The Pleasure of Watching Others Confront Their Own Incompetence

I love YouTube! It is so democratic. Everyone can speak - for good, for bad, or just for the hell of it. Also, it is an escape from the constant selling that one encounters everywhere else in our lives. Push, push, push. I even love the "oddly fascinating" videos. It teaches you that looking at simple things can be rewarding. I also like videos of everyday people doing everyday jobs that are often highly repetitious and boring. Yet the skill and the care that is shown in mundane tasks - stacking bricks, making crepes, cutting coconuts - is a glimpse into the lives of people who ensure that the world continues to function despite the screw-ups. And it you want to understand what the concern about jobs is all about, watch a BMW or Toyota or Ford being produced in an assembly line by robots - and not a human in sight.

The responses to the hand video are indeed hilarious. My takeaway was that a great deal of motivated practice is required to achieve mastery. Also, as both a teacher and a parent, I've learned that trying to get someone, especially a child, to appreciate something in the first place, be it art, or music, or writing, can be very hard indeed, and sometimes even harder than actually teaching it.

Online classes are replacing actual training. Look at what happened with Boeing's 737 Max 8. The pilots didn't get simulator training. It was online training that gave them no feel for how the plane operated. And then there was that software glitch which contributed to two fatal crashes. Online videos are useful for certain things but when it comes to training or learning a new subject the old fashioned way is still the best. I've watched instructional videos and unless I know the subject matter the video is, for the most part, useless. We don't expect doctors to watch instructional videos and perform a procedure. I apologize for coming across as so strident but the best way to learn is not through an instructional video alone. It's often better to have someone show you in person how it's done. Relying upon videos, e-classes with canned material and no human resources does not, in my opinion, substitute for good hands on training. 5/22/2019 12:58pm

Alex, I'll take lentil curry for 800 dollars please.

So - you're saying something that most sensible people think is really hard to do IRL - is still really hard to do IRL after a two-minute YouTube tutorial?

I got waylaid on satisfying daily and lost 15 minutes of my life watching (and listening to) a video of a pug eat vegetables.

Botticelli rendered some odd hands and feet, but I forget all that in favor of the whole painting. Only he could have made it so. That makes him an expert. And who can forget that church in Spain which entrusted the restoration of a fresco to a local amateur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Mart%C3%ADnez_and_Gim%C3%A9nez,_Borja) She was not an expert.

Home Depot is full of people that watched a video and think “well that sure looks easy”, later in the day they’re in the emergency room and searching for a professional and wondering if insurance will cover the second floor bedroom now being in the first floor living room.

How to draw a hand with 11 clean strokes by watching a video? How about learning to draw a hand by looking at one? It will take a lot more than 11 strokes but you'll learn to really see--that is the key to drawing anything.

Many people have very high confidence that they are better than other people. I won't try this one, because I know better when it comes to drawing... but I do have my own certainties. Usually this isn't a problem for anyone but ourself, when we have these exaggerated ideas of our own competence. Unfortunately, sometimes someone with a confidence level not well matched by their competence level is elected president, or something. A real shame it wasn't the 'or something...'.

I am an artist and I have a hard time with drawing hands as many do. I have not seen this video but when you described that it started out with what looked like "lazy nines" I realized you meant that they did the top of the fingers first, and then looped around to make the fingernails. I coudn't resist but to try to draw the still photo you have up, and found that when I started the way you described, it turned out pretty darn good! I'll have to remember the "lazy nines" method! Thanks!

Looking forward to the brief video of the perfect curried storage shed.

It is true practicing anything for 10,000 hours will make you good at it, even when it’’s unintentional. As emigrants from China, my parents of course wanted me to be a doctor. But since grave robbing wasn’t an option, I had no childhood practice. I was born here, so my parents asked me to edit their writing as soon as I learned to read. This early practice gave me my only true skill, editing. Unwittingly, they had produced a child who liked to work with words instead of equations.

I was married to an artist that could draw. It always amazed me that she could in a matter of minutes with just a pencil draw ... anything. Hands included. And she could teach it! That being said, the point of this article is really that if you want to be good at something you’re not gonna get there following a UTube video. It takes both hard, laborious, unending work but also innate talent. I started playing piano at a single digit age! I figured out by the time I became a teenager that I had no talent. I learned to read music and I can do a decent job on things I practice. But I knew I was no Mozart! When I tell people I’m not very good they scoff. Ok, compared to someone who doesn’t play I’m great. But I simply refer to Fats Walker, Mr. B, Keith Emerson, Marcus Roberts or any number of incredible piano players and demure. I continue to play because I enjoy it but I know I’m never gonna play like the drawing video can create a hand with Monk like strokes.

You see a hand; I see a 3/4 view of a turkey.

In a Universe where everyone thinks they are an expert the underlying reality is very few are. Delusion is a powerful thing isn't it? And its concomitant emotion, Belief; well.....it is the enemy of Reason. So it goes in this digital land where I am but one person, talking to you, who adhere's to the signage..... John~ American Net'Zen

If you think a hand is difficult, try drawing an armpit.

Where's the thumb?

This is an unusually brilliant and insightful article. It turns a humble topic into a safe framework to express uncomfortable truths we'd rather not think about regarding the impact of the internet on our sense of place, progress and entitlement on the world. A perfect and clever parallel to the author's point about how the instructional hand video does the same. Bravo. First thing I read this morning, and I may leave it at that for the day.

I was raised by a father who could never be bothered to explain things in a way a child could understand. He thinks he's perfect and knows how to do everything perfectly and he just assumed I was born with an inherent wisdom because of his perceived perfection so he never really got around to actually teaching me anything. So yeah, I appreciate tutorial videos because of that trauma in my past. And I also concur that they also serve to distract me from past relationships. Regarding drawing, even if that's not really what this article is about, get a projector. They plug right into your computer now. Camera obscura is an ancient technique that many many famous artists have utilized. Makes drawing hands, feet, faces, anything much much easier. Also, get a DSLR and take your own reference photos. Easy peazy.

I was in my high school art class 20+ years ago when I drew my hand at the bottom of a piece of paper. I don’t recall, but I don’t believe it was a part of an exercise. I was so impressed with how it came out, that I actually held on to that paper for many years. It was truly beautiful and lifelike and I marveled at how the heck I drew it so well in the first place. It was weird how in high school I occasionally had flashes of true, pure artistic ability, but never enough confidence to execute long term technical ability. It still bugs me.

If you can handwrite, you can draw. But knowing how to go beyond appearance in art is another world. This is not to say that realism is empty. In art, how it is done is more important by far than what is done, which is why it can be evergreen. Teaching art beyond the technical is difficult, because that's where its rocket science is. And I'm not sure it can be taught. Artists aren't experts at art. They just make it.

I remember an old cartoon in which Charlie Brown admires Linus's drawings: his figures stand with their hands clasped thoughtfully behind their backs. Linus retorts: I draw them that way because I can't draw hands!

A good friend of mine once told me "Drawing is magic." And it is true. In this world where we can conjure up all manner of fantastical things on a screen by the tap tap tap of a keyboard and click click click of a mouse, isn't it amazing that drawing (or art specifically, "the arts" in general) still manages to incite our emotional reactions by conjuring something seemingly out of thin air. Drawing is memory. If you want to forget something, take a picture of it.

Sterling Moss, the British race car driver supposedly said "there are two things no man will admit he cannot do well; drive and make love." The internet just reinforces this wrongheaded world view.

Thanks for bringing to my attention the subset of how-to videos that are satisfying Xanax moments of skill revealed by, presumably, equally skillful video. There is a vastly larger subset of videos that depict something you might actually need to know, such as how to replace the brake pads on a Subaru. In these, it's the competence of the video itself that is often the issue. Is the camera close enough to show the crucial detail? Is the lighting adequate? It's time to reach for the Xanax.

The other day a friend asked me, literally in passing, some easy tips on how to manage an investment portfolio. We were in a noisy room on our way to a coffee meeting. I didn't know where to start. You see, I've worked in the investment world for nearly 25 years and have managed my own money for almost that much time. How could I condense all that into two minutes? I told him to wait for my YouTube Channel.

I loved this column and wow is the original video really enjoyable!

Videos like the one help us mortals try to become better. As a woodworker for over 40 years, I cry when I see others building furniture almost to perfection. I know I can't get there but I try. This idea of chasing the best is good for us, but humbling. This occurs in all fields. I remember one car racer who had just posted a very fast time for his lap. By chance, another well known racer was there and asked if he could drive the man's race car just to see how it felt. After a few laps it was obvious that this man in a borrowed car had improved lap times by over 8 seconds. What that points out is that there will be someone who can do something better than you, but you should never give up.

The Monty Python boys captured the idiocy Mr. Brooks is commenting on decades ago. Here's their instructional video on how to play the flute . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1sM29zGxeo

Great article and observations in the comments! I do think, though, that ‘satisfying videos’ are anything but Xanax for me. I admit, I pick up my phone or iPad at idle times and seek some solace, some pablum. But I’ve managed to train myself enough to not get stuck watching for long. In fact the opposite tends to happen: after a few minutes of watching some nonsense (or going down some rathole of link-after-link-after-link) I break away because I start to feel agitated. Alas, I’m not on social media much at all these days and that probably helps me avoid the pull. I DO think I could write some articles for The NY Times one of these days. Until then, I trust the moderators will allow my comments to appear. :)

The hands and feet on Botticelli’s Venus are convincingly and beautifully her hands and feet in his painting. What is the painting about? Not the anatomy of hands and feet. The study of anatomy is part of an artist’s training but the expertise of a podiatrist may interfere with her capacity to see the whole painting—and to recognize the perfection of distortion.

Well. There is a difference between the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system and all of it, separately and together, learns by doing. Just introducing your cortex to a skill is not a skill made. Skill involves efferent capability hard won. And of course there is a difference between insight and monkey see, monkey do. And other stuff, like a reason to live and to experience things and rejoice in talent and skills gained. Not useful however is to rejoice in the failure rounds of someone else in a pre-competent attempt. That is the opposite, it is ignorance embodied. Congrats. The video is cool, what you do with it is up to you.

No comparison to making soup.

A superb premise for an article that I was enjoying right up until it came to exactly the wrong conclusion. Hand drawing isn’t a uniquely challenging task to be admired over a universe of lesser endeavors - cogent political writing to use the author’s example. Rather, the hand video is a reminder that work of the highest quality in any field - from political writing to arc welding - is rare and requires an immense amount of practice. While the internet allows anyone to publish anything on politics, the hand video tells me that nearly all of it is the written equivalent of the hand video’s copy attempts. The video tells me that dismissing the writing of a hypothetical 30-year veteran of the Washington Post in favor of one’s own is very likely delusional. Expertise matters.

And I guarantee you, coming from a family that had an actual artist in it, and with whom I spent hours drawing and marveling at what he could do with “11 lines,” that what looks so easy to do in that video required hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of dedicated practice. Just like anything else you want to be good at. Which is where this column completely fell down for me.

Hmmm...methinks we think too much about some stuff and then are shocked , Dare I Say, Shocked!, when something truly horrific or important hits us upside the head. However, very Interesting piece. And funny tue. Worth 14 paragraph comments? Nah. Put down your devices and go out and do something good for someone else in your community. We need a little more of that and a little less complaining under the guise of everyone needs my opinion when our collective answer is, "No, not really."

Fascinating article. It can readily be expanded into a little book with chapters on: nature of perception, monkey see & do (monkey neurons), skills & practices (10,000 hours myth), competition & pride, time wasters (mesmerizers), etc. Who knows a simple line drawing can take the mind down so many paths.

People love these videos for the same reason they used to love cartoons of people flipping 180 degrees in the air slipping on a banana peel. We don’t need any over analysis of the reason why we laugh when others fail and no harm results.We all have a deep fear of failing and to see others fail releases some of our anxiety. Caveat: watching someone trip on a banana peel and fall in front of a speeding semi is not funny. It reinforces our fear. Cavemen snickered when another tripped over a rock and didn’t die.

I loved this article! I particularly loved the comment that folks with a few minutes to kill enjoy watching videos of people slicing soap. I did not know this before reading this article. As an older woman who carries a flip phone only to call out in an emergency, I use spare moments to let my imagination run wild, or to simply enjoy the people and sights around me. It's been my experience that I enjoy the people around me so much more when they don't have their faces planted in their hand-held devices.

The lesson here is about skill, not expertise. Remember one of Malcolm Gladwell's books that describes how it takes thousands of hours of practice to gain mastery of whatever--playing an instrument, drawing, flying a plane? Yes, many can participate, but it takes time to master a skill. Instructional videos are a different animal, they show how to perform a task.

Anyone CAN make a lentil curry: the only real skill required is the ability to read and follow instructions. Once you've purchased the necessary ingredients (and they don't have to be elaborately long lists of spices - the non-restaurant type of Indian cooking can be pretty minimalist), it's not significantly more difficult than frying an egg. If you have an Instant-Pot type device, it's actually easier because the cooking can be unattended, so fewer things can go wrong.

Thank you for sharing this unique piece.

This is just another incident in which the observer can say--I am better than you are!! It's not necessarily white supremacy or misogyny but humans' needing to feel superior. Obama was good at the reverse when he could make others laugh by playing on some incident that had happened to him. Then no one could criticize him for putting someone else down but they got a good laugh in most cases. In classrooms of teenagers, I often did things similarly. I would make some mistake on the overhead or board and then one of them see it or have one of them correct me and I'd tell them, Well, I guess I am not perfect, YET!! Even my language learners found humor there. As is mentioned, most of these "critiques" are best kept to themselves unless the one finding the weakness is the professional in the field and was asked to judge. After all, no one is perfect and many looking at the drawing most likely can't draw good-looking hands either but haven't tried recently. Many of the artists of the Renaissance had difficulty drawing babies that didn't look like small adults. Obviously, later some learned or France would not have been the base for most art work in the 1800-200 years later.

I'll try learning doing anything except electrical wiring, plumbing and sky diving –two can easily be fatal. A man's got to know his limitations.

As with most things it's how you look at it. The more sophisticated your powers of observation are the more successful you will be. it takes a lifetime of practice and most of us barely look beyond the surface. We copy rather than experience and understand. I think that could be human nature.

I don't get your point. Is it that we should all accept our Mediocrity because you feel Incompetent ? Here you state: "These cheerful montages give us the impression that anyone can build a storage shed or cook a lentil curry so long as they take the right steps." I don't know about Your experiences, but I'm here to tell you that a person CAN do these things and many more. This is from someone who grew up with wonderful parents. From the "Greatest Generation". Many of which were taught ... THE EXPERTS know what to do, not you. And they believed it. "There are authorities, and you Don't Question them "! I am here to tell you - it isn't true. I'm not telling you I'm going to lay there with a book at my side, trying to operate on a Brain Tumor, but Jeez ... other than a few really serious matters in life, I learned long ago - from some one who mentored me - there is almost nothing you can't learn for yourself by picking up a book. I realize it isn't for most people, but it is true. You've got to want to do it. I could write a pretty extensive list here of all the disciplines I have leaned and utilized by picking up books and learning - sometimes out of necessity. Or just because we didn't want to pay yet another contractor who didn't show back up. Don't believe what you are told ... for the most part, you can do it yourself. And Yes, I CAN draw a hand. I've been able to since early on - because I wanted to. And because I was good at it.

M. C. Escher drew a hand drawing a hand that shows that SOME people can master the challenge. Look it up; it's delightful!

I think the lesson is this: What distinguishes expertise can be subtle, and invisible to the amateur.

I just finished a week long drawing class and was somewhat discouraged by my inability to pick up drawing again. I'm glad I caught this article because it was a good reminder that drawing does take practice and time. And while I struggled with shading and capturing the light, I could at least do a decent hand.