Comfort and Reassurance

Whenever I get a cold or I feel sick and need to take time to recover, I like to watch episodes of Gimme Gimme Gimme, a TV show written by Jonathan Harvey staring Kathy Burke and James Dreyfus.  The show is a sitcom, one from a bygone era in British television when sitcoms still reigned supreme, before we became addicted to reality television.  The show reminds me of my younger years because it aired between 1999 and 2000 when I was just leaving my childhood and entering into my teenage years.  Up until then my only real memories of being sick were the days I would end up off school, lying on the sofa in my duvet usually with a bucket in front of me in case I threw up.  I only really remember watching daytime TV when I was sick, I'd watch some quiz show, then Supermarket Sweep presented by Dale Winton who I loved, may he rest in peace. 

Gimme Gimme Gimme is quite simple in its premise, there aren't that many episodes with 19 in total each a half hour it's entirely possible to watch the whole thing in one day if you watch them back to back even with breaks.  There's a comfort in the familiarity of it though, and really it's become something I've done so often now that I've come to associate it with trying to recover from anything.  It's not the only show I watch in this way, there are a lot of things online and a fair few that I have on DVD etc that I can watch whenever I want.  There's a YouTube series called UNHhhh by Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova a pair of drag queens that discuss all manner of things.  There's very little consistency in the topics any of these shows actually address, but there's a believability to them, in the case of Gimme Gimme Gimme, it is scripted and it's not polished to the extent most TV shows are so you can believe it could actually happen and still find humour in it, as for UNHhhh, that is really just two people having an unscripted conversation about random things, it feels like two people you know just spending time with each other.

Podcasts have been entering my radar in moments like this too, where I can queue them up press play and sit and pass the time in a way that's both entertaining and sometimes informative.  Podcasts I listen to are things like RuPaul and Michelle Visage's 'What's the Tee' again that takes the simple format of two people having a conversation about random things, joined by a different guest each episode.  There's a comfort in listening to two people have a conversation, no music interrupting the flow, no gimmicks or games, just two people talking sharing their point of view, it can expand your mind and present thoughts and ideas that might not occur to you.

I know some people prefer visual experiences and prefer to watch vloggers and I had an interest in that for a while but there's a point of consciousness that I reached where I became too aware of the editing.  With a podcast whether this is actually the case, I don't know, I don't really care, but, it feels much more natural.  The podcasts I listen to it does feel like they just hit record and go for it.  Too many videos on YouTube are polished and edited to the extent where they create an illusion that isn't relatable, the lack of mistakes or missteps only tells me they have probably done many takes for the same video until they got it right which makes the whole thing seem rehearsed and disingenuous.  Most of the content that makes it onto this blog is pretty much unchanged from the first draft apart from fixing spelling mistakes here and there, and removing some stuff that doesn't make sense when I read it back to myself.  For the most part though the content remains unchanged, I don't like the idea of heavily editing these posts because it would only create content that isn't an accurate representation of me.

In regards to YouTube personalities in general, one thing I hate about this attitude is the extent to which they are willing to go along with the lie they are telling.  I know for a fact that a number of these channels, I won't name for legal reasons, who claim to be a one-man-band operation "it's just me and a camera" they often say, when in reality they are not working alone.  I prefer the YouTube personalities who are open about the fact that there's more people involved than just them and a camera, that there's an actual editor who edits videos, they don't do it themselves, that they are part of networks run by large production companies and big name studios who are involved in marketing and creating the opportunities that they get to have on camera.  "I was contacted by..." they often say implying that company reached out to them directly as an individual, when in reality it's been a case of two marketing departments discussing a collaboration.

There's a reassurance in familiarity, none of this is anything that would be familiar to me having never experienced it myself first hand, and I doubt there will be many people who watch their videos who can relate to what they see, instead longing for a life that seems as exciting and perfect as the one they see on screen, as the song goes, the sun always shines on TV.  I don't relate to that.  I like things that aren't as polished, or they are a lot more honest and open about the fact that it's heavily edited which is why I love the things I've mentioned here.  I don't trust people who smile all the time, it makes me think they have something to hide.  Life is full of ups and downs and you shouldn't believe anyone who tries to convince you they only experience one and not the other.