Lessons from Being Asked to Subscribe to A Mediocre YouTube Channel (in the time of a pandemic)

Let me first start by saying that I truly believe that there is no right or wrong way of coping during a pandemic. I’ve been coping with my anxiety and mania with the help of my dogs — who by now are wondering why I’m giving them excessive attention and forehead kisses.

I have also been making bread more than usual (because I have been baking way before this all started).

I have been fortunate enough to work from home and it has given me more time to read all the books I’ve been putting off and I share snippets of those on social too.

There’s been an obvious upsurge of content on social media because of the pandemic and it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions, eye-rolls, and self-reflection.

Quick story…

As I was quietly enjoying my morning coffee, I received a Facebook message from someone from my high school. We were never close — acquaintances at best and she asked me to… SUBSCRIBE. TO. HER. YOUTUBE. CHANNEL. I was like…

No, she is not a professional content creator.

No, her channel does not provide content that showcases whatever her expertise is nor is it sharing anything I’d personally want to follow. Her videos were of her toddler which for me was already disconcerting on its own.

My first thought was… “WTF?? Where did this intrusive interaction come from? Did she actually send this to me (and by virtue of the nature of social media invites) send it to random people on her Friends list?

I do not foresee myself feeling invested in her family’s “journey.” Furthermore, I have very strong feelings about parents sharing videos of their young children on the Internet because KIDS CAN’T CONSENT TO IT. That’s aside from the fact that you are essentially giving strangers access to your private life. But I digress.

This was not my main concern.

I realized that my outrage came from the fact that this person put me in a position where I had two choices — and both options posit losing ends for me:

(1) Be a decent human being and just indulge them with this one little thing during a very scary time. But in doing so, screw up an algorithm I have been carefully crafting for years to not see anything I’d categorize as “vapid Internet trash.”

(2) Be an asshole by ignoring her message completely OR leave her seen and not even give the courtesy of a fake “Oh, sure.”

Regardless of what we’re asking from friends, or especially strangers, I fervently believe that it’s indelicate to subject people to experiences which have no value to them. If I were a mom, then yes, her channel merits a chance. But a mother of two, I am not.

I was an annoying theatre kid in college but I only extended an invitation to watch my production to friends who I knew could tolerate (and maybe enjoy) a low-budget one-hour play.

Age of Cringe and Mediocrity

I find myself cringing at ukulele covers of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from people who only picked up the instrument four days ago. Basically, I truly wish we’d have less of anything that’s been haphazardly put together for the sake of content.

So, no, I did not appreciate this random request, especially during a global pandemic.

This crisis has also shed a light on the general lack of awareness of ourselves and other people’s boundaries. I’ve listed a couple of friends who only get in touch so they can vent without even asking how I’ve been coping during the lockdown.

I’ve been observing an increased intensity of Dunning-Kreuger types of behaviour over the past six years because of the evolution of how we’ve used social media. Now, everything is content and everyone can be famous regardless of whether the required talent to become a celebrity is there.

As Christopher Lasch said in his book, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations “We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves.”

Most people who are extremely active on social media always seem to have a delusion that people really care about what they have to say or do every minute of the day.

This narcissistic tendency is referred to as the spotlight effect, or according to Dr. Emma D. Levine, “is the tendency to feel and behave as if we are the focus of attention from an ‘audience’ that shares our preoccupations and insecurities about ourselves.

Expecting Too Much

In reality, people just don’t care as much, even our close friends. Not even during a time when people are dying around us.

Asking for someone to “subscribe” to us is asking for their energy and attention.

In a period of crisis such as this pandemic, we’re all in a vague vortex where time is simultaneously running fast and slow; where it feels like the world is ending yet nature is restarting itself and the skies have never been bluer. It’s a time when fear is palpable, but then, we’re able to put the small but immediate matters in perspective like our parents’ mortality and the feeling of a tight hug.

Asking for a share of other people’s emotional and mental resources these days feels like stealing the last few crumbs of bread and that’s probably why I reacted the way I did.

I could have maybe been more understanding of this person. We were all just trying to cope after all. But, how much of her needs do I need to indulge to be deemed a compassionate person? Was I making a mountain of a molehill?

Will she care if I didn’t subscribe? Why did I care?

We both shouldn’t.