Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

101 Style Icon Moves

Don’t worry, this is not about the new Cruella movie and Emma Stone’s wardrobe though no doubt that would be an interesting but completely different video. Instead, Aesthety does a fantastically fashionable, historical, thoughtful deep dive into the campy, silly, wild Glenn Close led 101 102 Dalmatians (1996) and 102 Dalmatians (2000) movies. I watched these movies in the theater growing up and though I do remember the outfits as being fun at the time I didn’t have the background in fashion, history, or even film language to understand some of the deeper meaning and this video almost made me want to go and watch them again.

>Number Two<

Protesting in France

Bonjour, you might have noticed that France has had some…uhhhh…protesting. Alice Cappelle is here to break down some of the myths and misinformation you may have seen about it as well as some in depth explanation about why the governments recent actions around not just the pension reform but many other political issues have been causing intense friction between the government and the people. There is quite a lot of misinformation around the French protests because non-French people (especially Americans) try to view it through the lens they have in their own country and I find it very helpful to hear local voices on issues especially complex ones.

>Number Three<

Your Waifu is Trash

I don’t know why Lextorias popped into my feed last month, I probably haven’t watched an anime on purpose for well over a decade but I just really enjoyed his videos where he watched a random roulette of shows and that led me to some of his more thoughtful scripted content including this really actually insightful piece about waifus. I know that you’re probably a full grown adult with real problems and thinking about waifus sounds too stupid to live but I found this deep dive in to his history, the reality, and the reasoning behind waifus was more interesting than I would have assumed. Even having been a part of idol culture for a while and seeing waifus secondhand in the anime sphere – I never really understood the phenomenon.

>Number Four<

Me and the Devil

Like black superheros who have lightning powers, devil, demons, and the supernatural seem to be recurrent theme in black music. In this video Voodoomunkyfut takes the time to break down why so much black music is not just spiritual, but devilish. This video is not about Hotep nonsense or anything but instead about why for a population that is also known for prayer, for gospel, and for spiritual hymns as cultural touchstones so much of black music also seems to call on the devil and other dark forces.

>Number Five<

Where Do The Highways Come From?

You might know Noah Caldwell-Gervais for his 7 hours of Resident Evil (video game) break down video but actually it turns out that he also does 7 hours of content I’m actually interested in! This is probably one of the longest, if not the longest video I have ever recommended. This is part-travelogue, part-historical record, part dirge for not only an America which does not exist anymore but one that may have never existed. While many people know about Route 66 as a highway cutting across America in this video Noah travels the first highway connecting America: the Lincoln Highway. Driving along its path he pulls in books, quotes, first hand accounts, visits museums, sites, empty houses, tells personal stories, and muses about the past and future of America as he travels through places few will ever see and even fewer will think about. Honestly this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever watched on YouTube and I have thought about it every day since I finished it almost a month ago. It took me 5 days to watch it and I would advise that at any point you too should stop when you feel the water hose of information is too high and let it settle before you continue the video because it’s too dense and too interesting to let it roll by you like an empty highway.

I like to do one of these all YouTube video drops every year but I’ll go back to mostly articles and sites again next month and hopefully I’ll see you back again then!