Le Salon D'YouTube

Mm. Well, hi guys. Good morning. It's Tom Guarriello. Uh, yesterday I made a video and I asked you all to, uh, contribute some names of some people who you watch and subscribe to who who, um, I called hidden gems for want of a better, uh, phrase. And, uh, thanks so much for the responses that I got. Gee, you know, that there are— I now have a lot of people whose videos I need to catch up on, some of whom of course I knew from, from my own, uh, meanderings here, but others, uh, that I came upon for the first time thanks to your recommendations. And, and there are some terrific people there, and that's really the point of my hopefully brief video today, which is, first of all, you know, I'm amazed that I have now over 500 subscribers to my videos. I can't tell you what an honor it is for me to have 500 people, more than 500 people who've subscribed to my videos. So thank you very much. I really appreciate your interest in what I have to say here. And when I think about that group of us who are coming together here, last evening I was thinking about it and Karen and I were talking about it and I said, you know, it's like we've all created here this salon you know, and I thought, oh yeah, it's sort of like YouTube is our new virtual salon. And so I, of course, went to the other part of my brain, which is online, of course, which is Wikipedia, and took a look at the entry for the salon. And let me just read you a couple of lines from this. A salon is a gathering— of course, I'll put this over here— a salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings. Goes on, uh, often consciously following Horace's— no, now we're back to the ancient Romans, uh, definitions of the aims of poetry to please and educate. Was, was Horace Roman? I think he was. The salons commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th and 18th century were carried out until quite recently in urban settings among like-minded people of a set. Many 20th century salons could be considered. And, you know, the idea was that people would get together and they would bullshit. You know, they'd sit around and bullshit with one another. We just kind of, you know, sit around and, you know, kind of chew the fat. Well, we don't really have the opportunity to do that because we, you know, we only asynchronously bullshit with one another, but we do do that. We do sit around and we do kind of talk about things to one another respond to one another, we comment on one another, and, and this is, I think, the 21st century version of a global salon that we're putting together here. Now, you know, we hear a lot, uh, particularly, you know, from, from the intel— from the intelligentsia about the decadence of our current culture. You know, we're consumers, we're, you know, we're only driven by money, and all we care about are you know, materialism. And, you know, our culture, its best days are behind us, right? I mean, one of the characteristics always of intellectual discourse is to point us— point out to us that all the good things that ever happened happened in the past, and that right now we live in decadent times, you know, times in which we have fallen from the garden, so to speak. Well, bullshit. I mean, here we are, um, you know, I don't know about you, but I've never been involved in a community that's as varied and as interesting and as stimulating as this. I, I, yes, you know, graduate school was a great experience for me. I, I really had my horizons opened up dramatically in graduate school, but this virtual community that's developed here on YouTube is, for me, the most stimulating group of people that I have been in touch with for a long, long, long time. And the idea that we can do this and we can maintain the kind of conversation and produce the kind of material that people produce here is, for me, an extraordinarily hopeful and optimistic sign about who we are and where we're going. Yes, you know, we, we have come into an age where the media profusion and focus on fame and all things material is a constant drumbeat in our lives. And yet You see out here hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are, I think, striving to make meaning together in all sorts of ways, you know, musical, comedic, dramatic, uh, uh, every possible way of expressing ourselves and making meaning together is what I see on a daily basis and got great recommendations for more of yesterday. So, um, I wanted to thank everybody who made, uh, who commented and made suggestions about people who you think are terrific hidden gems. And I wanted to point out that I think we've developed this salon kind of an atmosphere where we are, um, uh, sharing these ideas to please and educate. I like that phrase, to please and educate. Both of which I think are noble goals. So here in the United States, a long weekend this weekend, President's Day weekend, where we, where we, you know, this is one of those things where we took George Washington's birthday, birthday, birthday, and Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and instead of having two holidays like we used to have, we smushed them together and we made one holiday, President's Day. But it is a day when we remember supposedly, uh, some of the great thinkers who, uh, led this country to become, uh, this complicated buzz of confusion that it is, um, which I think YouTube reflects on a global scale now. And, um, so thanks a lot and, uh, have a great— those of us in the United States, have a great long weekend. And see you guys soon. Thanks again. Bye.