Lifestyle
Who has time to watch a 4-hour YouTube video? Millions of us, it turns out
![Who has time to watch a 4-hour YouTube video? Millions of us, it turns out](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3496x1967+0+516/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1f%2F1e%2Fd4b5a8694891b26ff4a639b79fff%2Fgettyimages-3396998.jpg)
The timesinks, they are a changin’. Above, a woman checks alarm clocks in a London clock factory in 1946.
Eric Harlow/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Eric Harlow/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
This week, as YouTuber Jenny Nicholson’s review/eulogy for the shuttered Disney Star Wars hotel started making the rounds, I was curious. I’d of course heard about the “immersive experience” officially called Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, and here was someone who’d actually experienced the, um, experience. But then I saw the video’s running time – four hours and five minutes! – and I closed the tab faster than I do whenever the algorithm wants to show me some dumbass trying to pick up a cobra.
Who has the kind of time, I wondered, to sit around and watch YouTube for half the damn workday? In this, the era of TikTok? And Reels? And in what is, we have all been repeatedly assured, a time of shrinking attention spans?
In the case of Nicholson’s Starcruiser video, millions and millions of people have the time, it turns out. And she’s not alone: Over the past few years, you may have noticed YouTube suggesting videos to you so long they make Lawrence of Arabia seem downright punchy.
The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel
YouTube
In my feed, most of these take the form of disquietingly deep – and often critical – dives into various aspects of nerdy pop culture. “That internet D&D show we all used to love sucks now, and here’s three hours worth of proof!” “That new movie that everyone loves sucks, and here’s 63 reasons why!” “Here’s a recap of that series no one but you and me is watching, and the 43 glaring errors in continuity it overlooked!”
It’s not hard to understand why this is happening. Nerds gonna nerd, after all. We love what we love, and we’re prepared to corner you at a party, maybe over by the onion dip, and talk to you (OK: at you) about our every concern with it. At considerable length. (Why, yes, we do notice you gazing imploringly over our shoulders for someone, anyone, to rescue you; we just don’t care, because the really interesting thing about Buffy Season 4 that most people overlook is …..) And of course the YouTube monetization model prizes every precious minute it gets to spend with those delicious eyeballs of yours. Passion + Profit-Seeking is a powerful motivator; these videos will keep coming.
![Yes, Apple's new iPad ad is ugly and crushing, but art can't be flattened](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/05/09/crush_sq-520ad27e545658be4a10d6484b4c4603ecea1393.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
Or, if you truly believe in the marketplace of ideas, maybe they won’t. After all, most of these long-haul grievance videos aren’t worth anywhere near the time commitment they demand, and spending so many hours watching such sustained negativity leaves you feeling coated in a kind of psychic grime, a residue of greasy cynicism. I should note that Nicholson’s Starcruiser video is a glaring exception – she’s passionate, yes, but admirably clear-eyed about that passion. She makes her points (her many, many, many points) with equanimity and humor, and she’s got the literal receipts. She’s also quick to praise those aspects of the experience worth praising, and smartly drills down on the question of value-for-money.
But there’s no denying that a shift is happening. TikTok itself – that online smithy wherein memes get forged and hammered – is launching longer videos, and Mr. Beast, arguably the quintessential YouTuber, recently started pumping out longer videos based, he says, on viewer demand.
Now, me? I’m so old I remember thinking a 13-minute music video was downright audacious. And I’ll admit, I didn’t actually watch the Starcruiser video, I listened to it while driving to and from the city for a movie screening. But I do watch several actual-play D&D YouTube shows, which sometimes stretch past the four-hour mark. And back in the early aughts I’d happily sink endless hours into reading smart, well-written TV recaps that might as well have been novellas. Is there any substantive difference?
But I choose to be heartened by the rise of long-form video. Or more specifically: By the willingness of people to watch a single video for hours on end. It suggests that quality of work continues to matter – you do, after all, still have to earn all those extra minutes of our attention. And in a culture so quick to blame a raft of societal ills on shrinking attention spans, it offers a surprising and intriguing counter-narrative to the experts who cite audience data to dictate precisely how long a YouTube video, or a web article, or a podcast episode “should” be.
Turns out the answer isn’t quantitative, but qualitative – not precise length, but personal value.
This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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Lifestyle
The Olsen Twins Go to the Beach
![The Olsen Twins Go to the Beach](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/21/multimedia/21THE-ROW-HAMPTONS-01-hcpj/21THE-ROW-HAMPTONS-01-hcpj-facebookJumbo.jpg)
There was a Cybertruck parked on Main Street in East Hampton, outside the Altuzarra store. It was a Sunday afternoon in June, and traffic stalled for a moment. Even the rich are not immune to rubbernecking a brutalist behemoth.
The monster truck marked the end of an avenue of monograms — the island’s main luxury shopping drag, with $850 raffia handbags and $15,000 decorative surfboards. You know their names: Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Lululemon.
Two and a half miles down this same street, however, quaintness emerged. East Hampton turned into Amagansett, and that flashy boutique strip became a town square with white wood-paneled cottages. There was a shoe store called Brunch, a children’s clothing chain called Pink Chicken, a jewelry and gift shop called Love Adorned. A Cybertruck here would read as a declaration of war.
It was near these cottages that the Row, a brand founded in 2006 by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, quietly opened a store on Memorial Day weekend.
Quietly is how the Row tends to operate. Not only in its clothing — often described as “quiet luxury,” a term used to describe very expensive basics — but also in its communication.
The founders rarely give interviews, advertise or otherwise promote their line. While the Row did announce its Amagansett opening on Instagram, that account is more outwardly devoted to sharing modern art than to moving product. In February, the brand caused a stir at Paris Fashion Week by asking its runway show attendees to “refrain from capturing or sharing any content during your experience” — which is, for many, the primary reason for attending a fashion show. The audience was encouraged to write down thoughts instead.
Somehow this stance works. In an industry overrun by influencers, the Row’s silence is stark. Monasticism is chic. There is an impression of exclusivity and taste, buoyed by the extreme prices. One of the Row’s most popular items, the Margaux bag, ranges in price from $3,490 to $6,810, depending on size and material. It is timeless and ladylike, the kind of purse that might remind Kendall Jenner of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The Row’s stores also have a reputation for being intimidating at times, even among seasoned high-end shoppers.
One loyal Row customer told me she felt like “peasantry” in the Los Angeles store, which houses an untouchable swimming pool. At the store in Manhattan — a townhouse with a limestone spiral staircase — “there is one guy who works there that all my friends are afraid of, who radiates a very ‘you can’t sit here’ vibe,” said Jess Graves, the writer of a shopping newsletter called The Love List, “even to girls I know who walk in wearing the brand head to toe.”
The Amagansett shop is different. It operates out of a house with roots in the 19th century, formerly occupied by Tiina the Store, the Hamptons’ Gap for billionaires. (Tiina stocked the Row.)
It has a porch and a screen door and a woven beige carpet. The fitting rooms are harshly lit behind denim patchwork curtains. (By contrast, the spacious wood-floored dressing rooms at the Upper East Side store, where I recently tried on a $1,550 white cotton poplin tent dress that made me look, tragically, like a hospital patient, have soft lighting and softer robes.)
There is no statement artwork in Amagansett, unlike the London store, where an oval light installation by James Turrell greets visitors at the entrance. The vintage furniture is noteworthy — there’s a black chaise shaped like a person from the 1970s by Olivier Mourgue Bouloum and a white painted wooden lounge chair from the 1930s by Robert Mallet-Stevens. But the décor, with its Asian and African influences, is not the point.
The point of the store is the large selection of jewelry, home wares, snacks and skin care by more than 20 brands and artisans that are not the Row. Shampoo from Florence. Beaded necklaces from Greece. A mother-of-pearl caviar set. A bronze lighter carved to resemble tree bark. A packet of dried mango and a jar of raw almonds. Vintage glass candlesticks that can be purchased only in a set of a dozen for $16,000.
There are racks of ready-to-wear clothes made by the Row, of course, the selection tailored to this beach town: bike shorts ($1,050), denim shirts (also $1,050), ribbed tank tops ($670), sleeveless silk maxi-dresses ($1,890). Ms. Graves bought herself a raffia bag here earlier in the season. (“It felt very appropriate while I’m out here this summer,” she said.)
But the Row confirmed that the Amagansett store is its first attempt at a “local” store concept. What this presumably means is a space that is more relaxed, filled with objects that complement the brand’s vision of itself, staffed by sales associates who do not scare people away but warmly help shoppers track down sold-out jelly flats. Not that the Row’s fans are easily scared away: Even those who are intimidated don’t stay away for long, these masochists for cream-colored cashmere.
In retrospect, the popular jelly shoes, along with the beach towels that models wore as scarves on the Row’s runway in September, may have been a sign that the brand was loosening up — that brightness and humor were coming to this austere world. (Its most recent look book showed a silky camisole dress layered over pants, Y2K-style.)
A British client of the Row visiting the Amagansett store marveled at the vibe shift. Where was the icy indifference? “I don’t think it would fly with the audience here,” she said.
Lifestyle
Sunny Hostin Calls J Lo Flying Commercial a Full 'Jenny From the Block' Move
![Sunny Hostin Calls J Lo Flying Commercial a Full 'Jenny From the Block' Move](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/9e/16by9/2024/06/25/9e92fa1ffd79499487a1b299fede836f_xl.jpg)
TMZ.com
Sunny Hostin says it’s humanizing to see Jennifer Lopez flying commercial, and a sure sign she can still be a humble girl from the Bronx … even though she’s a world away from “the block.”
We got Sunny Tuesday outside ABC Studios in NYC, where our photog asked her about the images we got of J Lo sitting in a window seat on an Air France flight from Italy to France. Now, she was flying business class, but it’s still a far cry from her usual private jet lifestyle.
Sunny says the commercial air travel makes Jennifer more like a woman of the people … and she likes the fact the singer/actress/dancer can still fly among the normies, despite all her fame and fortune.
In other words, Sunny — who herself is from the Boogie Down Bronx — says J Lo is still comfortable in her “Jenny from the Block” persona … and she’s glad the singer/actress isn’t forgetting her roots.
TMZ.com
6/24/24
While we’ve seen lots of celebs fly coach over the years — Sunny says she still does too — it’s still the exception to the rule … especially for an A-lister like J Lo.
Some fans might see this as Jennifer trying to save a buck as she and Ben Affleck appear to be headed toward a divorce, but Sunny says it’s deeper than that.
Sounds like a Bronx thing, and Sunny would know!
Lifestyle
Can't stop the (classical) music : It's Been a Minute
![Can't stop the (classical) music : It's Been a Minute](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/06/24/untitled-design-23-_wide-00b60afa133bd36aeef2bfb358e46d92eaf2025d.jpg?s=1400&c=100&f=jpeg)
Johann Sebastian Bach and Nina Simone
Hulton Archive/Getty Images,
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Hulton Archive/Getty Images,
Johann Sebastian Bach and Nina Simone
Hulton Archive/Getty Images,
It’s Black Music month! This week, Host Brittany Luse invites Howard University professor and trombonist Myles Blakemore to talk about how classical music influenced some of our favorite musicians. They look at how the counterpoint technique of Johann Sebastian Bach may have inspired Nina Simone, and how a love of Genuine can turn into a career in classical music.
Want to be featured on IBAM? Record a voice memo responding to Brittany’s question at the end of the episode and send it to ibam@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Jessica Placzek and Sara Sarasohn. Engineering support came from Patrick Murray. We had factchecking help from Ayda Pourrasad. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
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