Better Late Than Never: A New Favorite YouTube Video

I can't stop watching a 10-year-old YouTube video.

Judging from the fact that it's been view more than 78 million times as of this writing, there's a good chance you've already seen it. But strangely, I don't remember seeing it until last week.

The video is titled "Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk," which, in a testament to truth in advertising, appears to be just that: A compilation of Golden Age film clips so masterfully edited that a viewer would be hard pressed to believe they weren't actually dancing to a song that wouldn't be written and recorded for another 60, 70, 80 years.

Now, I'm not here to break news. As I mentioned earlier, I'm only 10 years and 78 million views late.

But today is the third anniversary of my dad's passing. The entire reason I learned of this video was from a painfully sweet text message from my mom to me and my siblings, containing a list of ideas for small, smile-inducing ways to remember my dad: some of his favorite snacks and activities.

It had become an inside joke that at some point YouTube had long become my dad's favorite form of entertainment. I would grouse that a large, fully loaded TV that I'd bought for them had become nothing more than a desktop monitor — forget sports, forget movies, forget it all. YouTube was all he needed.

But I was truly shocked to see this video was listed as his favorite when Mom suggested we could watch a YouTube video in small tribute to his memory.

I was shocked that, of all the videos he could have fallen in love with, this was the one. It was just so much more modern than anything he normally would listen to on his own. He was one of those whose taste in music had stopped in his formative years (namely the 60s and 70s).

The inclusion of the old movies felt like the touch that likely sucked him in (though the song is an undeniable ear-worm of a bop). The old movies that were painstakingly edited over this song were likely familiar favorites that came across Turner Classic Movies, of which they watched a great deal especially after my mom put her foot down and said she didn't want to watch anything touching on political news.

I have watched this video over and over now, and I lose myself in imagining what he loved about it. Which part of the song caused him to bob his head. Which old-timey dancer updated and refreshed by this infusion of a funky beat made him point at the screen and say, "Would you look at that?!"

I find it so comforting in spite of its sadness. He was just a big kid at heart, a softie who had this great capacity for laughter and delight. I find myself wishing I'd know that was his favorite video in the bottomless pit that is the internet. I don't know what connection I felt it could have forged for us; perhaps we could have made a project of going back and watching those underlying Golden Age films. Who knows?

But mostly, I was struck by a certain feeling of life in the revelation itself. It's been three years, and I'm still struggling with his absence. Then, here was this message from my mom, revealing this tiny nugget of him. It wasn't as if she'd been hiding it. It wasn't actually revelatory, but it was new to me.

Three years after he took his last breath, I suddenly wasn't rehashing the same old story for the millionth time; I was learning something brand new. Something wholesome and utterly delightful and so telling of who he was. Something so indicative of what I miss most about him.

This is now my favorite internet video, too. I invite you to enjoy it with me.