I’ve finally entered the tobacco pipe smoking video community on Vimeo.

Am I crazy?

So for the last few months, I’ve bounced back and forth between whether I should write a post about my “new discovery” of Mac Baren tobaccos or make a video about it, both of which I’ve haltingly started and stopped. Due to a bit of paralysis-by-analysis with a little extenuating circumstance thrown in,  I’ve yet to complete either; however, what I have done is this… I’ve entered the Vimeo video pipe-smoking community by presenting a brief introductory video (about myself, and which also took a few trials before completion).

But I’ve got to ask…

Is it strange to engage with persons unknown within a virtual community via video, watching each other smoke a pipe and talk about tobacco?

Does video make it legitimately more personal than the written word, or does it simply add a voyeuristic dynamic? (Within a pipe-smoking context, mind you.)

There is some kind of vicarious satisfaction in it beyond its educational value and the sense of belonging to a brother-sisterhood of pipesters, I have to admit — almost like I don’t need to light up a bowl now, myself.

It’s been about six or seven months that I’ve been viewing YouTube videos by tobacco pipe hobbyists. In today’s anti-tobacco climate and with pipe smokers being an almost counter-cultural anomaly, their videos have undoubtedly helped me get a handle on what pipe-smoking folks, as well as the pipe and tobacco industries, are up to. There are blogs and forums, of course. But let’s face it, once you get the few technical steps down that are required to record and upload a video, it can be a bit less intellectually trying, yet potentially more entertaining, to present a video than it is to write a post or engage in meaningful dialogue in a forum. [And to be candid, many of the conversations within forums (or fora) I’ve happened into are anything but meaningful.]

So I thought, what the heck, I’m kind of itching to make a video or two, myself, so why not give it a whirl and see about “giving back” to the community that has given to me.

I chose to go with Vimeo for two reasons…

First, It’s a way to get away from Google’s penchant for master controlled integration of one’s content across platforms.

Second, because the Vimeo pipester community is young compared to YouTube’s, my participation will hopefully be more akin to helping to build the Vimeo community houseboat, rather than jumping aboard an already creaking old ship with its crotchety old characters claiming primacy of place.

(A bit cynical over some of what I’ve observed, am I?)

Anyway, I’m hoping my videos do bring something to the table.

My introduction video is available for viewing only by those whom I follow on Vimeo, but the rest will be open to all. I’ll be posting them here, as well.

If you have a Vimeo channel, please let me know so I can follow you.

Here’s my channel… https://vimeo.com/socalpipester

Happy watching.

Oh yeah, I will get that Mac Baren video out real soon…