As a well-practised procrastinator, I was most amused to see a poster saying, “I’m a black belt in Partial Arts” — that kind of describes me completely. I hardly ever finish what I am doing. One of these activities is opening social media to quickly update myself on what’s going on. It never stops there. Within seconds, I am drawn into the wonderful world of meaningless reels. Meta, with its inscrutable algorithm, is always a step ahead — interpreting everyday conversations, or an occasional lingering on an ad, or even accidentally opening a link, as an expression of interest in that particular line of products.
So, the procession of unwanted ads starts and most of us are just too lazy to tell Meta that I don’t want to see this ad — because you will be asked “Why?” and you have to choose from a menu.
But this piece is on the no-so-subtle profusion of ‘reels’ that pop-up on your feed. For some reason, Meta sends me reels of bass guitarists (uncanny knowledge out there?), or D-I-Y construction (insights into my creative side?), or high-adventure activities (in an effort to influence my sedentary lifestyle?), and sometimes flashes of underwear (did they assume dirty old man from my profile?). It’s some of the DIY reels that I find most amusing.
It starts with Five-Minute Crafts. Something as innocuous as rotating a turntable and producing mathematical patterns with paint can take a lot more than five minutes, I assure you. Five minutes to watch on Facebook, but long and painful hours getting the material together. And a lot of uncounted minutes to clean up the mess. Been there, done that. There is also a battery of reels of people doing things with green plastic bottles! Chopping them, shredding them, converting them to flower arrangements, fixing pipes to them to manipulate water pressure, or even doing simple science experiments to make everlasting fountains! I’ve never stuck around to find out how everlasting those fountains really are. In my less-informed growing up years, it was “ten green bottles hanging on the wall”. Those were obviously made of glass, because “if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there’d be n-1 green bottles hanging on the wall”. No one questioned why the bottles should be hanging on the wall in the first place. The saga continues with the conversion of other things of common use — tins, plates, vinyl records, books — anything that can be repurposed to be what it was never meant to be. Devilish pastime, for sure.
There is a battery of reels of people doing things with plastic bottles! Chopping them, shredding them, converting them to flower arrangements, fixing pipes to them, or even doing simple science experiments Shutterstock
But, what frightens me is that there might actually be people out there who are not just scrolling through reels. Some may actually decide to try the “craft” and thus begins the saga of epic proportions. Whatever it is, you will need a workbench with a vise at the very least. You will also need a variety of powered, cutting and drilling tools whose sole purpose would be to burn or cut a hole in your pocket. You would need industrial gloves, rubber gloves and band-aid in large quantities. Add technical skills and you might find it easier to walk down to a shop, or swipe across Amazon to find and buy the thing you hoped to construct.
At the risk of being called obsessive, I found some pretty interesting tools that could have been added to my toolbox had I the passion, persistence and purchasing power. A variety of scrapers and files for honing down edges of woodwork, a batch of special purpose saws for designing misshapen pieces of construction for no other reason than maintaining their odd shapes. A jigsaw for when you need to really get into contours, or maybe to create puzzles in your old age. Did you ever feel the urge to fit oddly shaped tiles into contorted corners? Well, then, you need the Pantograph to draw the designs and then a tile-cutting machine to cut the tiles. This is true of oddly shaped anything, including parts of cupboards, doors and furniture surrounding your commode. And, at the end of it all, there’s always a hot glue gun. I have no idea why they ignore our indigenous products like Fevicol, but that hot glue gun goes everywhere — electrical fittings, woodwork, plastic, glass, straws and cardboard. Did I mention that you might need an empty garage to house all this paraphernalia?
Before you DIY, do you know what to do with these tools? Shutterstock
So what does this all mean? People should be more creative, more constructive, doers rather than thinkers. Well, at least the intent is there, when you watch a reel. You now know how to clean a toilet using a specially designed plunger; you can easily lift a fridge to clean under it; your flower pot could be the best looking one on the block; your plastic bottles could be the heart of a hydroponic vegetable farm; your kitchen could have a lot more space now that you have engineered storage space. If only. If only you stopped scrolling and started buying all that equipment and working on the products.
For me, it’s most tempting to dwell on purchasing the various pillows that can memorise how I like to sit, sleep, read or fix my backache while I scroll through high adventure activities. Pillows that allow you to zipline across the mountains, do triple somersaults, build a toned body, or even play a fancy riff on your guitar — all from the comfort of your armchair. And they are all going, only for today everyday, at 70% off — on the price, not the pillow!
Who the devil needs DIY?
