Restoration videos provide a soothing distraction in a time of great uncertainty

As a seasoned movie critic who has seen the good, the bad, and the downright bizarre, I must say that the world of restoration videos has proven to be an unexpected yet delightful gem. Coming from someone who could barely tell the difference between a Phillips and a flathead screwdriver, I never thought I’d find myself captivated by the intricacies of watch repair or the meticulous reassembly of a wind-up scooter-riding bear.

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My exploration started with the guitar. While I can switch strings and tune it, I hadn’t delved into its inner workings or assembly. One day, curiosity struck, and I found myself watching luthier videos on YouTube, which subsequently guided me towards learning about guitar repair. This, in turn, introduced me to a plethora of repair videos across various topics – all thanks to the recommendations of the algorithm in our modern, capitalistic era.

Observing Awesome Restoration‘s meticulous renovation of a small, cuddly bear on a wind-up scooter, with them constructing a tiny wooden seat for the bear during the disassembly, repair, repainting, and reassembly process, left me utterly captivated. There was no turning back from my fascination with their work.

“It turns out that the ‘restoration video’ genre is quite popular and well-established, with numerous dedicated channels boasting hundreds to even hundreds of thousands of subscribers. One example you might recognize is ‘The Repair Shop’, a U.K. series produced since 2017, available on BritBox as well as YouTube, where individuals bring broken family treasures and emotional mementos to a rustic cabin to be revitalized by skilled artisans. However, these channels, hailing from various parts of the world, lack the sentimental narratives.

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It isn’t why I got interested in restorations, but as a bonus, they provide a marvelous distraction in this season of uncertainty. That they have calming properties is not lost on the producers; many clips come with ASMR in the title, referring to that brand of audiovisual content meant to relax the listener/viewer. And in a time when you can apparently fool some of the people all of the time, these videos offer solid documentary evidence of expertise, of competence and of fine motor skills.

A three-act story unfolds, generally ending on an optimistic note. Initially, we see something in a state of distress or disorder. A protagonist then enters, equipped with wisdom and expertise, to tackle the underlying issue. Ultimately, the object undergoes restoration, either returning to its original state or even improving it. There’s often an element of tension, possibly some humor as well. If you choose to anthropomorphize a toy car, musical instrument, or pocket watch, you might view it as a romantic journey. While the overall plot may be repetitive, the specifics always vary—the true beauty lies in the details, they say, and so does the essence of creation (according to Mies van der Rohe).

Items needing restoration span from vintage toys and games, antique coin banks, manual coffee grinders, and various locks, furniture pieces, pinball and gumball machines, espresso makers, typewriters, pencil sharpeners, cash registers, leather items, artworks, knives, firearms, shoes, and assorted gadgets from before the digital era. Many of these restorers are either professionals or passionate hobbyists, driven by the thrill, enjoyment, and fulfillment they find in their work. Emerging from their homes’ hidden spaces like basements, sheds, and garages, they strive for recognition. Some have Patreon accounts, while others sell merchandise.

Unlike many popular social media personalities who thrive on self-promotion, most of them maintain anonymity; their true identity lies within their work. Their hands, much like a magician performing close-up tricks, often remain in the spotlight, but their faces are seldom seen. In some cases, such as the mesmerizing microscopic realm of watch repair, it’s just their fingertips that we get to see.

The names of their channels are similar: Restomaniac, Restorology, Restoration Station, Rusty Shades Restoration, Rescue and Restore, Old Things Never Die, Cool Again Restoration, and Not Terrible Restorations (by “Dr. Beer,” who reviews a different beer in each episode). Some videos contain narration, but many are content with the sounds of sanding, sawing, scraping, drilling, and hammering. A few add captions, while others simply let the images tell the story. Notably, Nekkid Watchmaker, who sounds a bit like Werner Herzog, provides vivid descriptions like this one: “The stains were reminiscent of the teeth of a tobacco-chewing villain in a western.

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If you’re not the type who enjoys disassembling toys to understand their inner workings, such as taking apart a plastic “Star Wars” X-wing fighter, there’s still joy in watching someone else do it, especially if putting things back together wasn’t your forte. I must admit, I never thought I’d find myself fascinated by the process of unscrewing screws, bending tabs, and breaking down complex machines into their individual parts, cleaning, painting, and even fabricating missing ones. It might seem unusual, but it’s not so strange when you consider that we, as humans, are drawn to before-and-after transformations — though in restoration videos, the “before” often involves a period of disarray before reaching the final, restored state. The goal is to return to the original condition and, in doing so, progress forward.

It’s true that the genre’s success means that there are fake restoration videos, whose makers dirty up an object in order to clean it, and thereby snag a chunk of whatever money there is to be made from the YouTube economy. Indeed, there are enough of these that they’ve inspired a subgenre of videos dedicated to calling them out. Still, a little common sense will separate the genuine articles from the disingenuous. (Any video that begins with someone finding a dirty old camera or Game Boy console in a pile of garbage is not to be trusted.)

Amidst what’s being hailed as one of the most significant elections in history, it might seem trivial to bypass political updates for a video about an antique cheese slicer being refurbished. However, just as broken items require mending, so too do other aspects of life. In the spirit of “The Last Repair Shop,” an Oscar-winning production co-produced by the L.A. Times, which focuses on the artisans who restore instruments for LAUSD students and the pupils whose tools are revitalized, some of us will mend things, regardless of their practicality. And that, indeed, is a beautiful testament to human resilience.

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2024-11-05 14:33