 months of working on his apartment. There was no talking during the video nor voiceovers and the caption simply reads, “apartment tour after 8 months of interior design.”
Oh.
Well… Even though there was no analysis nor essay, as my mind oddly assumed, I’m still glad that I clicked. And I’m more glad that I found some complexities into which I could dig.
It’s possible that I may enjoy scrolling through YouTube comment sections more than I do the actual YouTube videos.
@mansurbulatov4045: 4 months later: Im moving!!!
@cyanyde4950: forget the deposit back, they gunna say holes not filled right and everything, as nice as it is man is doing too much for a place he renting, this the kind of thing you do when you purchase a place of your own, be it a whole house you some how managed to get in this economy, or a modular house for 70k, but not an apartment.
@teekrys: I disagree . I lived in my same rental unit for darn near the whole 10 years since I've been out of school (on my own) ; it was about 3-4 years in before I let go of that transient thinking , "well.. I'm only renting" , and allowed myself to settle into the place , buying an actual bedroom set for the first time & it felt GREAT . today , I went to the furniture store & put half down on what'll be my very first couch , that'll be coming to my new apartment ! I'm a few months into my new place and I don't plan to let a few years pass by again before making a rental home a home . idgaf if something causes me to end my lease 3 months or 3 days after putting final touches on my interiors , I enjoyed MY space making it *mine*... plus , most of it is coming with me to my next , and whatever I physcially can't take , such as paint on the wall , the knowledge that I gained (the lived experience, the creative quest, the project, etc.) is something that no one can take from me ! we take how we maintain one space (whether it be a rental unit, a "starter" house purchase, whatever) with us to that next space (a condo, a "forever" home, etc.) . how tf you go'on take care of a lot when you don't even take care of a little ? puh-leez . but y'all stay close-minded , guess we all can't see elevation
Now, I was a little nasty at the end of my unneccesarily lengthy comment, but hey, fighting can’t always be fair.
I couldn’t resist hopping into that comment thread, not in the midst of moving into my new apartment where I had two mirrors mounted on the bedroom wall within the first two weeks and, though three months later, a third is on its way for the living room!
I’ve already been tussling with the act of actually settling into a place that could be snatched from beneath my feet at any given moment. I don’t need some stranger on the Internet speaking to my fears. I had to attack. And it felt good. Yeah, I may have been responding to his comment in the thread, YouTube adding @[username] into the text box by default, however, it was really me to whom I was speaking.
My inner critic, my subconcious doubts, life experiences of the past causing intrusive thoughts in the present… all paralyzing me, leaving that living room how it looked the day I moved in, three months later. Unpack that.. no, seriously, unpack that!
[Side note that I will never not make: that’s how/where the word “literally” could be used properly. In therapy jargon, I’m telling myself to unpack what’s going on mentally and emotionally that won’t allow me to finish moving in. Then, I’m playfully adding, putting emphasis on the double entendre, to physically unpack the bins and bags that have been in the middle of the living room floor for over three months. Pop quiz! Which instance would be me literally unpacking? A: analyzing reasons for my behavior. B: unpacking a storage bin.]
Related: I'm Like, Literally?. What is happening to our language?
Whew, it’s 11:03p.
Child, I may have to revisit and wrap this up tomorrow. See, I opened up this darn page to write about the resistance to settling in and why it’s important to fight that resistance, even when a renter, but I was taken off the rails by a blog post in my drafts. Then, it made me think about a French YouTuber’s advice to prioritize exactly thee opposite of quality over quantity when trying to launch a career as a content creator.
On that note, I decided that I wasn’t trashing my little trash a** blog post that wasn’t even a blog post. F*** it, everything is content. I went to say that, I suppose, in the closing note and next thing I know, it was a fully fledged blog post, as far as having some length on it, being more than five sentences. But see, even that doesn’t matter. It can be 5 sentences. It can be one. It can be whatever. This is my blog, my website, my creation. There’s no rules, there’s no rubric. There’s not a minimum page count. I don’t have to check this, that and that box to get a perfect grade.
[Oh, speaking of grades, if you answered A earlier, you get an A for a**hole. Congratulations!]
Me interviewing a friend while on a bike ride doesn’t have to be Emmy-award winning production quality (though that’s what I’d like). The articles, essays, blog posts that I write don’t have to an introduction with a clearly stated thesis, a body and a conclusion with a works cited page (though that’s a structure I appreciate). Nothing I say has to be accurate or coming from any particular sources, nor fact-checked, and it darn sure doesn’t take expertise (though I strongly value credibility). Nothing I do to share on the Internet has to even make sense, nor be true to me, long as it’s trending (though authenticity is of the utmost importance to me).
Content can be what-tf-ever, as long as it’s a whole lot of it. People get away with so much bullcrap on the Internet, then one day you’ll look into that person and go “hunh???”
I’m actually disgusting myself at the thought.
Hot garbage is king.
I have a love/hate relationship with this content creator sh*t. It is unfortunate.
It’s really and truly unfortunate that quality is no longer valued, especially not on the Internet, immediately and automatically before and/or without quantity. No matter how good a content creator writing and videos, she has to put up the numbers. Content creation is all about how much a content creator puts out there.
I don’t watch Kai Cenat, but from a few of my friends that do, he is, and has been, ALWAYS putting himself on the Internet for long durations of time. Is he (or was he) making all-start productions? Absolutely tf not. Is he making millions? I’m not Mr. Tax Man, but that’s what them people would say.
Now, do I ever want to be the likes of a Kai Cenat or any other content creator (?) that took off from, or whose main source of content creation is, streaming? Absolutely tf not. Nothing about that stupid a** sh*t appeals to me and I don’t know how people consume that brain dead bologna for hours on end, day in and day out.
However, it is a great example of how a person could post hot garbage and be successful, as long as he posts a lot of it.
Ugh, and that’s my problem… because even only thinking about it has turned me off. I do not in any way, shape nor form want to be associated with mindless thirst for attention. I do not want to get there (wherever there may be) by any means neccessary. People enjoy the way that I enjoy food; on different occasions, I’ve unintentionally gotten a slew of views from eating. I eat out every day and every human has to eat, making it easily relateable content. Me though, if my claim to fame has to be mukbang… you can keep it.
My goodness, it’s ‘bout thirty minutes after midnight.
Look, that’s the conundrum. While my personal values place quality over quantity, I have to stop allowing perfectionisme to paralyze me.
How?
We’ll see what happens on the next episode of Dragon Ball T…