How to Romanticize a Tragedy

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in this video I'll be talking about 2020, quarantine nostalgia, animal crossing, among us, tiktok and more :)

for today's video I'm on my big joel sh*t.

[TheCommunistColin]

2020 still haunts my life in the sense that I can no longer take the word "among" seriously.

[SuperNicktendo]

I'll be 40 this year and
If it wasn't for endless funeral precessions outside of my condo, 2020 would have been the best year of my life. So much solo travel around the state, finding parks to have socially distant picnics with my wife and discovering random events like a tour of an abandoned prison during Halloween.

I do feel bad for these kids who missed their proms, final football games and the experiences with friends they grew up with that they'll never see again.

It's not wrong for people to pine for that brief time where the world was gonna change for the better.

[hecateinanna]

To a white, middle class teenager who had a good, food stable home, the quarantine probably felt like an extended snow day. They didn't lose a job, they didn't have money to worry about, they were already mostly social online anyway. I'm sure to them, it was mostly just a "schools out!" moment. Now they're adults looking at getting a job and starting the adult grind. I can see how they'd feel nostalgia for that, even though it's terrible. It's like how I feel nostalgic for blizzards. When I was growing up in Michigan, several times a year, we'd be snowed in for days, no electric, no water, no way to leave home or get help. Just my family, huddled in front of the wood burning stove for a week or two. And I LOVED it. Spending all day with my parents, lots of popcorn, their attention all day. I didn't have to worry about running out or food or firewood, I had no idea my parents might have been worried about that. It's a cozy memory for me.

[hellomew]

covid for me was, as bad as it sounds, really great. i was severely bullied at high school for being trans and in the months before covid i was physically assaulted twice by 2 of the bullies. and then i just had one huge break from it all. the only things i did were go for walks, listen to music, practice french and draw. i love my life so much more now i’m in college and i have friends and i go out. and i’m obviously extremely upset that so many people died pointlessly because of ineffectual people in government but spending a year on my own was exactly what i needed at that time.

[GeneSv]

I was the one person that people would instantly recognize because if there was a line, I would stand a meter or two away from everyone else. I have such a gigantic personal bubble to the point where I dislike sitting at the same table as other people.

So imagine my absolute joy when I could go outside and people would finally stay outside that bubble on their own. I just really wish people didn't have to die or even get horribly sick for that to happen.

[peachybun]

i can’t really share in the nostalgia of 2020 since i still had to work thru it because i was an “essential worker”( 🙄 ) but i can understand why parents/young kids could potentially feel nostalgic for that year since it did allow a lot of ppl to be able to take a step back, and not have to deal with the constant hustle of society. 😓

tbh, personally, i’m very glad to be past 2020 since i can start working at conventions again! 🥺

[JediPlays]

i just got out of a psych hospital cause im a little goofy and idk it sucked and ive missed it a lot lol. but its like why? i hated being there. but seeing this video its like i hated the flood, i miss the ways i stayed a float. frfr. cause like that sorta sucked ahaha but i liked the fun moments where things were cool. i miss that. i dont want it to happen again frfr but like. idk thanks pinely. thanks pinely, this video helped me figure that out. i love this shift in content you seem much more passionate. ive actually been watching you on and off since the cardboard box era but ive been watching you much more consistently now, thanks pinely!

[philbert]

Maybe the nostalgia isn't so much a longing to go back to 2020 as it is a kind of meditation on how strange the passage of time is

[curlybebe]

wow this comment section is almost dystopian, i can’t believe that there’s this much people that miss and have great memories of the lockdown, knowing how many lives were lost and the stress of being living in a state of catastrophe

[bshaw]

i mean when you think about it covid effected these kids MOST formative and 'important' years and now they have to go back to regular school, getting jobs, enrolling to college like its just high school romanticisation dialed up to 1000 i think.

[skyrimlover]

I have a habit of this, I played a lot more games than I did today during thay period, and met a lot of new people online. But the way time continued, I wouldn't have it any other way, every day feels like an improvement in my life.

[meiguess]

Omg, I am so glad someone is talking about this (especially Pinely). I honestly understand this feeling to a degree bc I was in a toxic family during quarantine and that’s when I began to mentally distance from them. That independence and self-healing is what makes me nostalgic. Still there’s a difference between that and completely disregarding all the tragedy that occurred during that time period.

[lenasowinska]

when lockdown happened, i was actually really happy. i was being bullied in school, and not having to actually go to school and just be able to learn online was so relieving for me. my anxiety lessened, as i could finally get enough sleep and it was just me, my dog and my dad. the weather was beautiful everyday, i loved just sitting outside because i was able to do that.

but at the same time, my mum was an essential worker, an anaesthetist at a hospital that had a surcharge of covid patients. she got stuck working abroad and i didn’t see her for 6 months. i missed her so much during that time, and she was so stressed.

i understand both sides of the argument. it genuinely depends on how you were living before the lockdown actually happened.

[onlylaboum]

"i miss covid / 2020" is such a wild statement to me 😅 my country (The Netherlands) never had a proper lockdown nor paid people to stay home, never instated a proper mask regulation, i worked outdoors & covid NEVER LEFT!! all that changed is that a bunch of countries stopped doing testing and act as if it's over!! meanwhile everyone is still getting sick and disabled woohoo 😐😐

[KRABPXL]

I had a lot of personal issues going into 2020 like self image, identity, etc and i feel like the lockdown was a time where i could just work on myself. It was also a time where I started doing art way more and taking it seriously and I developed a real skill that i could be proud of. On too of all that i also met a lot of new cool people online.

[direcircumstances]

I am much older than you and the young people expressing their nostalgia in your video, but I have indeed felt my own sense of nostalgia for the first few months of lockdown. When I got laid off from my job back in March 2020, I initially was devastated, worried about how I would make ends meet, feeling incredibly anxious about the future, etc. But as the initial panic wore off, (and I got my unemployment checks + stimulus money), I actually started loving the lockdown life. I no longer had to spend hours and hours dealing with my asshole boss every day. I could spend more time with my family. Once the weather warmed up, I remember hearing the sounds of people having fun outside, playing with their kids and their dogs at 2pm on a Wednesday, when they normally would have been stuck at school/work. It was great to have that time off after years and years of working full time in a very busy, stressful office environment. It was the first real vacation that I'd had in a long time, and the happiness I felt while unemployed is what motivated me to finally quit once I did get my job back a few months later.

[davycard]

For those lucky enough to not be affected right away, there was an almost hopeful nonchalance in the beginning. Most of us just thought it would be two weeks that life was on hold, and then we could get back to normal. People saw this as a time for growth, time to nurture the parts of themselves that got neglected due to time constraints. But then two weeks turned to a month, to 6 months, a year. The loneliness set in, along with fear, insecurity, and insurmountable loss, of many different kinds. But lockdown allowed people to grieve those losses. But now life is moving too fast again, and people are missing having an excuse to rest

[emiiflowerr]

i do miss being in lockdown, but not for being IN lockdown. i miss the feeling of relief i had knowing i didnt need to go to high school again but i didnt need to worry ab college and i miss having time to recover from the trauma i got from high school. i miss being able to go outside for my daily walk without hearing cars constantly. i miss not needing to worry about getting a job because my parents couldnt force me to get one because we.. couldnt go outside! obviously i hated not being able to see my friends but it was nice being able to stay home constantly without being mocked for being a homebody. it gave me time to really reflect on myself and my flaws and learn more about myself without the outside pressures of society. sometimes when im feeling particularly stressed i think back to 2020 when i could sit on my windowsill, watching the sun set and read a book without worrying about 'i should be studying right now' or 'i should find a better paying part time job' and miss it a lot.

but i think that says more about the capitalistic society we live in than it does me missing not being able to go outside

[zupamleczna]

i get the nostalgia behind 2020 i was in rough school nearly making it and pandemic saved my mental health. i experienced high school online and i fell in love for the first time. but what i appreciate the most is the time i had to finally take care of myself and i saw how fucked up school system is, how much time i wasted here. pandemic showed how life can be and as an introvert i liked it i don’t feel like i wasted my youth because it was totally different experience and i like a lot of aspects of that. playing stardew with my friend, staying at home with my gf and learning together, picnics… i feel like a lots of people also started experiencing with their expression and interests thanks to tik tok. i know that it was horrible tragedy but as a person who was privileged to live with both working parents i had comfort and pandemic didn’t affected me this much. anyways great video as always!

[kingdanett]

Honestly it makes sense. For me, early covid was right before everything changed for me, and not for the better. It feels like early covid was when I was in my prime, I've lost so many opportunities, friends, and have had a ton of primarily stress related health problems after covid so it was the last best time for me.