Living Vicariously and Exploring From Home

While in the vast majority of these cases the videos pre-date Covid-19, clearly something about them has drawn people in, even those who may have scoffed at watching YouTubers or streamers before.

Boredom, free time, and the search for new content all play their part, but what if there’s something else that’s attracting us to this type of content?

What nearly all of them have in common is that they offer the viewer the chance to live vicariously, and to explore some inaccessible part of the world. The videos are often more personal and intimate than a regular TV show, too.

With that in mind, this blog is split into two-parts – living vicariously through the internet, and ‘exploring from home’.

Living vicariously through the internet

I’ll have what they’re having

Living vicariously through online videos is nothing new. The Hidden Brain podcast covered the topic back in February 2019. That offered a bleak view at times though, suggesting that as we watch more videos of people woodcarving or cooking, we feel guilty that we’re not putting time into learning these skills ourselves.

But 2019 was a different world. While many have made valiant efforts to learn new skills under Covid-19, there is full sympathy (from us at least) for those who haven’t. It’s a pandemic. We’re stressed, people are out of work, parents are having to homeschool, and so on. There often isn’t even time to feel bad about it.

Whatever the case, talk of vicarious living is up.