I Love YouTube: Dudes smoking pipes

The best tools are ones that can be adapted to any use. Oh, sure, that may sound stupid, and a deck screw screwed in with a melted down plastic toothbrush won't have the kind of crisp precision you'd get using a DeWalt screwgun... but. It has its own rustic, folk-art charm. Or something like that.

YouTube works in a similar way, sometimes: it's been adapted by tiny little communities to serve as a distributor of news, opinions, weird aesthetic creations that only appeal to a vanishingly small group of devotees. Guys document themselves unpacking high-end electronics, dudes rate and review the best catfish fishing reels and rods, we make epic short films about white balance and, as it turns out, a small community of gay pipe-smoking and beard-having enthusiasts make and share videos of themselves smoking pipes. Erotically.

That's not a euphemism, by the way. Meet Smokeybruiser:

 

Now, admittedly, that guy is smoking the shit out of that pipe - dude puts Cheech to shame. What makes it so erotic? I have no idea, and neither would any non-bear pipe smoking enthusiast. It clearly is, though, at least to "Bot4hairyDad" who notes in the comments: "u r very sexy and love the facial hair...the smoke puts the 'icing' on the cake...would LOVE to see ya smokin' a Marlboro or filtered cigarette...maybe Camel?"

Here we have "just two guys enjoying their pipes after supper", the "Pipemen Duo":

 

 

 

Some of what fascinates me about bearded pipe smoking dudes and their extremely passionate fans is that not only are the dudes kind of unremarkable dad-types with beards (except they all seem to have pierced ears), they also all kind of just… wear the schlubbiest clothes. Like they think "ok Gord get your giant ass pipe and go sit down on the couch. It's time to make an erotic silent pipe smoking video for youTube user 'boxerguy1958', who thinks we are 'sweet 'n smoky'. What's that? Get changed? Nah, just wear the hat you found in the dirt  behind the bait shop, and I'll wear the tshirt that fell off the homeless guy we saw doing the roboto dance beside wherever the fuck these pipes came from".

Big Gus

 

 

This shouldn't be on youTube because it's actually illegal to wear a hat that big on the internet EVEN IF you have fingerless gloves on. (A lot of people think you can wear a 38" hat on the internet if you have fingerlesss gloves on but this is a myth)

Look at the size of this guy's pipe.  Jesus Pipe Christ.

You, my friend, are the "bald pipe master" indeed. The only thing that this guy's fans like more than his enormous pipes is his moustache. There seems to be some cross-over between the erotic pipe-smoking and erotic beard-having communities, as evidenced by user handlebar41:



Indeed, handlebar41, indeed.

What is the take-away from a little dalliance with the erotic old-man pipe video community? What is the deal with "nose jets"? I dunno. It's opaque, a mystery. I know things are being communicated, but I don't know why, or what they are. I don't know why the man's beard is soapy, I don't know why the pipe men never speak. I'm never going to find out, and that, my friends, is almost as beautiful, in its way, as a guy with a beard and a shitty hat smoking a pipe on the internet. Full circle.