It all started with guitar. I play guitar, but I’ve never given much thought to how it works, how it’s put together, beyond knowing how to change strings and tune it. Then one day, I gave it some thought and started watching videos that luthiers posted on YouTube; This inevitably led me from guitar building to guitar repair, which in turn led to the algorithm showing me videos of many other things being done. repaired. Such is free association in the age of late capitalism.

But I once saw the rehab of Awesome Restoration. Furry little bear riding a wind-up scooter This included building a small wooden chair for the bear to sit on while the scooter was dismantled, repaired, repainted and reassembled; There was no turning back.

I’m late to this party. “Restoration video” is emerging as a well-established genre, I think, with hundreds of dedicated channels, each with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers. You may be familiar with the “Repair Shop” (BritBox), but (Many episodes available on YouTube)A UK series in production since 2017 in which guests bring wounded family heirlooms and sentimental keepsakes to a cabin in the woods to be rejuvenated by expert craftsmen. Judi Dench He brought a pocket watch, and King Charles brought a vase. These channels from all over the world are like that but they lack emotional stories.

That’s not why I’m interested in restorations, but as a bonus, they provide a great distraction during this time of uncertainty. The fact that they have sedative properties does not go unnoticed by the manufacturers; Many clips come with ASMR in the title, referencing the brand of audiovisual content that aims to relax the listener/viewer. And in an era when you can always fool some people, these videos provide solid documentary evidence of expertise, proficiency and fine motor skills.

They follow a three-act narrative that leans towards a happy ending. Something begins with disrepair, chaos, and bad shape. A hero comes armed with knowledge and skill to get to the root of the problem. In the end, things regain their health, return to their former state, and perhaps become something better. There is drama, there may also be comedy. It’s even a love story of sorts if you want to personalize a toy car, guitar or pocket watch. If the plot is more or less the same, the details are always different; It is said that the devil is in the details, but (as Mies van der Rohe said) so is God.

Items to be repaired include old toys and games, mechanical money banks, manually operated coffee grinders (most restorers seem to have done one of these) locks, furniture, pinball machines, gumball machines, espresso machines, typewriters, pencil sharpeners, cash registers, leather goods, works of art, knives, guns, shoes, and all manner of gadgets and gizmos from the pre-digital age. Some of the restorers are professionals, but many seem to engage in hobby, entertainment and satisfaction. They emerged from their basements, sheds and garages to achieve some form of stardom. Many have Patreons; Some sell goods.

But unlike the more mainstream celebrities who celebrate themselves on social media, most are relatively anonymous; Their identities are their creation. We see his hands like those of a magician performing a close-up spell, but we rarely see much more. Sometimes, like in the fascinating microscopic world of watch repair, it’s just fingertips.

The names of his channels are as follows: Restomaniac, Restorology, Restoration Station, Rusty Shades Restoration, Rescue and Restore, Old Things Never Die, Cool Again Restoration and Restorations That Aren’t Horrible (By “Dr. Beer”, who rates a different beer in each episode). Some clips contain narration. (At work Nekkid WatchmakerHe sounds a bit like Werner Herzog, tells a part trying to clean it: “The stains were like the tobacco-chewing bad guy’s teeth in a western movie.”) But most are happy with the sounds of scraping, cutting, sanding, drilling and hammering. Some provide captions, while others let the images speak for themselves.

Even if you’re not that kid who takes your toys apart to see how they’re made – and there’s a lot of ingenuity involved in building a toy. plastic “Star Wars” X-wing fighter – there’s vicarious pleasure in watching it get done, especially if you’re not the type of person who can put things back together. (I mean me.) I didn’t expect to be so involved in removing screws, opening tabs, reducing machines to their component parts, cleaning and painting, and fabricating new missing parts. This isn’t all that surprising, though: After all, we are animals that love before-and-after photos; Although in the restoration videos, there is a good before that comes before a bad before; The important thing is to return to that original state and move forward by doing so.

It’s true that the success of the genre has meant that there are fake restoration videos whose creators contaminate an object in order to clean it, thereby capturing some of the money to be made from the YouTube economy. In fact, there are enough of them and they are a source of inspiration. subgenre of videos He devoted himself to calling them. However, a little common sense will distinguish genuine articles from insincere ones. (Any video that begins with someone finding a dirty, old camera or Game Boy console in a garbage pile should not be trusted.)

On a day that has been called, without exaggeration, the most important election of our time, it may seem pointless to ignore political news in favor of watching an antique cheese slicer be restored. But things that are broken will need to be fixed. (Please see the Oscar-winning film)“The Last Repair Shop” Co-produced by the LA Times, about people fixing appliances for LAUSD students and the students whose appliances are being repaired.) Some of us will need to fix things, whether they have any practical use or not. And this is a beautiful thing.