Mental health is a funny thing. It can be as predictable as it is unpredictable. It can be your defining trait or it can be two words that nobody ever associates with you. My mental health has never been close to being tip-top but, over the course of the pandemic, it hasn't been as erratic as I'd expected. A lack of things to do meant a lack of stress, which in turn meant I've done relatively well over the last 16 months. However, I know that that hasn't been the case for everybody. Some have struggled under the circumstances and many haven't coped.
One thing that's really helped me over the last year and a bit has been volunteering. Keeping myself occupied in a stress-free manner, helping out someone else, giving those in need an extra pair of hands for a bit of heavy lifting and someone to talk to. There's been a local project where I've been helping out, mostly in a production aspect for some broadcasting online, but there's a lot that goes on in that building. Unemployment projects, talking therapies, a food bank, and there'll soon be a diner/cafe type thing on the go. A bit of everything that anyone could find something to do, things that they wouldn't mind giving up a few hours of their time for. You get to know people, you're doing something productive with some hours that'd you'd otherwise spend sat on your arse in front of a screen.
Now I'm not saying screen time is a bad thing, it's my preferred timewaster whether it's Playstation, Twitch or YouTube. But knock a couple of hours off your weekly sat-on-arse time and is it any real loss?
So where does this fit in with my usual gameshow related gibberish? I've mentioned it before but Twitch, and live streaming in general, has been a lifesaver for many. And when I'm at home doing my best to avoid natural light, I've found plenty of content creators who've made their own little spaces for people with wide-ranging interests to disconnect from the world, chat with the streamer and those in the chat, and just have an extra little social circle to enjoy from the comfort of home.
Cultaholic
Cultaholic are a group based in Newcastle that primarily focuses on wrestling based content. Personally, I enjoy the pantomime of men in pants playfighting for a live audience. There'll always be those that knock it and insist on pointing out its preplanned nature. But it's fun, entertaining (except on Mondays) and capable of being dramatically enthralling. Cultaholic cover the graps in a fair few ways; top 10 videos, watch-along podcasts, weekly roundups, interviews. There's something for everyone from the lifelong wrestling fan to relative newbies.
Aside from the YouTube and podcast material, they also have staff to do a live stream almost every night at
twitch.tv/cultaholic with everyone having their own theme for their streams. There's Sam gaming, or Jack and Owen playing Football Manager, Maffew (the Botchamania bloke) playing retro games, or Tom drawing from his radio experience and doing an afternoon phone-in. Although the stream that I happily give my Tuesday evenings up for:
Adam Pacitti doing a watch along with some classic telly.
Many in the chat like to point out how the streams have helped them over the last year and with 800-1k people sat watching classics such as Catchphrase and Rogue Traders, there's a huge element of catharsis between enjoying some classic TV, chatting (evenin' @seth_trollins), and everyone unleashing absolute adoration or utter venom depending on what we watch. Last weekend, I spent most of my Sunday just watching
Adam sitting in a soup of donation-defined ingredients as a punishment for being crap at predicting the predictable. Last Christmas Day, Adam did a big long live stream since he wasn't going to be able to be home down south. A boat that a lot of people found themselves in, away from family. And it certainly helped me since I was stuck at home, having that little community to be a part of while I ate my delivered Christmas lunch, which I choked on when
we attempted to watch Stars in Their Eyes.
Howling Techie
My Sunday evenings are spent over on
twitch.tv/howling_techie where, from 5pm UK time, there's an hour of old unusual viewing that seems designed to make me feel old. Whether it's an infomercial for Windows 95,
promotional material for the CDi (did you know 4 Weddings and a Funeral was available for the CDi), or a Tomorrow's World special on the construction of the Channel Tunnel. It's interesting to see how these things were looked at well before they hit their peak and, for example, knowing now how the CDi is remembered. Then at 6pm the gameshows start, and there's been a few that even I'd never seen before until I saw them via Howling_Techie. I knew of Nickelodeon GUTS, but I'd never seen it. I knew of Secrets of the Cryptkeepers Haunted House, but I'd never seen it.
There's a great little community of regulars covering both sides of the Atlantic and possibly beyond. I'm not asking where people are from but I'm safe in saying Britain and at least the US are represented. Each Sunday, Crystal Maze gets one run out from a random series, and people bet their channel points on how many Crystals will be won in that episode. I excuse myself from the betting because it would simply be a dead giveaway and people would just bet where I bet, but I get the fun in seeing extravagant and confident bets on a result I know isn't happening.
Kasuds
I stumbled onto Kasuds and her online foam party when, in the course of my regular perusal of Twitter, I was steered in the direction of her Maze Mondays Twitch stream. A great community of gamers who enjoy playing Dead By Daylight at other times in the week, Kasuds and co. (Hi
Beetz) got through the whole 90s series with a smattering of other shows such as Krypton Factor and Gladiators. More recently Mondays have been dedicated to Crystal Maze's televisual big bro in Fort Boyard, and now summer has kicked in, the Monday streams have eased up a little. But that's as they should.
Real life is starting to be a thing again, and streaming shouldn't be taking precedent over what anyone is doing in the real world. When things are somewhat back to normal go live your lives, see people, have fun.
FlukesNotSkill
A recent addition to my weekly viewing where I love spending a couple of hours on a Friday.
FlukesNotSkill has watched a few older TV shows, including Fun House and Knightmare, and recently made a start on everyone's favourite 90s adventure game show,
Scavengers The Crystal Maze. I missed out Friday just gone as real life got in the way. And when I realised I'd missed the stream, I realised just how long it had been since real life was able to get in the way of anything. And I felt a bit bad for this disruption to what has become my weekly routine.
I love chatting game shows, I love being able to provide a bit more depth behind what's on-screen from a life spent hoarding utterly pointless knowledge and, having just caught up with the stream I missed on Friday, this Friday should see a move on to series 2. When the budget went up and a contestant would later take a group of school children on
an unauthorised school trip, I think. The name, age and location add up but I'd never say I'm 100% on it.
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