Features

Internet People: A Guide

J.J. McCullough, OP Editor

All Your Base are Belong to Us — Catchphrase taken from the dubious 1989 Sega game Zero Wing, known for little other than its truly awful Japanese-to-English translations. Electro band The Laziest Men on Mars later made a song using dialogue from the game as lyrics, greatly popularizing the “All Your Base” line. Angry German Kid — Fairly self- explanatory. A German child flies into enraged hysterics when his computer game fails to load, then goes insane with manic blood lust once it finally does. Though convincing, the video was staged and is supposed to be a mockery of those who believe computer games really do turn children into lunatics. Ask a Ninja — Popular “advice” series in which viewers email asinine questions to a guy dressed as a ninja, who proceeds to answer the questions with flamboyant ninja flair. Average Homeboy — An embarrassingly tone-deaf 1980s rap video from a self-identified “middle- class white guy” hoping for his big break. Back Dorm Boys — Two Asian dudes in basketball jerseys who filmed themselves passionately lip-syncing a number of pop songs. Their fame led to the agonizing popularity of self-made lip-sync videos. Bert is Evil — A once-popular website featuring photos of Bert the Muppet photoshopped into photographs of the great villains of history, including Hitler and bin Laden. The website was discontinued when photos surfaced showing Al Qaeda supporters using the Bert photographs in their posters.

Boom goes the Dynamite — One of the most genuinely sad videos to grace the internet, this one depicts an incredibly nervous young sports anchor on his first day on the set. Unable to keep pace with the speed of the program, he splutters and utters some bizarre ad libs, including the title of the film.

Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out — A fairly lengthy video of an angsty bride who storms into her bridesmaids’ hotel room and begins wailing about a horrible haircut. Weeping and shrieking, she takes matters into her own hands and begins hacking her hair apart with household scissors. The film is noticeably over-acted, and

A couple

of weeks ago Dan Meth, a web-based cartoonist and animator, released a short YouTube video entitled “Internet People.” Evoking Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” the three-minute film is a rapid-fire list of over 50 of the net’s most famous (or infamous) celebrities, websites, and phenomena, all set to a catchy jingle. Ironically, or perhaps not, “Internet People” itself has in turn become a major internet hit of its own, with over a million views and counting.

In the wake of Mr. Meth’s newfound fame, we thought it would be worthwhile to annotate his little film, and take a look at the collection of oddballs, misfits, eccentrics, and unintentional victims who have skyrocketed to their 15 minutes of internet celebredom over the last few years.

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was later revealed to have been staged. Bubb Rubb — Aclip from a local California news channel reporting on the disturbing trend of teenagers installing annoying whistles in their exhaust pipes to produce ear-splitting sounds. The highlight of the video comes when

Bubb Rubb, a local homeboy and identified “whistle fan,” is interviewed. “The whistles go WOOO!” he declares repeatedly.

Chad Vader — A live-action series about Darth’s lesser-known brother, who works at a convenience store in Madison, Wisconsin. Chocolate

Rain — Low- budget

music video created by

Tay Zonday,

a black

teenager with an unsettlingly deep voice for his age. The song is irritatingly repetitive, but catchy.

Coke and Mentos — A while ago someone made the amazingly simple discovery that if you place a Mentos candy into a bottle of Diet Coke you’ll create an amazing geyser of soda that can shoot over a meter into the air. This revelation prompted many kids to film themselves performing the experiment. Daxflame — A skilled parody of angsty teenager webcam bloggers, Dax rants passionately about topics he knows absolutely nothing about, and usually ends up either screaming or crying. Dick in a Box — When Justin Timberlake was on Saturday Night Live back in 2006 he appeared in a short skit with this title. The premise was basically a parody of overly-lusty R&B music videos from the 1980s, and featured Timberlake presenting his penis to his woman as a Christmas present, complete in a gift wrapped box which was tied to his waist. The word “dick” was bleeped in the TV version of the skit, which made the uncensored online version enormously popular.

Dramatic chipmunk — A three-second clip of a chipmunk (which is actually a prairie dog) staring at the camera, with dramatic music added. It works on so many levels.

Evolution of Dance — A six-minute video of a guy on stage demonstrating the most popular dance moves of the last half-century, from “The Twist” to N’Sync.

George Lucas in Love — An eight- minute movie made by some film

students in USC. Remarkably well-done, it reveals where a college-age George Lucas got his inspiration for Star Wars. For example, Darth Vader was evidently based on his seven-foot-tall asthmatic floor-mate.

Geriatric1927 — A loveable old English grandpa who somehow managed to master technology and make his own webcam show. His long, soft-spoken

videos feature him telling stories of his experiences in the Second World War, and his subsequent life in the post-war UK. GI Joe Public Service Announcements — Back in the early 90s it was briefly fashionable for cartoons to end with a brief public service announcement. In the 2000s it was likewise briefly fashionable to take the PSAs from old GI Joe cartoons and re-dub them with hilariously offensive new dialogue. Goatse — A truly horrifying photograph of a naked man stretching his anus open with both hands, exposing all the glistening pink tissue within. Usually posted by internet pranksters with the intention of shocking innocent viewers, the image—and ones like it—spawned the “shock site” craze. Grape-stomping Lady — A brief news clip from a local Fox affiliate in Atlanta. The roving female reporter is learning how to stomp grapes, but things take a turn for the worst once she hears that the person who stomps the most in 30 seconds can win a free vacation. She keeps stomping frantically even after the time limit ends, and ends up tumbling off the platform and onto her face. Ouch. Homestar Runner — A delightfully whimsical cartoon series about a strange, childish creature named Homestar and his various oddball pals. The character of Strong Bad has easily eclipsed Homestar himself in popularity, and is widely quoted and adored. House of Cosbys — Another cartoon series, this one about a kid who clones himself a house full of Cosbys, each with a distinctly idiotic personality. The series ended when Bill Cosby himself