Blaugust 2022: Day 14 – Creative Appreciation: Videos

We reached the “Creative Appreciation” week in Blaugust 2022; and while it was not necessarily easy to find something thematical to write about, I sure gave it a go. For today, I wanted to focus on videos, specifically stuff that I watch on the side using mostly Youtube. So, for an actual one-two punch of content creation, I decided to start this post both with something that definitely falls under “Creative Appreciation” as well as answering the prompt “If you could meet any person you look up to, who would it be?” from the Blaugust prompts list. Meet Alton Brown, a television personality, food show presenter, and many other things if we go by his Wikipedia page. For the American part of my readership, this might seem a rather normal pick for a celebrity you would like to meet since his cooking show “Good Eats” aired on American television for multiple seasons. However, I am German and here at our shores “Good Eats” is pretty much unknown. So, why choose him then? Well, apart from him being an interesting, entertaining and knowledgeable guy, he is also the person that I got two of my core beliefs from. The first one is that he said that he made “Good Eats” for himself rather than catering to every whim of his fanbase, and there is an underlying truth to that statement that can be projected on all manner of content: Ultimately, you will be much better by producing the content you like rather than the content you must. I cannot remember the Blaugust participant who said it but in essence views should not define your fun in a hobby like blogging; and readers, despite what you think, are still interested in the person behind the content rather than just the content itself.

His second statement comes in form of the timestamp in the video up top. Brown states that he had a miserable time at school, which has to do with moving from Los Angeles to Georgia as well as the apparent suicide of his father on his last day of school during sixth grade. However, born out of that came a principle: “Laughing brains are more absorbant”. Brown, with all those bad memories of school, thought that there has to be a way to make education less … well, bad; and he then used this idea in “Good Eats”. Since I am studying to be a teacher (or rather studied to be a teacher since the chances of me doing my master thesis and therefore suffering at least two more years of uni are close to zero) this approach clicked with me. I visited as many classrooms as I was able to see and while I can see that teachers oftentimes have to solve matters that are not content-related or that kids might not be interested in a topic at all, they are all sitting there regardless of their opinion of school. Why not make the best out of it by trying to create a more open and inviting atmosphere?

You want examples? Allow kids to voice feedback. It is already done in classes for kids with special needs and the system works because problems can be brought forth without the worry of retaliation from the teacher in form of worse grades, which is often the major fear of why kids do not speak up to their teacher. And I am not saying that they should demand unreasonable things but stuff like the teacher blocking the view to the blackboard or asking them to speak louder should not be punished. In a working feedback culture (even though what I am suggesting here is very much a prototype still) the children can voice concerns and will learn to do so, but at the same time they will learn about the feelings and opinions of the other kids more often and might just grow up to take a more reflecting approach to their behavior rather than learning the usual “dog eat dog”-style of yourself over others. But to not get further into my rant about the education system (that could be a post to be filled with hours of content), I feel inspired by Alton Brown since his words shaped some of my ideas in terms of world-view. Oh, and he also takes place in producing shows like “Cutthroat Kitchen”, which is not only a silly but very funny cooking competition but also provides its After-Shows on Youtube; which results in comedy gold like Giada De Laurentiis watching a can emitting an entire chicken.

So much for that. There is a second category I do want to talk about here, which is content that I consume during creative processes. I know that there are various types of people when it comes to basically any work process. Some need silence in order to sort their thoughts, while others enjoy the company of people to really get going. I for one turn on something to run in the background, both music and videos being alternatives. Therefore, here is a list of content that I watch or listen to when writing articles:

First off is “Taskmaster”, an absolute jewel of a show. The idea is amazingly simple: The eponymous taskmaster, played by Greg Davies, sets a number of challenges to fulfill to the five contestants. The taskmaster’s sidekick in form of Alex Horne delivers said challenges and makes sure everything is working as intended; or not since that is the more funny outcome. If someone pitched me a show that makes English comedians do random shit for points, I would have seen the potential but not have been interested in watching it. Turns out, the show is amazing and has a number of incredibly funny videos on tape. Here are some examples for my personal favorites:

• The entire first season for sure since the panel is absolutely amazing, but the alphabet cooking challenge, the melon eating challenge, or the pie guessing challenge.
• Season two with a challenge about eating an egg as fast as possible certainly had some interesting approaches. Oh, and ordering pizza is not that easy if your vocabulary is rather limited.
• Or season five letting people use their finger painting skills … IN THE DARK!

I could name more examples, but this should give you an idea of what is in store for you; and whether or not you like this kind of humor. It certainly works for me and finds itself playing in the background when I am working at the computer quite often. But of course there are more things I watch when it comes to British comedy shows: “Would I Lie To You?”, “The Big Fat Quiz of the Year”, “The Big Fat Quiz of Everything” or “8 out of 10 cats does countdown” can be seen running on my screen regularly. But I do not just watch (or listen to) TV shows on Youtube but also consume the original content of Youtubers.

“Ahoy” aka Stuart Brown started making videos about firearms but introduced more broad videogame-related content in documentary style some years ago. The production of those videos is amazing since he does everything by himself: The cut-ins, the music, the artworks and the actual text are all from one creative mind and are all absolutely favorites of mine. In fact, Ahoy managed to make videos interesting to me that I would have never guessed could be something I would watch; like the “FLATLINE: How the Amiga Languished” video up top, which has now become one of my personal favorites to leave running in the background.

Another content creator that I found by chance but that now has managed to gain views from me on a regular basis is “Civvie 11”. This content creator mostly focusses on old-school shooters like the original “Doom”; and therefore opened up a page of videogames that I would have never known about if I haven’t found the channel. Sure, I tend to skip some of the videos of games I do not like, but taking seemingly random shooters from thirty years ago and turning them into interesting thirty minute videos is no small feat; and worth my recommendation.

“Mandalore Gaming” is on here for two reasons. First of all, he provides the list of recommendations for videogames from his viewers on a Google document file, which brought my attention to games like “Ace of Seafood” or “Zeno Clash”. But he also has some highly entertaining videos about videogames that might not have been as popular in the public eye; or became infamous over time. A good example is the “The Mystery of the Druids” video or the “Limbo of the Lost” video which are some insane adventure games made bearable and even entertaining by Mandalore.

I definitely also have to give a shoutout to Shammy, who is in the close circle of people around MandaloreGaming but takes a somewhat different approach to his reviews. While Mandalore is analytical bordering on being deadpan, Shammy is more anger-fulled; but in an enjoyable way that is not like “AngryJoe” or “The Angry Videogame Nerd”. I really like his videos, even though life seems to be getting in the way of him making more; but I tend to agree with a “quality over quantity”-approach. His takes on “No Mans Sky” are a good reminder of what once was and while I am not interested in playing the games he reviews, I think the videos are well worth watching.

I might add more people over time or just do a new post about it, but all the sources listed in this article serve as examples for creativity or help to drive my own creative processes forward. So, a thanks to all the creators that I have mentioned and again my recommendation to give those people a watch since they do some amazing stuff.