Well, ladies and gents, I was going to write a big, mysterious intro
paragraph to this column that culminated in a grand surprise for
all, but I pretty much shot my load with that pun in the title, so
here goes: I was Harold Longfellow. Yes, that dashingly
handsome yet bitter face you saw in that column was just a random
picture I found on Google Images.
Anyway, you may also have noticed that Mr. Longfellow has since retired so
that I can bring you the weekly joy that is Beaver Fever. That being
said, I had a
good time writing that column, and I’d like to bring you a little insight
into some aspects of The YouTube Critic that have never before been
revealed to the public.
First of all, I want to be clear that the reviews in that column don’t
necessarily reflect my own beliefs. I judged videos as Harold Longfellow would
have judged them, which sometimes led to me to near-schizophrenic inner divides
over some of the videos I really loved. Allow me to illustrate through a little
inner-dialoguing about the
music video of Hella’s “Try Dis”:
"The greatest problem I had was that I couldn’t just use
stoner videos week after week."
Alex: Hahahahaha!!! The whale’s
talking in textures! They all have Down’s syndrome!! Hahahahahaha!
Harold: Are you retarded? This is just more garbage made by drug
addicts who’ve never made any real contribution to society.
Alex: God, would you stop whining already? It’s funny! Come on, you
can’t tell me it’s not a little bit funny watching the retard eat the donut…
Harold: How can you possibl– wait… what’s that smell? Jesus, are you
high again? Is that all you do?
Alex: Oh come on now, I sit around all day watching YouTube videos for
this column, what else do you expect?
Harold: Go chase some shiny things, you mongrel.
Alex: Normally I wouldn’t take that from you, Longfellow, but right
now I have an overwhelming desire to eat a Sourdough Bacon Cheeseburger.
It's seems to
me that you've been a bit unfair to this video. You're reviewing it as though
it's a feature film...It's a music video for god's sakes! " A blow to Cinema,"
wow, a bit dramatic don't you think? I saw this video about a year ago and
thought It worked quite well with Hella's eccentric sounds and personalities.
It's no masterpiece, but for an obviously low budget music video it stands out
among most of the other crap that's out there. It's fine that you disapprove of
Hella's music and this video, but you could have at least judged it a little
more objectively.
-Jason
Jason, you may have slightly missed the point of the column, which was to
review YouTube videos extra critically as though they were feature films.
Nonetheless, I will now clarify that even though it’s one of the goofiest things
I’ve ever seen, I’m also endlessly amused by it. That being said, if we’re going
to talk about objectivity of reviewing, you have to realize that when a music
video is just a bunch of computer animation based around a retard making random
movements, it leaves itself open to some criticism.
The greatest problem I had writing the column was that I couldn’t just
use stoner videos week after week. I’ve got a pretty mind-numbing collection
of videos to watch when high, but I figured that wouldn’t exactly give the
greatest sense of diversity to the column. That being said, in an effort to
preserve the spirit of Harold Longfellow, I’ve decided that I’m going to bring
you all a brand new video each week.
For this week, the video I’ll be bringing you is entitled “Drinking
out of Cups,” and it requires a little bit of background explanation. Once
upon a time, a man was tripping on LSD. He was rambling on about his
hallucinations and getting mildly belligerent, and thankfully he had a friend
who recognized the comedic value in the situation and recorded the whole thing.
This friend then went home and computer animated a gecko having the
hallucinations his friend was talking about over the monologue itself. If that
didn’t make any sense, just go ahead and (smoke a bowl and) watch the video
now—you’ll figure it out.
If you have any brilliant thoughts on the video or have any suggestions for
other videos, leave them in the comments – otherwise, look forward to more of
Beaver Fever next week.
Alex Willen is currently a student at Stanford University, and he counts on the prestige of the school's name to make up for the fact that he constantly takes the minimum number of units and still fails to go to class. Alex has neither a major nor career aspirations, but now that he's published on PIC, he's content to sit back and wait for his internet cult following to build up and start sending him money.
