Forty Cents

It has probably become apparent to all 5 readers of this space that I spend a bit too much time at night wasting away the hours looking for cool videos on YouTube instead of doing something with my life. I wish I could say this is a myth, but it is true. In my defense, looking at videos on YouTube and writing on a blog qualify me for Time's Person of the Year '06, so I guess you could say I'm going places.

But back to the subject at hand: YouTube. I'm always disturbed by the comments on the video pages. They generally make my brain hurt. First, they frequently contain many grammatical and spelling errors. I can forgive the occasional typo, but when every word of the comment is misspelled, there's a problem. Second, in addition to horrible editing, people generally get into flame wars with the other random people, usually calling them insults that are personally offensive to me. Third, even the few commenters who are able to spell and be civil generally post nonsense.

The video that inspired this was "The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe. Since I never watched MTV because I valued my intelligence way too much, I missed a lot of the videos for the songs I liked in high school, and watch them now that I have the time and the technology. There are currently 9 comments, and none are remotely worth reading. If I commented on YouTube, I would leave responses to all of them. Here's a sampling of what I would say:

Comment #1: "I love this song! Take me back to the late 90s now please! There should be a section devoted just to the 90s." (because nothing says fun-loving 90s like a song about a murder-suicide)

2: "This song brings me so many memories and makes me think about so many things that I should have done...it basically makes me feel depressed but it's so beautiful and meaninful tho...love it" (wait, things you should've done like NOT leave and ignore your suicidal ex-girlfriend? Or not live in denial about your involvement in the whole thing? And if you had those memories, why would you love this song?)

6: "This song is so sad and beautiful... it's about how the lead singer's girlfriend had an abortion when they were in high school." (Unless it's now possible to have an abortion using only a shoeful of rice, I'm thinking you got this song mixed up with "Brick" by Ben Folds Five. Actually listening to the lyrics will help you avoid mistakes like these in the future.)

Now, if President Bush were here, he'd probably say something like "It's irresponsible of you to criticize other people's comments when you don't have any comments of your own," to which I'd say, "It's difficult to have a discussion with people who don't even bother paying attention to the song."

Didn't expect this post to end up here, but I suppose when you set out to make fun of stupid people, you often end up making subtle political commentary. Plus it gives me an idea: Coming Tomorrow: a poetry explication detailing how The Freshmen predicted the result of the Iraq War. A good time shall be had by all.