🍹Attic Ted

YouTube is hands-down the place to be for all things audiovisual. Or just audio. Or just visual.

Point is, there’s something for everyone, but for all our collective years on the platform, there’s some YT underbelly functionality that’s unknown to even the most dogged users.

Here are 12 minutes of YT fun facts and tricks. For example, did you know you can make the play bar go 🚥?

There was a nationwide blackout on Saturday. I was in a supermarket when the lights went bye-bye. Of course, the backup generator kicked in, and the last thing on my mind was that the issue would follow me home.

Darkness stretched as far as the eye couldn’t see, which assured me that the omnipotent KPLC would be on the case STAT. Unfortunately, but on-brand, they weren’t.

I rushed to Twitter for a progress report, but my mobile data wasn’t working. (Yay, living in the middle of nowhere.) Visited fast.com to check my internet speed. Haikuwa inaload. Tried using my other line for data. Pia hiyo ilibounce. Restarted my phone and crisscrossed the house, trying to capture the network hotspots. Nothing.

I’m going to sound very Gen Z in 3, 2, 1... I felt like I was losing my mind.

I like to think of myself as a strong, independent woman (it feels so icky typing that out loud, lol) who doesn’t succumb to such trivial things as addictions and obsessions. But there I was, feeling myself free fall into frustration over being unable to get on Twitter.

For our second YT 🔌, let me introduce you to Erik Grankvist, this Swedish guy who had an existential crisis at 17 and, to combat it, spent three years harnessing his inner Tarzan and building a log cabin from scratch.

It’s a 1½ hour video chock-full of (redundant/fascinating; pick your adventure) wood-laying footage. I was happy to skip through the timestamps, but one thought clung to me throughout: I’d rather die than be alone in the woods for three years.

Initially, I was convinced my reservation was based on survival aspects. But now that I think about it, it's evident that I’m just too afraid to be alone with my thoughts for any significant amount of time. What I was experiencing on Saturday were mild withdrawal symptoms.

From my extensive time listening to Armchair Expert, I can define addiction as excessive reliance on a substance or activity without which some part(s) of you get(s) itchy and uncomfortable.

Drugs have long been the poster child for addiction, as have our innumerable “gadgets.” But the world is coming alive to the fact that even intangible experiences that give our monkey brains a dopamine hit can be addictive.

People can be addictive. Ideas can be addictive. We can't even count on food to be a bare (iykyk 🐻) necessity, as it, too, can be chemically manipulated to make it addictive.

Addiction is like that Ukambani mango that's so enchantingly sweet but also ends up getting all up in your teeth and ruining the “morning after.” But you won’t/can’t stop eating mangoes because they help you exert some control over a world that often feels like it’s being flushed down the toilet. (Or, perhaps, there’s a small chance zimeekewa kamote)

In case it’s not already obvious, while I’m an expert at being addicted, I’m not an addiction expert. But there is something strangely calming about knowing it's a collective human struggle.

And I mean struggle in every sense of the word. We can’t outsmart our addictions. We can’t be roomies with them without suffering some consequence or another.

In the case of algorithms, we don’t stand a chance against various iterations of code written by experts with the sole aim of luring us in and keeping us there.

Most of our addictions aren’t debilitating; they may even seem like they're momentarily improving our lives. But humor me as I present a couple of wild ideas.

You’d be happier if:

• you weren’t under [insert addictive overlord’s name here]‘s spell,

• your every breathing moment wasn’t spent thinking about [iaonh],

• most of your decisions and movements in the world weren’t made to service [iaonh],

• you accept that hakuna network and read a book (😱😱) while waiting for the WiFi’s return.

As I binged The Queen's Gambit like two years after the hype died down (Yes, I'm that kind of person), it was a bit sad to remember that often, being obsessively addicted to a goal/activity is the best way to make any noteworthy headway with it.

I’ll leave that thought marinating for another day.

Kessentials.