Classic Rant #1,061 (October 11, 2013): Keeping the Past Alive With YouTube

I think that YouTube is the greatest Web invention since, well, probably since the Internet was invented.

Our former vice president, Al Gore, says that he invented the Internet, so I have to go with him.

How can you doubt a vice president (snicker, snicker, or as they say on the Web, LOL.)

Anyway, I enjoy going onto YouTube from time to time to see what's there, what's new, and actually, what's old.

And as you know, I punctuate my posts here with lots of YouTube videos.

There are so many old clips of various things that I am interested in--TV, movies, music, sports--that you can literally spend the entire day on there if you want.

They say that you can find just about anything on the Internet, and the same goes for YouTube.

You can find old TV shows, and music either that you've never heard or completely forgotten about.

And you can also find movies that bit the dust a long time ago that few remember, but you do, and it's nice to see that you are not alone.

And you can find that chestnut, that thing that is so far out of the understanding of most people, that you really have to scratch your head and wonder why it was put up in the first place.

I have put up exactly one video myself on YouTube, and it pretty much fits that description.



It is me, playing baseball probably around 1966 in my old neighborhood, Rochdale Village.

The clip isn't that great. It is basically a kinescope of an old 8mm movie my father took way back when.

But in its less than one minute, it goes directly to what mattered most to me way back when--playing baseball with my friends in our community's Little League, the Rochdale Village Athletic League, or RVAL.

Family was, of course, very important to me, and still is.

School was important, too, and I wasn't a bad student at that.

But sports, well, that was the ultimate for me. Even though I wasn't a good athlete, I loved those games, dreamed about playing them, and I did OK.

And that is what YouTube brings to the table.

It is an outlet for stuff like this, videos that have been tucked away for years and years.

I wouldn't think that people would be interested in my playing ball, but the video has received many, many hits.

It's just a fun video of my youth, and I guess it taps into things that we all feel, we all remember.

And now, I have discovered that there is another video up that I am in, and no, I didn't put it up.

It is a video of the Reunion that I helped put together, from this past Saturday.

Nobody other than former Rochdale folk should have the least bit of interest in this video, but it was a revelation to me because even though I was there, and I was in the video, I had no idea at all that a video was being shot.

Video cameras are so small now--and they can even be shot by your phone--that you can walk by a camera and not know it.

Heck, I knew people were taking still pictures, but I had no idea that one enterprising soul was taking video.

And it just brings the whole thing back, which is fine with me.

Again, me and probably 150 others will have interest in this thing, and that is it, but YouTube allows these items to last into perpetuity, so this thing will be up for anyone to see.

And that, really, is what makes YouTube special to me.

What I find interesting might not be your cup of tea, but we can all enjoy what we want on that site, stumble onto things that we never knew existed, and have fun.

And really, that is what YouTube is all about.