Fun & Famous

YOUTUBE, ITUBE, WETUBE

by Maddy Stolk

How did we ever manage without it? It's a mystery to me. For every pressing question that arises throughout the day, I click on my favorite bookmark – and the answer is served up in image and sound. YouTube tutorials: you gotta love them.

How do you peel a pomegranate? (Cut it into six pieces and let the seeds fall into a bowl of water, then they sink to the bottom.) How do you revive dried-out mascara? (A few drops of baby oil, shake it up and you're done. By the way, be careful not to get lost in the wonderful world of beauty vloggers: it's a parallel universe full of 14-year-old girls explaining how to revive that dried-out mascara with the seriousness of Ban Ki-moon trying to ease tensions in the Middle East.) How do you solve a Cast Spiral puzzle? (True story: I don't like losing, this was a bet with a rather unbearable character and the entire present company had already lost to him, so two minutes of YouTube in the bathroom and voilà: I had the iron ring apart and back together in ten seconds. The highlight was when I confessed that I had YouTubed the solution, and he shouted, foaming at the mouth: ’But that's cheating! Cheating!‘) Yeah, but now we are rid of you for the rest of the evening, so goodbye.)

It's a world full of trivia you didn't know you desperately missed in your life, and unexpected life hacks. Any idea, for example, what those little flaps on the sides of the cardboard box around a roll of aluminum or plastic wrap are for? To keep the roll in place while you tear off a piece of wrap. Life-changing, I tell you. Or this: the spot where the number 57 is on a bottle of Heinz ketchup is the ‘sweet spot’. If you tap it right here, the ketchup comes out easier. Lastly, I don't want to withhold this potentially life-saving fact from you: in case of an earthquake and/or gas clouds, the cup of your bra serves as a face mask. With the bra straps, you can secure it around your head so you have your hands free to climb out the window or otherwise save your life.

However, YouTube is not just for learning; it's also for entertainment. Although that doesn't necessarily sound cheerful: there is vlog giant Enzo Knol. Vlog no. 271, to name just one, shows how Enzo goes into the water in a swimming pool with a GoPro camera in one hand and his inseparable girlfriend in the other. How this nail-biting adventure (which takes a whopping 14 minutes, 14 minutes of your life you'll never get back) ends is predictable: the vlog is titled ‘Sent out of the pool!’. People don't like making videos in the pool.

Important life lesson from Knol. By now, Enzo is nearly 1000 vlogs in and about a million euros richer, and his girlfriend and brother are also semi-famous (check vlog no. 441 and witness the hysteria when he appears somewhere). Anyway: Keeping up with the Knols – every country gets the celebrities it deserves.

It's not all doom and gloom. There is the hopeful duo Alexi Panos and Preston Smiles, motivational speakers, authors, and world travelers. Follow their respective YouTube channels and there is hope again: a new generation of enlightened thinkers is emerging.

And because shared sorrow is half sorrow: to top it off, watch the ultimate fails compilation of 2016. There was still plenty to laugh about this year.