AT THIS STAGE, we’re all growing a little bit sick of Christmas treats.
You’ve had enough turkey, ham and stuffing to satiate your cravings for a Christmas sambo for another eleven months, and you’ve probably had your fill of sweets too. It’s not just the treats we’re putting into our body that are getting a little tiresome at this stage, either. The entertainment we’ve been provided by this week’s TV schedule is getting a little boring too. It seems that no matter what time of day or night it is, The Chase is on at least one TV channel.
Now of course we’ve got Netflix there to mix things up a little bit (and Black Mirror’s new movie Bandersnatch was released today and definitely seems worth a watch, if only to know what everybody’s talking about at the New Year’s Eve party), but there’s only so much scrolling you can do without finding anything to watch before you begin to lose your mind.
Over on YouTube, there’s a seemingly endless variety of options to keep you entertained. Too many options. Sometimes you just need a suggestion on what to watch, or a little nudge in the right direction to help you make up your mind. So, we’ve decided to roundup some entertaining videos you can watch to keep yourself occupied if you still have a few more days off of work, school, or college.
1. How I Became a Celebrity in China by Losing My Cellphone (13 mins long)
In 2014, Buzzfeed’s Deputy Editorial Director Matt Stopera went out for a few jars after work. At some stage during the night out, he noticed his phone had been stolen from the table his pals were sitting at in a New York bar. Naturally, he was devastated that he lost his phone, but when his friends called the phone it went straight to voicemail so he just assumed it was gone forever, and went to buy a new iPhone.
A few months later, Matt’s new iPhone began filling up with random photos of a Chinese man, and he realised that his stolen phone had found its way to China, and was still logged in to iCloud. We won’t spoil what happens next, but the events that followed were pretty incredible.
2. Basically, any video by Oobah Butler. But firstly, his fake Tripadvisor restaurant video. (18 mins long)
Oobah Butler is a journalist for Vice and he’s gone incredibly viral on multiple occasions for outrageously blagging his way in and out of some completely absurd situations. You might remember him as the guy who made a completely fake restaurant in his shed and managed to make it the best rated restaurant in London on Tripadvisor.
Foodies, celebrities, bloggers and journalists were dying to pay a visit to an extremely exclusive restaurant that didn’t even exist. So, Oobah decided to put the restaurant together for one night only and invite people who had been trying to make reservations for months, and served them the cheapest, shittest food he could find, served in a manner as elaborate and innovative as any Michelin star restaurant you could possibly find. In the end, it went down a huge hit with the guests, who he invited to his back garden. He made a short film about it, and ended up all over international news.
3. The sequel to Oobah’s Tripadvisor video, where he sent lookalikes onto TV and radio to do interviews because he was too lazy to go himself. (13 mins long)
Oobah put out an ad to find a group of strangers who looked like him, who he could train to answer all of the interview questions he received over and over again. So many people responded and showed up to auditions, that Oobah had his pick of lookalikes. So, he sent a different individual on to do every interview. Did any of the media outlets notice it was a complete stranger they were interviewing? No.
However, for the final interview there was a real challenge. It was an interview where Oobah was called back to an Australian news channel to give an update since his last interview, a year ago. These news anchors had spoken to Oobah before, and surely they would recognise some randomer sitting there in his place. But Oobah had a few tricks up his sleeve.
4. When Oobah Butler faked his way to the top of Paris Fashion Week (7 mins long)
We really meant it when we said that all of these videos were worth a watch. We’re not going to do a full list of Oobah’s best moments here or anything, but if you’re going to watch the first two videos you have to watch this one as well.
Oobah Butler decided to pretend he worked for a big fashion designer at Paris Fashion Week, and headed out to a London market full of knockoff designer brands for some inspiration. He found a line of jeans called Georgio Peviani, which definitely wasn’t an imitation of Armani or anything, and used his impressive marketing skills to make Georgio Peviani a trendy and sought after name in Paris.
THEN, when Oobah got back from Paris, he decided to track down the unsuspecting London man responsible for designing Peviani jeans and told him everything that happened. It was unexpectedly cute.
5. I Lived Like My SIM For 24 Hours Challenge (12 mins long)
If you’re a fan of The Sims, you’ll definitely find this one pretty funny. If you’ve clocked up months worth of your time on The Sims at any stage in your life, you’ll know that there’s an option for sims to live with free will, so that they don’t die immediately if you neglect them to look after their family members.
Kelsey Impicciche recorded every single thing her sim did for 24 hours on free will mode, right down to each giggle. Kelsey also took note of how long her sim spent doing each of these things, and vowed to spent the exact same amount of time doing them as her sim did.
As Kelsey started off with a completely fresh sim, all of the sim’s needs were fulfilled – which made this so much more awkward. It kicks off with Kelsey standing on the street outside of her house for 14 minutes at 8am, because the sim felt no desire to do anything else. Once she enters the house, things don’t get much easier for her. She’s not even allowed eat until around 7pm. This is definitely a massive waste of a precious day of any individual’s life, but somehow, it’s so entertaining.
6. Basically any episode of Hot Ones (they vary in length, usually between 15-30 minutes)
Back in October, we did a bit of an explainer about what Hot Ones is. Basically, proper A list celebrities, not the kind of celebs who take part in daytime game shows (Can you tell how much The Chase has been getting to me?), take part in an interview and eat extremely spicy chicken wings while doing so. Eric Andre’s episode is one of the best, as it ends with him smashing a plate over his head to cope with the spiciness of the wings.
If you’re not an Eric Andre fan, Chrissy Teigen, Anderson .Paak, Wiz Khalifa, Terry Crews and Natalie Portman are among the other celebs who have been brave enough to take part.
7. The Burger Show (around 13 minutes long)
Now that we’ve had our fill of Christmas food, literally every other type of food we can think of seems more appealing. And we’re all partial to an aul burger. In this YouTube series, a group of experts look at the very best burgers in the world and the science behind creating the very best burgers at home. Asides from being surprisingly interesting, it’s absolute torture to watch them make delicious looking burgers while knowing full well that you’re too lazy to do it yourself. But that’s what Five Guys and Bunsen are there for, right?
8. Zack Morris is Trash (Around 3 mins long, but one video is never enough)
In 2017, Funny or Die start making videos which go through every single episode of Saved By The Bell and look at all the ways in which Zack Morris was actually a little shit. This is who you looked up to as a child? Wow.
9. Luxury airline reviews (varying lengths, from 10 – 30 mins)
Youtuber Non Stop Dan has built up a lot of frequent flyer miles, which he puts towards discounts on first class luxury suites on all of the airlines that we’re too poor to flight with. You’d think that he’d be pretty down to earth, since he’s paying for his flights with loyalty points rather than actual cash, but nope.
He is the worst nightmare of every retail worker, but for some reason it’s impossible to stop watching. In some of his videos, he goes on Ryanair, just for the laugh. Naturally, he brands the experience as ‘hideous’. When he goes on some of the most luxurious planes in the world, his reaction honestly isn’t much better. If you can ignore how impossible to impress this spoiled young man is, then you’ll definitely enjoy seeing the fancy interiors of the world’s most expensive airplanes.
10. Exes Take a Lie Detector Test (26 mins)
If you miss those dramatic old MTV shows like Room Raiders and Next, you’ll definitely enjoy this video in which two ex boyfriends take a lie detector test and ask each other everything they wanted to know about the relationship before and after it came to an end.
