On YouTube Poop

The internet is stuffed with almost unlimited really, really stupid stuff to take our mind off having to go on living. Sometimes it as if the whole of human history up to this point was merely a tedious prelude to the time when people could add dramatic music to a chipmunk turning around or reimagine The Lord of the Rings with Saruman being played by a singer from a Soviet-era light entertainment programme. It is tempting to think this nonsense is palatable only to the stupid and directionless, but after meeting many of the brightest Oxbridge students who also have a love of stupid videos, I've reluctantly accepted that the international conferences on Deontological Ethics of 2045 will be attended by people who have watched hours of cats popping water balloons.

With this in mind, I feel we may as well devote space to the appreciation of the utterly stupid, since it is now so irrevocably woven into our very culture. I'd like to cast a vote for the "YouTube Poop", a style of video in which old movies and cartoons are re-edited and mashed up within an inch of their recognisable life to find the unintentional comedy just waiting to burst out. In particular, I'd like to give analysis to this clip from Les Miserables, since we have recently touched on the baffling absurdity of Russell Crowe. You might say that there's not much point pricking his pomposity since his recent career seems devoted to doing that itself, but first, watch this.

You're quite welcome not to laugh at any of it. That's the point about stupid guilty pleasures; they're quite possibly mystifying and probably embarrassing to anyone else. But in the confessional spirit of the thinkpiece blogosphere, I will here list absolutely everything that I find wonderful about this video.

 

1. The stupid pointless increases in volume, the annoying dubstep, the pitch changes. They exist entirely to annoy the viewer, and I have a quiet affection for anything with that much contempt for its user.

2. Valjean's very long prisoner number 24602060451, of course, but most especially the furious emphasis Javert places on the five.

3.  "You're no-one. lol."

4.  The exchange of Valjean sniffling and Javert going "nnnn"

5. The beautiful non-sequitur "I stole a loaf of bread." "And I'm Javert."

6. Javert shouting "FIVE" in isolation.

7. "My sister's child was the child of Death". The possibility of a fascinating demonic parallel plot to Les Miserables is tantalisingly glimpsed.

8. "Unless you learn the meaning of narushnashnzzzh" "I know the meaning of ezhnazhnalOOOOOOR." Whip-smart dialogue.

9. "What? You're a dangerous nun."

10. "And I'm Jojvert."

Thus a single very self-serious scene is reimagined with nothing more than standard video editing tools to include a liaison between Valjean's sister and the Grim Reaper, an absurd Brazil-like bureaucratic dystopia with needlessly long prisoner numbers, Pinter-like cross-talk, the questioning of the meaning of language itself, and the ironic juxtaposition of frivolous internet slang and the forced removal of identity within a massive punitive institution. If I take this video exactly as seriously as I'm definitely not meant to.


There's a half serious point here, which is something to do with the cannibalisation of existing straight-faced culture being an interesting source of future comic innovation that can find new stories to tell and new angles on characters with great ease and accessibility for anyone with an editing suite. I would go further, but I've been distracted by this Postman Pat mashup.

Pat can break through your door. You really should lock your door.