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The YouTube 30 Day Retro Challenge
OK, for those of you who have got YouTube channels (or if you don't currently have one, feel free to create one!), this is an idea that I started work on last night based on some of the "YouTube Dare" memes that have been going around for quite some time.
As I am a bit of a retro boffin, I'd also like to encourage people (especially young people) to re-discover how life was lived in previous decades and how we did certain things before the Digital Age came about. This should be a lot of fun, you may have to spend a bit of money on gear and stuff in order to do some of the challenges, but they are quite easy nevertheless.
Here goes:
1) Take photos with a Polaroid camera or instant camera and share the results
2) Listen to an old 78rpm record on a gramophone or record player which can play 78s and dance to it, or if you can't afford one go to an antique shop and ask the shopkeeper to play one for you
3) Type out a letter to a friend or relative with a typewriter and and read it out
4) Make a soft drink using a Soda-Stream drink machine and drink it
5) Record a song or a voice skit with a friend using a "shoebox" cassette player and play it back online
6) If you are in a band or combo, play Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" using just a kick and snare drum, double bass, saxophone and vocals
7) Dress in clothes and hairstyles that were popular in 1963 and dance to Side 1 of the Beatles album "Please Please Me" or "Meet The Beatles" on vinyl
8) Buy a woman's lifestyle mag prior to the 80's on eBay and prepare a recipe from it as a step-by-step clip - no using microwave ovens!
9) Dance the Charleston wearing 20's gear
10) Have a conversation with friend on webcam using walkie talkies
11) Listen to an episode of The Goon Show with all the family (including your grandparents if they still alive or are up for it, chances are they will be!)
12) Play on a Nintendo Game & Watch
13) Have a conversation on a "brick" mobile phone or a mobile phone which does not have a camera and the internet on it
14) Girls: get a 50's makeover, Guys: get your hair styled like Elvis Presley or James Dean
15) Have a family nostalgia film show with a cine projector and screen if you still have old family footage on cine film reels
16) Make a skiffle music video of either an original or cover song using an acoustic guitar, washboard strummed with a pick, a bass made with a wooden tea-chest and broomstick with a long piece of elastic as a string (see "Skiffle" on Wikipedia for more info)
17) Have a sunbathing session using an old sunlamp
18) Do an exercise workout to a Jane Fonda clip wearing a headband, legwarmers, and a flourescent lycra bodysuit
19) Ride a scooter wearing "deely-boppers" (a plastic hair band with two antennae sticking up out of it on springs)
20) Take pictures with a film SLR camera and share the results online
21) Do break-dancing or body-popping in a park or subway using a cassette boombox or ghetto-blaster
22) If you were born before 1995, click on the music video that was number one in the charts on the day you were born in your country and sing along to it (Mine is "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds as I was born on December 27th 1970 in the UK)
23) Do a spoken word appraisal of these classic albums: The Beatles "Revolver" (1966), Suzi Quatro "Suzi Quatro" or "Can The Can" for Australian fans (1973), The Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" (1977), Sparks "Number One In Heaven" (1979), U2 "The Joshua Tree" (1987), Nirvana "Nevermind" (1991), and Boom Crash Opera "Born" (1995) - it was the very first interactive album to ever be made even though not a major hit.
24) Girls: get a couple of your friends to dress up as The Andrews Sisters and mime to the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B", Guys: dress as 70's Elvis and mime to "A Little Less Conversation"
25) If any of you can play the ukelele, learn to play the song "The Window Cleaner" by George Formby and sing it online
26) Guys, if you have long hair, ask the hairdresser or barber for a flat top cut or mullet cut and show us the results online
27) Go to a second hand record shop or record fair and bag 5 albums, explaining why you bought them
28) Watch an episode of "Fawlty Towers" or "The Young Ones" on video with your friends or siblings
29) Dance to a song by The Smiths wearing a hearing aid, horn rimmed glasses, love beads, an shirt open to the waist and some daffodils tucked into the back of your pants
30) Interview your mum or dad or an older relative on webcam as to how they lived and dad things 'in their time'
As I am a bit of a retro boffin, I'd also like to encourage people (especially young people) to re-discover how life was lived in previous decades and how we did certain things before the Digital Age came about. This should be a lot of fun, you may have to spend a bit of money on gear and stuff in order to do some of the challenges, but they are quite easy nevertheless.
Here goes:
1) Take photos with a Polaroid camera or instant camera and share the results
2) Listen to an old 78rpm record on a gramophone or record player which can play 78s and dance to it, or if you can't afford one go to an antique shop and ask the shopkeeper to play one for you
3) Type out a letter to a friend or relative with a typewriter and and read it out
4) Make a soft drink using a Soda-Stream drink machine and drink it
5) Record a song or a voice skit with a friend using a "shoebox" cassette player and play it back online
6) If you are in a band or combo, play Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" using just a kick and snare drum, double bass, saxophone and vocals
7) Dress in clothes and hairstyles that were popular in 1963 and dance to Side 1 of the Beatles album "Please Please Me" or "Meet The Beatles" on vinyl
8) Buy a woman's lifestyle mag prior to the 80's on eBay and prepare a recipe from it as a step-by-step clip - no using microwave ovens!
9) Dance the Charleston wearing 20's gear
10) Have a conversation with friend on webcam using walkie talkies
11) Listen to an episode of The Goon Show with all the family (including your grandparents if they still alive or are up for it, chances are they will be!)
12) Play on a Nintendo Game & Watch
13) Have a conversation on a "brick" mobile phone or a mobile phone which does not have a camera and the internet on it
14) Girls: get a 50's makeover, Guys: get your hair styled like Elvis Presley or James Dean
15) Have a family nostalgia film show with a cine projector and screen if you still have old family footage on cine film reels
16) Make a skiffle music video of either an original or cover song using an acoustic guitar, washboard strummed with a pick, a bass made with a wooden tea-chest and broomstick with a long piece of elastic as a string (see "Skiffle" on Wikipedia for more info)
17) Have a sunbathing session using an old sunlamp
18) Do an exercise workout to a Jane Fonda clip wearing a headband, legwarmers, and a flourescent lycra bodysuit
19) Ride a scooter wearing "deely-boppers" (a plastic hair band with two antennae sticking up out of it on springs)
20) Take pictures with a film SLR camera and share the results online
21) Do break-dancing or body-popping in a park or subway using a cassette boombox or ghetto-blaster
22) If you were born before 1995, click on the music video that was number one in the charts on the day you were born in your country and sing along to it (Mine is "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds as I was born on December 27th 1970 in the UK)
23) Do a spoken word appraisal of these classic albums: The Beatles "Revolver" (1966), Suzi Quatro "Suzi Quatro" or "Can The Can" for Australian fans (1973), The Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" (1977), Sparks "Number One In Heaven" (1979), U2 "The Joshua Tree" (1987), Nirvana "Nevermind" (1991), and Boom Crash Opera "Born" (1995) - it was the very first interactive album to ever be made even though not a major hit.
24) Girls: get a couple of your friends to dress up as The Andrews Sisters and mime to the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B", Guys: dress as 70's Elvis and mime to "A Little Less Conversation"
25) If any of you can play the ukelele, learn to play the song "The Window Cleaner" by George Formby and sing it online
26) Guys, if you have long hair, ask the hairdresser or barber for a flat top cut or mullet cut and show us the results online
27) Go to a second hand record shop or record fair and bag 5 albums, explaining why you bought them
28) Watch an episode of "Fawlty Towers" or "The Young Ones" on video with your friends or siblings
29) Dance to a song by The Smiths wearing a hearing aid, horn rimmed glasses, love beads, an shirt open to the waist and some daffodils tucked into the back of your pants
30) Interview your mum or dad or an older relative on webcam as to how they lived and dad things 'in their time'