Grant Yoon ’27 is a prospective English major. They enjoy writing poetry for the campus literary magazine, The Gallery, and reading whatever books have a good vibe to them (currently on Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies). They also like sitting by large bodies of water, drinking lots of coffee and overthinking movies, songs and things in general. Contact them at giyoon@wm.edu.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
If you, like me, have found yourself behind on some (or all) of your classes and sat down on the third floor of Earl Gregg Swem Library with a cup of coffee at night to try and get yourself out of a nicely self-dug hole, then you should be familiar with the evils of having to do work with Constant Access to the Internet. I have no self-control, so I can choose to panic about the state of the world by obsessively reading the news and checking polls, somehow falling back into watching season six of “House of Cards” (oh my god it’s so awful), or making an attempt at a four-year plan that I will abandon within 15 minutes. Is there no solution to this hell of inaction and languishing, this futile role that I am forced to play over and over again because of my own decisions that only further the unhealthy avoidant coping style I have developed in response to the slightest stress?
I am definitely not doing that right now. I am not on the third floor of Swem with an exam in two days that I have hours of studying to do for; it is not 11 p.m.; everything is calm and I am not anxious or unhappy with myself or my decisions. This writing is not an act of procrastination. Okay, sorry! I got off topic for a moment.
Anyway, what I wanted to write about: One of the weirdest antidotes to the panicky “AHHHHH I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME” feeling is leaning into procrastination in a controlled way. Rather than try and get rid of it entirely, I’ve been trying to wean myself off with something that stimulates my mind enough to occupy it during study breaks, but also provides a sort of spiritual relief that counteracts the existential threats that occur to me while studying. That way, I can feel okay about getting back to work instead of feeling absolutely obliged to figure out everything about myself and my future and my past before I return to studying. This antidote: watching two or three Jack Stauber videos.
I love Jack Stauber. I only recently remembered how much I love Jack Stauber’s video projects, by stumbling across one of his more long-form and serious projects, “Opal,” during a grind session much like this one (what? who said that?). He makes weird videos with very unique audiovisual landscapes filled with figures that are clay, drawn or computer-rendered, often accompanied by a vague, banal plot — or, just as frequently, a very existential one. “Now and then” is a simple but cutting depiction of revisiting a traumatic period of one’s life, a visceral and cathartic depiction of cutting open a dead version of oneself and scavenging pieces to take into the future. “Hamantha” is a video about a girl with a ham face.
But his videos, both short and long, are intriguing enough to warrant one’s full attention, drawing you in with questions and observations about what the f–k is going on. Lots of falsetto singing and ominous clay eyes or faces forming and deforming. They can switch tone quickly and deftly, feeling like a children’s cartoon one second and an obscure European existential film from the 1930s in the next.
They are weirdly satisfying in a way that “House MD” YouTube shorts can never be, giving my mind something to chew on (actually, a LOT to chew on) for long after I’m done watching one (and finally, enable me to get back to studying!). The videos are just so off-kilter, visually and audibly, and I think they give voice to such a shut off part of myself. This probably began in 10th grade, when people across the country were experiencing a wonderful dose of total social isolation and then profound depression from lockdown. Back then and now, I found something intensely comforting in the liminal atmospheres of Jack Stauber’s videos. How they can mimic the sticky feeling of pointlessness that excessive worrying will lead you into, how they find levity and humor in existential questions by representing them in ways that feel askew and unusual and the warmer, human moments that a well-placed moment evokes in a forty-second video about a cooking show (the strangely human moment is a fig singing about the cooking show host selling out).
Jack Stauber videos feel almost like an afterlife, so strange and disconnected from my everyday experience (but somehow as real and imposing as the mundane atmosphere of life) that I can feel myself removed and then put back into the world, somewhat refreshed and a little disturbed. But it’s good to be shaken out of your regular life, especially if your current life is an anxious stream of “oh my god I’m doomed everything is doomed my entire future is done I am not accomplishing everything and ruining everything simultaneously.” Jack Stauber’s work lets you look at terror and darkness in quirky claymation videos, nod at them, and continue on for the time being. Obviously, his videos can’t cure depression or anything, but I do believe in the power of his artwork. It’s a wonderful way to remind yourself to smile (or just raise your eyebrows) at the world and keep on moving through uncertain times.
