Hey Let's Go and Zone Out at Hogwarts

 Eliza Brooke, "Hey Let's go and Zone Out at Hogwarts", New York Times, February 18, 2021, pp. D4-D5. 

Picture this: You’re in the Hogwarts library. Rain falls outside, a fire crackles across the room, and somewhere offscreen, quills scribble on parchment. You might look up from time to time to see a book drifting through the air or stepladders moving around on their own. Or maybe, you’ll feel so relaxed, you nod off to sleep. Welcome to the world of so-called ambience videos, a genre of YouTube video that pairs relaxing soundscapes with animated scenery in order to make viewers feel immersed in specific spaces, like a jazz bar in Paris or a swamp populated with trilling wildlife. They are part of a long tradition of audiovisual products and programming designed to make a space feel a little more relaxing, a little nicer.

...

There’s a video for just about every taste and mood. Library and cafe environments tend to be popular, but viewers can also enjoy the more specific experience of a carriage ride through the woods, a haunted Victorian manor, the RR Diner from “Twin Peaks” or a full hour of Olivia Rodrigo’s hit single “Driver’s License” edited to sound like it’s playing in another room during a rainstorm.

 COMMENT

The library place of refuge is so compelling that it is translated into things that remind people of libraries, in this case, a video meant to create a library mood.