I joined a Discord call with friends this morning, expecting the stream to be of Jackbox - but actually got a collection of reaction video VODs from streams - a form of media I never seek out under normal circumstances, even with a furry VTuber as the host.

A couple of things struck me - that as was stated in a few videos about plagiarism, this is the bare minimum to be fair use; a large part of the content added was screaming, responses to text-to-speech redeems, and very obvious statements such as “this bar is disgusting” while watching a Bar Rescue compilation.

But also it got me reflecting on my own media consumption habits, because there is no shade intended at the friend who really wanted to watch these things. I’ve tried to be better about it recently, but it’s all too easy to fall into the enticing trap of challenge videos for games once played (Can you beat Skyrim with a gun? Can you beat The Simpsons: Hit & Run, with a car that makes things no fun?) That, among other things, is my “junk food” - and while we’re trying to be better about sticking to things that might be useful or interesting in some way later, we definitely don’t always manage it.

Ultimately, while these videos weren’t my thing, this was still a better use of time at 6am than I’d have had otherwise; it’s not exactly our most productive hour, and Time spent with friends is rarely wasted - especially when still dealing with anxiety issues.