My Favorite Things: PetitTube / Underviewed

PetitTube is the best thing ever happened to YouTube since Filthy Frank. The same can be said about Underviewed. Seriously, i don't remember another occasion when i had a binge moment like that. What is PetitTube? As it says on the tin - it's the least interesting videos of YouTube carefully packaged to you at random. Underviewed is a bit different - it is all about videos with generic titles.
Because every video deserves to be viewed!

PetitTube algoritm is flatline simple - it searches for videos with minimal amount of views, collects them to the database and then plays at random through the PetitTube page. You can't do much on PetitTube site aside from watching videos. The only other options you have is to click whether you liked or disliked the video. And that's about it. You can refresh the page to eternity and then to oblivion and then to infinity and beyond and get another unseen video that will be either weird, boring or pointless - but will definitely provide you with favorite thought fodder - sacramental "why am i doing this?" (cue "Security of the first world").  

Underviewed uses different method - it searches for videos with generic default titles from cameras and mobile devices. All those "GOPR34534.MP4" and "IMG_3524.MOV" and of course "VID 10203406 211994". What are the contents of such videos? Mostly random stuff uploaded for a one-off purpose - to share a moment with your friend or record something that is important for the job.

Both PetitTube and Underviewed deliver on unexpected and unseen. But that's not all they've got.

PetitTube and Underviewed are not only extremely effective as morbid curiousity time terminator. It is also invaluable engine for inspiration. At least for me. As an artist i'm always looking for something different. PetitTube and Underviewed gave me an opportunity to get something completely unpredictable and completely alien for me. This is very inspiring in a variety of ways. 

Here's how it works. There is a narrative exercise i was taught in university - it is called apophenic sketching or as i like to call it "Kint Method". As you remember - "The Usual Suspects" is built around a "anything works" AKA "bullshit" story that was made on the fly by Verbal Kint. Apophenic Sketching is essentially this. You get whole lotta random material and need to tie it all together to a certain degree of cohesiveness in any form it works best - it can be a raw-meat collage or squeaky-mean rewrite. It needs to comprehensible though - that's the rule. This exercise really helps to get a grasp on improvisational creativity - understand the ways you can connect, explain or describe things and make sequences of seemingly unrelated things according to a specific logic. It prepares you for a moment when you need to do the thing right here right now and you have nothing to back you up and so you go berserk without such stupid things as inspiration or productive working environment (because who needs this shit anyway? It is useful because such things happen on permanent basis. 

PetitTube and Underviewed are perfectly designed for apophenic sketching. You can see so many different things for no particular reason - you will unintentionally start to see some kind of pattern. For example, I once wrote a joke outline for a short film in Ukrainian Poetic Cinema style using only PetitTube. I've sent it to my film director friend and he actually thought it was for real and wanted to produce it. Even though it was basically a non-sequitir cutaway bish-bosh mambo. I've spent more time convincing him it was a joke than i spent writing that thing. Happens. On other occasion i just recapped several videos i watched on underserved and edited it into a poem. It was very popular with editors (don't tell anybody).

Anyway - if you need a thing that will keep your mind cautious and meandering - watch PetitTube and Underviewed. Because any video can give you an idea for something. Especially when you have no idea what it is.