Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong things? Christmas, for me, is a time to show my family that I care for them. Yes, through gifts, but also through time spent with them. It’s a chance to speak others’ love language. For me, doing things for others is how I really feel better about myself.
I mean, the point of the special is to find meaning in the holidays regardless of the rampant consumerism, but the impact of the message is dampened a bit by Hallmark putting out new charlie brown Christmas tree ornaments every year.
That said, it’s also okay not to have holiday spirit if you don’t find anything about this time of year meaningful. For many who aren’t practicing Christians, it’s a time to be with family because most companies tend to give days off anyway, but for those of us who have cut ties and don’t see the significance of decorating and whatnot, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the time off without feeling festive.
It was a favorite of mine as a kid. For me, all the nativity reminds me of the war in Gaza and the Christian Nationalist movement infecting the US government and stripping away civil rights.
Generally the high extinction risk from compound crises (climate, plastic, etc.) has dispelled any notion that what I do here or happens to me matters at a greater scale.
If I ceased to exist this moment, it might cause a small amount of local harm, but little wake. These days, I’m a practicing absurdist, mostly that means I’m aware of my grief and dispair in fine detail, a geographic manifold I’ve well explored.
Ignorance and Want are no longer child wretches hiding in the fold of the robes of a Christmas spirit, rather now have become massive kaiju thundering across the countryside ravaging the population with withering gaze and breath of biting hyperborean frost, leaving a path of toxic wasteland in their wake.
Redlettermedia for sure, they may as well be YouTube dinosaurs at this point, but their content has only gotten better. If you’re in the Lemmy minority like me and enjoy the NFL: ThatsGoodSports, Tom Grossi, UrinatingTree are all gems worthy of your time
Hell yeah, ONE OF ME! A fellow person of culture I see. I don’t know if you watch it, but GPS with Brandon Perna and Tom Grossi is like new/old Sportscenter for the NFL. They’re both buddies with Tree. Also, Brett Kollman is great for X’s and O’s type breakdowns, the man is a savant
EthosLab - the OG Minecraft Youtuber that other Minecraft Youtubers watch; somehow still innovating on redstone and technical builds to this day despite Minecraft redstone already pushed to its limits long ago, and his multiplayer shenanigans on Hermitcraft and Life Series is top notch.
Adam Ragusea - cooking videos made for actual home cooks who just want no-flair no-fuss recipes, as well as food science videos exploring and explaining different cooking methods and food chemistry. I’m particularly a fan of how he encourages you to measure and cook by feel rather than by strictly following recipes.
BeardMeetsFood - funny guy doing eating challenges, never thought I could like this kind of content, and the only one I watch in this category
Itchy Boots - Amazing travel videos from a Dutch girl riding her motorcycle through remote places on all continents. Very positive meetings with people all over the earth to give you back hope for humanity.
Nikolai Schirmer - Ridiculously high quality alpine skiing videos, mostly from Norway. Fantastic story telling and nature combined with too steep skiing. Shouldn’t be possible to get this quality for free.
Expedition Evans - very enjoyable videos of sailboat life for a couple and their two dogs.
Beau Miles - best story teller I know of. Adventurer that mostly make videos about local projects where he’s doing something that involves running very long while philosophizing about interesting topics.
Harry Mack - the most insane freestyle rapper ever, usually makes content on the spot for people on the street or online.
Sheena Melwani - Whenever I need a laugh. Her husband Trid is hilarious. Short videos of them laughing and joking basically.
Iron Chef Dad - wholesome videos with his son, for example making gourmet out of fast food.
Galdoc’s Tutorials - great DevBlog content from making a Factorio mod. Development, debugging, designing, Blender. Fairly technical. Great voice.
Stuff Made Here - great engineering channel, makes crazy contraptions like a moving basket hoop you’ll always hit, a hair cutting robot, auto-aiming bow etc.
IME the more focussed/narrow/niche the subject is, the longer the channel will remain quality.
More importantly I think is if the channel owner is someone who truly enjoys their content, or someone who’s just enjoying celebrity and found a way to do it.
This is like Green brothers vs Fein Brothers.
8 bit guy, Nostalgia Nerd, Modern Vintage Gamers…great channels by people who are passionate about their content, still giving out great videos year after year.
AVGN? Ass. Shit. Ass covered in diarrhea shit. He made his fame off being an edgelord and that only works so long. Still check in every now and then but when he had guest appearances by Gilbert Gottfried and Macaulay Cullen he really jumped the shark.
It was our last day in the city and had our backpacks on walking around like tourists in the wrong part of town. A crackhead saw us walking towards him and he stood up, pulled something out of his pocket and then walked directly into me. 100% on purpose.
He then very dramatically threw what I now knew was a crack pipe against the alley wall and yelled at me, “You stupid fucking American. You broke my crack pipe. You owe me crack! There was $15 worth of crack in that pipe!” I wasn’t having any of that, this was obviously a setup. I was about to kick his scrawny crackhead ass when he pulled out a tiny, I mean tiny little pocket knife at which point my buddy started laughing his ass off. Right before I was about to knock the hell out of this guy, one of the locals came up pulled on my collar whispered in my ear, “Just throw some change on the ground. You’re a foreigner. You will be the one to go to jail.”
I thought that was reasonable so I pulled about 75 cents worth of euros out of my pocket and threw it on the ground. At that point the alleged mugger got into a huge fist fight with about five other crackheads while they fought over the change I threw on the ground. They completely forgot about me and my friend so we just walked away. What was really funny was later that day we were in a different part of the town near the train station waiting for our train to the airport. That same motherfucker walks by looking for a target and I had to think real long and hard about what I was going to do. In the end I said fuck it and just left it alone.
On that same trip we went through Luxembourg. We were looking at the sites and there’s this big valley in the middle of the city with a park at the bottom and we were standing on this bridge filming and this guy just jumps off and falls at least 100 maybe 200 ft to his death. Me and my friend are freaking out and cannot believe we just saw somebody kill themselves. We are yelling for help and some guy who obviously lived there casually walks up and tells us, “First time here? This happens all the time. Luxembourg is a very fucking depressing place to live.” Then he just casually walked on. We couldn’t believe that shit. It was so run of the mill everyday business, nothing for these people. Just another guy had thrown himself off the suicide bridge. No biggie.
Not the first time I saw snow as I grew up on the Scottish Highlands and have had it since a baby, but I do remember someone else’s. My parents had a guest house and I remember one Christmas eve day around the living room with my family on Christmas Eve when it starts dumping snow, “nice, it’ll be a white Christmas” we all thought.
Then we heard a bunch of noise coming from the front car park, we peak out the curtains to see a family staying with us from somewhere is Africa, I can’t recall where but it was obviously their first time seeing snow, they were so excited, running outside on their pyjamas at 2300.
They were making snowballs, rolling around in the snow trying to make snow angels and on their hands and knees making snowmen.
My family just watched and chuckled as those outside slowly realised how cold and wet snow is. Within minutes the whole family was drenched and shivering and running back inside.
But for them it was a magical moment, makes me smile thinking back to it.
Neckbeards, because I fit some of the stereotypes.
I’m interested in roleplaying and videogames, so people assume I’m one of those gatekeeping basement dwellers that mock “girl gamers” and play WoW and weird hentai games 23 hours a day. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what other players have in their pants or which games they like as long as everyone is having fun.
I own two swords, so people assume I’m one of those “leave the multibillion dollar company alone” fedora-wearing m’lady incels who pose with their katanas for sh*tty profile pics and think they look like ninjas or something. The thing is, me and two buddies did show fights for medieval faires for a couple of years, so the weapons aren’t just decoration / dumb tokens to make myself feel cool. Granted, the “fights” were more or less scripted, but it still had to look convincing enough to entertain the masses.
It’s especially annoying when actual neckbeards think I’m “one of them” and are then surprised that I don’t share any of their cringey, prejudice-laden, condescending world views.
He has a video where he talks about his experience caring for his mother who had alzheimers at the end of her life. Very sad situation. His video was informative on the difficulties it presents and the perspective of trying to make it as easy as possible to let your loved on live while having to watch them regress and adjust.
youtube.com/Chef John is a treasure, every recipe I’ve followed of his has been a banger! Highly recommend
Guitar related
youtube.com/Eric Haugen is a fantastic guitar player/teacher, I love his mellow Bob Ross-esque vibe
youtube.com/Philip McKnight is the god of the guitar gear heads. Has a ton of great videos showing how to do simple guitar repairs, reviewing gear etc.
Comedy/pop culture
youtube.com/Internet comments etiquette is a hilarious channel that teaches how to leave respectful comments in this increasingly hostile and confusing online world.
youtube.com/Red Letter Media - movie/tv critics with great skits and characters. Maybe the best thing on YouTube IMO
Board Games
youtube.com/Really great board game reviews, I’ve found a bunch of my favorite games here
Educational
youtube.com/Amazing 3d renders and walkthroughs of complex machines/systems. The video on the HMS Victory is inspired.
youtube.com/Professor Dave does science education, great videos on many topics.
Motorcycles
youtube.com/FortNine puts out the best moto content I’ve found on the Internet.
Chef John is literally the best! Every time some other popular YouTube cook puts out a recipe talking about how xyz is the authentic way to do it and they take half an hour to explain everything, chef john already had a video recipe for it from 5 years ago with exactly the right/authentic ingredients and technique in a 10 min straightforward video. Or he’ll have the practical way to make something that gets you 90% of the way there with half the effort and cost. And you actually end up with something good when you follow his recipes. Especially important when making food you’ve never eaten before and have no frame of reference for how it should be.
asklemmy
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.