In this short monologue, Tom Guarriello reflects on how society’s judgments about what constitutes a waste of time evolve over generations. He recalls that activities like playing video games and blogging were once dismissed as frivolous, yet they have since become valuable tools for education, creativity, and commerce. Turning to the present, he questions whether YouTube—particularly the amateur, low‑production videos that dominate the platform—represents the latest ‘waste of time.’ He asks viewers to consider why they watch such content, what they gain from it, and why creators produce it, inviting responses and especially video replies. The video serves as a provocation to examine personal and cultural valuations of time spent on user‑generated media.
Chapters
Well, hi, Tubians, it's Tom Guarriello. I had a couple of thoughts that I wanted to ask you guys about and see what you think. The thought that I had was, you remember when, when we used I used to know what a good use of time was and what a waste of time was. Let me tell you what I mean. I remember it was a good use of time to like read and study and, you know, play outside. Those were things that were valuable uses of time and they were good. It was good to use your time that way. So what was a waste of time? A waste of time used to be things like playing video games, right? Video games were a waste of time. So what happens today? Today we see like video games are not only exploding as a game, but they're also— video game designers are really leading the way in in all kinds of new interactive experiences for people that are leading to all sorts of developments. Military training, negotiator training, urban planning training, you know, Sims people. All these things all use games to, teach people how to create. Second Life, you know, there's tens of millions of dollars a week in commerce coming out of Second Life. So video games are no longer a waste of time, right? Blogging— blogging was an enormous waste of time. Why would anybody want to write anything serious and not get paid for it? Why would anybody want to read anything that anybody wrote who was just some who knows who schmo from someplace who was writing stuff. Well, what happens now? Today millions of people are reading and writing blogs every day, and, you know, the blog may be the biggest enabler of grassroots creativity since the pen. You know, there's an enormous amount of writing going on in blogs. So now, of course, The latest waste of time is what we're doing right now, YouTube. So my question, the title of this video is, is YouTube a waste of time? Um, I know you're a biased audience, right, because, uh, you're watching this on YouTube. But you know, I mean, what's the point of making all these— you know what the, what the new phrase is for a lot of what goes on here? Wet cats swinging on a fan. Have you heard that? As kind of a description of the kind of videos that get made here. Why? So what's the point of watching these kind of videos? They're inferior in quality to what the pros make, and it's just another exercise in self-indulgence. It's a waste. In other words, a waste of time. Well, what do you think? Why, um, is— if YouTube's not a waste of time, uh, is it? First of all, is it a waste of time? Maybe you don't think so, you're here watching it, but maybe you do. Maybe you just think you're wasting time there. That'd be interesting. But why do you watch YouTube? Why do you— what do you get out of watching homemade videos? And if you make videos here, why are you doing it? I'd love to hear your responses to that, especially would enjoy video responses to it. So, is YouTube a waste of time? If so, why do we do it anyway? And if not, what do we get out of it? So thanks, see you soon, bye.
