I've gotten hooked on DIY (acronym for
Do It Yourself,
“Do it yourself”) of things that have no head or tail.
Before going to sleep I watch some video randomly offered by YouTube;
in most cases I don't know why anyone would want to create something as ugly as a concrete cube with LED lights or a perspex clipboard filled with tangerine peels.
They are videos that challenge common sense and the sense of narrative rhythm.
At first I wondered why anyone would want these grotesque objects, and who had a blowtorch and three kilos of poxylin at home.
Then I understood it;
The meaning of all this is that I enter the comments to ask who has a blowtorch at home.
And that someone else asks to be given back the time of life that he has lost seeing such a trick.
Those videos exist for us to share and complain about, because the more useless the object is, the more we share it, and so we find that a DIY video on how to clean a drain cover with toothpaste has more than 11 million views.
No one, ever, under any circumstances is going to need to clean a manhole cover with toothpaste.
These videos are not only based on our need to share (amazing, above all), but also on a very basic idea of suspense.
This man has a bottle of Coca-Cola and a candle.
What can he do with both?
It's a waste of time?
Of course;
just like everything we consume through the small screen.
But nothing happens.
In the end, DIY videos are a metaphor for so many audiovisual products: you promised me a marvel and you've given me a pilonga chestnut.
It seems magical to me.
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