The Christmas colors I grew up with were always red, green, and white/silver. The white lights give you the full spectrum you need, without having to add in a weird blue.
I'd say blue is just as a Christmas colour as white is, but you are right. The problem is bad white lights tend to be "not white enough", because white is created by all three colours together, manufacturers tend to opt for an "unperfect white". What do you think of gold as a Christmas colour, as she said it's the most canonical Christmas colour and I think it fits well, but I can't really imagine it at the top of my head. I also think it has to fit in matches: red and green are always paired (eg: holy and ivy), blue and gold have to be paired (eg: the Star in the nightsky, the nightsky and the desert, King's crown and robe, light in dark, etc), but white... what does white match or pair up with? Also, what do you think of silver as a Christmas colour? Is it synonymous with white, I'd say white and silver tinsel are similar.
@@benos5669 for me it's the yellows that are super hard to the eyes. I'm cozy with a string of lights where reds and yellows are broken (idk if it's a wire problem or the led) and only the blue and green lights work It's the nicest ones for me
I love all the things that all the other comments mention about this video, but I want to also point out the awesomeness of the spotlight effect to individually "light" the drawn bulbs. So cool!
@@Vihart*Your inner child is always free!* we all love you, hope you suffer less from anxiety. Would love to see you're quirkiness be present without the doom.. honesty a *red* flag to me. Oooh pretty colors ooohh blinking lights ooohh subliminal subtrance induction... So much today is a doom sponsored psyop, its not even funny. i hope to hear back from you that it was an innocent moment, and not the objective of the video. All the best ∆
Usually for me, Christmas colors are separate patterns, like red and green are for decor, blue and white are for outdoor lights or icicle lights, and warm white is for indoor tree lights. It solves the problem of red and green not being enough of the spectrum and blue and cold-white not being very festive
Exactly. For me there are three "pairs" of Christmas colours: - Red & Green - Gold & Silver - Blue & White/Silver I'm particularly fond of the last one because I only celebrate Christmas as a cultural winter festival, so I love the cool wintery colours. That being said, some of these can combine well in other ways, such as Red & Gold, Green & Gold, Blue & Gold, Blue & White & Silver, Gold & Silver & White, and Red & Gold & White.
@@WingedAsarath I totally agree with your pairs but I think that is because they also work as triplets. The whole method of criteria I use may be just a bit different as the color combos need to match the type of cookie. All must work with gingerbread or molasses based sweet breads or they are not quite right.
I actually really dislike most blues in Christmas lights. The blues in most Christmas lights that I see is drastically darker and feels so out of place next to the other colors. I've seen some really nice looking Christmas lights that have good blues on them but the majority have this eye piercing blue that I get severely annoyed at for very little valid reason.
Agreed. The blue LEDs commonly on consumer string lights are very harsh and monochromatic. Probably the good blue lights you talk about were incandescent bulbs or white LEDs with a blue filter; these have a much broader spectral band.
You are not alone. Blue LEDs are way too hard on the eyes. I genuinely don't understand why people use them. My theory is that people who use those lights are literally colorblind.
Those stupid electric blue lights are how I found out that my eyes cannot focus on high frequency LEDs. I thought that colour was just supposed to be blurry, but nope, it's my own stupid eyes. I have the same problem with those blue LED digital clocks that seem to be everywhere now.
@@a3wagnerI also noticed that blue LED fairy lights appear blurry or difficult to focus on. Turns out it is a well documented phenomenon. Generally it's attributed to blue light dispersing/scattering more, as well as the fact that human eyes have less blue-sensitive cone cells and so the angular resolution is reduced for blue light.
6. Prove irrefutably that spiders are a christmas animal. They have 8 legs, 1 for every reindeer. They create webs in fancy shapes; some could argue the webs look even star-like. If you put little bells on their feet, they could jingle all the way. P.S. I love all your videos! You're one of the last remaining OG youtube creators. Please keep making more :)
"Change is part of life and your inner child will never be free and you can't go home again." I love this line and its delivery. I've always felt a nostalgia for structure around the holidays that the actual experiences never seemed to give me. "I'm missing a house That I've never called home I'm missing a time that I've never known." The Chapel by Madilyn Mei
This American Life had this Christmas Special episode a while back that I loved, and the one line that will always stick out to me as an adult and parent can be paraphrased as: "As a kid, Christmas is magical as a source of infinite possibilities. When you are an adult, Christmas sort of ossifies, it gets stuck as an attempt to recreate or recapture the magic of your youth." It's Episode 576, well worth it. Good luck out there, and try to find the copypasta about Santa being real in each of us.
If I had a nickel for every time one of my favourite educational TH-camrs made a video about their pet-peeves regarding string lights I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's still weird it happened twice.
@@kaylanek1 Alec from Technology Connections. He has particularly strong opinions on the colours of LED lights, he made a several of videos about it already.
@@HmmmmmLemmeThinkNo Hello to you as well! :) Little did I know, writing that comment, that Alec was about to drop another installment in the "blue LEDs aren't Christmassy" saga.
I used to be obsessed with her videos as a kid. It was nice to hear my thoughts that I couldn't articulate put into words by a very smart person. Now that I'm older I realize that I should have known I was autistic much earlier 😂
My only gripe with Christmas lights is that they’ve gotten very cold toned in the last 10-15 years. I think it was when LED lights started getting popular. The blue and white LEDs are especially harsh and cold. My favorite Christmas lights are the older, fat multicolored lights.
True when I buy LED lights I look for ones without blue, becasue it's always overpowering the whole thing. You have 3 lights in there, but somehow it turns out to be 90% blue. :P
I've never seen a string of Christmas lights with pink on them, and I will now forever be distressed that this is a thing that exists. Fantastic video, Vi!
I've seen plenty of modern strings with purple. And the blue LEDs are too dark blue, the whites are now daylight instead of warm white, there's too many cheap, flickery LEDs... I want LED bulbs to save power and reduce heat, but it's impossible to find them in classic colors...
Please never stop making videos! The sporadic nature of them add so much to the enjoyment. They are a treat you didn’t expect and are cherished ever more for it.
I'm so happy every time I see a new video by you, thank you for inspiring me!!! I'm finally taking mathematics in university :D I feel so involved and curious about everything here, just like I do with the content you bring. This way of seeing the world is truly fascinating
From my holiday experience, this is about the difference between LEDs and incandescent bulbs. The modern green and blue LEDs are very bright, and in the four-color LED strings, they usually overpowered the red and gold, giving an overall very cold look. Adding a third warm color helps balance it out to give a neutral or warm color overall.
We can always rely on Vi for restful but thought provoking musings. Also on the subject of Halloween, Christmas and Numbers: Why can programmers not tell the difference between Halloween and Christmas? Because Oct:31 is the same as Dec:25.
@@_glint Gladly! We're talking about number bases here, so, for example, the one we're used to is base 10. All that means is that 10 is the place we go from 1 digit to 2 digits, and 100 is the place where we go from 2 digits to 3 digits, and so on. We add digits at the powers of ten, in other words. Other bases exist, and use more digits at different places - Binary is the classic example, and 10 in binary is equivalent to 2 in decimal - Binary counts like 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, and so on. Basically, pretend you're counting normally, but ignore any number that has a digit that's not 0 or 1. The numbers are the same as normal, but they're represented differently, and that can be useful for storage, convenience of writing, or discovering patterns in numbers. The joke here is that 25 in Decimal, our typical numbering system, will be represented as 31 in Octal. The numbers shift around, because Octal represents 8 as "10", 9 as "11", and 10 as "12". And yes, for those wondering, this is actually the correct conversion. It's okay if this is confusing! I'm doing a terrible job of explaining it, actually - If you want to find a better place to learn about this, I'd look up videos on "Numerical Bases," or maybe videos on specific bases. Base 6, Seximal, actually has some great videos! As does Dozenal (12), Hexadecimal (16), and Binary (2), I'm sure. The other bases tend to be poorly represented, as they're not as immediately relevant or useful - Hence why I was surprised to see anyone referencing Octal in a joke! Oh, by the way - Base 1 is tallies :3 Counts 1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111 - That last one is usually represented with the last "tally" being used as a strike through the others, but that's mostly a grouping thing, it's basically just showing the literal number you're referencing as the number of digits. It's the simplest possible base to write, but it's also not very useful for large numbers, hopefully for obvious reasons.
As someone with autism and synesthesia, this video makes more sense to me than anything else. Thank you for FINALLY explaining what’s going on in my head.
Vi, your periodic videos of randomness boost my mental health. Thanks. And blue is definitely a northern hemisphere Christmas colour... It's the colour of my extremities if I go outside.
4:38 makes me feel so much peace since i grew up with pink-inclusive christmas lights!! i love reading the comments and seeing what colors of lights bring everyone the most joy 🩷
It’s funny you should mention this, but I also had the 4-colour Christmas Lights but my Mom always complained that they weren’t bright enough and so got an additional set of white Christmas Lights for the tree, so in my head 5 is the more Christmassy number. Pink definitely isn’t a Christmas colour though
In my mind, Xmas colors are "red, green, and WHITE." I get why Vi and other folks might dismiss "white" as a color, but the bright, mostly-full spectrum color of a white string light overcomes most of the failings of strong primary colors. But I also have strong opinions about yellow light and. though I see the point of having gold in there, I dislike the color that much.
@@argentpuck I don't dismiss white as a color, I just... never had string lights with white in them. So I wouldn't even think to include it in the conversation about "string lights I've experienced and how they've changed over the years". I think I've seen "white and blue" lights, and probably "white and red", but I really don't think I've ever seen a tricolor "red and green and white" string light.
I think you could make a great collab with Technology Connections on this. Alec also has a very healthy and normal amount of attachment to holiday lights.
im so happy to see a new vi video! i wanted to tell you that years ago i obsessed over your 12 tone music video and fibbonacci number videos and the like, and now im 5 years into music school and am encountering those things every day. It feels so full circle. Thank you for sparking my interest in the weird little math that makes up our everyday lives.
As a nail technician this is genuinely something i have to think about. I had a client who wanted string lights going through all her nails and when she didnt know what colors she wanted i had to ask what vibe she was going for. More modern colors would have been red blue and white(silver) because she wore silver jewlery and i would have had to do something different if she wore gold. But she wanted something a little more nostalgic then chic so we did red green purple and pink which gave the nails a whole different design. It gave it a childisg feel. Kind of like old charlie brown christmas episodes.
I definitely say nail tech over nail artist because of how much schooling about biology and chemistry and technique I had to go through, but also my best friend hates saying nail technician so it's preference ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In 5 minutes you took this from something I've never thought about in my life to something I have very strong options on Also, I wasn't having a great day and seeing that you uploaded has made it significantly better :]
Your videos have always been an inspiration and completely reframed what math could be for me. I was recently lucky enough to land my dream job as an engineer at NASA and I seriously think I wouldn't be in the same place if not for your videos. Thank you so so much for what you do. I've been watching for years and never commented really. I'm sure there are many others like me out there, quietly thankful and better off because of your work. For what it's worth, I have kept the fight for Tau alive and will never give up 😂 Thanks Vi
I grew up with the five-color lights that included the pink and I always liked how the colors looked together. They remind me of candy (because fruit candies often have both red and pink, and overall have more warm colors than blues and greens). In my eyes, the color palette is actually pretty soothing and cohesive for something that's "rainbow." It's actually the newer four-color LED lights (red, green, blue, yellow) that bother me because they're too bright and I find the colors jarring. I do wish I could find the five-colored lights with the pink in dimmed LED form, though, just because regular Christmas lights get too hot and I don't want the increased fire risk. 😅
You don't understand how happy it makes me to know that somebody else is out there overthinking otherwise thoughtless aesthetic decisions of things that don't matter as much as I do
What a wonderful roller coaster of patterns, holiday comfort, and existential realization. 10/10 for owning a random fixated topic, always happy to watch when you upload!
In the same vein of the discussion, I recently saw sets of solar powered string lights having red, green and plain white in time for Christmas. I’m quite surprised they don’t use warm white in place of gold, but it seems the four colour of string lights have become the norm. Also a great exploration of why the amount of colours on a string light matters a lot to some of us.
Yay. A new video with the trusted lined paper and sharpies. I just love that. Also, I absolutely agree that having 5 colours is just too many colours. Besides, every time I hear your voice the laser bat and all its fascinating twelve-tone adventures creep back into my mind determined to stay for at least a week. Mary had a laser bat... Thank you for continuing to share your gifts with the world. You make everything better.
1. To turn a 5 (n+1) color string into a 4 (n) color string you need to replace 16 (n*n) bulbs in every 20 ( n*(n+1) ) length group in order to preserve the order. So that means replacing 7 * 16 + 6 which is (N//(n*(n+1)))*(n*n) + (N%(n*(n+1)) - n) 2. Movie night with string lights in blue and orange because Orange/Blue Contrast in movies. Except when watching The Matrix. 3. This is similar to spinning objects and frame rates. 5. A sixth 6. In Australia
I really like the way you get emotions across. The chaos of lights and the rate of your speech increasing as a way to get us to feel properly the like, drifting away from childhood, it's really cool.
I remember your old videos on Khan Academy about Hexa-Flexagons and seeing this pop up in my feed has given me a very plesant hit of nostalgia. Thank you for bringing a bit of my past back
Whenever you post I’m never disappointed- so many educational videos like this I would immediately turn off cause adhd brain but yours always perfectly scratch that itch in my brain and keep me hooked ❤
I’ve never come across your channel before this but I *adored* this video. Your voice and the script and the delivery and the subject matter and the writing and the animations and *every damn thing* was like scratching an itch just the right way. An itch I didn’t know I had.
If you don't want a period-5 chase pattern, you could still have a period-5 color cycle with a period-4 chase pattern. That way you also get balanced color all the time, instead of stressful holiday hued swings.
You are the wisely weirdest person I have seen on youtube. Love it! Random thoughts, even the most weird ones, when put into appropriate words, form such a nice logical narrative. I think everyone is capable of thinking of such dilemmas, just not everyone is skillful enough to convey them in tangible and scientific manner. Well done!
Red yellow orange green blue purple (most strands look pink but grandma’s was more amgenta) is the string light pattern that my grandma’s tree had and it will forever be my favorite
That's the combo we had when I was a kid and I miss it. Its hard to get multicoloured lights now. Most options are blue white or blue which I HATE with a fiery passion. Even warm white LEDs are not warm white enough when I grew up with incandescent bulbs. Plus LEDS flicker so quickly it triggers my migraines. :( Most people can't see the flicker as they cycle on off, but I think me being able to is part my severe astigmatism, part being autistic and hypersensitive to light in general.
Yes I miss the purple so much. I feel like they changed the purple to magenta for cost reasons. And the flicker, my God, xmas is mightmare for my epilepsy, people think I'm insane. How can they not see the flicker?
Coming from a Jewish family, our holiday colors are blue and white. The white means we get the entire spectrum for free, and the two colors together evoke associations with water, ice, and snow, making them perfect winter holiday colors. On the other hand... there are only two, so we twinkle instead of chase. But our holiday is about eating greasy, fried foods, gambling, and 8x presents, so I think we win vs a tree-centered baby shower 😁
gold/yellow is also a color closely associated with Judaism and Hanukkah (the flames of the candles, and winter fires keeping you warm) so we could have a nice 3 color arrangement of string lights.
A few years back I saw a house absolutely decked out in Christmas lights and decorations and it included snowflake lights. And, in the middle of this mess, there were Star of David lights among the snowflakes. I had a good laugh.
@@Jabberwockybird That's the funny thing about it: only your religion thinks he's the Messiah. To the other 5 billion people in the world, he was just a dude. So I'll stick with gambling for chocolate 😊 (By the way... Christmas is a pagan holiday, and Jesus wasn't born in December. Just fyi. I have no issue with people celebrating pagan holidays, I just thought it's important to know what you're really celebrating if you're going to.)
Blue and Purple are actually the liturgical colors for the season of Advent, so more appropriate than red or green in a sense. I always enjoy your content, and thanks for a fun video!
Sigh. I am replacing some Christmas stuff after a flood and have been looking at these new lights for two years without purchasing. I cannot get behind the 5 colours. And now I have a video that perfectly encapsulates my feelings. Thank you vihart.
I was born in 1991 and pink was a color on every strand of Christmas lights I grew up with. It was pink, red, gold, green and blue mostly with green wire and occasionally white wire. I find any Christmas lights missing those colors to be depressing and I refuse to buy them.
yes! I was wondering why the Christmas lights on a lot of houses this year kinda stress me out, and this video and these comments helped me articulate. The pink kinda controls the blue, makes it so that it doesn't overwhelm, and balances all the colors better! pink isn't a Christmas color, but it always just served more of a balancer than a main character to me. It lets most of the focus be on the red and green. and it helps keep the whole thing from being overwhelming. Bring back the pink!
I grew up with lights where the red was just actually pink. I get that it's not the best Christmas color, but the pink is crucial to get the best comforting glow in my opinion.
I love you, Vihart! I remember watching your video about 12-tone rows when I was a teenager, and just this week we started talking about 12-tone rows in my theory course at music school!!
As someone whose mother only ever allowed silver and white decorations for EVERY celebration and mever had colourful holidays through my childhood because of it, this video fills me with a yearning nostalgia that is crawling down my back
I'm glad someone talked about this. I hate that the 5-color string lights have red and pink; when I use them for mood lighting, the average is much more red/warm because combined the red and pink outweigh the rest of the colors.
I can't believe they didn't make white the fifth color. White boosts all colors in the room and it's thematically correct. They also ALREADY HAVE WHITE LIGHTBULBS WHY MAKE MOR-
I think red, orange, and yellow make good Halloween and generally fall colors. For Christmas, a dark red, medium green, and pale ice blue make for a nicely balanced triad.
i never clicked so fast! i love your videos, you grab my attention so easily as a kid, i never understood why chrismas string lights didn't match all the other christmas themed things and no one ever told me WHY. I'm glad you talked about this now so i could think with an older point of view,,,, yet it still pisses me off
I grew up with these lights. My family still uses them. It's not that we think pink is a Christmas color, it just contrasts nicely with the blue-green of a pine tree, and adds flavor to the color palette. I used to know this psycho who only ever used white lights. To be fair, he couldn't see red, so he would always miss a bit of the seasonal aesthetic, but still.
Single colour lights should only be used as a complement to coloured lights (for example my parents have some over their fireplace vs the multicoloured lights on their big tree). And even then they should be white only (pref warm white). Monocrome blue or pink lights can get in the sea. Not literally though, that's pollution.
Ok but single white, a soft warmISH white, kicks ass! I love using just white lights but only if they’re of a specific warmth and then ONLY those. Whoever is mixing and matching whites is a monster and I fear them
After all these years I’m happy that you are still active on here. To this day I still make hexaflexagons sometimes when I’m bored, I made one just last month
This perfectly describes my dilemma right now 😅 The stringlights my parents used to put in our windows for the christmas holidays had the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. A nice rainbow approximation and the nicest stringlights I ever had anywhere. Instant nostalgia whenever I used to put them up. The problem is they're over 20 years old atp, I've used up all the mini replacement bulbs and I CAN'T FIND A GOOD REPLACEMENT. Either they're just red, yellow and blue, which is too little colors for me, or they have the odd purple but no blue etc etc. I've been trying to solve this for like two christmas periods and always ended up reusing the old ones with their ever swindling number of working lights.
1. Maybe buy all the colours available, be it online or elsewhere, and either you or another could swatch out most of the bulbs on one string and that'd basically make a reproduction. Worth a try. 2. Like srsly I'd love to invent a battery-powered full-string version of those necklaces with plastic bulbs resembling the old-timey fat ones (I quite like those but the modern ones are nice too). It'd have 8 colours of said plastic bulbs (what you mentioned, with pink and white added; will also have variants exclusively for each one). Bad idea, but I like it at least.
I also have Thoughts on Christmas lights and am so glad I found this video! A lot of the houses round here have outdoor lights that have alll of the classic 4 colours - red, yellow, green and blue - but which display two colours at a time and fade between them. As you know there are 3 ways to do this: red/yellow to green/blue, red/blue to green/yellow, and red/green to blue/yellow. The first two are about equally common, but the third is incredibly rare and I don't know why. To me, red/green is the most classic Christmas combination!
The Fall Equinox should have red, orange, yellow, and blue as its color identity. The colors of fallen leaves, sharply contrasted against a clear blue sky is quintessentially Fall to me (regardless of having spent most of my life in Florida, where the leaves never really change color, and also being colorblind, potentially leading to me never noticing the leaves changing color.)
Finally, someone who gets as concerned about the truly important things in life as I do 😂 Also, I am distressed to learn that pink has been added to Christmas lights, it has literally caused a chill to my spine!
Im so happy you're still making videos! My first exposure to your content was like 10 years ago on kahn academy. Your videos were a reward for if i did my assignment. Thank you so much for all your videos and good luck with your colorful conundrums!
666 is a good Halloween number. A string of 666 lights is probably too long to be marketable, but you could make strings of 18 lights, and leave it up to the purchaser to buy 37 of them for a total of 666 lights. With a string of 18 lights, you could have 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, or even 18 colors (though not 4 or 5), while still making an equal number of each colored bulb, and not having any awkward repetition at the ends if you put multiple strings together. And to answer that final question in the description, spiders can go down a chimney much easier than an old man, and their silk is strong enough to carry everyone's presents.
I grew up with the 5 color lights. They go well with the random assortment of ornaments we've collected over the years. I always have them straight on though, never blinking.
How old are you? I remember pink in string lights from when I was a toddler in the early 90s, I'm sure it's been a thing for a lot longer than that. And on that subject; when I was a kid halloween lights were only ever orange, then you'd start to see blacklight strings, then finally orange and blacklight/purple combined on like the mid 2000s.
I thought being surprised by the pink lights was weird. I grew up with those and you can see that color scheme in 80s and 90s films set during Christmas.
i used to watch your math videos instead of doing math in elementary school because i didn’t realize they were math. i’m graduating from highschool this year planning to be a math major. thank you so much for everything also, i love the christmas is a baby announcement thing that’s great
I love adding green to halloween because it makes the spectrum a full tricolor of secondary hues! Also I'm not at all biased, don't look to the left of this post. I still won't bother to put up lights until I can find a set of programmable string LEDs that I can set to whatever two or three colors I want them to be so I can leave them up year round and just change the colors as the holidays go by.
As someone who got sick of pink at a young age, looking at pink Christmas lights and affirming "I accept the things I cannot change" is SUCH A MOOD. Weirdly, 5 doesn't bother me but it feels distinctly New Years Eve-y, like someone's playing Take 5, or has indulged a lot and isn't quite walking straight, or both. But the 5th color would need to be white for that to work, Pink just doesn't need to be there, it's already got other holidays and doesn't look good with the rest of the set.
red, green, white, gold, and faded sky blue are all good Chrstmas colors. Pink really doesn't belong, save for being paired alone with a faded green (to maintain the green/red pairing). I agree about about chaser patterns. I think more colors can belong together in a still frame, but can still harm the cohesion and composition. Pinks, purple, orange, burgundy, all are great present colors, but I think the framing devices of all that should remain primarily red and green.
Why yt decided to recommended it to me- no idea. But I feel like I'd want to be your friend, like you could chaotically ramble it to me at 2 a.m. in a McDonalds parking lot and I'd love that. I hope this year you get the four Christmas coloured lamps you deserve
i love when u upload for holidays, i always come back for the holiday themed videos. also ur very right- 4 is perfect for christmas, it's hard to explain, but u explained it perfectly! 5 feels A LOT- 😅
The old strings my folks had were red, orange, yellow, green, blue. They were from the '70s or early '80s and afaik my father still has them and they're still in working order. The new LED strings I've seen are much more intensely these same shades and I'm irritated that we have not advanced to 6 colors with a lovely purple. PURPLE, PEOPLE! Rainbows are good for everyone!!!
My high school algebra teacher showed Vihart videos in class and I thought they were the coolest thing ever. I'm 28 now and I still get excited when Vihart videos appear. I love u vihart, u mysterious math cryptid, you.
Omg I subbed to you years ago and sometimes I still go back and watch your old hexaflexagon videos (which is, by the way, one of my favorite fidget things now). It is awesome seeing that you’re back!
That last part was my inner dialogue the past couple days as Amazon lost a $500 order and I live in the mountains and Amazon takes forever to get here and I can’t pay extra for faster shipping because it’s already prime and takes two weeks to get here…most of my husbands presents were in that order. If I tried to get it from other companies not only am I out the money but there’s a chance it won’t get here before we leave for Christmas with his family. So point being I feel really seen and validated 😂 love the video and the rant, happy holidays ❤
Being diagnosed with OCD + ADHD has made all of my previous Vihart hyper fixations make so much more sense. I will flock to these videos when they pop up in my feed. I have been called. I must answer, always.
The Christmas colors I grew up with were always red, green, and white/silver. The white lights give you the full spectrum you need, without having to add in a weird blue.
exactly what i was going to say!
I'd say blue is just as a Christmas colour as white is, but you are right. The problem is bad white lights tend to be "not white enough", because white is created by all three colours together, manufacturers tend to opt for an "unperfect white". What do you think of gold as a Christmas colour, as she said it's the most canonical Christmas colour and I think it fits well, but I can't really imagine it at the top of my head. I also think it has to fit in matches: red and green are always paired (eg: holy and ivy), blue and gold have to be paired (eg: the Star in the nightsky, the nightsky and the desert, King's crown and robe, light in dark, etc), but white... what does white match or pair up with? Also, what do you think of silver as a Christmas colour? Is it synonymous with white, I'd say white and silver tinsel are similar.
especially blue leds, which pierce the retinas so. comfy cozy holiday season cornea needles.
@@benos5669 for me it's the yellows that are super hard to the eyes. I'm cozy with a string of lights where reds and yellows are broken (idk if it's a wire problem or the led) and only the blue and green lights work
It's the nicest ones for me
white like snow
Thank you.
Yay
You are my direct inspiration for watching this lol
Clicked on this video literally looking for you to chime in. 😂
i'm like 90% sure that watching the technology connections Christmas Special™ is the exact reason i got recommended this video lol
This made my week
I love all the things that all the other comments mention about this video, but I want to also point out the awesomeness of the spotlight effect to individually "light" the drawn bulbs. So cool!
Thanks! I used Premiere's brightness+contrast effect, with an ellipse mask and feathered edge.
@@Vihart I was going to guess "elves with tiny flashlights". Only slightly disappointed that's not how it was done. 😞
@@Vihart*Your inner child is always free!*
we all love you, hope you suffer less from anxiety. Would love to see you're quirkiness be present without the doom.. honesty a *red* flag to me. Oooh pretty colors ooohh blinking lights ooohh subliminal subtrance induction... So much today is a doom sponsored psyop, its not even funny. i hope to hear back from you that it was an innocent moment, and not the objective of the video. All the best ∆
@stevenclarke2655 Thanks for sharing Vi. I really hope you can respond to my other question about Math when you can
Thanks very much.
Pretty sure they were just being silly. Mercy. @@fire17102
Usually for me, Christmas colors are separate patterns, like red and green are for decor, blue and white are for outdoor lights or icicle lights, and warm white is for indoor tree lights. It solves the problem of red and green not being enough of the spectrum and blue and cold-white not being very festive
Exactly, I was thinking that the 5 color lights would work better if warm white was used instead of pink.
Exactly. For me there are three "pairs" of Christmas colours:
- Red & Green
- Gold & Silver
- Blue & White/Silver
I'm particularly fond of the last one because I only celebrate Christmas as a cultural winter festival, so I love the cool wintery colours.
That being said, some of these can combine well in other ways, such as Red & Gold, Green & Gold, Blue & Gold, Blue & White & Silver, Gold & Silver & White, and Red & Gold & White.
YES
Yes thank you!!! Blue and white for outside eveything else for inside! I love to make my outside lights look like snow!
@@WingedAsarath I totally agree with your pairs but I think that is because they also work as triplets. The whole method of criteria I use may be just a bit different as the color combos need to match the type of cookie. All must work with gingerbread or molasses based sweet breads or they are not quite right.
I can't believe you didn't talk about the fact that pink and red are far too similar to both be associated with the same holiday.
I couldn't tell which lights ,not the one's she drew, where pink or red (probably just my phone screen)
@@Blah5641 my computer screen supposedly has HDR on and I couldn't tell either, just looks like there's too many pink bulbs
Aren't they both associated with valentine's' day already?
Red, pink, and white are Valentine's colors.
Technically, pink is as far away from red than yellow. Both pink(magenta) and yellow are secondary colors made from red + another primary
I actually really dislike most blues in Christmas lights. The blues in most Christmas lights that I see is drastically darker and feels so out of place next to the other colors. I've seen some really nice looking Christmas lights that have good blues on them but the majority have this eye piercing blue that I get severely annoyed at for very little valid reason.
Agreed. The blue LEDs commonly on consumer string lights are very harsh and monochromatic. Probably the good blue lights you talk about were incandescent bulbs or white LEDs with a blue filter; these have a much broader spectral band.
Blue is a Hanukkah Color.
You are not alone. Blue LEDs are way too hard on the eyes. I genuinely don't understand why people use them.
My theory is that people who use those lights are literally colorblind.
Those stupid electric blue lights are how I found out that my eyes cannot focus on high frequency LEDs. I thought that colour was just supposed to be blurry, but nope, it's my own stupid eyes. I have the same problem with those blue LED digital clocks that seem to be everywhere now.
@@a3wagnerI also noticed that blue LED fairy lights appear blurry or difficult to focus on. Turns out it is a well documented phenomenon. Generally it's attributed to blue light dispersing/scattering more, as well as the fact that human eyes have less blue-sensitive cone cells and so the angular resolution is reduced for blue light.
6. Prove irrefutably that spiders are a christmas animal.
They have 8 legs, 1 for every reindeer.
They create webs in fancy shapes; some could argue the webs look even star-like.
If you put little bells on their feet, they could jingle all the way.
P.S. I love all your videos! You're one of the last remaining OG youtube creators. Please keep making more :)
The Nightmare before Christmas strikes again!
there's an xlcd about that
The Christmas trees are perfect places for them to make webs!
If you’re the type that gets real trees for Christmas trees, you might bring a few into your house, too… Christmas friends!!
I love spiders, but spiders with little elf shoes and bells is very nightmare fuel
"Change is part of life and your inner child will never be free and you can't go home again."
I love this line and its delivery. I've always felt a nostalgia for structure around the holidays that the actual experiences never seemed to give me.
"I'm missing a house
That I've never called home
I'm missing a time that I've never known."
The Chapel by Madilyn Mei
This American Life had this Christmas Special episode a while back that I loved, and the one line that will always stick out to me as an adult and parent can be paraphrased as: "As a kid, Christmas is magical as a source of infinite possibilities. When you are an adult, Christmas sort of ossifies, it gets stuck as an attempt to recreate or recapture the magic of your youth."
It's Episode 576, well worth it.
Good luck out there, and try to find the copypasta about Santa being real in each of us.
ViHart becomes Technology Connections for 5 minutes and 14 seconds
now this is a collab we need to see
she'd be technology connections with a brown light
@@nicreven which is just orange, mind you
just a lil dim@@JGnLAU8OAWF6
+
If I had a nickel for every time one of my favourite educational TH-camrs made a video about their pet-peeves regarding string lights I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's still weird it happened twice.
Go ahead and drop the name of number two would ya
@@kaylanek1 Alec from Technology Connections. He has particularly strong opinions on the colours of LED lights, he made a several of videos about it already.
I considered making this comment! Happy hello, fellow Alec fan :)
@@HmmmmmLemmeThinkNo Hello to you as well! :) Little did I know, writing that comment, that Alec was about to drop another installment in the "blue LEDs aren't Christmassy" saga.
@@Viniterat this point it's the traditional end to no effort november.
I used to be obsessed with her videos as a kid. It was nice to hear my thoughts that I couldn't articulate put into words by a very smart person. Now that I'm older I realize that I should have known I was autistic much earlier 😂
Really hahaha
good LORD you did not have to accidentally call me out like this /lh
Same
I had this thought halfway through the video 😂
Omg yes Vi watcher to realizing we’re autistic pipeline 😭😂
My only gripe with Christmas lights is that they’ve gotten very cold toned in the last 10-15 years. I think it was when LED lights started getting popular. The blue and white LEDs are especially harsh and cold. My favorite Christmas lights are the older, fat multicolored lights.
True when I buy LED lights I look for ones without blue, becasue it's always overpowering the whole thing. You have 3 lights in there, but somehow it turns out to be 90% blue. :P
I haaaatteeeee the new ones. I always buy the old ones
I've never seen a string of Christmas lights with pink on them, and I will now forever be distressed that this is a thing that exists. Fantastic video, Vi!
my nana's tree lights always had pink as long as i can remember. it's glorious, a hot neon magenta color.
Older fairy lights with filament bulbs often had pinks.
I grew up with sets with pink, and sets without pink.
The ones HomeDepot sells have that pink color in them. I really like them
I've seen plenty of modern strings with purple. And the blue LEDs are too dark blue, the whites are now daylight instead of warm white, there's too many cheap, flickery LEDs...
I want LED bulbs to save power and reduce heat, but it's impossible to find them in classic colors...
Please never stop making videos! The sporadic nature of them add so much to the enjoyment. They are a treat you didn’t expect and are cherished ever more for it.
Once again vi managed to masterfully articulate and put on paper vague thoughts ive had in my mind but never realized i had
@MiaVilleneuve You never had those thoughts.🤦♂️
They're the kind of thoughts I never realized I had before, but I'll never be able to stop realizing from now on.
@@spanqueluv9ercalm down lil bro
the addition of a fifth color makes it very busy, but i feel like busy honestly suits the vibe of christmas pretty well.
I'm so happy every time I see a new video by you, thank you for inspiring me!!! I'm finally taking mathematics in university :D I feel so involved and curious about everything here, just like I do with the content you bring. This way of seeing the world is truly fascinating
Congratulations. Have fun on your mathy adventures.
@@DeclanMBrennan Thank you!!
Vi Hart’s Pythagoras video from like 11 years ago eventually inspired me to go to university for math. I don’t regret a thing.
From my holiday experience, this is about the difference between LEDs and incandescent bulbs. The modern green and blue LEDs are very bright, and in the four-color LED strings, they usually overpowered the red and gold, giving an overall very cold look. Adding a third warm color helps balance it out to give a neutral or warm color overall.
We can always rely on Vi for restful but thought provoking musings. Also on the subject of Halloween, Christmas and Numbers:
Why can programmers not tell the difference between Halloween and Christmas?
Because Oct:31 is the same as Dec:25.
An OCTAL reference holy NUTS that's niche
@@Woodledude can you explain :'
As in a base-8 numbering system? Is that actually mathematically true?
@@_glint Gladly! We're talking about number bases here, so, for example, the one we're used to is base 10. All that means is that 10 is the place we go from 1 digit to 2 digits, and 100 is the place where we go from 2 digits to 3 digits, and so on. We add digits at the powers of ten, in other words.
Other bases exist, and use more digits at different places - Binary is the classic example, and 10 in binary is equivalent to 2 in decimal - Binary counts like 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, and so on. Basically, pretend you're counting normally, but ignore any number that has a digit that's not 0 or 1. The numbers are the same as normal, but they're represented differently, and that can be useful for storage, convenience of writing, or discovering patterns in numbers.
The joke here is that 25 in Decimal, our typical numbering system, will be represented as 31 in Octal. The numbers shift around, because Octal represents 8 as "10", 9 as "11", and 10 as "12". And yes, for those wondering, this is actually the correct conversion.
It's okay if this is confusing! I'm doing a terrible job of explaining it, actually - If you want to find a better place to learn about this, I'd look up videos on "Numerical Bases," or maybe videos on specific bases. Base 6, Seximal, actually has some great videos! As does Dozenal (12), Hexadecimal (16), and Binary (2), I'm sure. The other bases tend to be poorly represented, as they're not as immediately relevant or useful - Hence why I was surprised to see anyone referencing Octal in a joke!
Oh, by the way - Base 1 is tallies :3 Counts 1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111 - That last one is usually represented with the last "tally" being used as a strike through the others, but that's mostly a grouping thing, it's basically just showing the literal number you're referencing as the number of digits. It's the simplest possible base to write, but it's also not very useful for large numbers, hopefully for obvious reasons.
@@sophiedowney1077It is, you can check it yourself!
As someone with autism and synesthesia, this video makes more sense to me than anything else. Thank you for FINALLY explaining what’s going on in my head.
Vi, your periodic videos of randomness boost my mental health. Thanks. And blue is definitely a northern hemisphere Christmas colour... It's the colour of my extremities if I go outside.
4:38 makes me feel so much peace since i grew up with pink-inclusive christmas lights!! i love reading the comments and seeing what colors of lights bring everyone the most joy 🩷
It’s funny you should mention this, but I also had the 4-colour Christmas Lights but my Mom always complained that they weren’t bright enough and so got an additional set of white Christmas Lights for the tree, so in my head 5 is the more Christmassy number. Pink definitely isn’t a Christmas colour though
In my mind, Xmas colors are "red, green, and WHITE." I get why Vi and other folks might dismiss "white" as a color, but the bright, mostly-full spectrum color of a white string light overcomes most of the failings of strong primary colors. But I also have strong opinions about yellow light and. though I see the point of having gold in there, I dislike the color that much.
@@argentpuck I don't dismiss white as a color, I just... never had string lights with white in them. So I wouldn't even think to include it in the conversation about "string lights I've experienced and how they've changed over the years".
I think I've seen "white and blue" lights, and probably "white and red", but I really don't think I've ever seen a tricolor "red and green and white" string light.
@@argentpuck Why would you think Vi would dismiss white as a color? She said she sees colors as an experience, not as a fact of nature.
@@argentpuckI remember going out during Christmas and seeing the unintentional Italian flags everywhere. Very fun.
I think you could make a great collab with Technology Connections on this. Alec also has a very healthy and normal amount of attachment to holiday lights.
That would be very fun.
im so happy to see a new vi video! i wanted to tell you that years ago i obsessed over your 12 tone music video and fibbonacci number videos and the like, and now im 5 years into music school and am encountering those things every day. It feels so full circle. Thank you for sparking my interest in the weird little math that makes up our everyday lives.
You have explained and visualized what set me off for YEARS.
Thank you.
And when the world needed her most,she came back(with a rant about string lights)
As a nail technician this is genuinely something i have to think about. I had a client who wanted string lights going through all her nails and when she didnt know what colors she wanted i had to ask what vibe she was going for. More modern colors would have been red blue and white(silver) because she wore silver jewlery and i would have had to do something different if she wore gold. But she wanted something a little more nostalgic then chic so we did red green purple and pink which gave the nails a whole different design. It gave it a childisg feel. Kind of like old charlie brown christmas episodes.
you lot are called technicians? not artists? 0.o
I definitely say nail tech over nail artist because of how much schooling about biology and chemistry and technique I had to go through, but also my best friend hates saying nail technician so it's preference ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good seeing you Vi! Your rare uploads are a very nice treat. I love the “about 2” video. Keep up the hard work and enjoy yourself!
In 5 minutes you took this from something I've never thought about in my life to something I have very strong options on
Also, I wasn't having a great day and seeing that you uploaded has made it significantly better :]
“Valentines Day, Easter, Breast Cancer Awareness, BARBENHEIMER” lmao
Your videos have always been an inspiration and completely reframed what math could be for me. I was recently lucky enough to land my dream job as an engineer at NASA and I seriously think I wouldn't be in the same place if not for your videos. Thank you so so much for what you do. I've been watching for years and never commented really. I'm sure there are many others like me out there, quietly thankful and better off because of your work. For what it's worth, I have kept the fight for Tau alive and will never give up 😂
Thanks Vi
I grew up with the five-color lights that included the pink and I always liked how the colors looked together. They remind me of candy (because fruit candies often have both red and pink, and overall have more warm colors than blues and greens). In my eyes, the color palette is actually pretty soothing and cohesive for something that's "rainbow." It's actually the newer four-color LED lights (red, green, blue, yellow) that bother me because they're too bright and I find the colors jarring. I do wish I could find the five-colored lights with the pink in dimmed LED form, though, just because regular Christmas lights get too hot and I don't want the increased fire risk. 😅
I said almost the same thing!
You don't understand how happy it makes me to know that somebody else is out there overthinking otherwise thoughtless aesthetic decisions of things that don't matter as much as I do
What a wonderful roller coaster of patterns, holiday comfort, and existential realization. 10/10 for owning a random fixated topic, always happy to watch when you upload!
In the same vein of the discussion, I recently saw sets of solar powered string lights having red, green and plain white in time for Christmas. I’m quite surprised they don’t use warm white in place of gold, but it seems the four colour of string lights have become the norm. Also a great exploration of why the amount of colours on a string light matters a lot to some of us.
Yay. A new video with the trusted lined paper and sharpies. I just love that. Also, I absolutely agree that having 5 colours is just too many colours.
Besides, every time I hear your voice the laser bat and all its fascinating twelve-tone adventures creep back into my mind determined to stay for at least a week. Mary had a laser bat...
Thank you for continuing to share your gifts with the world. You make everything better.
I love it when math lady talks about random stuff
I find it relaxing
1. To turn a 5 (n+1) color string into a 4 (n) color string you need to replace 16 (n*n) bulbs in every 20 ( n*(n+1) ) length group in order to preserve the order. So that means replacing 7 * 16 + 6 which is (N//(n*(n+1)))*(n*n) + (N%(n*(n+1)) - n)
2. Movie night with string lights in blue and orange because Orange/Blue Contrast in movies. Except when watching The Matrix.
3. This is similar to spinning objects and frame rates.
5. A sixth
6. In Australia
I really like the way you get emotions across. The chaos of lights and the rate of your speech increasing as a way to get us to feel properly the like, drifting away from childhood, it's really cool.
a new vi hart video is the most happy moment of my life
AGREED
Yes!!
I remember your old videos on Khan Academy about Hexa-Flexagons and seeing this pop up in my feed has given me a very plesant hit of nostalgia. Thank you for bringing a bit of my past back
i always thought there were three christmas colors: red, green, and white
I agree, I was expecting white to show up!
With white, you get all the colours already, so you wouldn't the need red and green bulbs anymore :-)
I feel very refreshed by the creative style of this video, and very cheated that the algorithm didn't bring me here sooner
I come back to this channel after many years, and the vibes are still impeccable.
Whenever you post I’m never disappointed- so many educational videos like this I would immediately turn off cause adhd brain but yours always perfectly scratch that itch in my brain and keep me hooked ❤
I’ve never come across your channel before this but I *adored* this video.
Your voice and the script and the delivery and the subject matter and the writing and the animations and *every damn thing* was like scratching an itch just the right way. An itch I didn’t know I had.
OH MY GOD I USED TO LOVE YOU YEARS AGO. I CANT BELIEVE IVE FOUND THIS CHANNEL AGAIN
Now I wanna see a collaboration between you and Technology Connections about Christmas lights.
Came here to find or add this comment!
If you don't want a period-5 chase pattern, you could still have a period-5 color cycle with a period-4 chase pattern. That way you also get balanced color all the time, instead of stressful holiday hued swings.
You are the wisely weirdest person I have seen on youtube. Love it! Random thoughts, even the most weird ones, when put into appropriate words, form such a nice logical narrative. I think everyone is capable of thinking of such dilemmas, just not everyone is skillful enough to convey them in tangible and scientific manner. Well done!
Red yellow orange green blue purple (most strands look pink but grandma’s was more amgenta) is the string light pattern that my grandma’s tree had and it will forever be my favorite
That's the combo we had when I was a kid and I miss it. Its hard to get multicoloured lights now. Most options are blue white or blue which I HATE with a fiery passion. Even warm white LEDs are not warm white enough when I grew up with incandescent bulbs. Plus LEDS flicker so quickly it triggers my migraines. :( Most people can't see the flicker as they cycle on off, but I think me being able to is part my severe astigmatism, part being autistic and hypersensitive to light in general.
Yes I miss the purple so much. I feel like they changed the purple to magenta for cost reasons. And the flicker, my God, xmas is mightmare for my epilepsy, people think I'm insane. How can they not see the flicker?
Coming from a Jewish family, our holiday colors are blue and white. The white means we get the entire spectrum for free, and the two colors together evoke associations with water, ice, and snow, making them perfect winter holiday colors. On the other hand... there are only two, so we twinkle instead of chase.
But our holiday is about eating greasy, fried foods, gambling, and 8x presents, so I think we win vs a tree-centered baby shower 😁
gold/yellow is also a color closely associated with Judaism and Hanukkah (the flames of the candles, and winter fires keeping you warm) so we could have a nice 3 color arrangement of string lights.
legit Hanukkah seems like an absolute blast
A few years back I saw a house absolutely decked out in Christmas lights and decorations and it included snowflake lights. And, in the middle of this mess, there were Star of David lights among the snowflakes. I had a good laugh.
Gambling vs the Messiah.
I'll stick with Christmas 🎄 😊
@@Jabberwockybird That's the funny thing about it: only your religion thinks he's the Messiah. To the other 5 billion people in the world, he was just a dude. So I'll stick with gambling for chocolate 😊
(By the way... Christmas is a pagan holiday, and Jesus wasn't born in December. Just fyi. I have no issue with people celebrating pagan holidays, I just thought it's important to know what you're really celebrating if you're going to.)
Blue and Purple are actually the liturgical colors for the season of Advent, so more appropriate than red or green in a sense. I always enjoy your content, and thanks for a fun video!
Thank you for blessing us vi ❤
The last video I watched from you was doodling in mathclass: sick number games 11 years ago. This was a crazy throwback.
I love the idea of chasing lights.
my favourite christmas light colour is warm white
Sigh. I am replacing some Christmas stuff after a flood and have been looking at these new lights for two years without purchasing. I cannot get behind the 5 colours. And now I have a video that perfectly encapsulates my feelings. Thank you vihart.
I was born in 1991 and pink was a color on every strand of Christmas lights I grew up with. It was pink, red, gold, green and blue mostly with green wire and occasionally white wire. I find any Christmas lights missing those colors to be depressing and I refuse to buy them.
yes! I was wondering why the Christmas lights on a lot of houses this year kinda stress me out, and this video and these comments helped me articulate. The pink kinda controls the blue, makes it so that it doesn't overwhelm, and balances all the colors better! pink isn't a Christmas color, but it always just served more of a balancer than a main character to me. It lets most of the focus be on the red and green. and it helps keep the whole thing from being overwhelming. Bring back the pink!
2:38 "Colors are experienced and felt, they're not intrinsic facts about the universe." love this!
I grew up with lights where the red was just actually pink. I get that it's not the best Christmas color, but the pink is crucial to get the best comforting glow in my opinion.
YES! Justice for pink!
I love you, Vihart! I remember watching your video about 12-tone rows when I was a teenager, and just this week we started talking about 12-tone rows in my theory course at music school!!
THE RETURN OF THE QUEEN
As someone whose mother only ever allowed silver and white decorations for EVERY celebration and mever had colourful holidays through my childhood because of it, this video fills me with a yearning nostalgia that is crawling down my back
I'm glad someone talked about this. I hate that the 5-color string lights have red and pink; when I use them for mood lighting, the average is much more red/warm because combined the red and pink outweigh the rest of the colors.
This is the first vihart video I’ve seen in ten years. Nothing has changed.
BABE WAKE UP VIHART JUST UPLOADED 🔥
02:15
TF you say!? A room bathed entirely in green light looks _awesome!_
I can't believe they didn't make white the fifth color. White boosts all colors in the room and it's thematically correct. They also ALREADY HAVE WHITE LIGHTBULBS WHY MAKE MOR-
closest I could find this year was red/green/blue/yellow/orange, so you can kind of pretend the yellow bulbs are warm white
@@kb_520 Acceptable
hearing your voice took my back to watching your videos years ago, glad to see you’re still making interesting and really fun content
I think red, orange, and yellow make good Halloween and generally fall colors.
For Christmas, a dark red, medium green, and pale ice blue make for a nicely balanced triad.
i never clicked so fast! i love your videos, you grab my attention so easily
as a kid, i never understood why chrismas string lights didn't match all the other christmas themed things and no one ever told me WHY. I'm glad you talked about this now so i could think with an older point of view,,,, yet it still pisses me off
I grew up with these lights. My family still uses them. It's not that we think pink is a Christmas color, it just contrasts nicely with the blue-green of a pine tree, and adds flavor to the color palette.
I used to know this psycho who only ever used white lights. To be fair, he couldn't see red, so he would always miss a bit of the seasonal aesthetic, but still.
Single colour lights should only be used as a complement to coloured lights (for example my parents have some over their fireplace vs the multicoloured lights on their big tree). And even then they should be white only (pref warm white). Monocrome blue or pink lights can get in the sea. Not literally though, that's pollution.
Ok but single white, a soft warmISH white, kicks ass! I love using just white lights but only if they’re of a specific warmth and then ONLY those. Whoever is mixing and matching whites is a monster and I fear them
After all these years I’m happy that you are still active on here. To this day I still make hexaflexagons sometimes when I’m bored, I made one just last month
This perfectly describes my dilemma right now 😅
The stringlights my parents used to put in our windows for the christmas holidays had the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. A nice rainbow approximation and the nicest stringlights I ever had anywhere. Instant nostalgia whenever I used to put them up. The problem is they're over 20 years old atp, I've used up all the mini replacement bulbs and I CAN'T FIND A GOOD REPLACEMENT. Either they're just red, yellow and blue, which is too little colors for me, or they have the odd purple but no blue etc etc. I've been trying to solve this for like two christmas periods and always ended up reusing the old ones with their ever swindling number of working lights.
1. Maybe buy all the colours available, be it online or elsewhere, and either you or another could swatch out most of the bulbs on one string and that'd basically make a reproduction. Worth a try.
2. Like srsly I'd love to invent a battery-powered full-string version of those necklaces with plastic bulbs resembling the old-timey fat ones (I quite like those but the modern ones are nice too). It'd have 8 colours of said plastic bulbs (what you mentioned, with pink and white added; will also have variants exclusively for each one). Bad idea, but I like it at least.
I also have Thoughts on Christmas lights and am so glad I found this video! A lot of the houses round here have outdoor lights that have alll of the classic 4 colours - red, yellow, green and blue - but which display two colours at a time and fade between them. As you know there are 3 ways to do this: red/yellow to green/blue, red/blue to green/yellow, and red/green to blue/yellow. The first two are about equally common, but the third is incredibly rare and I don't know why. To me, red/green is the most classic Christmas combination!
The Fall Equinox should have red, orange, yellow, and blue as its color identity. The colors of fallen leaves, sharply contrasted against a clear blue sky is quintessentially Fall to me (regardless of having spent most of my life in Florida, where the leaves never really change color, and also being colorblind, potentially leading to me never noticing the leaves changing color.)
Vi, I've missed your videos... so good to have you back (if only for a single video... no pressure)
Finally, someone who gets as concerned about the truly important things in life as I do 😂 Also, I am distressed to learn that pink has been added to Christmas lights, it has literally caused a chill to my spine!
Im so happy you're still making videos! My first exposure to your content was like 10 years ago on kahn academy. Your videos were a reward for if i did my assignment. Thank you so much for all your videos and good luck with your colorful conundrums!
666 is a good Halloween number. A string of 666 lights is probably too long to be marketable, but you could make strings of 18 lights, and leave it up to the purchaser to buy 37 of them for a total of 666 lights. With a string of 18 lights, you could have 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, or even 18 colors (though not 4 or 5), while still making an equal number of each colored bulb, and not having any awkward repetition at the ends if you put multiple strings together.
And to answer that final question in the description, spiders can go down a chimney much easier than an old man, and their silk is strong enough to carry everyone's presents.
In a similar vein to 666, 888 is a number for Jesus, spiders have 8 legs :: QED Spiders are Xmas animals ;-D
OR ... have an 18 string with only 3 colors, and they are grouped together: 6 orange, 6 purple, 6 green - done!
I grew up with the 5 color lights. They go well with the random assortment of ornaments we've collected over the years. I always have them straight on though, never blinking.
How old are you? I remember pink in string lights from when I was a toddler in the early 90s, I'm sure it's been a thing for a lot longer than that.
And on that subject; when I was a kid halloween lights were only ever orange, then you'd start to see blacklight strings, then finally orange and blacklight/purple combined on like the mid 2000s.
I thought being surprised by the pink lights was weird. I grew up with those and you can see that color scheme in 80s and 90s films set during Christmas.
Huh I never thought about this really but I kinda agree, except for the fact that songs written in 5/4 are very unique and also can be relaxing
i used to watch your math videos instead of doing math in elementary school because i didn’t realize they were math. i’m graduating from highschool this year planning to be a math major. thank you so much for everything
also, i love the christmas is a baby announcement thing that’s great
I love adding green to halloween because it makes the spectrum a full tricolor of secondary hues!
Also I'm not at all biased, don't look to the left of this post.
I still won't bother to put up lights until I can find a set of programmable string LEDs that I can set to whatever two or three colors I want them to be so I can leave them up year round and just change the colors as the holidays go by.
As someone who got sick of pink at a young age, looking at pink Christmas lights and affirming "I accept the things I cannot change" is SUCH A MOOD.
Weirdly, 5 doesn't bother me but it feels distinctly New Years Eve-y, like someone's playing Take 5, or has indulged a lot and isn't quite walking straight, or both. But the 5th color would need to be white for that to work, Pink just doesn't need to be there, it's already got other holidays and doesn't look good with the rest of the set.
This video randomly popped up on my feed. I can’t believe after 11 years I found your channel again! Oh I feel like a teenager I’m so happy 🥹
red, green, white, gold, and faded sky blue are all good Chrstmas colors. Pink really doesn't belong, save for being paired alone with a faded green (to maintain the green/red pairing). I agree about about chaser patterns. I think more colors can belong together in a still frame, but can still harm the cohesion and composition. Pinks, purple, orange, burgundy, all are great present colors, but I think the framing devices of all that should remain primarily red and green.
Why yt decided to recommended it to me- no idea. But I feel like I'd want to be your friend, like you could chaotically ramble it to me at 2 a.m. in a McDonalds parking lot and I'd love that. I hope this year you get the four Christmas coloured lamps you deserve
Fastest ive ever opened a notification
i love when u upload for holidays, i always come back for the holiday themed videos. also ur very right- 4 is perfect for christmas, it's hard to explain, but u explained it perfectly! 5 feels A LOT- 😅
The old strings my folks had were red, orange, yellow, green, blue. They were from the '70s or early '80s and afaik my father still has them and they're still in working order.
The new LED strings I've seen are much more intensely these same shades and I'm irritated that we have not advanced to 6 colors with a lovely purple.
PURPLE, PEOPLE! Rainbows are good for everyone!!!
My high school algebra teacher showed Vihart videos in class and I thought they were the coolest thing ever. I'm 28 now and I still get excited when Vihart videos appear. I love u vihart, u mysterious math cryptid, you.
Black is not an effective colour for light bulbs, so I only buy dark bulbs in that colour now.
Omg I subbed to you years ago and sometimes I still go back and watch your old hexaflexagon videos (which is, by the way, one of my favorite fidget things now). It is awesome seeing that you’re back!
That last part was my inner dialogue the past couple days as Amazon lost a $500 order and I live in the mountains and Amazon takes forever to get here and I can’t pay extra for faster shipping because it’s already prime and takes two weeks to get here…most of my husbands presents were in that order. If I tried to get it from other companies not only am I out the money but there’s a chance it won’t get here before we leave for Christmas with his family. So point being I feel really seen and validated 😂 love the video and the rant, happy holidays ❤
Vi! I used to watch your videos when I was younger and hadn’t realized it was you until clicking on this. It’s nice to see you again!
Being diagnosed with OCD + ADHD has made all of my previous Vihart hyper fixations make so much more sense. I will flock to these videos when they pop up in my feed.
I have been called. I must answer, always.