YouTube 2022 Edition: Life

This month's topic is on "Life". A bit generic as it is focusing on anything connecting with life or specific lives. It'll make sense when you watch the videos and you'll get to see a bit of a wider range of videos and channels than last month. There are no double creators on this list but it'll also be a much shorter list.

For those new to this, every year we collect our top favorite youtube videos and then curate them by theme. In the following year, we share which videos we have collected and why they made it on our list. We have been doing this for a couple of years so don't forget to check out our other lists!

His fabulous studio apartment is hidden inside a work truck!

https://youtu.be/py4zetCEYzA

This truck has been well put together and actually looks like something John and I would love to live in while traveling the country. Except for our hoarding/crafting obsessions that would fill this up quickly... On top of that Sherlock would have some issues being cramped in such a small space. But we both LOVE this idea and LOVE the creativity of it all. We frequently see videos of others and their versions of what they built and one day we hope to do the same! This is a project we are really wanting to try for ourselves when we have a house we can park this while we work on it. Excellently done and really excites us to try it for ourselves! Would you travel around with this?

TEMPONAUT Top 10 Timelapses 2021

https://youtu.be/Sw60Ehm1b5c

We love videos observing nature and time. Especially seeing in increased speed of the world moving around us that we barely take notice of. Not only do the substances go through their own changes, but you also get to see how nature (both the ants and the air around) affects things. Very fascinating to watch and highly recommend watching at least one of the items going through it's timelapse!

The Dark Reality of Drake & Josh (They Were Never Friends)

https://youtu.be/IvWT8zQ-Otc

This video still shocks me. Not sure if you were from this era of TV shows but Drake and Josh was quite a popular show back in the early 2000s. Michelle only watched about one episode ever and at least knew who they were. She loved the Disney channel back then but just never cared to watch their show. Since they were that channel's stars, they'd pop in acting like their characters in front of audiences. She didn't think twice about them. To watch this video last year and see that the whole friendship that the show was based on and their after-show 'friendship' was all a lie. That seemed....shocking. To hear the drama going on behind the scenes, we can see how the split formed and grew. If you have NO idea who these two are, then no need to watch. But if you knew of the show, this might be a fun little 'documentary' on the two actors.

Going into two that survived being child actors->>

How Zack & Cody Escaped from Disney.. (They Are Never Coming Back)

https://youtu.be/Zp7fSO5j2X8

We love this show. We enjoy the twins and are frequently impressed at their acting skills (and the rest of the cast really). This show has been our stable staple for the past couple of months now. When feeling anxious or emotionally unstable, we pop an episode up and let it play in the background. We HEAVILY ride the familiarity of the show and it's predictability to help stabilize ourselves, although there are some episodes that have certain lessons that are personally painful for us to watch so we have to be careful about what kind of mindset we are in if we watch it or not. We have gone through all three seasons probably 20 times now, these are not short seasons as season 2 has 39 episodes itself. We didn't care too much for the Suite Life on Deck (Sequel to this show) as the changing cast and their growing older shifted the whole dynamic of the show and teenage years were NOT fun for either of us.

We highly recommend this video. As many of you may know, quite a few Disney stars grew up and then started going crazy. Like Kyle Massey from That's So Raven, Shia Le Beouf from Even Stevens, Miley Cyrus from Hannah Montana, Demi Lavato from...well some other show. But you get the gist, right? Quite a few of them got corrupted by Hollywood fame. We want to heavily commend the twin's parents for pushing them to have other interests outside of acting. They almost grow up exactly who you think they would be based on the show, which makes us think a lot of their acting was based on how they actually acted and treated each other/others off-set. The humor still hits, the acting is still spot on, the outfits are a bit hit-and-miss but definitely screams of that era. We love this show so much and hope others will enjoy it too. A great family friendly fun show to grow up with. <3

After lying flat, a new trend among China's youth is to “let it rot (bai lan)” which worries CCP

https://youtu.be/wgl-45gmoDE

This was a shocking revelation of how the young are in China. We watch a LOT of China Insights and China Insider to see how the people are fairing. I believe we had started watching more and more of what was going on internally since 2020. Since then, we have mourned for the people suffering and seen how much their government has put them through. The young had adopted a lifestyle where they only work enough to pay their bills and don't put any money towards themselves for enjoyable activities or splurging on special meals. Bare minimum just to survive. John and I see ourselves doing this frequently. One advantage we have in America is that we are blessed with the free resources being thrown out daily so we don't have to spend as much to obtain what we need. But we still feel this and watch as their society adapts to the financial pressures until the individuals can't adapt anymore.

Would highly recommend watching this video if you are interested in how other countries are fairing. Their other videos on the channel have been documenting the struggles and possible full collapse of China, starting from policies put in place decades ago. We get to see the effects. Michelle is highly fascinated and appalled by the effects of the 'one-child policy' as her little sister would've been killed because of this. Luckily she was adopted by Michelle's parents, however when we see a lot of things happening in China it is a bit more personal.

Roofman: The Escaped Criminal Who Lived Inside A Toy Store

https://youtu.be/uqTMEjoJkLQ

This....this is just a wild story from start to finish. He was both excellently skilled and oddly kind, but also doing things completely illegally. There are just some people who are unique characters that make us surprised why THEY aren't made into some movie while we keep getting carbon copies of overused characters. Real people have REAL stories that are amazingly complex and fascinating. This is one video we highly recommend watching.

The Lost Goosebumps Books

https://youtu.be/nTXG1qDbOtA

So Michelle and John never read Goosebumps though they did grow up seeing tons of others reading it. Horror was not a topic Michelle could read without it constantly haunting her for weeks on end. So just having the view of "it exists and to this extent from personal observations" is all she knows of. Though we both were aware that there were a lot of books....we didn't actually realize HOW MANY there were. This man can WRITE. Yes, he backed away a little near the end, but the amount of books he did write was shocking. If you have any inkling about what Goosebumps books are, then highly recommend watching this.

Draw My Life - Markiplier

https://youtu.be/6Sl-1X58ObY

This video is more for those who know who Markiplier is or at least of his existence. We have been watching him for a few years now and did not know of his origin story. To be fair though, during his first almost 10 years of YouTube we couldn't stand him. His constant yelling and repetitive comments sometimes were too grating for us, we are quite glad he has grown out of that (mostly) to where we can watch more than half of what he puts out. We aren't horror gamers or really enjoy that genre at all but we do appreciate the art of games and the techniques used to convey horror aspects.

29 Clever Ways to Use Tension Rods｜Creative Storage Ideas to Solve Your Small-Space Problems

https://youtu.be/q7JitWDHJiU

Michelle loved tension rods before but the ideas this place came up with were exciting! We love storage and the ability to organize and fit more in the same amount of space. We oddly enough don't have many of these areas to use these ideas but will hold onto it when we move to our next place, it could come in handy! This one has subtitles but the visual is pretty straightforward where you don't need to understand the language.

How many parts can you take off a car?

https://youtu.be/rfkMTg4Bh0k

A wild take on the reality of laws. John and I had a blast watching this one as it IS a valid question, how little of a car can you legally drive? Watch as a car is cut down to a bare skeleton and driven around by a maniac for your entertainment

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This list was fun. A lot of different takes and directions based on 'Life'. I think you can see how all of these fit the list right? I mean yeah some could've gone on other lists but they seemed more to fit here right? right? Well too bad. xp we did it anyway.

Hope you enjoyed our selection. Which of these videos taught you something interesting? Will you be able to do something with that information? Every day is a learning experience and you should never stop looking at learning something NEW!

Hope to see you on the next list! This month's is short but next month will be focused on "Learning!" with three parts! So stay tuned for that~