peering into the past
Today I had the random urge to go through my enormous list of YouTube subscriptions that I've slowly built up over the years and clear it out. My account on YouTube has been around for more than a decade, so I have many subscriptions to various channels across various niches.
Scrolling through the list, I was mostly unsubscribing from channels that weren't active anymore or channels that were abandoned and had all their videos deleted. While doing this, I realised that I was getting a glimpse into the person I used to be and the content I used to watch. It's almost as if I could picture my 13, 17, and 20-year-old selves watching all these different channels and visualise my interests evolving over time. I almost didn't want to remove my subscriptions to channels that made particularly memorable videos, as they would have shaped my identity at the time into the person I am today.
This isn't the first time that I've done this; I did the same a few years ago when I had a similar urge to trim my subscription list. I probably felt similar to how I feel now, as I would have been clearing out subscriptions to much older channels. I think it's good to do this every once in a while, as it serves as a good reminder that I am changing over time, even though it doesn't feel like it.
A decade ago, my feed would have been filled with mostly gaming-related channels, but nowadays, my YouTube feed is full of stuff like cars, engineering, fitness, music, travel, finance, and so much more. I can't wait to do this again in a few years and see how else I have changed.
21/31