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A star is born

Hear me out: Drain Cleaning Australia.

Bruce from down under chatters and unblocks drains. That’s it. It’s weirdly therapeutic.

It’s not just me. He started the channel two years ago with short, silent how-to videos that evolved into 10 minutes of drain unblocking and snappy patter. On Friday, when I found him, he had 97,000 subscribers. Today, it’s 104,000.

Once the algorithm decides you’re onto something, it recommends you far and wide.

Bruce loves him some gross-out, some mis-direction and misleading click-baity titles (he admits this and asks for help coming up with them; said it makes a huge difference in engagement).

I picked one out for you that is a sink drain overcome with tree roots. Nothing too awful.

I avoid the ones with human waste. Grease traps are vomitous but sometimes spectacular and, honestly, they’re just grease. He cleaned out a coffee house drain once that looked appalling but it was only coffee grounds. He let you think it wasn’t for a while.

Fair warning: if you watch a few, YouTube will start recommending other drain unblocking channels. Yes – it’s a genre!

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 19, 2024, 8:05 pm

After I’d poked around his channel too much, YouTube recommended the Blocked Drain Movie Marathon, which looks like 187 of Bruce’s videos strung together.


Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: February 19, 2024, 9:24 pm

(1) Bloody Aussies and their bloody predictable bloody interjections and bloody exclamations! Bloody predictable, if I bloody say so my bloody self! OTOH, it’s bloody better than “um”, “uh”, or “ah” from the bloody tentative set of bloody commentators!

(2) Is there ever going to be an improvement in sewers, sewer lines and tree branch blockages??!! I ask you: were the Romans even this inept about public sewers, depending as they did on the Tiber to carry off all manner of sewerage and dead bodies?

Bloody infuriating!


Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: February 19, 2024, 9:38 pm

Bloody ooops!

I meant “tree root blockages” not “tree branch blockages.” Bloody lack of concentration on my part.

Bloody G’Day!


Comment from Ben
Time: February 19, 2024, 10:51 pm

The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy will answer all your Roman sewer questions.
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469621289/the-archaeology-of-sanitation-in-roman-italy/
It also has an actually funny fart joke.


Comment from Ben
Time: February 19, 2024, 10:59 pm

When you get tired of sewer cleaning videos you can move on to rug cleaning videos. This channel from Poland is good.
https://www.youtube.com/c/LUBUSKIECENTRUMCZYSTO%C5%9ACI/videos


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: February 19, 2024, 11:03 pm

I’ll have to give Bruce a try because I’ve been watching his fellow Australian Ollie (and his mascot Ratty) clear blocked drains for a few years now. Drain Addict is his channel. 641K subscribers.

“Weirdly therapeutic” is a very apt description. When Mrs. Al suggested that I watch I initially wanted NOTHING to do with it. Then I gave in just to see what she was finding so attractive. Then I was hooked. Seeing somebody gleefully make a good living dealing with fountains of shit is pretty nice. Somehow.

Also mesmerizing (to me anyway) on YT are vids of industrial shredders turning big metal things (including auto engines and even whole autos) into swarf, and another Aussie whose “thing” is melting metal stuff, preferably copper, al-you-min-ee-um, or brass, in a weekly series of ASMR videos (no talking). BigStackD Casting. He has two very cute French bulldogs who do cameos, and 1.45 million subscribers.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: February 19, 2024, 11:11 pm

I do find the rug cleaning videos a bit mesmerizing. JavaMan has cleaned some of our rugs on the patio, using his pressure washer. But none of them were as filthy or as large as the rugs in the videos.


Comment from Ben
Time: February 19, 2024, 11:12 pm

Car detailing videos are another gold mine of therapeutic grossness.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: February 19, 2024, 11:36 pm

Pocket door installation videos.

And farm tractors, with attachments.


Comment from tomfrompv
Time: February 20, 2024, 5:57 am

Website called “post10” shows a guy going around unblocking street drains, culverts under roads, etc. Odd, but therapeutic as well. Something about the whirlpool that always starts up.

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