Why the Internet is the Shit
Monday, 6. November 2006, 19:29:40
Some of my favorite examples of The Random
Today's Mood: A little Sad
Today's Drink: Tea, Coke & Water (Not at the same time)
Today's Song: 12 Chris Knox - Rust.mp3
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I'm a geek. A Big geek. Today's post is geeky. If you find it dull you can skip the quasi-scholarly rant and go right to the end which has all the funny animations.
Why the Internet is the Shit
The Internet has given society many things; new channels of communication, easy access to worlds of information, revolutionary advances in personal finance and a plethora of services, features and innovations that were never dreamed of by the average person. Life was fine without these things but now that we have them, they are indispensable tools in many of our lives and we could not conceive of life without them.
In fact, the Internet has reshaped the way we do many things and is forcing a paradigm shift that will affect the world in ways we can only imagine today. The effect on entertainment alone has been earth-shaking and I believe will induce radical changes in the years to come. However, where all of these are amazing, life changing innovations, they are not what I believe to be the most amazing product of the WWW.
The truly amazing and beautiful aspect of the internet is the conduit it provides for the average person to express their creativity and innovation to the public where historically there has been no means to do so. Through relativity easy to understand technologies and new services like MySpace and YouTube, the average person can express their beliefs, ideas and imagination without requiring a great deal of money or the backing of a corporate sponsor.
In my opinion this is the beginning of a revolution that will change the way art, media and ideas are created, distributed and spread and will radically change the structure of the business of media. For the first time in human history, the average person, anywhere in the world has the means to express themselves and be seen and heard by millions across the globe. Even more powerful is the collaborative aspect of this relatively young medium. Not only do the masses have the ability to create and distribute their own media, but the viewers of this media have an easy method to communicate back to the creator, expanding on ideas, building on the works of others and obscuring the line between art and audience.
The amount of quality media of all kinds produced during the infancy of the Internet is amazing and the average person is limited only by his or her imagination. The widest possible variety of videos, animation and writings have been produced from the prophetic and enlightening to the absurd and truly weird. There are people out there with really groovy concepts that in the past would go unrealized that have been able to share their vision with the rest of the world. Some of these concepts take off and become part of the culture and the people behind them even achieve minor celebrity status.
From time to time, I would like to share some of the things I have found on the ‘net that have made an impact on me and in a small way made my life a little bit better.
The Random
Some of my favorite internet gems are the random and weird. The things that people have done that are true non-sequiturs but somehow transcend to a form of wonderful bizarre art. You may have seen some of these before while others are probably new discoveries. This is more my tribute to the art of The Random.
Badgers Anyone?
From the amazing mind of Weebl comes the immortal Random classic toon, “Badgers”. This loop is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It is totally random, bizarre and meaningless but I guarantee that you will watch this for far longer than you will want to admit and you will be walking around for the rest of the day chanting, “Badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers” to yourself.
The original Badgers
The popularity of this toon inspired several sequels:
Euro Badgers
Terror Badgers
After you are enlightened by the glory of the Badgers, check out more on the site. There are a ton of Animations, Games and more from the mind of Weebl and a number of other equally twisted artists.
Heaven is Defined a Moose!
I love this one. Someone decided that they tacky, cheese factor of Journey in their natural state was not enough and the world hungered for a flash video making Journey even more ridiculous than they already are. This animation deconstructs one of the most annoying songs of the early eighties.
Journey: A Tribute to America
An Allegory of the Struggle Between Our Humanity and the Dehumanizing Effect of our Most Defining Achievement, Technology – and It’s Cute, Too!
No matter how many times I visit the world of Monkey vs. Robot I am never let down. I have watched this gem over and over again and I am entertained every time.
This is a great animation set to the song of the same name by the weird, abnormal but totally rockin’ musician, comic artist and writer, James Kochalka and his band, James Kolchalka Superstar. The Animation was produced and directed by Austin Texas filmmaker Geoff Marslett.
Note: Unfortunately the original and superior film is unavailable at this time. The Animated short is copyrighted and the website that claims ownership is no longer offering streaming video. If I manage to find it somewhere, I will be sure to post it here.
A music video produced by a group completely unconnected to Kolchlka and Marslett is available. While it isn’t nearly as great as the original, it is still a very good video.
Monkey vs. Robot
MC Hawking is in Da House!
This is an animated Flash Video of MC Hawking. The idea is to portray renowned Physicist, Stephen Hawking as a rapper laying down rhymes through his vocoder. It is in totally bad taste but that is part of what makes it so damn funny.
The song, (along with others by MC Hawking) has been around for a while and were produced independently of the animation. You can probably find all of them via Google or your favorite file sharing application.
The Real Slim Hawking
That is all for now. I'll post more gems from time to time.
Now, go fuck off.
By margbm2, # 7. November 2006, 01:34:29