Modern Alice in Wonderland Falls Down YouTube Rabbit Hole

Modern Alice doesn’t have the energy to fall down an actual hole, or the moxie required to trudge through a potentially exhausting land of wonder. Both are way too much work.

What millennial Alice is game for is a nocturnal adventure that requires no movement or courage…a dive down the rabbit hole of YouTube.com, starting with…

• A suggested video of brie cheese melting on a wooden table in front of a fireplace? Alice is surprised to hit the oddly satisfying section so early in her fall, but fuck it, she’ll give it a go. Look at the way that already oozing brie block continues to ooze to the eerie tune of…complete silence. Oh look! Alice is now presented with the opportunity to watch a…
• 14 minute video of someone slicing up salami links and scraping them into a bowl while Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” plays. “Why is this SO satisfying?,” comments a fellow viewer, in reply to a comment that says, “Wow, this salami vid is oddly satisfying, great work,” underneath another comment that says, “It’s 5 AM and I can’t stop watching this salami video. I don’t even like salami but holy shit this is so satisfying.” Alice weirdly agrees. Cut to a…
• 3 minute satisfaction video of some hands fashioning rainbow slime into a rhombus. Alice did not expect to enjoy this, but alas, she is soothed. Ooo, the rainbow slime has led Alice to a…
• YouTube channel called “Incredible Rainbows.” Huzzah to this…
• 16 minute video called “Rainbow Emerges After Harrowing Tempest on Edge of Caspian Sea.” Seagulls squawk, and virtually nothing occurs. But, dear Lord, the BEAUTY, thinks Alice.

Deeper and deeper she falls down the YouTube rabbit hole…

The algorithm now suggests Alice watch a myriad of emotional underwater sea creature videos. She clicks on a 4 minute video called…

• “Stormclouds Over Beached Beluga in Nantucket.” This is fucked up, thinks Alice, but she’s in too deep to stop now. Alice then commits to a…
• 12 minute video montage of tortoises, sea lions, otters, and octopuses, all of whom are masturbating. This masterpiece is underscored by what sound to Alice like…Skrillex-esque tracks from the hit 1970 album, Songs of the Humpback Whale? Alice checks the description. She’s right.

Alice is now drowning in whale-themed videos, all with less than 50 views.

• A 4 minute video called “Baby Sperm Whale Scares Family of Aroused Seahorses.” At 3:21, a seahorse orgasms so hard he explodes. Next, a…
• 2 minute video of a Killer Whale swimming slowly past a sunken ship to the tune of Enya’s “Only Time.” Followed by…
• A minute long video of a Blue Whale jumping over a jetski driven by a…really old witch? Oh, this one’s an animated short made by a 12 year old.

Thanks to the YouTube whale section, here comes a suggested slew of…

Conspiratorial mini-docs dedicated to proving that The Craft was real. Alice dives into a 4 part series called…

• “Reasons Why Nancy From The Craft is Actually the Devil.” Before long, she’s drawn to the tempting sidebar’s suggestion of…
• “Fun Witchcraft Tutorials.” Alice wades a while in this pool of dark magic until she is confronted with a treasure pocket of videos called…
• “Ivanka Trump IS A WITCH!” No harm in learning this Bushwick-based vlogger’s vantage point.

Alice is approaching the home stretch of this now, 5 hour long YouTube adventure. She reins in the night with…

• A 20 minute montage called, “Ivanka and Donald: Mysterious Body Language,” followed by…
• A 15 minute hodgepodge entitled, “Melania Frowning,” oddly underscored by Duck Dynasty Christmas songs, leading to…
• A 4 minute video surveying Donald Duck’s virulent, propagandist role in American culture, preceding…
• A 2 minute video of Donald Duck engaging in aggressive, albeit, well animated, ASMR?!

Alice did not expect to find this tingly section of YouTube this far down the hole. Alice tries to escape the duck whispers by watching…

• A 30 second video of ducks eating bread crumbs next to the River Nile, followed by…
• A 15 minute clip called, “Gorgeous Mallard Eating Cheddar,” triggering…
• A suggested video of Brie cheese melting on a wooden table in front of a fireplace? Holy FUCK!

The rabbit hole has turned cyclical…as Modern Alice falls victim to the toxic, hypnotic phenomenon…of Deja YouTube.

As Alice plays the oddly familiar cheese video, she fears she’s seen every YouTube video ever made. Has she? It can’t be. That said, what day is it? And for that matter, what year is it? How long has Alice been down this YouTube rabbit hole? Has this all been a figment of Modern Alice’s imagination?

I must sleep, thinks Alice, shutting her computer in a fright. But Modern Alice has no melatonin due to laptop glare, and sadly cannot sleep. Thus, she lies awake, recounting the majestic horror of her YouTube rabbit hole, tortured and transfixed by thoughts of whales, witches, and cheese.