Tysons Corner Center, Tysons Corner, Virginia

The Baltimore and Washington, DC That Tourists Rarely See

As I wrote in my first-ever post for this Substack, I am going to start posting videos I shot showing some of the places in the Baltimore-DC area (which is also known as the DMV) that most tourists tend to overlook. So here is the first episode I have ever shot for my then-new video travel series called The Baltimore and Washington, DC That Tourists Rarely See.

Here are a few details about this series. Back in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic was raging and it was literally taking people's lives. I had been spending a large portion of the pandemic staying home and learning how to shoot videos especially for TikTok. In a way focusing on making TikTok videos had saved my sanity since I was alone 90 percent of the time. I had a housemate who moved out just weeks before the pandemic arrived while, at the same time, my mother had lost her battle with multiple sclerosis. Weeks later COVID-19 arrived so I had to abruptly switch from mourning my mother to avoiding that new deadly virus. Then I had six longtime friends, most of them I knew from my church congregation, die from illnesses other than COVID-19 (such as cancer and complications from diabetes). I also knew people who caught COVID-19. One of them died while the other is still dealing with long covid years later. The rest of them managed to recover. It was really tough that year.

One day I received an email from a friend of mine, Phil Shapiro, suggesting that I try shooting videos about local places. I thought about it and I liked that idea. I came up with a name for my new series and even where to shoot the first episode.

By the way, since Phil is the one who gave me the idea, please help me return the favor by visiting his YouTube channel. Thank you in advance!

So I decided to shoot my first episode in my new series in Tysons Corner Center, a very fancy upscale mall that's located in Tysons Corner, Virginia. You can tell that I shot this during the pandemic: There were very few people in the mall at that point and everyone was wearing face masks since they were required in enclosed public places at that time.

The video is a bit of a time capsule as well. I showed off the fact that there was a Tesla car dealership inside one of the mall stores. It was a departure from the usual car dealership that has a lot of land full of cars and the dealership was located far from any shopping mall. It was the kind of thing that gave Tesla a reputation for being this quirky electric car company who resorted to unique marketing and distribution techniques not unlike Apple under its founder Steve Jobs. Sure Tesla's owner Elon Musk had a reputation for being a bit on the eccentric side but Tesla was touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to driving the traditional gas cars, which made it beloved among environmentalists who really wanted to lower their carbon footprint and reduce global warming. The benevolent façade that rose up around both Tesla and Musk began to crack the same year that I shot that video when Musk openly defied California's order to close his Tesla factory due to the COVID-19 pandemic and his workers became infected with the virus as a result.

Of course in the years since Musk has engaged in a bunch of antics that resulted in his popularity plummeting and it has even affected Tesla sales. I've written more about Elon Musk in my other Substack, Deconstructing Kremlin Propaganda, so you may want to go there if you want to learn about his adoration of Vladimir Putin, his current service as an unofficial unelected second president of the United States, his open support for far-right parties in countries like the UK and Germany, his penchant for taking his four-year-old son X everywhere he goes, and so much more.

Since I made my video about Tysons Corner Center, Tesla has closed that particular dealership and left that mall. Some of the other places I mentioned in that video had also closed as well in the years since, namely The Disney Store and Le Grand Café. But other stores and restaurants have since taken their place and Tysons Corner Center remains a thriving mall.

I wanted my video to be distributed on a variety of different platforms and they each had their own video format at the time. As a result I created two formats for each episode. One was horizontal video, which made it friendly for YouTube. The other was vertical video, which is perfect for TikTok, Instagram, Clapper, and similar video sharing sites that are geared for smartphones and other mobile devices.

The only major challenge in shooting my video is that at the time I made it, TikTok limited videos to a runtime of no longer than one minute. It was not unusual to see people cut up their longer videos into two or even three parts. The only problem is that there were times when I would be introduced to part 2 of someone's longer video without having seen part 1 first due mainly to how TikTok pushes random videos on its For You page.

I tried cutting my video to under one minute but I just couldn't do it without ruining my video. So I reluctantly divided my video into two parts and uploaded each part separately. When it came time to distributing the vertical video version on Substack, I decided to combine two the halves into one whole video. (The horizontal format has always been intact because YouTube allows longer videos.)

This video has a total runtime of 1:48 and it was first uploaded online on October 1, 2020. Here are the two formats of my same video. Pick the one that suits you the best.

Horizontal video (for computer monitors and TV sets)

Vertical video (for smartphones and other mobile devices)

Click here to learn more about Tysons Corner Center. Check out the Archives for more ideas on what off-beat places to visit in the Baltimore-DC area (and sometimes beyond).

That's it for now. See you next time!