In 1964, Andy Warhol shot the Empire State Building then turned it into an art film called Empire, which is more than eight hours long. I was reminded of this last Christmas when I let my nine-year-old niece choose what to watch on TV. She went straight to the YouTube app and pressed play on a video comparing US and UK chocolate bars. It went into such a tremendous amount of detail that I was mesmerised, not by the content but by how brazenly boring it was. It went on for what felt like hours. It might still be going on now.
I wonder if this is what television natives get wrong about YouTube. In all the discussions about disappearing attention spans and “second screen” viewing – ie scrolling on your phone while leaving a single brain cell free to drool at whatever product placement Emily in Paris has just dropped into the “plot” – there is an assumption that online content has to be short and snappy. That might be more true of TikTok or Reels, but YouTube is a place that chews up time then swallows it. Do I know this because I have watched lengthy self-produced documentaries about complete strangers’ walking holidays? Look, in the 60s, it would have been art.
