mshcherbatskaya | Wholesome YouTube

One of the ways I dealt with the stress of my mother's heart attack and bypass surgery was getting incandescently stoned and watching process videos on YouTube. I think these video are the lineal descendants of Slow TV. There are all sorts of them - sewing, woodturning, grooming animals, all sorts of arts and crafts, but I think the nicest ones are the channels where YouTuber is able to fund their activities through YouTube so they can afford to offer their services for free to people in need. For example, there's a whole genre of videos that are essentially Pro cleaners helping people clean what have become hoarder homes due to mental health issues, lawn care guys cleaning out the overgrown yards of senior citizens, and even hair stylists detangling hair that has not been maintained for a long time.

I don't know how this got started, but I love it. Because these people are making their primary money via YouTube rather than fee for service, what they really need is MORE CONTENT. This means more homes to clean, more yards to mow, more heads to comb out, and if you make YouTube your business, you need a LOT of these. This creates a virtuous cycle where everyone gets a need met, whether that need be a relaxing video, a clean house, or another YouTube upload to maintain their income stream.

These videos seem to be really popular - millions of views on some of them - and there is something so wholesome about them. Because the YouTubers are making money off the video, these kind acts aren't charity and the people receiving these services are not judged for needing them. The videos often start with the stated injunction that the audience is not to judge anyone because we don't know what brought them to this point. It's just lovely. And I'd rather watch someone clean a house on YouTube than clean my own house IRL.