I started writing seriously back in 2007, long after the Internet had come into existence. Since that time I’ve wasted countless hours streaming through Youtube videos in between paragraphs, and I can’t help but wonder how old-school writers killed time back in the day. But in addition to serving as an incredibly effective distraction, Youtube also makes for a handy research platform. For example, while I was researching conspiracy theories for “Wikipedia Jones and the Case of the All-Seeing Eye,” I came across any number of cover-ups that THEY don’t wan’t you to know!
Of course, Youtube isn’t all revelations from the Deep State. One of my favorite “new” finds is an awesome video series called “Worst of Carpentersville.” Sometime in the late 2000s, a man named Grant Crowell was living in the village of Carpentersville, Illinois. The guy was a devout attendee of his local town council meetings, and he couldn’t help noticing that these public forums tended to get a little… lively. In 2007, Crowell scraped up a few thousand dollars of his own money to have these meetings filmed. Back in the early days of file-sharing, the next logical thing was to upload these videos to the Web, where they became some of the earliest clips to “go viral”.
Even though Crowell’s videos might look a little dated now, the gossip, backstabbing and local politics will still be familiar to anybody who’s ever lived in a small town. These clips are like a hit parade of drama and dysfunction, with council members accusing each other of everything from racism to adultery. Every once in a while, you might even spot somebody storming off the stage a la Jerry Springer.
Grant Crowell’s since moved away from Carpentersville, but it seems like people will always enjoy the argumentative spectacle of American politics. So no matter what side of the aisle you fall on, I’d recommend that you grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy this intimate look of democracy in action.