I watch enough videos on YouTube that my algorithm gets stuck in a rut. I watch a lot of news, but even I don’t want to watch headlines from last week, much less from months or years ago. Sometimes, to shake up my searches and produce a new range of suggested videos, I just go randomly surfing all over YouTube. I leap from one weird link to another, and do so long enough to generate a whole new selection on my home page.
This process has taken me to some strange places. Sometimes they’re interesting, sometimes compelling, and sometimes just downright weird.
Recently I came across an entire series of videos basically titled “Irish People Eat [fill in the blank]”. It’s just what it sounds like. A handful of Irish people are in a setting reminiscent of a marketing research laboratory. They are offered a series of dishes which they’ve never tried before, and their reactions and comments about the tasting experience are shown as raw footage.
Not all of the food offerings were of an American variety, but many were. I watched Irish people eat Southern food, American sandwiches, comfort food, American desserts, etc., and found it inexplicably interesting.
They often liked the American foods, though sometimes their comments weren’t all that flattering. I found it a bit odd that they seemed to find the whole concept of peanut butter particularly disgusting, except for one man who did enjoy his classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I did some more surfing just last night, to stir the mix once more. Today I have several episodes of Super Nanny in my feed. Where in the hell did that come from?
Oh well, at least it’s not old news.