Paul Ford wrote a great essay a few years ago about the "big empty American room" that forms the backdrop of so many YouTube videos. Each appearance of the mundane domestic setting where another YouTube user records a monologue or stunt is an unintended glimpse into one more standardized, suburban interior, together forming an endless parade collectively viewed by billions of eyeballs after the cursory tidying that would precede a small gathering. Unlike most familiar architectural patterns, these rooms weren't designed or built to be seen, at least not by anyone but friends and family (and probably not even by most of them). If we've physically been in such a room, and most of us have, we weren't meant to think about them or even notice them, but now, Ford observes, the "YouTube room" has become a trope of its own, one accessed via rectangular browser windows rather than front doors, foyers, and staircases.
#51: City of a Million Basements
#51: City of a Million Basements
#51: City of a Million Basements
Paul Ford wrote a great essay a few years ago about the "big empty American room" that forms the backdrop of so many YouTube videos. Each appearance of the mundane domestic setting where another YouTube user records a monologue or stunt is an unintended glimpse into one more standardized, suburban interior, together forming an endless parade collectively viewed by billions of eyeballs after the cursory tidying that would precede a small gathering. Unlike most familiar architectural patterns, these rooms weren't designed or built to be seen, at least not by anyone but friends and family (and probably not even by most of them). If we've physically been in such a room, and most of us have, we weren't meant to think about them or even notice them, but now, Ford observes, the "YouTube room" has become a trope of its own, one accessed via rectangular browser windows rather than front doors, foyers, and staircases.