YouTube Rabbit Holes You Can't Stop Watching

It's 10pm and you decide to watch a Tasty video to unwind. One more turns into one more turns into one more and before you know it, going to bed on time has turned into one of those late nights where you binge watch YouTube. It's happened to enough of us to not feel bad about it; but not enough of us that there are sherpas ready and willing to take us on YouTube excursions into the world of Finger Family Songs, conspiracy theories, or competitive cup stacking. We've got what you need! "Come with us if you want to watch YouTube Videos!"

Shreds are videos of popular songs synched with awful renditions of those songs. Of course it's silly, when lines like, "She got a booty like a Cadillac but I can send you into overdrive," come out of Jessie J's mouth sounding like Don Knotts doing karaoke, but shreds work on everything, including Nickleback's "Photograph," The Backstreet Boy's "I Want it That Way," and ABBA's "Mamma Mia." The anticipation builds every time your expectations are upended by the shred's comedic choices. It's one of the top-notch YouTube rabbit holes for sure!

I have so many questions! Why does the Kurt Russel looking guy at the beginning start off by negging himself?! How did no one tell that other guy that dressing up like a Viking would be an awful idea?! How is Mike confident enough to say, "If you're sitting there watching this tape smoking your cigarette you can fast forward because I don't smoke and I don't like people who do smoke." This is the 80s; there was a lot of smokers! One guy says, "Hi mom," and just laughs! Ack ack ack! Maybe these people should check out some dating books for guys because I'm seriously cringing. There are so many dating videos that this is one of the YouTube rabbit holes that might actually stretch back all the way to the 80s.

When James Bridle's Something is wrong on the internet came out I was introduced to the world of Finger Family songs. I WAS FILLED WITH SO MUCH HATE! All of these songs are sung to the tune of "This Old Man" and are about what fingers are called. THEY ARE SO IRRITATING!

There's no such thing as a"daddy finger"! You taught your kid that phrase! And if someone asks you what your name is, you don't say, "Ben, I am." THAT'S CRAZY! And this child needs entertainment moments after waking? Go brush your teeth, little girl! And, no, a pinky is not called a "baby finger"! I AM ENRAGED; I F@$%ING HATE THIS!

There's also live action versions of finger family videos like the Batman Finger Family Songwhere people dress up in all sorts of costumes and just keep singing the song on loop. "Harley Quinn. Harley Quinn, where are you? Here I am; here I am. How do you do?" I DO AWFUL BECAUSE YOU ARE DRIVING ME INSANE! And yet this is one of the YouTube rabbit holes I've fallen furthest down all because of how much I hate these videos.

I love Tasty videos! And not even when I'm hungry. Sometimes I watch a few of these to relax before going to bed. I've even ended up falling asleep late because I ended up at the bottom of one of these. It's just so satisfying and engrossing to watch food get prepared quickly. You can even learn how to make some really interesting food, like vegetable broth for pho. And then I get to imagine eating that food. Sometimes imagining eating food is as good as eating it! You know what? Even as I wrote that sentence I was thinking, "No it's not. Eating food is way better than imagining it!"

No no no no no no no. I made the mistake of watching one of these after hearing so many people rave. It filled me with so much existential dread that I can recall it even right now. Dr. Sandra Lee, Dr. Pimple Popper herself, has had over a billion peepers peep at her videos. But she won't get anymore peeps out of me because pimple popping is one of those YouTube rabbit holes I'll never fall down. Quick, give me the video for Army of Lovers' "Crucified" to clean my pallet!

ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It's the term used to designate those videos where someone makes quiet noises like whispering, crinkling, or slowly turning the pages of a book with the intention of generating low grade euphoria on the part of the viewer. The videos can be relaxing and you can even have them playing on repeat while at work just like you would with music.

ASMR is not one of those YouTube rabbit holes I would fall down because I just don't have the patience for quiet noises. I wear earplugs to sleep, and sometimes even when out and about. If someone leaned in to make me feel like I was receiving a spa treatment I would be startled and would scream, "JESUS CHRIST WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

Yet these videos really work for some people. People even make lists of their favorite ASMR artists who get millions of views. That's millions of people loving the sound of someone leaning in to whisper to them about q-tips! Meanwhile, I'll just be listening to Q-Tip.

Acting Class Sarantos is a channel that belongs to Ted Sarantos, an acting teacher from Oak Park, IL. He's got dozens of videos, some older then nine years old, wherein the talent ranges from surprisingly compelling to compellingly surprising.

Take the improvised emotional roller coaster I Want a Divorce (Man with Arm Around Wife). A man with a very animated face is flatly told by his wife that she wants a divorce. All he does is laugh like he's Jack Nicholson's Joker. The scene becomes about how the man uses laughter and humor to deflect from connecting emotionally.

Forced to be emotionally vulnerable, the man recalls an episode of Ponderosa (he means Bonanza) and, for whatever reason, the woman can't help but smile as if a much funnier, more interesting story is about to be told than the retelling of an episode from a 30+-year-old show. The man goes on to tell a story of how Paw Cartwright never told his cook Hop Sing how much he means to him. "You're like my shadow in the afternoon. When I'm hungry and my shadow's long you're there right behind me taking care of me. And, you know what? I never thanked my shadow."

With seconds to go you remember that the husband's arm has been around his wife this whole uncomfortable time! "What's going to happen?!" you wonder, and then a smile creeps across the wife's face. Did that that monologue just save their 15+ year marriage?!

The ActingClassSarantos channel is full of equally bizarre and compelling videos, includingThe Old Man and his Ducks, a super serious presentation of a joke from The Simpsons paired with a monologist who just keeps turning his head throughout the video. One of the most rewarding YouTube rabbit holes around.

Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that basically posits that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, the former chairman of her 2016 Presidential Campaign, run a pedophile sex ring out of the basement of Comet Ping-Pong Pizza in DC. As proof, Pizzagate adherents cite the prevalence of the phrase "cheese pizza" in the Podesta emails, which is 4Chan code for "child pornography."

Most people don't use 4Chan and, as a result, don't know that cheese pizza means "child pornography" on certain corners of the web. This is bit of minutia is crucial because otherwise, someone has inferred a connection to child pornography in a benign conversation about pizza. But as the name "Pizzagate is Real and Hostel 2 Isn't Fiction" suggests, this rabbit hole goes a long way down!

When it comes to Pizzagate you might fall far enough that you might even end up watching A Conspiracy of Silence, a "banned" Discovery Channel documentary from 1994 that was actually just never aired because it was so poorly researched. The doc even features the creepy interstitial synth music from Twin Peaks! That's just what happens when you're watching conspiracy theory videos on YouTube. Others include Flat Earthers, 9/11 Truthers, Obama Birthers, White Genocide, the Petrodollar, and many more.

I don't want to go down one of those YouTube rabbit holes of people failing; I want to go down a YouTube rabbit hole of people winning! Especially if it's in something I haven't even considered someone winning in. Enter: competitive cup stacking.

What's great about cup stacking is that it's not great at all! Even the first world record holder featured on "The Evolution of Sport Stacking World Records" video has an audience of 6 people. That it's in a near-empty gymnasium really drives the point home that this doesn't matter to anyone outside of the people it really matters to. And yet it totally matters to many people; that's why there are so many videos about cup stacking getting hundreds of thousands and at times millions of views!

Also, along the way, I stumbled upon this "People Punching Boxing Machine" that was pretty satisfying! It's just so contagious to see people get happy to set a high score!

What began as a viewing of a documentary called "How to Sell a Garfield Collection" led me down one of the many YouTube rabbit holes of unboxing fast food toys. Generally, I hate unboxing videos. I do not care at all. But watching FastFoodToyReviews open the packaging of the uber colorful McDonalds treats is just too much for me to resist. I also love that so many of the videos start with the host saying, "What's going on everybody?!" in different ways.

FastFoodToyReviews has over 825,000 subscribers and his most popular videos have millions of views. At least one of those viewers has been hypnotized by the videos into being a Manchurian candidate. They're just waiting for someone to call them and whisper, "Garfield," into their ears, sending them on a mission to destabilize the western world. Who's getting that call? Trump! COULD YOU EVEN TELL THE DIFFERENCE?!