Ordinary everyday's life on YouTube

Edarem - why do we love him?

From the videos he posts he gives hope to this world. He sends out a message that people can be happy and enthusiastic and enjoy every second of life even if they are old, poor and lonely. In his videos he shows how to reuse things, how not to waste any single bit of material, and how to simply take pleasure in a sunny morning of any random day. He makes us get back to the values we seem to have forgotten in this world of fast technology, fast meals and fast interpersonal relationships


By LARA VUJOVIĆ
from Bremen, GERMANY


In our era of fast globalization and rapid development of mass media and network communication, we usually get lost in the excess of information offered to us on literary every corner - billboards on the streets, TV programmes, Internet, radio shows and many more. We are not going to bore you and talk about "Big Brother" and reality-show phenomenon again. Instead, some other modern-world attractions have caught our eye.

Namely, many ordinary people quickly get internet fame through posting their home videos on Youtube. They film themselves either drunk-dancing with their friends on parties, or if they are really talented - they record themselves performing covers of popular songs. In a matter of days, voila - some of them already have a couple of thousand views and hundreds of comments.

But sometimes, believe it or not, people become famous solely by filming themselves doing ordinary everyday stuff, and posting these videos on Youtube. One of these people is a guy who is hiding behind a nickname - edarem. Maybe he would not been as special as he is now, if he was not 70-something years old man.

"I think you are just awesome sir!"

Edarem is filming himself trimming the trees in his garden, making a supper, scratching his back with a toilet brush (?), or simply listening to the music or sharing advices about how to quit smoking. He has 109 videos posted since September 2006 when he first joined Youtube, he already has 6497 subscribed to his channel (the author of this text is one of them!) and his most viewed video has 457 319 views for four months since it was uploaded! All the comments posted to his videos are positive, mostly left by young people who express wishes to be just like him when they grow old:

ntune990 (1 month ago)
I found you on youtube.... and now I am subscribed... I think you are just awesome sir! thank you for making my day that much better :)

triggsy80 (1 month ago)
You're such an absolute pleasure to watch

harshtradamus (1 month ago)
my life was going horrible until you sang my favorite dionne warwick song

But what is so special about edarem? Why do people love him so much? Why does he receive only positive comments and make people subscribe to his videos and strive for more? Because from the videos he posts he gives hope to this world. He sends out a message that people can be happy and enthusiastic and enjoy every second of life even if they are old, poor and lonely. In his videos he shows how to reuse things, how not to waste any single bit of material, and how to simply take pleasure in a sunny morning of any random day. He makes us get back to the values we seem to have forgotten in this world of fast technology, fast meals and fast interpersonal relationships. He never curses in his videos, he is never angry or hostile, he is always smiling and simply living his life, minding his own business. Apart from that, it is fascinating how such and old man can operate so professionally with the most modern technology and be so funny and witty at the same time, having more charm than some 20 years olds?

Everyone gets a second chance

Edarem differs a lot from all we have used on seeing on Internet and TV and - constant allusions to sex, aggressiveness and bustle. He makes us feel happy to be humans and to be alive. He is also an example of a good side of too rapid technological development - Youtube and fast internet connection can help an old man overcome his loneliness and young people find aspiration in his way of living and helpful advices.

However, Internet is also a huge depot of useful and useless, accurate and non-accurate information. By doing some research and some Googling, one can find that edarem's true name is Ed Muscari and that he was a popular TV show host on a local Kansas City station, and that he was accused of a sex crime and therefore forced to retire and escape the public eye. It is true that by watching edarem's videos, we can obviously notice his talent and easiness of "communication" with camera. He really knows how to behave and how to address audience, so it seems plausible that he was working on a television. But was he really a sex offender? Maybe. And maybe not. One can never really be sure about these things, and we are usually left to the mercy of speculations and various Internet sources.

Whatever the story is, there is definitely something about this man. Who cares about his past, as long as we can learn from his present deeds? As Khaled Hosseini says in "The Kite Runner": "There is a way to be good again". Everyone gets a second chance from life.


(Published: 20.06.2009.)