When my sister and I were younger, she used to invite me into her room while she cleaned it.
"I don't want to help you clean" I would say. She wasn't going to Huck Finn me.
She would then say that she didn't want me to help her clean, she just wanted me to come in and "hang out with her" while she cleaned. She was not lying. This was genuinely all she wanted. I never understood it back then, being the sardonic little loner that I was at the time. When I had alone time in my room, I felt relaxed. I could write in my diary/journal, listen (and sing) to my music that nobody else wanted to listen to, maybe even get in a nap if I was lucky. Not much has changed. My sister, however, was a much more socially developed creature and had interesting things to say, so she wanted to discuss them with me as she cleaned. This would make cleaning more enjoyable for her. And she would be multitasking. Very smart move.
Now that I am older, I have realized that I do the same thing as she used to, only the people I invite into my "room while I clean it" are the personalities of youtube.
In a world where it is getting increasingly difficult to have face time, quality conversations nearly a thing of the past, sometimes you just want to hear a familiar voice. Or even just a pleasant human voice. Like when you leave the radio on for your pets before you leave for the grocery store. It's not as good as the real thing, but it's comforting. A quick trick to get the job done. And let's be honest, here; people can say "call me any time" as much as they want. The reality of the situation is that nobody is available all the time.
We all have our crazy schedules, we miss out on our friends because of the work we choose to do (that we fool ourselves into thinking we "need" to be doing) and we go weeks/months/what-have-you without seeing them. And sometimes when we finally get an opening/opportunity to go see one of them, we are so exhausted and we "won't be able to stay long" so it "hardly seems worth it". Perhaps it would be best if we just "reschedule". When you have a long day of not interacting with anyone - or worse; you have interacted with just about everyone you didn't want to interact with - and you are too tired for travel, have no fear; youtube is here. You can just open up your laptop or smartphone and pop on whichever "friend" you feel like seeing. Listen to them for as long as you want and when you're done eating your dinner/ready for bed, just turn them off! You don't have to wait for an opening, you needn't fret about being impolite and if you had a glass or two of vino with dinner, you don't have to worry about dozing off during your commute home.
You no longer have "that friend who knows a lot about cars" or "the one who is great with makeup". You have youtube tutorials. How about that "friend who is so much fun to have dinner/drinks with"? Mukbangs, of course.
I suppose there are better ways to deal with what is essentially a product of a kind of loneliness. And certainly we wouldn't need this crutch if we hadn't allowed ourselves to get so incredibly sucked into the vacuum of youtube / social media in the first place (irony). But we have, and at least we do have this tool to utilize.
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