Merry Mediocrity-mas.

You know, maybe I just got bored of the Youtubers who probably still do a lot for Christmas in their videos (Shaycarl, Charlies Trippy, etc).  And maybe those of you who still watch those channels can fill me in on whether they did anything worthwhile.  But it seemed that this year's videos (at least, what I still subscribe to) were a bit mediocre to me.  I kinda expected more from Wheezy Waiter, Arturo Trejo, Meekakitty/Nanalew, etc.  And maybe some are still coming, but some folks didn't really even post anything!

Despite all my regular nitpicking, I have to admit that the Christmas Eve + Day vlogs of Katers weren't bad.  Though I do want to point out that, again, they kept the majority of the gifts a secret.  I think last year they said that it's because they want to keep some moments for themselves.  And to some degree, sure, I get it, that's fine.  But at the same time, one of the biggest gifts she wanted Cory to open was the robe, and she filmed that.  The cynic in me pretty much thinks that they don't open presents on camera because she doesn't want people to see how much they spent on gifts.  I think that's partially why she doesn't film her mail much anymore, too.

There's one other Katers-related thing I wanted to say, particularly after just watching the most recent vlog: Kate is turning into one of "those people."  You know, the kind who takes their dog into stores, and restaurants.  Come on, people eat their food in there, they don't want hairy animals being carried around.  That's why the FDA has actual rules against animals (except service animals) being allowed into restaurants, rules which most states adopt into their local health ordinances.  Plus, a lot of people out there are allergic to dogs, and I just think it's rude to shove one in their faces in places where they wouldn't normally expect to have to deal with one.  People will excuse service animals, but I think they would be pretty aggravated with you if they started having allergy troubles while trying to eat.  If you're going to drag the dog along with you everywhere, then send Cory in to order and you wait outside, or vice versa.  Better yet, leave the thing at home.  It's not a human baby for crying out loud, it'll be fine.

Cory put up a couple of Christmas videos on SMP Films, but they pretty much fit into the mediocre category I've been talking about.  The first one with the alien wasn't really funny to me, nor was it very original.  Think about it; how many times have you seen videos where there's an alien and completely made-up words are used to carry out a particular situation?  The second one with Josh was okay I guess.  It didn't turn out quite as I expected, which made it make a little less sense, but whatever. 

And actually, speaking of Cory, somebody pointed out something to me in a comment which I never even realized: 36 seconds is how long a Keek video is.  That's what this 36-Second Films is all about!  It makes total sense now.  I don't know how I missed that, even.  But I swear to you, eventually we're going to find out that Cory is getting paid or sponsored somehow by Keek, because those two have been pushing that damn site worse than a used car salesman.  It's not even a fad, because it's a stupid idea to begin with.  You can't combine Youtube and Twitter and get anything good, because Twitter is already annoying enough.  Who wants message size limits anymore?  Even Facebook realized how stupid that was.  If I want to deal with that shit I'll use SMS rather than filling the web with abbreviated words and sentences.

Meanwhile, I did think that the Christmas episode of Prank vs Prank was funny.  Lately I think the pranks have gone way over the top, and really just weren't funny at all.  Between Jeana intentionally dancing dirty with that guy to make Jesse mad, or Jesse putting hot pepper extract rated at 2,000,000 scoville into Jeana's food despite the warning label, along with various other recent pranks, I was pretty much starting to get tired of the channel.  Seriously, he might as well have sprayed pepper spray in her mouth, because it's the same scoville rating.  And worse yet, he wasn't even prepared to help her when she panicked.  But anyhow, no, the Christmas prank wasn't the most original, but it was still funny to me, and got back more to their roots rather than this crazy over-the-top stuff they've done lately.  They've had some pretty funny pranks in the past, and most of them were really pretty simple, so I hope they head back towards what made them popular to begin with.

One of the more entertaining Christmas vlogs though was somebody who I doubt anyone reading this would have ever heard of.  He's one of the people who used to be a Dave's Farm regular, but has distanced himself after the most recent news.  He goes by the name CrazyBritishBloke, and is a daily vlogger from Canada.  He pretty much starts out the day responding to comments and videos, then goes out and films things he encounters while working or helping out friends, and usually finishes up the day with his family and showing what they're going to have for dinner (along with how to make it sometimes).  Most of the people associated with Dave's Farm are essentially the Canadian equivalent to American rednecks of the south, though Bloke is a bit different.  I think the biggest reason I still keep up with his vlogs (even if I skip through parts) is because he's a pretty positive guy.  He always seems to encourage people or point out the bright side of a situation.  He's got a sense of humor, always laughing about something.  And he's always been rather impartial despite any of the drama that went on between other Dave's Farm regulars.  But anyhow, point being, his Christmas vlog was good if you ask me.  He and his family went to visit other family, and they all had an entertaining Secret Santa exchange.  I'm sure that his channel wouldn't appeal to everyone, but given that I was entertained more by that than most of the other holiday videos so far, I thought it was worth giving some credit to.

There may still be some other holiday videos and vlogs that pop up, so we'll have to see how they compare.  But so far, it just hasn't seemed like a very merry time on the Youtubes!