I’ve been in this coffee shop since five a.m. The old man yawned behind me. People do that thing after they yawn, where they almost sing at the end. I never understood that. I’m not a loud yawner. I do it silently, trying not to bring attention to myself. In fact I try to hide my yawns, or else someone might say, “Am I keeping you up?” I hate it when they say that. Just let me yawn. I’m either tired or it’s a reflex when I’m wide awake. But I’m exhausted after waking up at two in the morning.
YouTube videos keep me company through insomnia. I’m addicted to one YouTuber who posts a video just about every single day, much like I blog every single day. He always produces content about music, and I love music, commercial music that is, or I used to. He has opinions on everything, some of which I don’t agree with. We have very different tastes in music.
He’s heavily into pop punk, which I think is awful. And he said Nelly is a good rapper. I’m not sure if he’s trolling me. He could be, but it’s hard to tell. I must accept that some people enjoy music that I think is garbage, and vice versa.
Nevertheless, his videos are still enjoyable. He likes to rank musicians on a tier. He said that Blink 182 is one of the best bands of all time, and I must strongly disagree. I mean are there people out there besides him who honestly think so? He also said that Metallica is okay, or in his words “mid”, a word I think the Gen-Z’ers like to use, meaning they’re in the middle. It doesn’t make sense because the YouTuber is a Gen-X’er like me. We should have a somewhat similar taste in music. But he said the best music came from the 2000s, which isn’t even close to true. Nineties music is far superior, and I’m supposed to believe so because of the generation I came from. Shouldn’t he agree?
Nothing against millennials, but their music doesn’t hold up against Gen-X music. Of course they would agree to disagree. They may believe what they will. And then the music from the 2010s was even worse. I won’t comment on today’s music. He was right when he said it’s not about how catchy the songs are now but rather what the mood is, like music you would play in the background while you’re doing homework, not exactly interactive. Today’s music listeners are fine with that. I don’t quite understand it. If you need background noise, just turn on the vacuum, not Spotify.
It’s all the same from what I’ve heard. I couldn’t tell you one Taylor Swift song. I know what she looks like, but that’s about it. He played a clip of a Swift video, so I have a general idea, and it wasn’t good or bad. If I were taking an Uber ride and was sitting in the backseat, and the driver was playing one of her songs, I wouldn’t be able to say, “Hey, that’s Taylor Swift.” It could be anyone with the way music is produced now. It’s overly produced if you ask me. There’s no dirt, all sparkle. Even metal music, with its loud riffs and punishing drums, glistens through the speakers. I don’t think I agree with that. There has to be some imperfection for me to want to give it a second listen.
Either way I’m addicted to that guy’s channel, and I’ll watch another video of his tonight. That’s my current viewing pleasure. I’m subscribed to YouTube TV, but I don’t watch anything except American football when it’s in season. Other than that, I don’t care about anything else. It’s not my intention. Nor do I subscribe to any streaming services. I can’t keep up at this point, having fallen too far behind. I used to subscribe to Netflix way back before all those shows populated, way back in the beginning when they would mail me DVDs. But I quit one year and never subscribed again. There’s just too much to follow. I miss the days when there were only a dozen shows. Now every network has a streaming service with original programming. It’s an overload. And I would watch the worst shows on TV, never the best ones, shows that never came close to an Emmy. I never said I had good taste.