The viral Web is infinitely vast, highly personal and totallyephemeral. A video that enthralls one viewer perplexes another, andeither way it's replaced within hours by a new meme. Talking catsgive way to precocious toddlers give way to Barack Rolling. So in afragmented medium with something for everyone, the most astoundingalignment is when there's one thing for everyone, when for a singlemoment the whole country seems to be laughing, groaning andforwarding the same thing.
Here's a recap of some of the best -- silly, meaningful,meaningless -- of what landed in your in-box in 2008.
(Be warned: A few of these videos contain language notappropriate for minors or office computers.)
Way back in January, before he made nice with Matt Lauer, TomCruise was still Creepy Tom -- a state of being exemplifiednowhere better than this leaked Scientology promo video. Cruiserambles, he cackles, he avoids proper nouns and he proclaims himself"the only one who can really help" at car accident scenes.
It was classic unhinged celebrity voyeurism, but the story gotreally interesting when a group calling itself "Anonymous" posted aresponse video, in which it vowed to bring down the Church ofScientology. The two minutes of eerie digital voice-over eventuallyled to real-life protests in more than 100 cities.
How do you choose a political video in a year that just kept ongiving? Do you go with the high concept (the Obama/McCain dance-off)? The topical ("Wassup 2008")? Or do you just go with SarahPalin pardoning one turkey while another is decapitated in thebackground?
In the end, we went with Will.I.Am's "Yes We Can." Slick, yes,but a stirring videotorial that helped unify Generation Obama. Withnearly 15 million views, it's hard to argue the impact.
Seemed that nothing could be more euphoric than watching Beyoncestrut her butt off in the music video "Single Ladies (Put a Ring onIt)."
But then came all the boys. The boys and their leotards. We'renot talking "SNL's" Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg flabby version;that came after. We're talking fierce, fierce dancing, filmed inbedrooms and studio apartments. We're talking Shane Mercado, wearingwhat looks like two pieces of dental floss.
Re-creating music videos is an art (how many ways can Soulja Boybe cranked?) and this -- worshiping, improving, sassifying theoriginal -- represents the best of it.
Did anyone really believe that pointing four cellphones atkernels of corn would pop them? Probably not, and debunking memosbegan circulating online just days after the originals -- in manylanguages -- appeared in June. This video went viral not becausewe thought it was true but because it tapped into the paranoia andguilt of our dependence on technology. We shuddered to think ofcellphones frying our brains, then we used our cellphones to forwardthe video to everyone we knew.
No one gets injured, no one gets embarrassed, no two girls dosomething with one cup (you don't wanna know). This whimsical stop-motion video by artist collective PES is "Sesame Street" for grown-ups: pin cushions become tomato sauce, candy corns are flickeringcandles. Revel in the strangely satisfying knowledge that theInternet can still be G-rated, and that G-rated can still bemesmerizing, and that mesmerizing doesn't have to mean "puppycam."
Rule: We, the American public, want to know every private,tabloidy detail of the lives of the rich and powerful.
Exception: Tricia Walsh Smith.
Congrats, Park Avenue Princess, for showing us the line between"Ooooh!" and "Ewww." (FYI, it occurs somewhere between giving us aWeb tour of your luxe pad and using that tour to tell us about your74-year-old estranged husband's alleged porn stash. By the time youhave the husband's secretary on the phone and you are asking herwhat to do with the condoms, you are way past the line.)
It's kind of hard to explain why "Sketchy aaaaarm" and "Bandmontaaaage" are hilarious phrases. You pretty much just have towatch Dustin McLean's collection of "literal music videos" in whichhe changes the lyrics of songs to describe exactly what is happeningin the video. His take on "Take on Me" is especially wondrous, andnot only because of the prolonged duet about pipe wrenches.
From the content wasteland caused by the Writers Guild strike ofearly 2008, a beacon of hope: Joss Whedon's made-for-Internetmusical, starring Neil Patrick Harris as super-villain with adoctorate in "horribleness."
Aiming simply to give viewers something to watch while the WGAgot its business together, "Dr. Horrible" ended up raising thewebisode bar with a surprisingly twisty plot and a hefty 43-minuterunning time. Plus, songs inspired by Sondheim! By the time "Dr.Horrible" was released in July, the strike was long over. Still, thevideo was enough to make us consider the types of things we mightall be watching when we're no longer watching TV.
Guy gets smashed, guy slurringly recounts American history. Thefirst installment stars Michael Cera as Alexander Hamilton,resplendent in powdered wig. By the fourth and latest, Drunk Guy istelling us all about President Harrison, who died after 19th-century doctors "were like, 'Hey William Henry Harrison, here aresome leeches and [stuff]' " to help him get better.
Like much of online content, it's juvenile, it's simplistic, yetsomehow we sense (hope?) we're learning something about something.
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