Late to the Party

I've just discovered the awesomeness of YouTube.  How was it possible to have lived with my daughter for the last 5 or 6 years and not have realised?

It makes me feel like a bad parent.  She told me about creative people putting on videos.  She told me about John Green (and I read his novels) and went all mooney about someone who I think was called Charlie Blue Sky.  She went to Hyde Park when she was 15 and got all excited about meeting her creative heroes.  I did listen, honestly I did but I just thought YouTube was a place full of teenagers expressing their existential angst (maybe it was).  I thought it wasn't for me.  As she got older she learnt how to put on make up from YouTube mainly because she was never going to learn it from her frumpy mother and has become slightly obsessed with Sprinkle of Glitter and a girl who has just married her vlogger boyfriend.  All I ever really found was Sneezing Pandas and small children biting each other's fingers.

Then my son became 15 and found YouTube. He spends hours watching people playing the video games that he plays.  I am becoming a bad parent again because I can't find any interest in what he's watching.

I had used YouTube to find things.  I'd re-watched things like the news, music videos or old comedy programmes and I'd found videos parents had put up of their children playing flute and piano exam pieces.

This morning the Long Suffering Husband was watching a YouTube video about golf balls and my son was watching people play Minecraft and so I sent a 'HELP ME' text to my daughter.  It is when the house gets very masculine and nerdy I really miss her.  She suggested I fight back by watching Ocarina videos and so I have spent much of the day wasting my time on finding wonderful mind expanding videos given for free by people who are more intelligent and creative than I could ever hope to be.

I started with Ocarina workshop, learning the parts for the Guinness World Record attempt at the Royal Albert Hall and moved onto watching some things I'd seen before, like Axis of Awesome and their understanding of 4 chord songs and the Pachabel Rant.

Then I remembered the brilliant Mom Song and watched that again.

Then I discovered the most amazing Vi Hart.  I want to have a fraction of this girl's intelligence and creativity.  

This is something I have to go and try and I might even listen to Schoenberg with new ears.  I have now watched most of Vi Hart's videos and am in complete awe of her.  I'm sure most of them will excite my son and terrify my daughter (as they are about maths and sometimes music) but the final video is the the one that is going to make me stop watching them and get on with being creative myself. 

Oh, and I might make some wax fingerprints too.