The most antic­i­pat­ed new release this Fri­day ¹ is a new video from Quak­er­S­peak: What to Expect at a Quak­er Memo­r­i­al Ser­vice.

These ensem­ble Quak­er­S­peaks are like FAQs sent out to the search engines. They’re edu­ca­tion­al to watch when they come out: I sit there imag­in­ing what I would be say­ing if the cam­era was on me. But the real ben­e­fit is months and years from now when non-Quaker who has nev­er walked into a meet­ing­house is faced with hav­ing to attend a memo­r­i­al ser­vice for a beloved neigh­bor, or rel­a­tive, or co-worker. They will nat­u­ral­ly turn to their favorite search engine and find this video on YouTube. Six and half min­utes lat­er they’ll know what they’re get­ting into. Maybe they’ll stick around and click on relat­ed videos like “What to Expect in Quak­er Meet­ing for Wor­ship.”

I’m biased, cer­tain­ly, but I think Friends do wed­dings and funer­als par­tic­u­lar­ly well. Many peo­ple first expe­ri­ence Friends through these ser­vice. I know I always leave know­ing so much more about some­one who I assumed I already knew;; I some­times feel a pang of regret at not hav­ing tak­en the time to dis­cov­er their oth­er inter­ests while they were alive.

What to Expect at a Quak­er Memo­r­i­al Service

1. Oh wait, some­one’s releas­ing an album? Who? Tay­lor? That Tay­lor? Oh