#7- Binge Watching

BuzzFeed Unsolved

There's nothing I love more than a good binge watch, and it's additionally very satisfying when I can find a series on a streaming service or on YouTube that has several seasons already available. Usually, when I am looking for something to binge watch, I go for series that don't have too many seasons because I like to get caught up on them then move on to other series. Sometimes, I will start a series that has a lot of seasons, like The Office, but most times I go for the shorter ones.

My most recent binge watching obsession is BuzzFeed Unsolved. I have seen people on social media talk about this online series before, but I had never checked it out myself. I decided to start watching it the other day, and I was hooked from the first episode.

There are currently two different BuzzFeed Unsolved series- BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime and BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural. In both of these series, hosts Ryan and Shane present an unsolved mystery during weekly episodes released on the BuzzFeedBlue YouTube Channel. The content is free for everyone to watch.

On True Crime, they discuss strange, unsolved murders and disappearances and the theories that surround them. On Supernatural, the duo investigates unsolved supernatural tales and visit supposedly haunted locations. In both of these series, Ryan typically presents the information of the cases while Shane gives some rather humorous commentary. In the early stages of BuzzFeed Unsolved, Ryan did the episodes with a guy named Brent, however, Shane began to replace him in episodes about halfway through the first seasons of True Crime and Supernatural. At first, episodes were also only around 5 to 6 minutes, but now they can range from 20 to 30 minutes.

Both BuzzFeed Unsolved series are great for those who love crime series and are interested in the many theories that people come up with for unsolved cases. Everything from the eerie music used as background music to the pictures/graphics on the screen really tell an intriguing story that captures your attention from start to end. What makes it even more interesting is when Ryan and Shane travel to the locations where these unsolved supernatural sightings/murders/other crimes have occurred because it allows you to have a perspective on the case that you wouldn't have by just reading about it. By watching from the first episodes of the series to the episodes of the current season, you can tell how much the series' set design has improved and how they have learned to create an even more compelling series through texts, pictures, and graphics on the screen that pop up while Ryan is unfolding the case for you.

BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime is currently on its third season (the last episode will air on March 16), and BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural is also on its third. Both series can be viewed on BuzzFeedBlue on YouTube and on Hulu. Both series have good ratings on IMDB at the moment; True Crime has 9.1 stars, while Supernatural has 8.3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLVAvUrL_VQiNZYyMnmzLZs8_W9l-WBqm-&v=z0AKoCMydkc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHXLbp7x3MM

Overall, I would recommend BuzzFeed Unsolved for those who want to learn about rather dark and creepy mysteries but wouldn't mind a little comedy thrown in with it to lessen the gloom. The series is very bingeable, in my opinion, since the episodes are on the shorter side, and you don't necessarily have to watch them on Hulu because they are all available on YouTube. I am currently still working my way through both series, and I enjoy getting to watch several episodes in a row (everyday).



#6- Global Trends

Ms Yeah: the Office Chef

When you look at trends around the world, they might differ slightly from videos that you see in your home country. People are always finding new ways to create videos and new interesting/weird content to include in their videos. Often, the strange and offbeat content that some people create captures the attention of a specific audience, causing the person who originally created the videos to reach viral fame.

 One new viral sensation goes by the name of Ms Yeah. She currently lives in China and has managed to create a series of videos that are rather unique. Ms Yeah uses the office that she works in as the setting for all her videos. She currently has over 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube. In these videos, she shows herself cooking at her desk using offices supplies and creating other things using objects she finds around the office building. I first saw a video of Ms Yeah while I was scrolling through Facebook one day. In the video I saw of her, she was cooking a whole chicken at her desk. I honestly didn't know what to think of it at first. It was very weird but strangely intriguing. What's interesting about her videos is that her coworkers in the background seem rather unbothered by all the cooking and tinkering she's doing.

Ms Yeah's name in Chinese is 办公室小野 (ban gong shi xiao ye). The "yeah" in Ms Yeah comes from the "ye" in her name. She claims that she chose Ms Yeah as her English alter ego because it just sounded like a happy name to her, and she said that she wanted to come across as a happy, cheerful person in her videos. Additionally according to her, the idea for her videos came from watching others in her office building use unconventional methods to make food, which led to her trying to brainstorm a wide variety of ways people could cook in the office without traditional kitchen appliances and utensils.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYvZUDO9Ni0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSEbj8-vZsA

Even though these videos look simple, they actually take around 4 days to film. Ms Yeah has to come up with ideas, write a script, buy the food, set up the scenes, and film the clips. Rather than being quick shots than require no effort to become viral sensations, Ms Yeah's videos take a good amount of planning.

Through her unique cooking/inventing videos, Ms Yeah has created a new global trend. Perhaps now that she has become a viral sensation through these videos, other people may start attempting to follow the format of these videos and create their own to post online. Ms Yeah created content that people online really hadn't seen before. This led to the increased interest in her content, and now she's enjoying her viral fame.