Go ahead. Go on YouTube and search for anything your little old heart desires and the odds are fantastic you’ll find it. Looking for an old Dick Cavett interview with John Lennon? It’s there. Craving pictures of baby owls or wildcat rescues or videos on how to correctly make your eyebrows look thicker and your thighs thinner? YouTube’s got it. YouTube has, apparently, EVERYTHING under the sun and then some.

Take feet. I work with college students and they told me there is quite the dedicated audience of people who like to watch videos of other people’s feet. I asked why and didn’t really get a good answer, although one student said he thought the people watching the feet videos were probably very lonely (understandably) and the people making the feet videos had discovered a good (if peculiar) way to make an easy buck. This same student also told me there are videos of women eating and “other things” that are big hits as well, but he assumed I didn’t want to hear any of them. He was right. I don’t.

I suppose we all have our little idiosyncrasies when it comes to what we choose to view on YouTube. I am personally partial to uploads of “Santa Barbara,” a glitzy soap opera from the 1980’s when soaps were fun and life was neon hued. My hubby likes to watch videos of planes flying from the cockpit’s POV. Then we have our own slightly strange favorite: videos of people scratching lottery tickets which for some reason has become our latest Big Thing.

I honestly don’t recall how we got hooked on these scratch-off videos. I think it all started when we bought several scratch-offs, lost on all of them, and decided to look to YouTube to see if there were any gambling videos that might tell us how to become winners instead of losers. There were and as fast as you can say WIN ALL, we were getting recommendations for other videos of people scratching lottery tickets in the comfort of their own kitchens.

We’ve been watching these videos for a few months and over that time we’ve learned a few things: 1) there are a LOT of scratch off videos out there with tons of followers. Some are well done and entertaining. Many are not. 2) No one’s ever going to get rich scratching lottery tickets. Ever. Including us. 3) There are no hints or tips on how to hit it big because so few people ever do. 4) The house always wins. Always.

Even knowing all those things, we continue to watch because it’s exciting to see a brand new video and think “This could be the day!” for one of our video scratching pals. I think it also makes us feel like better people because we’re always hoping for the scratcher to score big and find a million dollar winner. It hasn’t happened yet, but it could. I suppose it’s comparable to visiting a friend while said friend spends (wastes) his money on $300 worth of scratch off tickets. It’s a lot easier to take when it isn’t your $300.

I told a co-worker about my husband’s and my latest obsession and he said, “That sounds like the most boring thing in the world to watch.” Maybe to him, but not to us.  Possibly just as odd as watching someone’s feet, but I suppose in the world of YouTube it really is to each his own.