On singleness, self-sufficiency and masculinity
September 15, 2021 6:15 AM   Subscribe

There is no real guidebook for a woman alone in her home. No one threw me a shower. To give me pots and pans. The ones I’d left behind and couldn’t afford to replace. No one to give me hammers and socket wrenches. No one told me about furnace filters or gutter cleaning or caulking. There was only me and a house and a vast gap of knowledge. Single homeowner Lyz Lenz thanks the dads of YouTube.

... that’s how I ended up on the floor of my basement. The washing machine backing up and refusing to drain, with my daughter’s volleyball uniform inside. I knew I couldn’t get it fixed that day. It had to be done, and I knew I could do it. I had YouTube. ... watching these videos, I don’t feel condescended to. I’m not being sexualized, or mocked. The videos give me safe distance to google questions and accept advice without feeling I owe this person anything in return. In the world of transactional heterosexual relationships, the YouTube explainer dad only needs a view, which I’ve given. It’s just a person, a human, explaining to me, another person, how to fix the broken things, and I am so grateful.
posted by Bella Donna (54 comments total) 112 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yes! As a relatively new homeowner who never thought he'd ever be a homeowner: YouTube repair videos are such a blessing. It's mostly just people sharing with a minimum of bullshit. Random YouTube dads have helped me fix my dryer, my fridge, my sink drains, my radiators, and my roof. It is so good.
posted by phooky at 6:46 AM on September 15, 2021 [40 favorites]


YouTube repair videos are essential not just for figuring out simple repairs and maintenance, but more importantly for helping me realize when I should NOT attempt a repair and call a professional. You have to know your limitations!

And even if you're not a homeowner or in need of a repair, some of these videos are very useful for learning how the systems in a house work and how they commonly fail.
posted by fortitude25 at 7:06 AM on September 15, 2021 [26 favorites]


This is so funny, because I have a male friend who told me he deliberately seeks out youtube repair videos that are supposed to be for women. He says they're better because they tend to not assume any prior knowledge and explain in a lot more detail.

Anyway, I was raised by two female homeowners, so though I am not particularly competent at fix-it stuff, that's because my mom will often literally come over and fix things in my home or teach me how to do it. So my incompetence (such as it is) comes from someone who thinks "it's easier to just do it myself." The same reason I can't sew. But I'm not a completely incompetent...I know about furnace filters and caulking and gutters. And I know how to hang a mirror. That comes to mind because I once bought a large mirror that would take two people to hang.

Me: I bought this mirror....can you help me hang it?
My bf at the time: Sure
.... [a few minutes of continuing to sit on the couch]
Me: So can we hang the mirror?
Him: Well we're going to need a drill. I'll bring it next time I come.
Me: Why can't we use my drill?
Him: You have a drill? I'm impressed.
Me: ?? You have a drill. It's kind of a basic necessity.
Him: I know...but most wom..[realizes he should stop talking].
Me: Ok, well anyway, I'll get the drill.
Him: But we need bits...I'll bring a set next time I come
Me: I have bits. Why would I have a drill and no bits?
Him: But I have to figure out what kind of wall it is and make sure it's the right bit.
Me: It's a concrete wall. I got a masonry bit. I got the right size for the screw. Why are you assuming I wouldn't know how to do this or have the things to do it? [ getting annoyed because I know exactly why]. You have all this stuff and know all this stuff. Why wouldn't I? And I have my own place and you don't.
Him: Yes, it's just that most women...

And when I told him about how when I moved in the pipe under my sink leaked and the landlord came to fix it 4 times and it kept leaking. Him: Well at least it's fixed now, that's the nice thing about a rental. Me: It's fixed because I finally stopped calling the landlord and fixed it myself, after getting some advice from my mom.

His weird gender stuff was a huge part of the reason I broke up with him. And boy did i get tired about hearing about "most women" informed by dumb sit-com stereotypes. [Me: Do I collect shoes or like to shop as a hobby? Does your mom? Does your sister-in-law? Do any of the woman you work with? So where is this even coming from?].
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:18 AM on September 15, 2021 [106 favorites]


YouTube is at its highest and best with these videos. They make me dream of a world that might have been, where the internet was actually for sharing knowledge, one curious human to a million others, instead of the corporate hellscape we got.
posted by agentofselection at 7:25 AM on September 15, 2021 [53 favorites]


I'm a man who was raised without a male parent. I'm also currently in a homeowning, cishet marriage. 100% of the time something is broken or leaking or makes a weird noise it's my responsibility and also 100% of the time a YouTube Dad teaches me how to do it.

This is part heteronormativity -- my wife was raised, like the author, in a house where "[t]he man [...] wields the power tools" -- but also because I have the patience to wade through nine videos where the instructions are unclear or the parts don't match ours to either find the tenth one that's perfect, or to synthesize the lessons into a method that will fix our problem. My wife is good at many, many things (for most of which I have little aptitude), but internet research is not one of them.

Honestly, though, I don't like fixing stuff. I'm not good at it and I usually feel relief when the job is finished rather than satisfaction. I do it because I feel like it's a waste of time and money to call a tradesperson to fix "minor" issues (even when they turn out not to be so minor), and honestly ... I largely don't relish dealing with men, who make up roughly 100% of the tradespeople I've ever had to call.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:28 AM on September 15, 2021 [27 favorites]


I had a masonry project I was working on last summer and got into bricklaying YT for a bit. It's a magical place.
posted by goingonit at 7:31 AM on September 15, 2021 [7 favorites]


I've gone in and out of woodshops at various times, learning tools, having projects in a school setting, working on community efforts. Which means working alongside of and learning from (and sometimes teaching things to) men. Experienced teachers who are good at what they do are gold. Good at what you do means: never assuming any prior practical knowledge, always being willing to show things again and patiently, refraining from making any assumptions about a person's ability or inclination. Bad teachers have usually been ones who don't have a lot of experience teaching. One of the most baffling thing about a bad male teacher teaching other men is that they will just assume a level of competency that should never been assumed - it's dangerous! There's this weird heteronormative toxicity that can make a person think that not assuming competency would be feminine. And you don't want to appear feminine so you just toss a tool at a guy and point to the project. And the reverse is true. I've dealt with men who were learning and who I could tell were just tortured by having to listen to me, to receive direction, to be schooled about safety. Hey, you wanna lose a finger to cultural toxicity?! So many endless little examples of having to work with this issue while just trying to work in a space. So, yeah, that really resonates with me. Love Lyz!
posted by amanda at 7:50 AM on September 15, 2021 [21 favorites]


I have some basic home repair skills, partly thanks to my Dad - who never saw any reason I shouldn't know things, and is always on hand to answer when I say "hey Dad, the heater is doing this, is this a thing I can fix?"

But I've also got some skills partly thanks to the world's best super, who was the super at my last apartment and is 100% gold-plated awesome. He's an adorable Guatemalan expat who has been a building super for about 60 years now; he got hired by my old landlord in the 1980s and has just stayed on, and still is at work at the other buildings my old landlord still owns. He was the super in the apartment where I lived for 15 years and mostly did repairs on leaky ceilings and clogged sinks, but also installed a couple of smoke alarms, replaced a couple windows, switched out some lights....

I rent, so there is a limit to what I can do and could do. So he tipped me off to a couple of things I could do on my own early on. There's a fantastic tip he gave me for double-checking whether the gas pipe to your gas stove is leaking (put some water and dish soap in a squirt bottle and squirt it along the gas pipe; then watch for if it bubbles anywhere). He is just as likely to talk your ear off as he is to actually make repairs - because he likes to explain what he is doing as he is doing it, just....because. There was one time he had to come patch up ceilings in my room and the spare bedroom, prior to a new roommate moving in, and he very painstakingly draped plastic over everything - telling me as he was doing so that he was trying to protect my furniture - then showed me how he was painting things, and pointed out the different appearance of the paint over the new patch, and then called me back in to look at it again after the second coat so I could see that you couldn't see the patch. And then as he was cleaning up in the spare room he found other things to fix and alerted me that he was fixing them, and then found other things, and...I actually had to (politely) throw him out the first night because "Um, Mr. M, it's 10 pm and I have work tomorrow, maybe you could come back tomorrow to finish?"

But thanks to Mr. M I know all about screw anchors in masonry, how to check the gas pipe on your stove for leaks, the best drain trap, a good brand of spackle, why you should NEVER use Drano on a sink, how to change the old tube kind of fluorescent light bulbs, and a host of other things.

I knew I was going to miss Mr. M terribly after I moved apartments last month. But he still lives and works in the area, and by chance I saw him on the bus one night on my way home from work - and he insisted I make a detour on my walk home so he could show me the building where they were putting in a new floor, and point out some other pretty houses on the block around the corner from me. And then before we parted ways he told me that my roommate and I were always free to call him to ask for advice even though he wasn't my super any more, or if we were in a tight spot and our new super wasn't responding - "and I'll do it for free, I like you guys!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:00 AM on September 15, 2021 [89 favorites]


What a wonderful story, EmpressCallipygos! I have wanted to take woodshop, essentially, for most of my life. One of my most treasured (but long gone) gifts from my dad was a hammer and a bunch of nails when I was 10 or so. I do own a drill and some bits but pretty much only ever put up stuff on walls (and not even that, now that I'm in a different rental).

I really really want to learn how to build things in wood. Some Swedish apartment buildings have common rooms that were used for photography (pre-digital era), woodworking, and other hobby-type things, at least in the old days. It seems crazy to collect a bunch of tools and equipment as a single oldster rather than sharing a woodshop with others. I can't imagine finding such a thing now that I live in the middle of Sweden. Maybe someday. At least now I know where to get lessons.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:07 AM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]


I had a masonry project I was working on last summer and got into bricklaying YT for a bit. It's a magical place. yt

thanks for this (though I could do without the music and the speeding up). One of my earliest memories is of watching a brick wall being built in the lot next door. I was probably three. I loved it. The confident, logical magic of the bricklayer's art. I say magic because though I understood the basics of the bricks (they're hard, they're strong, they're what a house is made of), I couldn't help but marvel at the grey stuff that got spread between them, how it somehow held everything together, allowed it to take shape.

It's a wonder I didn't grow up to become a Freemason.
posted by philip-random at 8:55 AM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]


There's a running joke in my house that you can learn anything from watching Youtube videos, and you can buy anything you need to do it on eBay. Because honestly? It's kinda true.

Sure, there's all the basic home-ownership skills. But there's also stuff like dentistry! Mole removal! Automatic transmission rebuild! Plasma cutting! High-voltage transformer repair! Blasting (no, really)!

Granted, it's not like any of this information was previously unavailable in any decent research library (and in many cases you might be better off actually consulting a library), but there's a lot to be said for having that information right there. I'm not sure we've actually caught up as a society to the complete collapse of gatekeeping over what (in some cases) used to be rather closely-kept information.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:58 AM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


MetaFilter: ...[realizes he should stop talking].

My wife now owns her own set of the tools she uses most often, because she can't find mine on my workbench. She talks about starting up a YouTube channel to post videos of the stuff she has fixed (plumbing, lawn tractor drive belt, etc.), but doesn't want the effort of all that when she only has a limited number of videos so far.

It would be cool if there was a community where she could be one of a group of posters, and share in the revenue.

More power to her, and all the other non-Handymen out there (myself included)!
posted by wenestvedt at 9:00 AM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]


Some Swedish apartment buildings have common rooms that were used for photography (pre-digital era), woodworking, and other hobby-type things, at least in the old days. It seems crazy to collect a bunch of tools and equipment as a single oldster rather than sharing a woodshop with others.

There's an interesting wood-working aspect in Robert Silverberg's 1976 novel, Shadrach in the Furnace (set in 2012), which goes unmentioned in that plot description (even though it's deemed "excessively detailed" by Wikipedia). In that future world, churches have been repurposed into communal wooden-craft workspaces. Anyone can go in, select some wood and tools, and create something. Of course, cleaning up is part of the ritual, as is some ceremonial sawdust-burning to conclude the session, IIRC. Wouldn't it be great if we could have that?
posted by Rash at 9:11 AM on September 15, 2021 [10 favorites]


@philip-random: Stu has a whole bricklaying playlist with no music and no speedups if you're interested.
posted by goingonit at 9:33 AM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]


My wife owns the power tools in our family (I'm the tech guy) and for the relatively few things she doesn't already know -- she'll watch a YT video.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:40 AM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]


Am I really doing it alone if I have these YouTube dads genially explaining to me what a clamp is? It’s a vision of a masculinity I’ve never experienced before. No one is screaming. No one is disappointed in me. Wanting more of me. Telling me I can’t do it. It’s just gentle instruction and the pleasure of fixing something.

What I'm wondering is, are the guys in these instructional videos explaining things patiently because they think they're explaining to newbies, or because they think they're explaining to women?

I guess it's a distinction without a difference... either way the mansplain-y part gets stripped away, and the author isn't subjected to yet another hostile performance of masculinity. But I wonder if those same YouTube dads are similarly patient with their own wives and daughters.
posted by Mayor West at 9:46 AM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]


YouTube is at its highest and best with these videos.

What YouTube has done for knitters can never be repaid.
posted by praemunire at 10:00 AM on September 15, 2021 [27 favorites]


I watch a lot of machining videos on YT. From the larger than life scale of Abom79's huge lathes and shapers, to the YTer I would most like to share a beer with, This Old Tony, who is on haitus due to a death in the family, to the hobbyist scale of Emma's Spareroom Machine Shop and Blondihacks.

I appreciate Quinn's content on Blondihacks a lot, because she has chronicled her machining journey from just getting started to building her latest model steam engine and boiler, and she's not afraid to show her mistakes along the way and talk about them. Her videos are very informative and instructional, and they come across as very honest, not the Instagram/TikTok "we won't talk about how it took 60 takes, but here's an 'average' day in my shop" kind of production. I've learned a lot of different things in different ways from these channels, and I'm glad they are there.
posted by xedrik at 10:02 AM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]


I just fixed my washing machine this past Saturday based on watching two YT videos explaining the process. Ordered the parts on AMZN and had at it. The repair call would have been $200 just to look. The parts cost me $44. It also cost me some blood, but the YTer did suggest to wear gloves which I blew off.

If it takes the YTer 30 minutes, I assume double the time if not a little more. Btw, just like with included instructions, watch the video all the way through a few times before simultaneously repairing and pausing.
posted by AugustWest at 10:25 AM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


Yet another way us Gen Xers have been used as guinea pigs for everything that followed, sigh. I bought a house in 2001, fully expecting meet a partner and/or get a decent raise, and was in way over my head. The high point was when I had to call the fire department because a steam heat pipe froze and then burst. My neighbors laughed at me. I moved to a condo in 2005, the year YouTube started.
posted by Melismata at 10:37 AM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


This seems a good place to explicitly call out Rob Kenney, a mid-50s man who didn't have a dad growing up, and who now runs the YouTube channel "Dad, how do I?" to teach the things no one taught him when he was younger.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:43 AM on September 15, 2021 [30 favorites]


I'm not single or a woman but a decade ago I really didn't know how to do much of anything. But thanks to youtube I can now do all of my own car repairs (including body work) and I've replaced the wiring and plumbing in my house and even feel confident enough to replace my old HVAC unit with a heat pump. Welding, machining, carpentry, fine woodworking, gardening, repairing appliances, etc, etc.

Youtube may have a lot of nonsense on it but it has been, hands down, the single greatest educational resource I have ever found.
posted by drstrangelove at 11:02 AM on September 15, 2021 [9 favorites]


It's nice hearing these stories of knowledge passed down from supers and family. It's one of the many things I wish I had spent more time with my dad on, he was such a handy guy and knew so much (that is, just enough to be dangerous) in so many categories, and I never realized until he was gone how much I... "relied on him" isn't quite right, since I seldom asked, but rather there was a feeling of security in knowing that his knowledge was only a call or text away if I wanted it, like knowing the library is ready to lend you a book and all you have to do is ask.

I hope to over time accumulate even a fraction of the know-how he amassed, but it's becoming clear that he got it through decades of work, not some matrix-style dad-knowledge transfer!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:03 AM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]


Mercury Stardust, a trans handyma’am, makes delightful videos encouraging women and nonbinary people how to do basic home repairs.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:11 AM on September 15, 2021 [30 favorites]


Honestly, if you really consider what the value is of youtube to all of us (DIYers/homeowners/people-with-weird-hobbies), it is... incalculable? Seriously: incalculable.

Like, we used to have to go to trade schools for this stuff (or you were lucky to have someone in your life to teach you), but you would only learn one thing or maybe a handful of things. And now there are not just a couple channels of info, but dozens, and so you can quickly see different versions of the same task and compare... it's like... I don't know what I would do without youtube. If we lost it, as a people, it would be the library of alexandria * a billion. The fact that it is owned and maintained by a private company who I trust not at all, scares me. It is so incredibly useful. And it's (sort of) free for everyone. I learned to care for my blueberry bushes over the last year, all because of youtube. It is the first place i go when I want to solve a problem.

I am sometimes afraid that we don't know how good we have it, and it might just go away because we didn't take it seriously enough. Our descendants will be shocked and horrified that we just accepted it as part of the background of life, and not as a critical component of human evolution that must be protected and nurtured at all costs.
posted by pol at 11:14 AM on September 15, 2021 [12 favorites]


I don’t know where I first heard this quote but it goes something like “women are taught not to make mistakes, while men are taught to cover them up.”

YouTube and the internet have been almost entirely responsible in the reclamation (and reconstitution) of many hand tool skills over the last couple decades. They used to teach basic woodworking in elementary school. After WWII, machines were seen as super desirable, magazines wanted to sell them and everything became all about what you could do with a tablesaw, drillpress, disk sander…and then it followed that everyone thought these tools were indispensable to getting anything done.
posted by brachiopod at 11:27 AM on September 15, 2021 [8 favorites]


Am I really doing it alone if I have these YouTube dads genially explaining to me what a clamp is? It’s a vision of a masculinity I’ve never experienced before. No one is screaming. No one is disappointed in me. Wanting more of me. Telling me I can’t do it. It’s just gentle instruction and the pleasure of fixing something.
So much this. I love the nurturing side of masculinity that comes out when dudes can put aside whatever patriarchal bullshit is in their brains and just show you how stuff works.

Sometime last year I had to use an electric drill to do something or other and y'all. I could not figure out, for the life of me, how to make the hole bigger to fit the drill bit in there. I had a really exciting time realizing that I've really absorbed the digital experience/mindset (where's the control panel on this thing??) and had no idea how to deal with the mechanical (the button that controls which way it turns has to be in that place because it has to physically be there. right there. to physically change the way it turns. yes it took me 20 minutes to figure that out).

Anyway, I was googling the drill model, trying to figure out what buttons did what. Nothing. The help I needed was too basic for anybody to bother writing down. I ended up on fixit dad youtube, since I had no vocabulary to google with, and that had me right. Thanks youtube dads.
posted by snerson at 11:46 AM on September 15, 2021 [7 favorites]


Whenever I've had to change a lightbulb on my car I've gone to Youtube and someone has shown me what to do.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:00 PM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


I have learned to do most of my own bike and ebike repairs and modifications using YouTube. Sometimes with no prior knowledge of a given repair or part replacement while I'm standing right there in my bike co-op buying parts and figuring out what I want to do. It's an incredible resource.

It's unfortunately rare in general as well as DIY bike repair, but when presented the choice I will often choose videos that have women as the presenters/hosts because there's a higher chance of less bullshit jargonism or hype and more calmly presented details of the process.

Also I will note that most of my best and most favorite bosses or managers have all been women, and that includes working in IT or IT support.

In the commercial kitchen side of things with women as my bosses the differences are profound. There's way less yelling, stress and posturing going on. I had a chance to work with an amazing professional chef last year who was a badass and super fun gay woman who actually listened to her workers.

One of the first times I worked with her was during a pop up where I thought I was just there to wash dishes and ended up on the prep and plating line doing things way beyond my skill level, and there was one point when she needed some produce prepped and cut in a very particular way.

When I was assigned this task she first asked me how my knife skills were and my honest answer was "They're ok, but not good enough for that, Chef!" and she simply said at a run "Thank you for your honest answer and attention to what I'm trying to do, I got this!" and gave me another task to help do while she ripped through that produce prep like a happy machine. She didn't even blink or skip a beat. No yelling, no belittling, no "what are you doing in my kitchen, then!" kind of bullshit, all while acknowledging without a word that it wasn't the right time or place for me to learn or practice those skills on the limited stock we had for this pop-up event.

At the end of the event this Chef brought out the entire kitchen staff on hand that evening out to the front of house and front and center for a standing ovation from the guests for the evening, and it was really amazing how she looked out for and appreciated everyone there who made contributions to pulling it off.

Months later she was our in house lead chef for about half a year and working with her and for her was a blessing. The work was still difficult, but the kitchen was a joyful place to work. Most of our staff was either cis/AFAB women, trans, gay or queer in different ways and the communications skills and emotional labor was on point from all hands on deck. We looked out for each other and had each others backs.

And we were doing this in the face of the pandemic. For a brief, shining moment we were arguably the best kitchen in town. The joy carried over into the food, the service and presentation and the customers could see it and taste it and they loved it.

I mean, you know you're doing things right when someone arguably lazy and cynical like myself would wake up excited to go to work washing dishes and cooking in a pandemic.
posted by loquacious at 12:06 PM on September 15, 2021 [38 favorites]


it's not like any of this information was previously unavailable in any decent research library (and in many cases you might be better off actually consulting a library

Well yes - but, I actually find for things that require one to move one's hands around - the visual nature of a how-to video is so much better than static illustrations.

I wish YouTube had been around when I was a kid in scouts and trying to learn how to tie knots... Or when I got my first cheap/crappy vehicles...

Just last week, I re-charged the AC fluid in my current crappy vehicle - and changed the battery (which required taking out an air-filter manifold)... Again, YouTube...
posted by rozcakj at 12:47 PM on September 15, 2021 [5 favorites]


Ha, reluctant home maintenance learner here. In general, I am not a fan of video tutorials or YouTube as a whole, but the maintenance how to videos are definitely an exception. Thanks for posting this!

I still have some library books about bathroom repair in my bag to supplement my YouTube as I try to recaulk my shower without making a hot mess of things. The books are partly a "when in doubt, go to the library" security blanket, but I do find I'm more comfortable with the book to refer back to when I don't want to fiddle with replaying a video.
posted by the primroses were over at 1:19 PM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]


There is a YouTube video showing how to open the hood on Mrs. W's Ford Escape. The little latch you have to move is in a different location from where it is in most cars.

I have watched that video many, many times.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:25 PM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


After WWII, machines were seen as super desirable, magazines wanted to sell them and everything became all about what you could do with a table saw, drill press, disk sander…and then it followed that everyone thought these tools were indispensable to getting anything done.

Can't knock them. Huge time savers, and efficient. Cutting a straight line on a sheet of 4x8 one inch plywood, worse let, on an angle, is not something you want to do by hand if you can help it. Drilling stone by hand- forget about it.

Back in very early fifties, my father had an early model ShopSmith, the sound of my childhood - combination table saw, drill press, disk sander, jigsaw, lathe, God know what else. Magnificent piece of work, I tell you what. Long before there was Bob Vila, there was my father. (He was also a dab hand with hand tools. His first assignment in pre-war shop class involved creating a cube of steel with nothing more than a vise and a file and an irregular piece of metal.)

Like, we used to have to go to trade schools for this stuff

Basic stuff used to be standard fare in middle schools. That and Home Ec. Back in the aughts, my then school district got rid of both options and replaced them with computers labs. I thought the timing ironic, since that was about the time that chefs were becoming respectable.
posted by BWA at 1:35 PM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]


Basic stuff used to be standard fare in middle schools.

We had shop in kindergarden (~1974). I made a birdhouse.
posted by Melismata at 1:38 PM on September 15, 2021 [5 favorites]


Despite being a woman, I already do a fair amount of 'handy home repair' in my day job, so I don't need YT for most of that stuff. Trust me, I'm good on everything from putty-n-points window repair to bleeding the line on an oil furnace. From fixing a leaky sink trap to rehanging your bypass closet doors, I am your... repairperson. Need a drain to work, a door to latch, a stuck door to swing freely, or a track light to replace the buzzing 4' fluorescent in your kitchen? I'm your huckleberry.

BUT, I STILL use YouTube explainers to help me out on new tasks that I do not know how to do. Like, over 4th of July weekend I came into a lovely Singer 401A sewing machine with every attachment known to man. It was free. It was also gummed up and wouldn't do any of its fancy cam stitch patterns and the tension adjustment was whack, not that I heretofore knew anything at all about sewing machines or using them.

Youtube to the rescue. A helpful and patient person, this person, with a real live Singer 401A (made from 1956-1961) in front of them showed me how to service and then (in another video) run the thing, for free, with plenty of explaining and zero nasty. Machine now runs great AND elsewhere sewing YouTube is teaching me how to sew things. That's pretty darned nifty.
posted by which_chick at 1:42 PM on September 15, 2021 [20 favorites]


Nothing constructive to add except that, yep, dad passed away when I was 15 and - regardless of roommates, partners or not - I've been the one doing the repairs. Youtube repair videos have been a godsend. Helped me find and understand the placement of so many weird switches or access panels and, also, changing the blown capacitors in my computer monitors which I'm certain my dad would have insisted upon.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 2:24 PM on September 15, 2021 [5 favorites]


In general, I am not a fan of video tutorials or YouTube as a whole, but the maintenance how to videos are definitely an exception. Thanks for posting this!

Yeah I am not in general a visual learner, but a lot of home repair and home maintenance stuff is also incredibly hard for me to model in my brain because the elements are unfamiliar. Give me a printed text recipe over a baking video any day but that's because I know what "folding in the cheese" means by now and I know the difference between a sifter and a sieve etc.

I don't have that kind of familiarity with most home repair stuff. "Shut off the X" well ok but which of these thingies is X?

Relatedly, I must have read a hundred directions on folding a fitted sheet in my life and never mastered it. I watched ONE fuckin youtube video and I've never lost the hang of it since.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:44 PM on September 15, 2021 [12 favorites]


Would your ex-super like having a YouTube channel, EmpressCallipygos?

I am also imagining a supers' professional club, held perhaps in an abandoned subbasement that's becoming steadily larger and more luxurious as it is used to demonstrate repairs.

Insofar as we're sharing kindly and useful YouTube channels, See Jane Drill.
posted by clew at 3:04 PM on September 15, 2021 [8 favorites]


God bless the video that showed me how to silence the ear splitting and inexplicably non-adjustable beeper on my microwave—by opening up the front panel and tearing the damn thing out.
posted by gottabefunky at 4:21 PM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]


On a broader scope the battle between the various tech giants is about who becomes the source for answering a certain set of questions: Who, What, When, Where, How

Who is answered by Facebook or whatever social media you want to use
What and Where is answered by Google through the search engine and Gmaps
When is being fought between various calendaring and social apps, including Facebook and Google

And How is completely dominated by Youtube i.e., Google. There are other video services but people naturally gravitate to Youtube because the best How content for free is there. As this thread demonstrates, it is very good and makes the internet way more useful. I have saved so much time and angst in learning so many skills with the generosity of all those individuals wanting other people to know and learn.
posted by jadepearl at 4:29 PM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]


But I wonder if those same YouTube dads are similarly patient with their own wives and daughters.

I cannot find them now because AvE's YouTube channel is about as organized as Fibber McGee & Molly's closet, but I do remember his small daughter's hands making cameo appearances here and there in his workshop videos. He has spoken to her with some urgency when the situation has warranted it, but it's always felt supportive to me.
posted by queensissy at 5:40 PM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]


A lot of the utility of YouTube is the search, that I can not know the magic terms to describe what’s broken and still get useful results. About half of the actual videos are people doing things wrong, however, so always watch a few and think through what you’re told.

You’d think that the This Old House videos would be great, but they do a lot of lying by omission (it looks so easy!) and also always have exactly the right specialty tool rather than the kludge that most people would actually use.

Also, I recommend the Home Depot app for being particularly good at translating natural language into “split flange escutcheon” or “digging bar” or whatever the doodad I need this week is and where in that cavernous hellscape I might find it. Also great for showing the tool library volunteer a picture of what that doodad looks like.
posted by momus_window at 5:41 PM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


Am I the only divorcée who's done fine with basic house/garden stuff because the ex was a great kibitzer but a total non-doer-of-anything-ever? The only one for whom it's like 900% easier because I don't have to deal with his noise?

... I am?

Okay.

But I too am glad these videos exist.
posted by humbug at 7:13 PM on September 15, 2021 [5 favorites]


I have fixed the most obscure problems around my house based on Youtube videos, it's crazy and I don't believe the male members of my family would have had any more of a clue than I did, and the videos in question did not have that many hits.

Sadly, after particularly helpful videos I find myself wondering about the politics of the youtuber...

But I've also found extremely helpful videos about how to clean things. Yes, I'm a cis het woman but I can't do ANYTHING.
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:15 PM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]


Man. Woman. Black. White. Young. Old.

Regardless who you are / where you are, it's possible that you'll think "Hmmm, why buy this hammer for 12 bucks when there's this other one for 1.99.

Sadly, you may have to find out through experience -- good tools just make the job so much easier, and more satisfying also. I'll go as far as to say fun, personally, but satisfying is a for sure.

You needn't go nuts, like my friend Jimmy, who buys these insanely expensive tools, remarkably designed and built from the highest quality steel that Germans can find. Those tools are great, no bout a doubt it, but they're not going to be that much an improvement over your basic high quality tool.

When I was running work, guys would show up on the site looking for a job. There are a number of tells, one I often used was to go out to their truck or van or the trunk of their car: "Show me your tools." Some guys were slobs with their tools but still good hands but it's rare. In any case, if their tools are a mess and they demonstrate in the first hour that they don't know shit it's "Adios, have a nice life."

Spend the money. Good tools make it fun.
posted by dancestoblue at 8:32 PM on September 15, 2021 [6 favorites]


This article got me thinking about some dynamics of knowledge and power and negotiating your way through life when you think of them as not being available to you that I hadn't thought about before. Thanks!
posted by clawsoon at 4:01 AM on September 16, 2021 [6 favorites]


There is literally no way I would have ever figured out how to change that goddamn lightbulb in my crappy Acura (god, I hate cars) without Youtube.

...this is both a testament to the glory of parts of YT, and an indictment of lazy-ass car manufacturers.
posted by aramaic at 7:09 AM on September 16, 2021 [2 favorites]


What I'm wondering is, are the guys in these instructional videos explaining things patiently because they think they're explaining to newbies, or because they think they're explaining to women?

It's clear that they are explaining these things to cats. Thus a circle is complete.
posted by amanda at 7:43 AM on September 16, 2021 [7 favorites]


Humbug you are NOT the only one. I was the "handy" one mostly meaning I put the Ikea furniture together or called the plumber. He did bupkis.
posted by emjaybee at 8:28 AM on September 16, 2021 [2 favorites]


My dad was an engineer, had all kinds of 1950s non-safe woodworking tools (belt sander, drill press, lathe) and car tools in the garage (air compressor/power air tools, sand blaster, welder) and I grew up thinking that people just fixed stuff. He passed away 16 years ago and I still can’t believe he won’t be there when I buy my first house or car. I always thought he’d be around to help me with that stuff. While he didn’t push learning these skills on me, I’m the only one of my siblings who ever showed any interest and it gave him great joy to help me with a project.

My boyfriend grew up without his dad and a mom who was not handy. We have very different ideas on what is appropriate to DIY. I do minor plumbing for my mom (install a bidet and shower head) which he thinks is crazy to do yourself. While we agree on a lot of typical hot button issues like money, I predict what he feels comfortable with me repairing myself when we buy a house together will be the biggest cause of disagreement. I watched six you tube videos to figure out how to take out our rental’s bathtub stopper instead of asking the handyman to come and now it doesn’t stop up anymore. Being able to do some basic stuff yourself is priceless.
posted by Bunglegirl at 5:17 PM on September 16, 2021 [4 favorites]


fyi anyone reading this, you can replace your cracked phone screens yourself too, very easy and youtubeable
posted by Damienmce at 11:38 AM on September 17, 2021 [1 favorite]


For everything you don't know how to do, there's a Youtube video to explain it.

For everything you do know how to do, there's a Youtube video of a 10-year-old doing it better than you.
posted by clawsoon at 12:45 PM on September 17, 2021 [7 favorites]


That insight triggered a deeply satisfying laugh, clawsoon. Thank you.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:16 PM on September 17, 2021 [3 favorites]


This evening I re-hung the blind in the bathroom after the contractors took it down for some reason. I had hung every other blind in the house but my husband started to ask, "Do you need the ladder?" when he saw I wasn't going to get the ladder, and before I could start to explain that the ladder won't fit in the space and at any rate I hung it there before without it, he said, "Never mind, I'll butt out." It was so nice that he decided not to hover.

For much of our long relationship, I let him do things around the house because it mattered to him to do them, even though it meant I've lived for as long as a year (twice) with a torn-out ceiling, or a year with an entire engine block in the middle room. As he's gotten older, he's been much less fixated on being the repair person. I just finished overseeing the entire contracting job (bathroom renovation) and he only had one nervous breakdown the whole time.

I think a lot of gentle, unmechanical men were damaged by conventional fathers like his, fathers who had a whole woodworking setup in their basements and made it a test of masculinity because they were foul jerks.
posted by Peach at 6:15 PM on September 17, 2021 [6 favorites]


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