Ambient Media Captures the Feeling of Hanging Out… Perfectly

My friend Josh used to tell me that the key to developing friendships was cultivating ambient proximity, a fancy term for describing the act of being in the same room with others, but not necessarily interacting directly. The best example of this is going to a cafe with a friend to “work”. Both of you share the same cafe table, with laptops or books open, and you spend an hour or two just sharing a space while you do you individual activities.

It turns out this is an extremely pleasant activity, and the internet knows this. On YouTube, there exists a genre of long-form videos featuring people just sharing information about their day, drawing while drinking tea, or recounting their mundane day-to-day routines. In many of these cases, the longer the video the better, so that viewers can keep their laptop screens open to enjoy the ramblings of another human voice as they discuss pretty much anything.

Jenny Nicholson is a vlogger based in Los Angeles, California, and she reviews media that is generally considered to be, well, bad. Her videos can span from…