by brenton crozier
Hi, my name is Brenton and I’m a You Tube junkie. I love it and can’t get enough of it. It is wildly convenient if there is a particular song you want to hear, share an especially funny clip with coworkers, watch the “Don’t taze me bro” guy over and over or provide a reference point for that obscure show you love so much. It also has given amateur filmmakers a venue, sometimes to the viewer’s dismay, but a venue nonetheless. We even have You Tube celebrities born out of what normally appears to be self-deprecation, but is usually a sincere performance—the whole “we are laughing at you not with you” phenomenon. It doesn’t matter though; celebrity is sweet celebrity no matter how you get it. See Chocolate Rain!
I realize that I’m not dropping any new knowledge on anybody, but wanted to highlight the supporting character in this most popular medium: the comments. For the most part, you will find “I love this video, reminds me of when MTV actually played music,” or “What a gem, thanks for posting this!” Although quite vanilla and normally obvious, the positive comments are nice and contribute to the feeling of community. I was quite shocked to find the wide number of lewd and purely mean-spirited comments attached to the most innocuous videos. Edify stupid!
One of my favorite things about You Tube is the fingertip convenience of recalling nostalgia galore. Just the other day, I watched an entire episode of Nickelodeon’s departed Pete and Pete. How cool is that? Anyway, I was feeling nostalgic for good Weezer, not the Beverly Hills rubbish, and listened to Say It Ain’t So.
Going through the comments was quite astounding. I figured there would be some fellow thirty-somethings musing about how vibrant the music scene of the early to mid 90s was, however I found a bevy of cutting exchanges. Apparently, this song is featured on the video game Rock Band and that is how many have become familiar with it. There is mostly good spirited dialogue about the enjoyment of jamming out to this Weezer classic in the game, but one particular poster did not appreciate the common method of discovery. A user named Haroof posted, “What’s with all these god forsaken douches that barely discovered this on rock band???” Notice the triple question marks for added annoyance. As if he didn’t already get his point across, he continues “Seriously you fatties would experience more in life if you got off your fat asses and walked out the front door every now and then.” Wow! Sage advice from Haroof.
Just to prove my point, this is a video of the children’s band The Wiggles. They are rocking out a song titled “Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car. It’s about the band driving in their big red car, eating fruit salad and singing scooby doo waa! It’s a rather unusual premise and I wouldn’t suggest it if a clean car is important to you. Anyway, it is a completely innocent children’s song, but the You Tube dopes got a hold of it and went to town! Such things as “This is annoying trash,” “This is total garbage,” and “I think the Wiggles promote dope” are some of the more mild comments.
I fully realize that user-generated forums on the Internet are just asking for it, but even for the schmucks that get off on posting a mass of four letter words and shocking tidbits, it’s a bit much. What a cool forum You Tube is but it can feel pretty cheapened when you start meandering down comment row. Although the “heated debate” makes me laugh and the crude remarks elicit an OMG, I’ve got to wonder about these people, even if most of them are 15. Most likely, they are probably just upset because they are experiencing technical difficulties with their World of Warcraft game. You can either fight back by responding with such things as “I feel bad for you,” “You really need to get out of your mom’s basement,” or “Seriously, you felt moved enough to take the time to write that?” Normally, that just feeds their fire, so you can just ignore those shock jocks of online commentary. They will eventually get bored that nobody is biting and their Warcraft difficulties will eventually be resolved.
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