Videos of the Day: May 16, 2024

I’d like to have a bit of a theme going on in these posts… like being the operative word. I can’t theme anything, least of all this blog. But here’s one theme—or is it topic?—I can decide on for this post: YouTube videos I’ve enjoyed recently.

Speaking of blog themes, showing videos has been a gamble on any of my blogs. Some themes show full-width videos, others show them clipped and cowering in a corner of their own making, as if peering from behind a wall as they cautiously monitor a lurking terror. I’ve even had them sliced in half in a terrible letterbox format.

But I need to be a better blogger, which these days includes using lots of eye candy. Or is it shorter posts? Or less frequent updates for better engagement? Cripes, I can’t keep up with all the “advice” going around these days. Anyway, I’ll make the attempt to show videos from now on and hope that the theme(s) I’m using show them properly. It’ll be a journey we’ll go on together. A boring journey, but a necessary one.

Conan O’Brien on Ros na Rún

I’m fond of modern Irish culture, at least as far as TV shows and books go, because they’re the easiest to get a hold of. I even gave learning the language a go years ago. It’s not an easy language to learn, but with some coaching, you can pretend you’re a lifelong speaker. Conan O’Brien put on a convincing act when he scored a cameo in the long-running soap opera, Ros na Rún.

RnR is pretty daring as far as soap operas go. You know how our mothers tuned in to see how the evil twin would seduce the billionaire’s fiancée and if the beautiful high school beauty would ever wake up from her coma? RnR had characters dealing with abortion, domestic violence, rape, and pedophilia. Just your everyday life in a Gaeltacht, I guess.

Episodes are available on YouTube, and they’re subtitled! Translators are going through each episode, and they’re currently finished with season 6. Just to give you an idea of how far behind you’ll be, season 28 is on Irish television.

By the way, can I get something off my chest? Much as I adore the Irish as a whole, I find their attitudes towards Irish Americans very irksome. Hypocritical, even. See, you can be an Irish American with a straight-off-the-boat Irish granny, and the they’ll call you a Plastic Paddy to your face. But a celebrity with an Irish ancestor going back six generations? Oh, feck, they’re more Irish than the Irish themselves!

If there’s anyone more obsessed with American celebrities than Americans, it’s Irish people (and the British, too, I guess). They’ll latch on to famous people with a drop of Irish blood or an Irish-sounding name. President Biden got the red carpet treatment during his visits. The country went wild when Matt Damon showed up on a beach with a Supervalu bag during the pandemic.

But you wanna know which Irish Americans the Irish really feckin’ love, more than Kimberley biscuits and cupán tae? The Kennedys. Yes, those Kennedys. So much so, I’m surprised RTE doesn’t have a Kennedy Watch ticker at the bottom of the screen.

Don’t believe me? Go to the RTE site, search for “kennedy” and look at the number of results. Sure, some Irish Kennedys show up, but look how often JFK and Jackie pop up. You know how often we Americans hear about the Kennedys? Usually when the curse rears its head, and then it’s not really news.

But I digress. Here’s Coco speaking Irish.

Noble Knight Adventures

I don’t listen to the radio, so I miss out on a lot of the new hits and new stars and so on. Considering some of the stuff played in retail stores, that’s probably for the best. My tastes are going back to 80s and 90s music, besides. But thanks to a rising channel on YouTube, I’m getting samples of some modern hits and even a few old school favorites.

Noble Knight Adventures is William Papadin’s creation, featuring a character simply known as Noble Knight and his many short adventures. Journeying alongside him is the BWILA-seeking Merlin, who’s part help, part hindrance, and all awesome. There’s a growing cast of characters, all played by Papadin. Fret not, for it’s not an all-boys’ club. Women also get in on the fun—and Papadin keeps his mustache for them. (Edit: I originally wrote beard before realizing my mistake. Still, a mustache and a beard for the women…)

These shorts have me looking up songs I never would have otherwise heard. Dammit, the man made me look up a Miley Cyrus-Sia collab and I don’t know if I can forgive him for it. But I can’t be mad about it, either. I especially can’t be mad about his dance moves, which I’ll show you in the first Noble Knight short I ever watched… which you’ll probably have to watch on YouTube, because of course it would work out that way.

The Game Too Scary for 3D – The Hidden Story of FAITH: The Unholy Trinity

Wendigoon is quickly becoming my favorite long form YouTuber. Back when the third installment of Faith was making the rounds on YouTube, I was watching a lot of theory/deep dive videos, and this was one of the first I watched. It was also the first Wendigoon video I watched, but I wouldn’t become a dedicated watcher for several months.

Wendigoon is a unique fellow: devout Christian, Bible nerd, gun enthusiast, Appalachian native (heyo, cous), government skeptic, and horror fanatic. His videos are well researched, laidback, and surprisingly relaxing given the content he covers. They make for excellent background noise, but do expect him to say something that wrestles your full attention back to the video.

I figured this video was fitting, since it’s not only the first Wendigoon video I ever watched, but it’s tangentially Vinesauce-related, since Vinny played the Faith trilogy.

Because speaking of Vinesauce…

Bonus: Vinny Gets Scared by Games Compilation

On April 28th, I posted the Sounds Stuck in My Head post where I said this in regards to the Two on the Vine listener mail segment:

Horror games on Steam don’t really scare Vinny. Oh, and horror movies don’t scare him, either. It takes a lot to scare him. He’s a big, brave boy. Somebody should make a compilation of all the times Vinny was never scared during a game.

Either I have some good prediction powers or it’s a fantastic coincidence, because on May 2nd, this video came out. I’m beyond tickled.

It almost makes me want to predict the next compilation. How about a collection of clips where Vinny is caught off guard by cute things in games, overcomes his stoicalness to giggle and squee and delight in these finds, and the whole thing melts Chat’s collective heart? (Ha ha ha, you’ll never find enough clips!)

Or, perhaps I can make use of some skills in the next post…