consumption is changing you

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:06]For an assignment at university, my year was given the task of consuming 150 hours worth of content [music] from three different genres of theater. We had 3 months and were supposed to spend 50 hours on Greek theater, 50 hours on Commedia dell'arte, and 50 hours on Shakespeare.

[00:00:26]However, I am not the most proactive student when it comes to things that do not interest me. So, I spent about 27 hours on Greek theater and 13 hours on Commedia dell'arte.

[00:00:39]Then, I forgot about Shakespeare for a while. One day, a realization dawned on me. I had 3 weeks to consume roughly 110 hours [music] of Shakespeare.

[00:00:51]So began the most insane period of my life. As soon as I got home from school at 4:00 p.m., I would make myself a bowl of peanut butter and banana and begin watching Shakespeare plays. I would watch until 3:00 a.m., catch a 2-hour nap, begin again at 5:00 a.m. until I had to leave [music] for school at 8:00 a.m. I would listen to Shakespeare on the bus. I would read Shakespeare while visiting my family. My entire life [music] became Shakespeare. When it was over, I had read, watched, or listened to every single play Shakespeare had either written or co-written. So, if you ever need to know about Shakespeare, I'm your guy. But, I noticed something very interesting during this period. In my conversations with people, I was speaking rather eloquently. Words like "alas", "abhor", and "fie" had made their way into my vocabulary.

[00:01:44]My sentence structure became archaic, too. This kind of language carried into my writing, texting, and even thinking.

[00:01:52]Whatever we consume is going to change us. How dangerous to let the algorithms decide what we watch. How dangerous to spend all of our time watching worthless rubbish content.

[00:02:06]I hate when I use based, [music] locked in, and aura in my day-to-day speech instead of articulating what I really mean. It's eerily reminiscent of 1984's newspeak. No wonder the people who are addicted to watching trashy rom-coms and soap operas every day have such a lack of articulation. I've spent the last few weeks watching Kurtis Conner, Drew Gooden, King Bach, and other commentators on YouTube. It's lazy, easy to watch content because I've been tired lately and it's all that I've felt motivated to watch.

[00:02:40]It's changing the way I speak. My jokes are becoming edgier [music] and gaining the same cadence. My head is full of annoying habits people do, negative criticisms about things that don't even matter. I can feel myself becoming dumber by the day. My new plan is as follows: read for 1 hour every day and only watch content on YouTube that is slightly above my intelligence level.

[00:03:07]We are living in a world that wants to lower our intelligence.

[00:03:11]Processed food, dumbed down plot lines in the cinemas, AI tools being advertised on every video.

[00:03:19]Just like food, we are what we consume.

[00:03:22]But realizing this is exciting. This is an extremely valuable tool. We can change the way we think, talk, and act by simply being mindful about the kind of videos we watch on YouTube. There are lectures, philosophy videos, intelligent comedy videos if that's an aspect of you you want to improve. The way we learned to speak was by listening to our family talk. Now in our adult life, we continue to learn how to frame what we are saying by listening to videos, podcasts, and movies.

[00:03:56]Media isn't just entertainment. As Jordan Peterson put it, the reason we are so drawn to stories is because we see our own life through a story, [music] and we are always trying to find other ways to frame it. If you feel smarter after watching a professor break down Nietzsche for an hour, that isn't placebo. You are becoming smarter. It's not selfish to try and be more intelligent. It's actually a service to your country and the people around you.

[00:04:23]No girl wants an unintelligent husband.

[00:04:26]No employer wants an unintelligent worker. If you feel bad about spending time to try and make yourself smarter, remind yourself that it is a humble pursuit for the betterment of your country and those around you. If we want to avoid living in an Orwellian society, we can't let our minds turn to mush.

[00:04:45]The more you read, the more intelligent content you watch, the better of a thinker you become, and a great thinker is hard to control. Be mindful about every piece of content you consume. Ask yourself, is this the way I want to speak? The way I want to think? The way I want to act?

[00:05:06]Because at the end of the day, consumption is changing you.

[00:05:11]Thank you so much for watching. If you have any suggestions, do not be afraid to leave them in the comment section below.

[00:05:16]We are privileged with an unlimited source of varied content to consume.

[00:05:21]Let's not waste that opportunity.

[00:05:23]Have a great rest of your day.