Psychologist Tom Guarriello explains why he makes YouTube videos: pure fun, access to a diverse community like New York City, and creative freedom with editing and music. He's also built real friendships with viewers and creators he's never met in person.
So Bohem, you ask the, um, the why question, which is always an interesting question for me because, you know, I'm a psychologist and so I don't do psychotherapy kind of psychology anymore, but I'm still a psychologist. So that means I'm still always thinking about motivation and why people do things, of course, and how to help people to think about doing things differently. And so the question of why is always intriguing to me because it's It's always a fiction, you know. We always tell ourselves stories about why we do things. I made a video back in September about why we do this, why I do this, and, you know, basically 2 months now in plus into making— I think this is like my 61st video. The simplest reason that I can give, and you know, the most honest reason I can come up with, is that I just enjoy it. I enjoy it. I enjoy making videos. I made a video earlier this evening, a response to Paper Lilies, which by the way, I used a clip from your video, this video that I'm responding to, in that video. And I was just laughing, and I said to my wife, she was watching me edit it, and I said, you know, this is just so much damn fun. I can't get over how much damn fun this is. To do this. So that's the first reason I think why I'm here, is that it's just a lot of fun and I enjoy it a lot. The second thing that comes to mind is that I really enjoy the people that I see here. I mean, the whole array, the whole— somebody earlier, Coral Gardens, or one of my— somebody made a comment on some video about how This is like New York City. I'm a New Yorker, born and raised in New York City, and, uh, Coral Garden, I think, is also a New Yorker, and she was making the comment that, like, YouTube is like New York City in that everything is here. You know, you come to New York, we got everything. We got it all. We got every conceivable kind of person right here. Ride the subway, stand on a street corner, spend a day or two in New York City, you will see everything. You'll see everything. And spend a day or two on YouTube, you will see everything. And so if you're interested in people and if you like, if you really like people, I mean, you know, the Dispatcher, Greg Solomon, Sut Steve, Kimberly, you know, Everybody. There's everything here. There's everybody here. People from all over the world. People from all ages. People from all backgrounds. We're, you know, we got everybody here. You don't get to be with everybody. It's one of the reasons why my wife and I enjoy going to Las Vegas. We started going to Las Vegas a few years ago. Now it's more than a few years ago. We started going to Las Vegas because you stand around a craps table in Vegas and everybody's there. You never know who you're gonna be elbows next to elbows with. You never know who you're gonna end up talking with, and it's just intriguing to me because, you know, you live a professional life, you live a life— most of us live lives in these little ghettos, these little social ghettos that we live in that we don't normally get to meet people who are different from ourselves. So here, pfft, You can't help but meet people different from yourself because we're all over the place. So that's the second reason why, for me, because it's, um, uh, you get to see everybody. And the third, and a third reason, I could probably go on, I can always go on, but a third reason is one that you hit on in your videos, which is the creative opportunity that, that this provides. I mean, um, I, I've been lucky enough in my career to be involved in some really creative kind of enterprises and got to to be involved in some video creativity with some good friends of mine, who— a couple of whom watch these videos, uh, and we got to do some really creative things together. But, you know, I don't get to do that every day. I didn't get to do that every day until I had the opportunity to, to do this and to make videos here and to, as you say, play with editing, play with music, play with stuff that just is one of those great outlets that lets you push yourself and learn new things. So there's a lot of reasons for being here, and those are 3 reasons for me. One more being this community business and getting to really know some people really well. And becoming, establishing, forming relationships. There was somebody who commented on a video earlier, I think commented on one of Arjun's videos, saying, you know, she wasn't so sure about this community business and then went on to talk about the people who she was connected with. And so, you know, I think that's a big piece of this, is that, you know, I'm starting to form friendships with people that you know, I obviously have never met. But so I think that's kind of why I tune in and why I'm probably going to keep tuning in. Thanks, Bobby. Good question, man. Take it easy.
