If you’re not getting on camera, you probably should. The bar has been lowered substantially.
The North and South Poles of My Intelligence
I consider myself intelligent, but I’m also mildly stupid.
For instance, my Dad frequently sent me to the Liquor Store to play Lotto for him when I was a kid. Not being old enough to care about the other stuff behind the counter, I thought—for longer than I care to admit—that LIQUOR was how you spelled LOTTO. I reasoned maybe it’s French or Latin or something. Around the same time, I knew every POTUS that ever existed, and that twelve times twelve was one hundred forty-four.
I struggled learning how to tie my shoes, so I tucked my laces or prayed for Velcro-strapped sneakers for longer than I care to admit. The caps of my shoelaces often looked like smushed rice. At the same time that I was developing permanent lace cap imprints on the soles of my feet, I knew all fifty states and their capitals.
Riding a bike didn’t come easy. I even struggled with Big Wheels. By the time I did learn, I was already reading at a 12th-grade level. How do I know that? As Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory would say, “I know because my mom had me tested.” The principal and various members of the school board insisted on it, as they considered why I shouldn’t be expelled from school in sixth grade.
Later in life, after I was a Certified Public Accountant and had a Master’s Degree in Taxation, I was reminded there was a void present sometimes while shopping for shrimp on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.
I asked the guy at the fish market, “Hey, do you guys sell devined shrimp here?”
He looked at me like I was a talking fish. “We sell, what?”
“Devined shrimp,” I repeated. “You know? Without the veins and guts and stuff.”
“Oh! You mean deveined shrimp!” he said.
“Is that how you say that?” I said.
We laughed and laughed. I assured him I was an educated man. It would be very reasonable if he had his doubts.
Me-Tubing
My attempt to show you the north and south poles of intelligence is an attempt to explain away my ignorance when it comes to participating in the plethora of direct-to-screen options available to us today. I call them MeTubes, and I have arrived late at the party, folks. YouTube, TikTok, Threads, LinkedIn, Substack, and many others are all large consumers of direct-to-screen nowadays. Most of the time, people would rather see you speak than read your words. They don’t want to hear you talk too much, but they need enough to know that you are real.
This should come as no surprise to me. I gladly accepted my Time Person of the Year Award when it was presented to “You” (as in us) back in 2006, as a nod to YouTube. My daughter showed me TikTok when it was “this new app” filled with funny short clips that she wanted me to check out. Even in my own case, whenever I’m struggling with installation, repair, or assembly of an item, I consult YouTube. When I want to learn about a piece of software recently acquired, I go to YouTube. Hacks, tips, tricks: YouTube.
Most of the YouTubers I watch do not invest heavily on set equipment. I’m sure of it. Most of the time the cameraman is doubling as the master of ceremonies. In some of them, performance on either of those jobs would get them fired if they worked at a television station. They are raw things. Direct to screen. To actually call some of the working “sets” they use a “set” is an insult to actual sets. Their “sets” are more like places where they decided to hold their phone’s camera and press record. Yet and still, people line up to see it. They leave comments. They interact. Entire channels are built around it with n-thousand subscribers—myself included.
This all seems a bit strange, and I know why.
The Majesty of the Screen
Professional production used to be a hallmark of features appearing on screen. There usually was a set, lighting, scripts, trained actors, trained hosts, credits rolling, or other marks of professionalism. When I came across something that was less polished, like say on the UHF dial of television, I knew the crew was lacking in resources or ability and quickly changed the channel. After all, I had standards. This applies to most of us back then.
To me, the pictures coming from the box and now the screen have always had a majestic quality to them. When I was young I thought the TV was magical. I knew pictures came out of the box and that was it. I knew I could not go in the box or alter what I was seeing through the camera. What’s in the box was confirmed to be inaccessible out of the box early in life—such as moments where I did a lap around the box to confirm Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger wasn’t coming through the other side. I confirmed I couldn’t go in the box when I was young enough to do so without ridicule; perhaps trying to enter the ring and save Rowdy Roddy Piper from a double-team. Later I learned I couldn’t alter what was meant to be seen by the viewer. How did I do that? I tiptoed over the screen to see what those lovely Soap Opera dames were hiding underneath the pulled-up sheets.
I had no luck seeing more than what they wanted me to see, Rowdy Roddy Piper got a massive beat-down, and I’m really grateful nothing ever came out of the box. Yet, a part of me has always assumed—perhaps stupidly—that the magic comes from in the box and not from out the box. It seemed that things which came from in the box were placed there with care and rarely were slipshod coming out. Even if they were bad coming out, at least they were professionally bad. That has changed completely. Anyone can shoot bad video now and release it direct-to-screen—no matter how raw.
I’m a product of analog life. For me, it’s weird to think that people want to see such rawness. The closest we got to video this raw is not even the channels that used to live on the bottom dial of our TVs where every camera crew was suspect. The rawest we got was the home movie on the home camcorder. People look back fondly on this time, feeling that something has been lost here. We look back with warm nostalgia as we remember our date-time-stamped recordings of Christmas mornings. America’s Funniest Home Videos made us see how magical and downright funny it could be to capture raw moments with home footage.
We do forget, though, that most of these home productions were abysmal things. Have you ever been forced to watch a tape where the camera never stops shaking? Have you ever seen video where the lighting is equal to that of an Eveready flashlight on its last C battery? Ever watched a twelve-minute short feature of the same children going up and down slides? How about a forty-five-minute recital—particularly one where the participants didn’t look or perform like they cared to be there? Have you had to endure an hour-long home movie with no plots, no character arcs, no scenes or structure? Well, I have. Many of us have. This was a common occurrence back in the ‘90s, particularly at family gatherings. Ironically, that exact same production quality is what thrives on MeTubes today.
I remember I borrowed a video from the public library called How to Make Better Home Videos because I was determined not to torture guests when I recorded something I wanted them to watch. If I knew raw video would’ve continued to materialize in the way it has, I would not have bothered learning shooting angles, editing, or really anything else about filming amateur video. It appears to be unnecessary at this point. I only put myself through the trouble because I figured no one wants to see junk. That’s what I thought all raw video was: essentially junk.
The Reeducation of an Xessentialist
Of course, now I know better. When The Real World first premiered on MTV in 1992, most people thought the cast was slightly touched because they were willing to put so much of themselves on camera for the world to see. We watched, but we thought they were slightly loco. The Real World kicked off the reality show craze in the USA. Eventually, we figured out most reality shows created storylines and had polishes put to them as well. Soon, they got the production label, which made them lose credibility for fans of the raw.
Edits and flourishes are seen as productions in the MeTube era; the era of the raw. Productions are baaad. The public at large may be well aware of this, and when they wish to communicate their fleeting thoughts to the masses they go on a MeTube and shoot a video—equipment or polish be damned. But a kid who was once cocksure that LIQUOR spelled LOTTO requires a little more convincing sometimes.
To that end, I recently ran a makeshift experiment on one of the MeTubes; which one is not important. I ran five different videos advertising my book and paid to promote them all. Four were elaborate productions; one was what I would call raw. The raw video outperformed all in terms of likes and comments despite having fewer views. The results weren’t even close. Roughly sixty-five thousand views on the polished four yielded no more than one hundred likes, even fewer comments. I thought they were masterpieces. The raw one had about ten thousand views and over three thousand likes. I enjoyed making that one, but I would not have predicted it would perform so well. At one point—up to five thousand views—it was getting one like for every one view.
As a result of my reeducation, I’ve resolved to give people the raw. I used to fret over proper cameras, proper lighting, and a decent-looking backdrop to shoot my videos. Now, I’ve finally woken up and can smell what’s brewing. I realize this is another case where I missed the first few buses out. In the MeTube era such preparation is a waste of time. You’re better off giving folks the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s likely what they want to see.
So I’ve made a pact with my fingers crossed. I hereby will not use a teleprompter, I will use nothing but the barest of notes for talking points, and to further lean into the rawness I will never shave or moisturize my skin before a production. I’m not worried about the Canada Dry bottle tops you may spot in the background of my “set.” I’m not worried if you happen to learn in a wide-pan that I’ve been prescribed Amlodipine. I may occasionally go with live video since people prefer not to wait for the finished product. If I say something like, “Wow, that’s deep!” while making a point, and you accidentally hear my wife say, “That’s what he said,” I’ll have to live with the uneditable results—and so will you.
I’m not worried about these things, because I am committed to giving you the raw. 100% Grade A human, 100% me on your tube.
Now that we have enough context clues to answer the first question implied in the title of this piece—which is: MeTube?—we can quickly conclude today’s production by answering the second question in the title. Yes, people definitely want to see that.