Five reasons to make YouTube your first stop for the weekend...

It's funny, every time I'm feeling down – or just need a break – YouTube becomes my first port of call. For the sake of this opening, let's say I spend just 30 minutes a day on YouTube; that equates to 210 minutes a week, and 840 minutes a month. Now, let's assume I live till I'm 80, forever continuing my 30 minutes a day routine. If my calculations – well, my calculator's calculations – are correct, then I will have spent 594,720 minutes (or 413 days) of my life on YouTube. Scary stuff.

However, if it's 413 days of content as good as this, then I consider it time well spent...

5. The Chaser’s War on Everything: Americans

If you are lucky enough to live in Australia, you definitely already know about this brilliant comedy show. And if you live in the UK, perhaps you might have stumbled upon some episodes on the BBC’s iPlayer service a few years back. But if you haven’t, fear not – many of their best skits can be found on YouTube.

My favourite skits centre on the Chaser’s interactions with some members of the American public, and this clip amalgamates many of their finest moments. Many of us have made geographical mistakes, maybe even me, but I bet we can all spot France on a map!

4. Jenna Marbles: How to Avoid Talking to People

I really enjoy the videos of ‘Jenna Marbles’, her irreverent humour and charismatically quirky method of delivery is unique. Whilst this clip is not her most popular – ‘How to trick people into thinking you’re good looking’ has been watched 17 million times – the sheer effectiveness of her advice in my chosen clip is astounding. How many times have you been too polite to ask someone to leave, to ask the Bible salesman to move on? Simply throw them a weird face, and according to Ms Marbles, they will happily leave you alone.

3. Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time

Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time, or ROSMT to the initiated, started out as a parody of the popular American YouTube channel Epic Meal Time...but the less said about that the better. ROSMT has since transcended the boundaries of parody, and become its own (original) source of culinary comedy. The music and editing is dramatic, punchy and aggressive – befitting their style of cooking.

Needless to say, each video teaches you to cook a different meal. ROSMT encapsulates the YouTube generation perfectly; this niche humour – inspired by the efforts of their counterparts across the Atlantic – could only be fostered on the internet, and can only be found on YouTube.

4. Jamie Foxx destroys Doug Williams

The Doug Williams of 2011 is a successful stand-up comedian and executive producer in American TV. But back in 2003, Williams was anything but a success; especially after a particularly poor performance at the comedy roast of Emmitt Smith (an NFL star) resulted in his own performance being ‘roasted’ by Jamie Foxx. His hilariously harrowing ordeal was uploaded to YouTube back in 2006, and certainly deserves more than the 4m views it has so far attracted – enjoy.

5. A short film: Validation

At 15 minutes long this clip almost put me off, but before a minute elapsed I was hooked. Validation is a heart warming short film about the beauty of compliments. Sure, it may sound a little cheesy, but the acting is first rate and the music is snappy, offbeat and complements the narrative perfectly. The fact that it is shot in black and white may annoy some people, but it doesn’t distract from the storyline and gives Validation a timeless quality. If you can spare the time to watch it, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

See also the last two entries in this series:

5 YouTube experiences to brighten your week #2

5 Youtube experiences to brighten your week #1

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