The other day I was glued to something on my screen. A new Netflix series? A Hollywood blockbuster? Nope. I was watching someone ice unicorn sugar cookies.
The video was simple enough: footage of a deft hand tracing a delicate outline over the cookie, then flooding it with royal icing followed by the flourish of a colourful mane and a golden horn, all achieved with nothing more than a steady hand and a piping bag. The end result was a perfectly iced edible work of art. I was riveted. But that’s the thing about competency porn, you’ll often find yourself completely and utterly sucked in as you watch.
If you’ve never stumbled upon competency porn, it’s a genre of videos, usually found on YouTube, of people being plain impressive at doing something. That “something” can be as mundane as throwing boxes atop one another and stacking them perfectly, laying bricks at lightning speed or performing culinary wizardry like precision chopping fine soba noodles, but the common thread is that they’re pretty awesome at doing it. It’s also rather cathartic to watch.
There’s something about watching someone be effortlessly skilled at a task that gives me the kind of warm and fuzzy feelings that I don’t normally get after falling into a YouTube rabbit hole. It’s a visual balm, something to watch that is soothing and pleasing to the eye and with a healthy dose of wonder thrown in.
Watching someone perform these acts with such flair and proficiency will often leave your mouth agape, but also mentally giving them fist pumps for being able to do something very well. But why is it so appealing to watch strangers be good at something?
We live in a world that worships otherworldly talent. Elite athletes are put on a multimillion dollar pedestal for being exceptional at sport. Michelin-starred chefs earn celebrity status. A supremely gifted musician can sell out stadiums. But it’s an elite level that most of us will never experience.
I think competency porn is so darn appealing because it’s just nice to see an everyday person nailing something. It makes impressive achievement seem accessible. There’s a sense of commonality there – that this person could be like you or me, and they have mastered a task through hard work and repetition rather than having an innately freakish talent. There’s something humbling about that, a leveller. It also gives us hope that we too could be really very good at something if only we practised or tried.
The flipside is that when you’ve watched someone perfect something and absolutely nail it, you may find yourself thinking I’ll never be able to do that. It’s understandable, of course. Adopting a negativity bias is human nature, we’re hardwired to see the negative as a means of self-preservation. However, in seeing the impressive result of hard work, we forget that those people were more than likely to be well, a little bit crap at some point too. Even the best sugar cookie endeavours had to start with sloppy icing.
Competency porn is also a great anti-thesis to the value we place on certain skills over others. Traditionally we deem wondrous those that have reached the upper echelons of their respected field whether it’s in the arena of sport, business, arts or food. But this genre is a great reminder that impressive people are all around us, even if they aren’t on billboards. Even if they’re not household names or multimillionaires.
It’s a visual balm, something to watch that is soothing and with a healthy dose of wonder thrown in
This elevates some of the everyday tasks that make the world go round, whether it’s a cook serving up the perfect bowl of udon noodles or someone marking a road with perfect precision, it shows that skill can come in many forms, and can manifest itself in many ways.
I’m of the camp that believes if you do something often enough, if you devote the necessary time and effort, you’ll eventually find yourself becoming good at it. After all, we’re all just at different stages in our journey of mastery.
As a writer, I’m the first to admit that I often cringe when I look back at articles I wrote several years ago because I think they’re just plain terrible. But I have to remind myself that that’s me now, looking back, after having had a few more invaluable years of writing and finessing my work under my belt. And that’s true of any task. The more you do it, the better you become. Until one day, you may just find yourself on YouTube being the ultimate example in competency porn.
