Abstract

The popularity of YouTube has made watching videos entirely accessible to anyone. We now have not only the power to choose what we want to see, but also we can create it ourselves. An unavoidable aspect of the internet is the existence of YouTube rabbit holes.  Since 2005, that the video-sharing website went live, YouTube has seen the emergence of genres whose popularity was totally unanticipated and which would never have been thought of by conventional television networks. A new movement has evolved in recent years that may lack celebrities, spectacular reveals, or shock tactics etc. While gamers showing off their talents, obsessively detailed restaurant reviews, culinary skills, shouting conspiracy theories, and softly whispered serenades etc. have all reached mainstream success, this one trend has also gained significant traction. And this is the genre of ‘restoration videos’.

It's just people taking rust-ridden, dust- and grime-ridden objects and carefully fixing them. There's a whole world of restoration videos on the YouTube, where individuals record themselves pulling an antique tool or other piece of machinery out of the trash. Similarly spectacle are the videos where old automobiles are given a new lease of life in a garage after a gruelling regime.  On YouTube, the restoration community has millions of views and likes in addition to multitudes of subscribers. Generally speaking, restoration can be divided into a few categories, such as toy repair, shoes, small machines, automobiles, consumer electronics, furniture, and tools, to name a few. The items restored on these channels feel quirky, exquisite, and distinctive in today's copycat environment, and much of this content is created at a very low cost. The story of an ugly, unwanted, and relatively dysfunctional object being given a second chance at life is both delightful and captivating. It also shares several characteristics with the category of videos known as autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR (Wikipedia, 2024). It is thus interesting to analyse why restoration videos are so popular?

The paper discusses, setting of the research agenda to analyse the salient aspects of content consumption behaviour of YouTube restoration video viewers. Literature review shall be undertaken to identify the existence of academic and research based knowledge pool contextualized to this popular phenomenon. That shall help identify the research gap, research problem and thus the subsequent agenda for prospective research. The paper also discusses identifying suitable qualitative and/or quantitative studies that shall help address the research problem in order to understand the phenomenon of such distinct content consumption. This research agenda shall be helpful in identifying a structured approach to research the content consumption aspects of restoration videos, which in turn shall be useful to examine whether the constructs such as hypnotic quality (Open Culture, 2020), sustainability (Rhodri, 2019), vicarious satisfaction (Christopher, 2021) and auditory and visual stimuli (Trenholm et al, 2022), and/or some other behavioural motivations drive the viewing of restoration videos?

The popularity of YouTube has made watching videos entirely accessible to anyone. We now have not only the power to choose what we want to see, but also we can create it ourselves. An unavoidable aspect of the internet is the existence of YouTube rabbit holes.  Since 2005, that the video-sharing website went live, YouTube has seen the emergence of genres whose popularity was totally unanticipated and which would never have been thought of by conventional television networks. A new movement has evolved in recent years that may lack celebrities, spectacular reveals, or shock tactics etc. While gamers showing off their talents, obsessively detailed restaurant reviews, culinary skills, shouting conspiracy theories, and softly whispered serenades etc. have all reached mainstream success, this one trend has also gained significant traction. And this is the genre of ‘restoration videos’.

It's just people taking rust-ridden, dust- and grime-ridden objects and carefully fixing them. There's a whole world of restoration videos on the YouTube, where individuals record themselves pulling an antique tool or other piece of machinery out of the trash. Similarly spectacle are the videos where old automobiles are given a new lease of life in a garage after a gruelling regime.  On YouTube, the restoration community has millions of views and likes in addition to multitudes of subscribers. Generally speaking, restoration can be divided into a few categories, such as toy repair, shoes, small machines, automobiles, consumer electronics, furniture, and tools, to name a few. The items restored on these channels feel quirky, exquisite, and distinctive in today's copycat environment, and much of this content is created at a very low cost. The story of an ugly, unwanted, and relatively dysfunctional object being given a second chance at life is both delightful and captivating. It also shares several characteristics with the category of videos known as autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR (Wikipedia, 2024). It is thus interesting to analyse why restoration videos are so popular?

The paper discusses, setting of the research agenda to analyse the salient aspects of content consumption behaviour of YouTube restoration video viewers. Literature review shall be undertaken to identify the existence of academic and research based knowledge pool contextualized to this popular phenomenon. That shall help identify the research gap, research problem and thus the subsequent agenda for prospective research. The paper also discusses identifying suitable qualitative and/or quantitative studies that shall help address the research problem in order to understand the phenomenon of such distinct content consumption. This research agenda shall be helpful in identifying a structured approach to research the content consumption aspects of restoration videos, which in turn shall be useful to examine whether the constructs such as hypnotic quality (Open Culture, 2020), sustainability (Rhodri, 2019), vicarious satisfaction (Christopher, 2021) and auditory and visual stimuli (Trenholm et al, 2022), and/or some other behavioural motivations drive the viewing of restoration videos?