There is no bigger thrill in the world than in knowing that no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, you can, at any time during the day, login to the net and see a 3D animation of a baked potato with facial hair and bad teeth named “Grumf” bobbing back and forth to the tune of Barry White’s “My First, My Last, My Everything”, in a manner that can only be described as “disturbing”.
 

I am very fond of YouTube. In my humble opinion, it is the greatest invention ever of mankind (with the only possible exception being the toothbrush). The excitement! The culture! The art! The random acts of insane backyard wrestling that make even “The Rock” squeamish! How did the early American pioneers ever survive without it?

Today, YouTube is visited by over 18 million people daily, providing the general public with such important cultural video clips as the “Leek Spin” movement which is ever shaping the world we live in. (If you don’t know what that is… you’re lucky.)

YouTube has continued to mold and change the entire internet using a series of fads that have taken the web by storm. The forerunner fad to this generation of video icons is a lush tale of romance and intrigue, a tale of great musical presentation and amazing quality, a tale that we will refer to as: “That Numa Numa Guy.”

That Numa Numa Guy proved, once and for all, that you didn’t have to have loads of money or skill to become famous. All you needed was a camera, Romanian techno, and an amazing figure. (The word “amazing” here is up to interpretation.) Thus, a tidal wave of similar videos hit the world wide web (or as it is also known: the “www”). From all over the world, teenagers, adults, children, grandparents, and other species of hippos pressed their horribly ugly faces against webcams, hoping that they too would be shown on national TV, praying that Americans would take pity on them and send them money.

Fortunately, the “Annoying Lip-Syncers” fad ended quickly with most of the videos receiving such comments as: “You copycat! You’re a Numa Numa Wanna Be!” or “Brad, if you keep posting these videos, I’m breaking up with you!”

So, it was obvious a new fad was needed. Congress proposed a few ideas, but nobody ever cares what they think. YouTubers thought long and hard about this problem. What could capture the essence of their video-blogging struggle? What could really show the world their inner feelings as artists? What was so easy and mind-numbing to make that any doofus with a computer could do it? Finally, the answer came in one brilliant solution: AMVs!

And sure enough, every doofus known to man (which accounts for at least 98% of the globe) began to create AMVs by the thousands. Now, if you are unfamiliar with AMVs, AMV stands for “Anime Music Video” and is usually a video that consists of three hundred short clips of “well built” anime babes fading in and out from a picture of a moon and is accompanied with music that was obviously chosen by a monkey.

After this fad came others and others! All of which involved no money, no time, and most importantly, no creativity. People began to upload movie trailers (that they didn’t create), animated cartoons (that they didn’t create), TV clips (that they didn’t create) and finally, webcam video diaries (which, unfortunately, they did create).

The webcam video diary fad had its biggest break when it’s  poster child, LonelyGirl15, suddenly was capture by aliens (or something like that) and everyone called 911 to save her, but only to find out that it was all a fake setup. The truth was that LonelyGirl15 really was an alien, which is confirmed by the fact that she now has a contract with FOX Entertainment. So in direct response to LonelyGirl15’s success, everyday dozens of teenaged girls (most of which should never be seen in good light) run to their webcams to tell us their inner most feelings which usually are boring as all hell. We then express our feelings by leaving them heart-warming comments that tend to go along the lines of: “Man, you are soooo hot! Message me back, babe!” (We YouTubers are pretty stupid and have a horrible judgement of beauty.)

Today, there are a ton (about six) of different fads on YouTube.  (Most of the them involve a young boy breathing away from the microphone to make his voice magically really, deep or a man in a black ski mask giving advice.)

One of the more recent additions has been a new take on the old AMVs, now replacing the anime with short clips from movies and techno remixs that repeat and repeat and repeat. Some of them extend to over thirty days long in length with a little note “More to Come” stuck at the end. These videos, similar to brainwashing, make it impossible to ever forget such life-altering phrases as: “They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard! They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard!”. (NOTE: Look up this video at you own risk! They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard.)

Ok, I had intended to discuss in this article the effects of YouTube on the commercial market and point you to several videos I feel worthy of honorable mention, but that will have to be saved for next time.

But for now, I leave you with this inspirational clip:

Your Buddy,

JungleTrek