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Lonesome George: musical homage to last of a Galapagos tortoise species, from "2012:Mashed"

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:34:18 +0000

Rich Fulcher, comedian and writer whom some of you may know from his recurring roles on "The Mighty Boosh," shares this wonderful little musical video from "2012: Mashed," a new show debuting 28 December, 11.40 pm on Channel 4 in the UK.

"It's got some very bizarre and interesting videos on the news topics of 2012," Fulcher explains.

"What's good about the show is it doesn't cull clips from the internet but commissions various artists and internet gurus to do their thing."

The clip shared here, "Lonesome George," is about the last Galapagos tortoise to die, "done retro video game stylee."

Here's the official blurb on the new Channel 4 program in which this clip appears:

Rich Fulcher introduces an insane look at the big news events of 2012 through totally original, commissioned media mash-ups created by the internet's most famous names including Dan Bull, David Schneider, cassetteboy and Rob Manuel.
None of the videos shown on Mashed are currently on the internet.
News events given the mash-up treatment include: Jimmy Saville, Kate Middleton, Barclay's Bank LIBOR fixing, 50 Shades of Grey, the 2012 Olympics meets the London riots, C4's Drugs Live, Apple, the meltdown of the Murdoch Empire, Julian Assange, Banksy, Duncan Bannatyne, the BBC, David Haye and Derek Chisora, the U.S. Elections, the Jubilee and a truly ‘spaced out' version of the Felix Baumgartner...no one is safe...and that’s just a taste of the iceberg.

Ai Weiwei’s “Gangnam Style” parody video

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:18:01 +0000

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei covers PSY's viral hit. At WaPo, Max Fisher writes more about the video here. What's with the handcuffs he pulls out about halfway through? This. (thanks, Oxblood!)

Paranormal Activity 4 has been infiltrating all of your social media with secret plot things

Jamie Frevele — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:42:29 +0000

Dread Central has been doing a little bit of investigating into the viral campaign being run by Paranormal Activity 4. Accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube apparently belong to a man named Jacob Degloshi from Henderson, Nevada. But appearing in one picture he's shared on Twitter is a young blonde woman named Alex, who happens to be a character (not an actress) in the newest installment of the found-footage franchise. And, Dread Central points out, the pool and the house in one of the videos should look very familiar... I like this expansion on the viral, Blair Witch approach to movie promotion, even though the whole "fact or fiction" element is clearly absent. But similar to The Walking Dead's web videos that go into stories about people who aren't the main characters, this is a cool way to build the mystery. (via Dread Central)

Examining the viral spread of Gangnam Style, through graphs of API calls

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:50:07 +0000

Sean Creeley of Embed.ly writes that K-pop star PSY's "Gangnam Style" sensation "created some interesting data on the rise of one of the most viral videos of all time." He shares stats on the "growth of that video over time as it relates to API calls."

Royce Reed, star of campy-bizarro viral videos: RIP

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:59:57 +0000

At Dangerous Minds, our friend and former (frequent) guestblogger Richard Metzger writes about the death of Royce Reed, co-star of the “Royce and Marilyn” viral videos. She passed away last night.

"In 2009, when I was guest-blogger at Boing Boing," he writes, "I helped get the ball rolling on the Royce and Marilyn craze." Indeed he did. His post today on the sad news includes many more videos and links.

Back in 1999, the LA Weekly ran the definitive profile on Royce and her comic partner Marilyn Hoggatt. A great loss to Weird Culture. These women were basically real-life versions of Absolutely Fabulous meets Norma Desmond, shaken up with a little Englebert Humperdinck samba. More great videos here.

Medical aid worker on Kony 2012: "The aid industry has just been Biebered."

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:35:21 +0000

(Photo: Joseph Kony, via Reuters)

On his personal blog, Marc DuBois of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders) writes about the impact of the viral Kony 2012 campaign on the work of long-established humanitarian efforts in Africa.

"Most madmen love the idea of fame, so Joseph Kony’s wet dream just came true," writes DuBois.

Many aid workers are simultaneously offended by the project and jealous of its unprecedented reach. At the time of this blog post, the promotional video for Invisible Children's fundraising/"awareness" campaign about the fugitive African rebel leader has exceeded 70 million views, making it the fastest-growing viral video in internet history.

Snip from DuBois' blog post:

So why, really, are we aid insiders so bothered? It’s the big green monster. Is there another charity whose message has captivated so many so fast? About six months ago, my niece “Lisa” in Chicago excitedly asked me to contribute to Invisible Children. At the time, I’d never heard of it. I poked around. I can’t say I was taken by the cause, but I couldn’t help feeling envious of IC’s having so effectively reached Lisa, usually more interested in dance and boys. These young upstarts at IC are the next big thing. And we aren’t.
Why? Well, for one, they have a simple message that people grasp. For another, good looks. More importantly, Invisible Children has discovered what the entertainment industry figured out a decade ago. It’s not about us old timers. It’s not people who read the Philip Roth or contribute conscientiously to their pension fund. It’s about the under 25s, maybe even the under 15s. It’s about the kids. That’s why there are a couple dozen TV shows about teenage vampires. That’s why we have Jedward.
The aid industry has just been Biebered. IC’s hundreds of thousands of donor / activist – they were invisible to us. Kids. That’s the target and that’s the message. If you think the aid world depends on gray haired HNWIs (High Net Worth Individuals, aka rich folk), wait and see what IC does with its pubescent legions. My advice to the aid industry? First, get over it. Then, get on the boat.

Read the rest here.

DuBois isn't speaking for MSF, but I spoke to another MSFer via Twitter today: Avril Benoît, the group's Director of Communications, who pointed me to DuBois' blog post. I asked her if MSF had released an official statement in reaction to the Kony campaign: No. But, she said, "MSF teams in LRA-affected regions of DR Congo, Central African Republic & South Sudan are likely wary of retaliation risks."

Does the viral campaign, and reactions to it on the continent, up the risk for aid workers, I asked?

"It's more that, historically, military offensives v. LRA (as the campaign calls for) triggered retaliatory atrocities against villages," she replied.

Too bad those ugly, complicated realities don't easily fit into Invisible Children's 140-characters-or-less narrative.

The Invisible Children viral video may be the "most-viral" in history, but it's one of the most expensive, too. The group raised $13.8 million in 2011, according to the non-profit's financial statements [PDF]. In an interview with CNN, co-founder Jason Russell says they spent one-third of raised funds on the film, another third on "film-related advocacy" and the rest on a "a mission to end the war, and rehabilitate war-affected children."

They've released no specific price tag on the film, but: do the math. This is a group that is, ultimately, calling for military intervention.

(Photo: The Kony 2012/Invisible Children guys posing with SPLA soldiers on the Sudan-Congo border in April 2008. Photograph by Glenna Gordon.)

NONONONO Cat

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:22:18 +0000

[Video Cat]

Today's weird animal viral video is, like all great examples of the genre, equal parts funny, creepy, cute, and sad. Apparently, the cat in this video is having a fear/anxiety/aggressive reaction to the presence of a young girl (sounds like under 5 years old?), a friend of the daughter of the guy who shot the video. Or I don't know, hairball?

I've never seen this behavior before, and wonder how the owners might best deal with it. But also, I couldn't stop laughing.

And is that a Maine Coon? They're usually so mellow and sociable.

(thanks, Tara McGinley)