Saint Louis Chess Club puts out a lot of instructional videos. They tape the classes, often with GM lecturers, and has them on youtube for free. Some are for beginners. You can check out their playlists yourself, but for example here's a random video I pulled from there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDEWoSq72c&index=10&list=PLVWaFpMwtaGj-HHi0t8bHxFzNtDwLoWon
Okay, so these are shop talk, by and for a highly chess-literate crowd. As a sponge-level player am I wasting my time by trying to "read above my level"?
I like to watch instructional videos too... sometimes even when I have no intention of actually doing that thing lol 
Drawing, painting, some woodworking... I swear I'll practice soon... but first let me watch another video of some master doing amazing work. So maybe we understand each other.
Having said that, to answer your question... yeah, sort of it's a waste of time. If you want to improve, videos aren't that helpful because it's too passive. For sure you can learn from videos, but get out a chess board, and a notebook to take notes, and follow along with the video. Pause at interesting moments and analyze yourself. Write down questions or things you find interesting etc. And yes, try to find videos suitable for your level.
Or... just watch for fun, I know how that is 
hi everybody
I haven't posted (or played, for that matter) here in a pretty long while due a number of life circumstances that I won't go into in this post, but I did recently get up the energy to start poking around again among the YouTube chess channels I've subscribed to. I'm talking about the likes of Chess Network, The Chess Website, Kingscrusher, etc. Somehow I keep going back to their analyses of grandmaster-level games, the great ones, and trying to follow along. Often their commentary goes too fast for me, I guess is the way to describe it; obviously they are assuming a pretty high level in their viewers, but I nevertheless try to get something out of them regarding the masters' thought processes, tactics, etc. and I am conscious (coming from an artistic background) of some hazy concept of aesthetic beauty in the gameplay. The commentary is sometimes entertaining at any rate, and watching a brilliant game unfold certainly is. It's the same sort of thing that attracts me to articles and media about science and technology, two other fascinating subjects whose deeper levels (mainly math-related) I can barely wrap my brain around.
Okay, so these are shop talk, by and for a highly chess-literate crowd. As a sponge-level player am I wasting my time by trying to "read above my level"? (Of course the obvious answer is to get off my ass and play, study tactics, do puzzles, etc. I've considered tryng those again. :-D) I mean I can play chess--not very well, but I do know how all the pieces move, I understand opening principles and some basic tactics and mates. I don't expect the same kind of step by step instruction that an overtly educational chess video would provide, but maybe more of a contact insight if that makes sense. But I don't know. Thoughts?
cheers
Billy S.
ps--I am in fact hoping to start playing again on here soon. I need something fun to do.