World’s eldest YouTuber?

In response to my post in Desicritic – You’re never too old to blog – Eric Shackle, 88, writes about the oldest YouTuber, Olive Riley, 107, who lives in Woy Woy, 50 miles from Sydney. Olive blogs as well. But then she calls it ‘blob’. Which makes her, not just the oldest, but, presumably, the world’s first and the only blober.

I mention this for the record, in view of ambiguity, raised during this 10th anniversary year of blogs, about who the world’s first blogger really was. A decade from now, when the world celebrates a decade of ‘blob-ing’, the world’s first blober issue could be settled by referring to Eric’s comment and this post. Incidentally, would anyone have a clue to when the first e-mail was sent, by who, to whom.

Eric (don’t feel comfortable addressing him as Mr Shackle), who liberated so many senior citizens from ‘computer-phobia’ and encouraged them to browse, blog and otherwise explore the Internet, writes that Sydney was the British colonial capital of the New South Wales when Ms Riley was born (1899). Describing her as physically frail but mentally alert, Eric informs us that the grand old lady of blogosphere who survived two World Wars, the Great Depression (1930), had seen life as a barmaid, egg-sorter and a station cook.

What’s refreshing is Ms Riley can recall her early out-of-this-world days. Reading her you realize that there are things that don’t change with time – such as one’s school day escapades. Olive YouTubed how she was teased at school because of her surname (Dangerfield) and how, in frustration, she landed a low that laid her tormentor flat. Doesn’t this prompt us to reach for Olive’s blob?

Must mention here a paragraph on Mr Eric Shackle. A retired Sydney journalist (do they ever do?) this 88-year-old lists as hobby, Internet searches and writing on them. Does a column for senior citizens in webzines and copy-edits A-Word-a-Day newsletter for India-born Seattle-based word-lover Anu Garg.