There’s a strange feeling I get when I realize most of, if not every one of these people are now passed. They were once young and full of hope for the future and that’s all history. The writing is especially weird to see as I can look back on my own yearbook and associate a face with all the writings but in 100 years someone may be reading my yearbook notes on an ASMR channel too and everyone will have passed too. Life is so perplexing when I sit down and think about it.
You’ve hit on exactly the reason I picked 100 years when choosing the book. It was important to me that we be able to assume that no matter what all those stories were going to be, good or bad, big or small, famous or anonymous, that they had all played out to their inevitable conclusions long before we considered those optimistic faces. Thanks so much for your comment.
I love how you've taken such a simple ASMR trigger, page turning, and woven a story that is compelling to watch. You've brought this year book alive while providing tingles. Thank you!
You’re very welcome, GS, and thank YOU for such a kind comment. You used the word “alive” - thank you for that. I’d like to think that perhaps we helped bring everybody in that yearbook alive for a moment, as we intersected that space with them for a moment. So many people left just a little bit of themselves in that book, and maybe rolling them around in our imaginations for an hour is a fitting tribute a hundred years after their birth...
Yes, I thought the same thing when I first saw this yearbook. I did some research that did not make it into the video, including how California schools were a bit of an anomaly in this regard back then, only to become very segregated later. Makes for some good Google searches if you’re interested in that topic.
Thanks for the comment, Cody! I'm glad this video resonates with you, I was really fond of this concept. Not all the ideas work out, but I was happy with this one. Best to you.
Thanks so much, you’re much too kind. I’m moved that these dining room table conversations are able to resonate with some of you out there, and I really appreciate your encouragement. Thanks for being here!
I absolutely love this video; it may be my favorite of yours. You talking about the period and culture and such throughout, as well as the mysterious aspects carried throughout makes me want a video from you involving you discussing a certain time period in American history, or maybe something regarding urban legends or even serial killers or something dark like that since I'm interested in true crime. You seem like a really intelligent and insightful man so I really just want to hear you discuss and share your thoughts on topics like that.
I really appreciate your thoughts on this - you mentioned all the parts of the experience that I really thought the hardest about, so I'm happy to hear that they resonated with you. Thank you, also, for your suggestions on topics. For a channel that started out with a simple "share things that I enjoy" mission, it is surprising how many new things I've learned, how many small topics have spidered out into mini-research projects, just because I stumbled into a subject that I wanted to know more about for my own curiosity. I'm not a historian by any means, and I certainly don't claim that everything (or anything?) I say in these videos is correct, but I do wonder about things; I love knowing the story-behind-the-story, the cause behind the effect, you know? I believe the drive behind most of these rambles comes from that place. Thanks again for your feedback!
Amazing idea! I remember going through my moms old yearbooks when I was little and finding it so interesting this brought back those memories. Thank you =]
I’m SO glad this brought back some memories for you! That’s the best thing I could ever expect from this content, and I appreciate your being here. Best to you!
What a very interesting idea for an ASMR video. I love to learn as I relax and can’t stand the silly role plays and mindless drivel many ASMRtists resort to (makeup, shopping hauls, etc.) So glad I found your channel, thanks to Let’s Find Out ASMR. 🙂
I'm so glad to have you here, Isabelle, and I hope you enjoy the channel. I'm glad this idea resonated with you. I was really happy with it. Beginnings and ends of journeys are so evocative and compelling to me, and I was lucky that my muse pointed me in this direction. :-) Best to you!
#MapsWithoutUP In all seriousness, the woodcuts throughout this are fantastic. I'm a designer and design fan and I love to see things like this--design enriching all facets of life, today and a century ago.
Great comment, Kendall, thanks. I completely agree. All of the regional flavor and authenticity of that yearbook comes from those woodcuts, IMO. Do you follow David Bull’s Japanese woodcut print channel?
Yeah, that discussion was from one of the unannounced live streams, back on 8/10. I pulled out my own high school year book and tried to show it on camera when nobody on the stream knew what a yearbook was first-hand. The sentiment from the stream that night was that they see so many things about American life in the movies, that nobody is sure what is real, and what is made up for the movies. Makes sense that that would be the case! :-)
Thanks for the comment, Austin. I had to look it up, of course, and you're right! Let's put it here: The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Some years ago the television over here had a documentary on James Cagney and they said his desire had always to be a song-and-dance man, but he always got cast as gangsters. So, he was very happy when he got to do Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Very interesting, thanks. I've never known much about Cagney, but it sounds like young Dorothy made it her business to know quite a bit about him. In this info age, we forget how few sources there likely were at that time to get information about a celebrity (or about anything, really). Licensed commercial radio didn't start in the US until late 1920, and by the end of the 30's most of the TV receivers in the world were in the UK. For someone like Dorothy, I imagine most of her information came to her in print.
Yes, I guess a lot of her information came from magazines and newspaper articles/interviews with the man himself. I believe there was also a suggestion at the time that Cagney may have been a Communist, or have Communist leanings and that was another reason for doing Yankee Doodle Dandy - but that may just be a myth.
So, you turn the page at 1:07:24 and there is an advert for "Fred's Electric Shoe Shop". Now, I've never been to America, so perhaps you can answer the following question for me... what are "electric shoes"?
I poked around on Google a little bit to try to figure out what the real answer might be. Apparently, from the late 1890s to the early 1900s, there were shoe repair shops called "electric shoe shops" all over the country. I could not, however, find evidence that there was an actual shoe type called the electric shoe. My guess (emphasis on GUESS) is that when electric-powered leatherworking tools were introduced to the trade (particularly electric sewing machines that were set up to stitch leather goods), the phrase "electric shoe shop" was likely a popular way for shop-owners to communicate to customers that they repaired shoes using electric tools. I'm guessing the goal was to convey to the customer that they could expect their repairs to be completed more quickly in an "electric shoe shop" than in a "traditional" shop, as well as to exploit that bit of human nature that would have us believe that any job performed with a bit of technology was automatically "better" than the same job performed by hand. Thoughts?
Well, the "electric shoe" question was kind of a grammar-related joke of course. It's like saying you sell "wooden hen houses"... why would anyone want a house for wooden hens? :) Buy seriously, I think you are right and that the tools they were using were electric (like you say for stitching etc.) because back then any process that was machine done "had" to be better. Now I occasionally do see signs outside some shops that say "Ear Piercing while-u-wait"... well, erm, how else would it be done?
LOL, no worries, I understood the joke. I remember noticing that ad when I was shooting the video and wondering what it meant, but since I hadn't researched it at all, I was reluctant to bring it up. But your comment prompted me to look a little deeper, which I appreciate!
I quickly googled the publication date for the book The Wizard of Oz. 1900. Maybe the prevalence of Dorothy's came about because of the book, not the movie? You made me a bit too sleepy to do anymore hardcore research for tonight so I'll leave it at that.
Excellent point - that thought hadn't even crossed my mind. I love it when you guys come through with these extra points! Thanks for watching AND for paying such close attention.
Yes, that was the consensus of the England and Australia folks that were on that stream last month. They didn't have any first-hand experience with any UK/AUS schools that produced yearbooks. More stuff I've learned from having this channel!
Something that does seem to have become "a thing" in schools here in recent years (at least those in my town) is the children sign each other's school shirts on the last day. Often seen young ones wearing graffiti-emblazoned white shirts going home from school.
given the fact that these people were 18 in 1935 it is likely that quite a few (of the men especially) fought and possibly died in ww2, a strange thought when you consider they we only just embarking upon their lives as young adults.
Ah, there it is! The $100,000 question. I was hoping someone would notice this, and my intention is to do a “bonus video” covering a bit of research I did on this topic, that didn’t really fit into the main video. The short answer is that in the mid-1930’s, the state of California had NO state laws on the books that spoke to this topic at all, either pro- or anti-segregation. That means that it fell to the local school boards and towns to decide for themselves, and the state was a patchwork of school systems that made very different decisions on this topic. The Watts neighborhood went through dramatic demographic swings over the decades. You can see that in the mid-30’s, the area was quite an impressive melting pot, with white, black, Californios, American Indian, and Japanese. A black migration began in the 40’s, and by the early 60’s, Jordan High School was over 99% black. Current census data from Watts shows that the area is now over 60% hispanic. This exact aspect is why I grabbed this particular yearbook so quickly when I was looking on eBay. The composition of the student body was not at all what I expected, and I was happy to get a little more educated on this topic (this happens to me a lot when making these videos!). Thanks for your question! Be well.
Great video. What I would change would be the SUPER light fingertip brushing with no nails, because that was kinda annoying and made my eyeballs itch. Could you possibly scratch or tap on it instead next time? Your voice is incredibly soothing.
There’s a strange feeling I get when I realize most of, if not every one of these people are now passed. They were once young and full of hope for the future and that’s all history. The writing is especially weird to see as I can look back on my own yearbook and associate a face with all the writings but in 100 years someone may be reading my yearbook notes on an ASMR channel too and everyone will have passed too. Life is so perplexing when I sit down and think about it.
You’ve hit on exactly the reason I picked 100 years when choosing the book. It was important to me that we be able to assume that no matter what all those stories were going to be, good or bad, big or small, famous or anonymous, that they had all played out to their inevitable conclusions long before we considered those optimistic faces. Thanks so much for your comment.
I love how you've taken such a simple ASMR trigger, page turning, and woven a story that is compelling to watch. You've brought this year book alive while providing tingles. Thank you!
You’re very welcome, GS, and thank YOU for such a kind comment. You used the word “alive” - thank you for that. I’d like to think that perhaps we helped bring everybody in that yearbook alive for a moment, as we intersected that space with them for a moment. So many people left just a little bit of themselves in that book, and maybe rolling them around in our imaginations for an hour is a fitting tribute a hundred years after their birth...
I can’t believe how integrated this school was for 1935! Such a great video on so many different levels. Tingles, time machine and just wonderment.
Yes, I thought the same thing when I first saw this yearbook. I did some research that did not make it into the video, including how California schools were a bit of an anomaly in this regard back then, only to become very segregated later. Makes for some good Google searches if you’re interested in that topic.
This is one of my favorite videos of all time! Please do another like this
Thanks for the comment, Cody! I'm glad this video resonates with you, I was really fond of this concept. Not all the ideas work out, but I was happy with this one. Best to you.
Gasslamp, you are one of the best ASMRists on TH-cam. Not just great ASMR but great insight as well. Stick with it and keep it coming. All the best.
Thanks so much, you’re much too kind. I’m moved that these dining room table conversations are able to resonate with some of you out there, and I really appreciate your encouragement. Thanks for being here!
Absolutely incredible man , deeply relaxing and just so interesting to listen to. A real work of art, spectacular :D
+Articulate Design ASMR Thanks so much, Matt!
Fantastic, skipped part way through and gave it a quick watch - it seems great so far; looking forward to giving it a proper watch later on tonight!
Thanks JSP! I appreciate your help in the chat that night. I hope you like that way it all turned out!
great idea! very relaxing
Thanks so much Lynn!
I absolutely love this video; it may be my favorite of yours. You talking about the period and culture and such throughout, as well as the mysterious aspects carried throughout makes me want a video from you involving you discussing a certain time period in American history, or maybe something regarding urban legends or even serial killers or something dark like that since I'm interested in true crime.
You seem like a really intelligent and insightful man so I really just want to hear you discuss and share your thoughts on topics like that.
I really appreciate your thoughts on this - you mentioned all the parts of the experience that I really thought the hardest about, so I'm happy to hear that they resonated with you.
Thank you, also, for your suggestions on topics. For a channel that started out with a simple "share things that I enjoy" mission, it is surprising how many new things I've learned, how many small topics have spidered out into mini-research projects, just because I stumbled into a subject that I wanted to know more about for my own curiosity.
I'm not a historian by any means, and I certainly don't claim that everything (or anything?) I say in these videos is correct, but I do wonder about things; I love knowing the story-behind-the-story, the cause behind the effect, you know? I believe the drive behind most of these rambles comes from that place.
Thanks again for your feedback!
another unique idea for an asmr video. i love this :D // also really love how informative and in depth your videos go as usual.
+Vylet Pony Thanks for your kind words!
Amazing idea! I remember going through my moms old yearbooks when I was little and finding it so interesting this brought back those memories. Thank you =]
I’m SO glad this brought back some memories for you! That’s the best thing I could ever expect from this content, and I appreciate your being here. Best to you!
Also I am a sociologist and you are on the right track when it comes to Americanization :)
Your soft speaking voice is amazing :)
Appreciate that, Tyson!
Amazing - loved every bit of it! Tingle city and a fascinating bit of history. Perfect pairing. Now on to Family Search. :o)
Thanks so much, Phyllis! Yeah, I did a little poking around with a few names, also. Might put a bonus video together for this one. ;-)
I'm all up for that. 👍
Had a feeling you might be. ;-)
What a very interesting idea for an ASMR video. I love to learn as I relax and can’t stand the silly role plays and mindless drivel many ASMRtists resort to (makeup, shopping hauls, etc.) So glad I found your channel, thanks to Let’s Find Out ASMR. 🙂
I'm so glad to have you here, Isabelle, and I hope you enjoy the channel. I'm glad this idea resonated with you. I was really happy with it. Beginnings and ends of journeys are so evocative and compelling to me, and I was lucky that my muse pointed me in this direction. :-) Best to you!
Excellent! I look for you everyday! LOL!
+Theresa57 Do you really? I'm sorry this one was a week later than usual. Just couldn't quite finish it up last weekend. Thanks!
#MapsWithoutUP
In all seriousness, the woodcuts throughout this are fantastic. I'm a designer and design fan and I love to see things like this--design enriching all facets of life, today and a century ago.
Great comment, Kendall, thanks. I completely agree. All of the regional flavor and authenticity of that yearbook comes from those woodcuts, IMO. Do you follow David Bull’s Japanese woodcut print channel?
It's interesting to see the class sizes shrink down from 7th to 12th as the students probably dropped out for jobs or to help out their families.
+ualaelinlive Oh wow, what a great observation! I completely missed that. Excellent point.
I don't recall a comment about yearbooks from the live stream, but I'm sure glad that you did :-)
Yeah, that discussion was from one of the unannounced live streams, back on 8/10. I pulled out my own high school year book and tried to show it on camera when nobody on the stream knew what a yearbook was first-hand. The sentiment from the stream that night was that they see so many things about American life in the movies, that nobody is sure what is real, and what is made up for the movies. Makes sense that that would be the case! :-)
1:22:44 sounds like you wrote Thomas Gray's ninth stanza in his Elegy
Thanks for the comment, Austin. I had to look it up, of course, and you're right! Let's put it here:
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
That building at 15 min in looks like it was supposed t be Los Angeles City Hall (as seen on Dragnet).
You're right, it really does. :-)
Nice video what did you do with this yearbook after this video
I still have the yearbook. Thanks for the comment!
Some years ago the television over here had a documentary on James Cagney and they said his desire had always to be a song-and-dance man, but he always got cast as gangsters. So, he was very happy when he got to do Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Very interesting, thanks. I've never known much about Cagney, but it sounds like young Dorothy made it her business to know quite a bit about him. In this info age, we forget how few sources there likely were at that time to get information about a celebrity (or about anything, really). Licensed commercial radio didn't start in the US until late 1920, and by the end of the 30's most of the TV receivers in the world were in the UK. For someone like Dorothy, I imagine most of her information came to her in print.
Yes, I guess a lot of her information came from magazines and newspaper articles/interviews with the man himself.
I believe there was also a suggestion at the time that Cagney may have been a Communist, or have Communist leanings and that was another reason for doing Yankee Doodle Dandy - but that may just be a myth.
Interesting!
So, you turn the page at 1:07:24 and there is an advert for "Fred's Electric Shoe Shop".
Now, I've never been to America, so perhaps you can answer the following question for me... what are "electric shoes"?
I poked around on Google a little bit to try to figure out what the real answer might be. Apparently, from the late 1890s to the early 1900s, there were shoe repair shops called "electric shoe shops" all over the country. I could not, however, find evidence that there was an actual shoe type called the electric shoe.
My guess (emphasis on GUESS) is that when electric-powered leatherworking tools were introduced to the trade (particularly electric sewing machines that were set up to stitch leather goods), the phrase "electric shoe shop" was likely a popular way for shop-owners to communicate to customers that they repaired shoes using electric tools.
I'm guessing the goal was to convey to the customer that they could expect their repairs to be completed more quickly in an "electric shoe shop" than in a "traditional" shop, as well as to exploit that bit of human nature that would have us believe that any job performed with a bit of technology was automatically "better" than the same job performed by hand.
Thoughts?
Well, the "electric shoe" question was kind of a grammar-related joke of course. It's like saying you sell "wooden hen houses"... why would anyone want a house for wooden hens? :)
Buy seriously, I think you are right and that the tools they were using were electric (like you say for stitching etc.) because back then any process that was machine done "had" to be better.
Now I occasionally do see signs outside some shops that say "Ear Piercing while-u-wait"... well, erm, how else would it be done?
LOL, no worries, I understood the joke. I remember noticing that ad when I was shooting the video and wondering what it meant, but since I hadn't researched it at all, I was reluctant to bring it up. But your comment prompted me to look a little deeper, which I appreciate!
I quickly googled the publication date for the book The Wizard of Oz. 1900. Maybe the prevalence of Dorothy's came about because of the book, not the movie? You made me a bit too sleepy to do anymore hardcore research for tonight so I'll leave it at that.
Excellent point - that thought hadn't even crossed my mind. I love it when you guys come through with these extra points! Thanks for watching AND for paying such close attention.
That's awesome man. How much did it cost
+Leo Harker Dirt cheap. There is a ton of yearbooks on eBay, but unless they contain famous people, they're not pricey at all.
Gaslamp ASMR thanks dude
Over here (England) I guess there are schools that produce year books, but I don't think it's as big a thing as in the US.
Yes, that was the consensus of the England and Australia folks that were on that stream last month. They didn't have any first-hand experience with any UK/AUS schools that produced yearbooks. More stuff I've learned from having this channel!
Something that does seem to have become "a thing" in schools here in recent years (at least those in my town) is the children sign each other's school shirts on the last day. Often seen young ones wearing graffiti-emblazoned white shirts going home from school.
given the fact that these people were 18 in 1935 it is likely that quite a few (of the men especially) fought and possibly died in ww2, a strange thought when you consider they we only just embarking upon their lives as young adults.
Very true. Sobering, indeed.
was this school not segregated? i thought all schools were segregated back then.
Ah, there it is! The $100,000 question. I was hoping someone would notice this, and my intention is to do a “bonus video” covering a bit of research I did on this topic, that didn’t really fit into the main video.
The short answer is that in the mid-1930’s, the state of California had NO state laws on the books that spoke to this topic at all, either pro- or anti-segregation. That means that it fell to the local school boards and towns to decide for themselves, and the state was a patchwork of school systems that made very different decisions on this topic.
The Watts neighborhood went through dramatic demographic swings over the decades. You can see that in the mid-30’s, the area was quite an impressive melting pot, with white, black, Californios, American Indian, and Japanese. A black migration began in the 40’s, and by the early 60’s, Jordan High School was over 99% black. Current census data from Watts shows that the area is now over 60% hispanic.
This exact aspect is why I grabbed this particular yearbook so quickly when I was looking on eBay. The composition of the student body was not at all what I expected, and I was happy to get a little more educated on this topic (this happens to me a lot when making these videos!).
Thanks for your question! Be well.
Great video. What I would change would be the SUPER light fingertip brushing with no nails, because that was kinda annoying and made my eyeballs itch. Could you possibly scratch or tap on it instead next time? Your voice is incredibly soothing.
Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
+Porygon Hello to you too!