My shameful (virtual) life.

Life has changed in the past year, as much for me as for anyone. In particular, life has become smaller – my world is no longer vast.  I cannot travel overseas and we’re even unable to travel interstate – well sometimes. And that’s the rub – there’s no use planning ahead because, if the borders are open today, they may be closed again by your travel date. Things turn on a sixpence (or a positive Covid-19 test). We’ve been held hostage by this damned disease. Yes, first-world problems, I know!

What have you done to overcome the boredom of this disease-imposed state (I’m genuinely interested)?

I know some have become Netflix afficionados – consuming countless hours of movies in the down-time gap created by Covid-19. Perhaps you’ve taken up reading with renewed gusto.

I must admit to doing my fair share of reading (but then I’ve always been a reader – even down to the back of the Cornflakes packet). I have also started writing this blog (and finished writing a book) but more than this, I now spend countless hours consuming the vlogs thrown at me on my mobile phone on social media sites.

I say that feeling a degree of shame – why am I wasting my time? But then, that’s me – I’ve always felt that my time should be spent usefully, and I can be quite punishing on myself.

For instance, when I was doing a PhD, I would not allow myself to read a novel or to read anything for pleasure (and I love reading trashy novels). I had so much reading to do for the degree that it had to be a textbook of nothing. Even now, if there is a dreaded task that I must do, I will not allow myself to do anything else until it is done. In reality, what this often means is that I spend too much time doing nothing as I procrastinate over the task (but that’s another story.)

However, these vlogs are dastardly – you don’t need to go to them, they come to you – and they are addictive. You turn on your phone to check the social media sites and/or your emails, and there they are – beckoning to you.

And although I have found the cooking vlogs and the skincare/make-up/haircare vlogs to be extraordinarily informative – they have given me the confidence to do many things myself which I’d previously relied on other people to do for me at great cost – there are others … well there are others, aren’t there? I’ll let you be the judges. (I’ll come back to the informative vlogs at a later date.)

The time wasters…

Some serve no other purpose other than to entertain – not a bad thing and I regularly watch one about a family, the Scott’s, who have quintuplets . The vlog is called Five Two Love (they also have two older children).

That’s not TOO bad a waste of time, is it? And neither does it indicate that I’m getting ‘clucky’. Perish the thought. I’ve never been clucky – ever – and while I love my own children passionately, other people’s children I can take or leave (and mostly prefer to leave).

But these children, I can enjoy vicariously – without any responsibility whatsoever – and they are very cute. (They are not quite three years old at the moment).

The parents are very calm people that hold it together admirably and the footage that the public sees features predominantly the cuteness, leaving out the stressful moments that there must be. (Mustn’t there?)

The Scotts get the balance right. This is not necessarily so with other vlogs featuring ‘multiples’ that can be just a melange of chaos – who needs to see that?

Then there’s the bridal vlog from the television series Say yes to the dress. I just love seeing all those fabulous dresses and the good thing about these vlogs is I can fast forward all the boring peripheral parts and just see the dresses. When Randy, Lori, Monty or Gok asks:
“and who’s the lucky man?”
I skip that bit because I don’t care –
“JUST SHOW ME THE DRESS!” (That’s me, yelling at my phone)

So, am I longing to get married again and have more children? NO – not even nearly. But I am starting to wonder what deep psychological flaw or desire is suggested by the next vlog I’ve become interested in? (I’m becoming seriously worried about myself, you know?)

…the curious…

It’s called Sister Wives and it’s about the daily lives of a polygamous family in the USA – the Brown Family. He has four wives and about 20 children.

You should watch it, it’s unreal.

These people are seriously having a lend of themselves if they think that the lifestyle works for them: they are miserable most of the time. ‘Dysfunctional’ is a word I’d choose, but only because I can’t think of a stronger one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to anyone living the kind of life that they want to. I have no ideological stance on this – but as for practicality…? I have taken to yelling at the screen “WHY?” – but they don’t answer. Well why would they?

(Note to self: this is not the real world, just a temporary substitute.)

…and the revolting.

But it gets worse and I think I should take this time to warn you never to watch, for even one second, a video on pimple popping – JUST DON’T DO IT. I did and now I’ve unleashed a monster.

If you should watch just one, you will be bombarded with them and never be free of them ever again – just like me. They are like the monkey on your back.

And it’s a vicious circle: the more they feed you, the more you’re tempted, the more they feed you.

It’s fascinating to contemplate where they find all these people with such bad cases of pimples – blackheads, whiteheads and even suppurating cysts. What’s more, how on earth do these people let the gunk that has gathered subcutaneously, over vast areas of their bodies, get so bad? I mean, are they happy when they break out in a severe case of acne and hold onto the zits because their pimple-popping may go viral?

Is there an up-side to chronic skin conditions?

Many years ago, I knew a man – he was a professional who had a lump on his head that encroached onto his forehead over one eye. It was the size of a tennis ball. He looked like a not-too-distant relative of the Elephant Man. No one was rude enough to say anything to him as we all thought it was just an unfortunate disfigurement that he couldn’t help.

Well, we were wrong, weren’t we?

One day he arrived without his defining ‘lump’. He’d had it lanced by a surgeon – a simple operation as it was just a subcutaneous cyst. It wasn’t always that big, apparently, it had grown over time.

So, who the hell lets a lump grow into the size of a tennis ball before they take action? It would have made a great pimple-popping video – Vesuvius would have had nothing on what must have spewed forth. Ewww!!!

I don’t want to watch these disgusting videos, but how do I stop them from being sent to me because I can’t be trusted not to watch them – and it only takes a few seconds?

So, now that I have confessed to the depths of depravity that I have sunk to, I feel cleansed and will leave my phone alone and instead use my time for the good of mankind. 

“My name is Susan and I’m a vlogaholic.”