Don’t Read This Until After You Vote

A reward for you, for having done your civic duty.

Did you vote? Did you cast your ballot in person / drop it off / mail it in / check its status?

Are you sure?

Okay. Then read on…

Today, most places on the internet will raise your blood pressure. We wanted to provide a little corner of joy. So we asked the staff of Alma and our parent company 70 Faces Media to share the videos they watch when they need to feel happy and distracted. Whether these are old favorites or you’re watching them for the first time, we hope this list makes you smile.

A Humble Request:
Hey Alma's content is free because we believe everybody deserves to be a part of our radically inclusive Jewish community. Reader donations help us do that. Will you give what you can to keep Hey Alma open to all? (It's a mitzvah, ya know.)

Enjoy.

Molly Tolsky, Editor of Alma

“The songwriting, the delivery, the commitment to a theme: Emily Mandelbaum — who looks, I don’t know, like 9? — wrote one of the best parody songs I’ve ever heard, and I’ve literally not stopped singing it since 2014 because I am indeed a small child in a woman’s body.”

Emily Burack, Associate Editor at Alma

“Whenever I feel sad, I turn to a 2015 video of two guys, clearly high, eating rice cakes and parodying Alt-J. Alt-J has a super distinctive sound, and they capture it perfectly by singing ‘Up, put it up, put it up, put it up my butt.’ Their pure joy can’t help but escape your screen.”

Chloe Sarbib, Editorial Fellow at Alma

“Asking me to pick one favorite YouTube video is like asking me to choose one favorite word in the English language. YouTube is my whole vocabulary. But this one brings me uncomplicated joy — no schadenfreude, just pure delight watching this elephant jam out — and I feel like that’s what we need right now.”

Rachel Levin, Audience Development Associate

“Self-explanatory.”

Shannon Sarna, Editor of The Nosher

“I can’t get enough happy animal videos. I am particularly obsessed with Dodo videos because they often feature rescue animals and have happy endings. We all need some happy endings, of any kind, right now.”

Lisa Keys, Editor of Kveller

“I spend a lot of time here — it’s also a great soundtrack to work to!”

Lior Zaltzman, Associate Editor at Kveller

“Rainbow sponge lady! One of the best videos on the internet. She is my queen and always gives me joy.”

Maddy Albert, Editorial Fellow at Kveller

“I don’t spend a lot of time on YouTube, but this video makes me crack up every single time, and I try to share it with as many people as I can. I also like to reference it by calling flaky people in my life ‘buttery crispy flake,’ because ikyk.”

Julie Seltzer, Senior Online Learning Curator at My Jewish Learning

“What a literal translation of Hebrew slang sounds like. I love it because it highlights the absurdity of trying to translate anything literally!”

Gabe Friedman, Deputy Managing Editor at JTA

“Post Malone playing Nirvana. I’ve weirdly watched it many times.”

Bonus section (AKA, videos that no one picked that are objectively pure gold)

We mean…

Yeah.

Hope we helped a little! Thanks for making your voice heard.

Header photo via Getty Images/Holger Ströder

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