Everything Is Television

If it makes you feel any better about your school experience, even before the pandemic, my highschool put me in a Spanish class ran by a teacher who didn't even speak Spanish.

I feel you bro. The internet didn't used to be television, but it is television now. I don't know how old you are but I am guessing about ten years younger than me; I grew up alongside the internet and saw it grow from the early days. It's just so much of a different thing now. I don't just mean this in that jaded boomer kind of way, but it just used to be so much more personal and intimate. There was the potential for interaction. Now... It's just like TV. The stuff you read, the people you watch and listen to online are just like the TV celebrities of that era. They're strangers who you watch through this one way screen. The interaction is harder and harder to find.

“a friend group you can rarely, if ever, participate in” so basically 90% of friend groups I was in as a child 😅

It's incredible how quickly I went from viewing the pandemic as a dream vacation where I could game forever, to contemplating suicide because of how empty I felt without other people.

It's simply insane how much Solar Sands's content has evolved over the years.

"I try to interact but nothing feels real" duuuuude. That's the perfect way to put it into words. I feel this all the time

I watch this, the video ends, an ad plays, I close the YouTube app and open discord. I tap random channels without reading anything. I close the discord app and open instagram. I scroll aimlessly without watching anything. It’s the most miserable cycle, like a corpse trapped in a cave or something. It’s just trapped there, not decaying

Honestly, this video was surprisingly so relatable it's scary. At first, I thought it was about television Like you, I also struggle and still struggle to socialize with others. Throughout high school, I only really had one friend and we haven't spoken in nearly four years despite knowing each other since the sixth grade. In the nearly three years since I started college, I haven't made any friends. I don't go out much. I don't use social media because I despise its very existence. I briefly worked as a cashier at a Wendy's and I absolutely hated it. I hated being forced to socialize with the customers, complete strangers who could care less about me or my life and I couldn't care less myself. To me, they were the enemy.

This video expresses sentiments I have been developing in recent months. I'm glad other people out here on this internet hellscape share similar feelings. Thank you for making this Solar Sands, it may be an important wake up call to many different people.

he went from making fun of deviantart posts to making incredibly deep philisophical videos that make you lay down in bed and jjust think 'damn'

When I was in college I put Monumentality on the TV at my house and 10 drunk people sat in silence absorbing that video. I doubt any of them would've sought out videos like yours on their own but when it was presented to them they were hooked. Your videos became a topic of conversation and a few of the people in that group became good friends of mine that I keep in touch with regularly. You struggle to make friends and form tight bonds but your content has probably helped a lot of people become friends.

As an autistic person, I deeply relate to the message of this video. To me, socializing is nothing more than a necessity, a script that i've slowly learned and developped over the years that I repeat to people over and over and over again like a robot, and this, just to blend in. Everyday you need to analyze other people, what they say, what they do, what they want from you. Everyday is a confusing mess of attempting to translate people who have an entirely differently wired brain. And you pretend to be wired like them, because you were taught that this is the "correct way" of existing. So many times I've been told that the way I fundamentally function is "wrong". To survive the abuse, the bullying, the glares, the abandonement, you pretend. You smother your brain's attempt to stay healthy physically and mentally. And so you dissociate through a majority of your life, and just like that, you've forgotten about 80% of your whole life, because you're just a robot everyday. Until you break down. I've been pretending to be someone else almost my entire life, and I've just started to realize just how much of my life I've been wasting by wearing a mask around the wrong people. It's no surprise really that I've developped a deep fear of people early in life. And it's no surprise I've been strictly having friendships online during my teenage years. Today, thankfully, I'm slowly learning how to take the mask off. It's a slow process, painfull at times, but I'm finally feeling like myself for the first time in a very very long time. I've learned to enjoy my own company, and that it's okay to be alone to a certain degree. And most importantly, I'm slowly learning how to enjoy other people's company with no mask on. It's terrifying, but oh so liberating. I think I might be able to turn off the television soon at this rate. Thank you for this wonderful video, amazing message and editing as always!

I've got to say, though the internet isn't wholly a positive development, I consider your voice to be one of the more honest, clear, and needed opinions. It is rare to have a YouTuber or really anyone who combines the depth and sincerity you do in your commentary, and it is appreciated. dw i don't think we are friends

I believe that most of us, the people on the internet, are lurkers. We never post anything, nobody needs to know what we think. I never make posts or write comments, but I feel the need to tell you this video you made is incredible. The writing and the editing is excellent and the subject matter is very interesting. This in particular is something I personally relate to alot. I've always felt a sense of isolation, and feeling as though I was watching life through a television screen, like I was a character in a video game. I am neurodivergent, but I am aware of reality. In fact, more so than what is considered necessary. And while there can be some problems caused by this, I've found a way to appreciate and embrace this side of me, it's oddly comforting. I want to thank you for this content, because it's a good presentation of a feeling that is not talked about. I want to say a quick hello to the people who might read this and share my sentiment. It is fascinating to exist.

As a very extroverted person with a reasonably optimistic view on life and the philosophy of it, hearing you put so eloquently into words something I would never feel was flooring. I wanted to say this because my partner is an introvert, and I've never really been able to see it like he does. Even with that though, the moment at the end where you called yourself to stop watching TV... that was universal. Thank you for expressing yourself in this and allowing the vulnerability to tell what it really can be like for others.

This is a beautiful video. I have many words about this and how much i feel this. But i feel like that doesn't matter. About a hundred other people have already said that, regardless they truly understand or not. But i do. No one will even read this. I'm going to leave it unsaid because only I can understand how this video spoke to me. Truly. Thank you.

Only Solar Sands would make a 40 minute video telling me to "touch grass". But in all seriousness, this video speaks to me in the same way I suspect Warhol's quote speaks to Solar Sands. I spent most of my life as a self-isolated introvert with few friends and willing to sleepwalk through my life just hoping loneliness would hurt a little less. It took me a very long time to learn to reconnect with people, and I'm still learning. Luckily, I graduated a year before the pandemic, I can't imagine the toll it took on introverted students. As a student, especially, I found it much easier to decouple from people, since you're typically still a dependent and don't have to interact with people to live. But last month I did something I never thought I would do: I got married. I'm not going to pretend that I have answers, or that anyone reading this cares for my insight, or even that it might apply to anyone but myself, but if I could write a letter to me of 10 years ago, I would say that circling the drain, not caring where the current took me, I was missing out on something. In the 8 years I've known my wife, the one thing she reminds me to do better than anyone is to swim, to reject the complacency of my anxieties and my comfortable routines; to do more. My life is much better for my trying to associate with the world and the people in it, even though in the end trying is all we can do.

"Substitute the guaranteed meaningless suffering for the potentially meaningful suffering" I needed that

As someone who is an introvert who also has the continuous struggle of making friends and soon will be off to college, I thank you for this. It is crazy how I came to this channel initially as some middle schooler who liked to doodle characters and listen to art critics around DeviantArt to someone who questions reality, my future, and philosophy in general. It's crazy how I-- or we've-- grown.

If I had seen this 5 years ago, I might be thrilled bc I would feel like you described. I don't feel like that anymore. I enjoy being with people. Glad I went to therapy, she helped me on this and I keep working on my social skills and insecurities and I feel secure on my own skin.