Just Melanie

I get hammered all day with notifications and loud opinions and hot takes streaming past faster than I can absorb. All I want is to sit by a window with some tea and let my mind drift. The internet doesn’t cooperate.

Then Hannah sent me this link to Melanie—MelGoesCrazy on YouTube—and I clicked without much expectation. One watch and something just quieted. This might be the most relaxing content I’ve ever sat through. Hello, people on the internet, she says in this even, unhurried voice, and then she’s just there. Gentle. In no rush. Like she has nowhere to be but exactly where she is.

She makes the standard YouTube fare—how-tos, outfit posts, those rambling let’s talk about videos—but there’s something different about the way she moves through it. When she starts talking about her first avocado tree, about dreadlocks and vegetarianism and making art, you don’t want to jump ahead. You want to lie down and close your eyes and let her voice take you somewhere else. Everything about it feels like permission. Whatever she’s doing, whatever she’s into, it’s contagious.