Oops!

So among all the excitement of creating my website, I forgot something key to my blog, the weekly awesome amazing crazy top 5 list of excitement. I was to do them weekly every Saturday, but on only the second week I failed you guys.

For that I am sorry.

Anyways, this week I'll do an easy one,  the top 5 internet videos ever. I remember some of these from when I was really young, and some of them are fairly new, but one thing makes them alike. They are all hilarious!

Honorable Mention: Justin Bieber get's riddled, and  I mean destroyed, by bullets on CSI. I officially love the writers of this show now, what more can be said?






5)Numa Numa guy- I will start the list with one of the oldest viral video's I can remember seeing. It featured a man in his mid 20's sporting a pair of headphones. The man was overweight and took up most of the screen, but when you heard the first line of his song you could not look away. The song, was the numa numa song. And the man, was the numa numa guy, and the encounter was equal to the first time chocolate met peanut butter.

The video was hilarious! Yet so simple anyone could do it. It was simply a man lip syncing a song, but somehow it could keep me watching numerous times. The best thing about the video is that you're laughing with the guy, not at him. You can see he's having a great time! So you feel a little better about watching it.








4) Evolution of Dance- Now, this one isn't as good for its comedy but it's still one of the best. It's simply a man going through all the dances he could think of all conjured up into one, megadance. The concept sounds easy enough but when the man in the video puts it all together it becomes art, and some of the parts bring back hilarious memories, hey the whole thing reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite to be honest. I heard something about the guy being a motivational speaker now or something, that's a great job for him, his only other real option would be back up dancer for some kind of band...I can't think of any band that has music like that. Nevermind.

Anyways here it is in all its artistic glory, the evolution of dance.







3) David After Dentist- This video had me laughing so hard when I first saw it. It's simply a kid who's very, very...VERY high after leaving the dentist. The kid seems to be in some kind of half real half fake world and can't seem to keep focused on anything.

This video spawned such great quotes as "is this real life" "is this gonna be forever?" and the very memorable and rage fueled "AAAHHHHH". David is like that kid high on LSD in the corner of the room playing with the plant who everyone just walks by and laughs at.  I hope David does not end up down that path.






2) Star Wars Kid (and all its spinoffs)-  Now, the story of the Star Wars kid is quite a tragic one, but that is not what this blog is about, if you want details look em up on google :), anyways the Star Wars kid was a video that some high school students found in one of their High Schools video recorders. The students popped the tape in and saw a student (whom they considered nerdy) flailing around a broomstick like it was a lightsaber. They then distributed it to other students and eventually it hit the internet.

Now the video itself was funny, but not nearly as funny as the many spinoffs, I'm going to post the original here but it's not hard to find many of the spinoffs that are out there.






1) Winnebago Man- Ah, Jack Rebney. A man who I have laughed at, a man who I have learned from, a man who has given me comfort and, an RV salesman. I can't remember the first time I saw the Winnebago man video, it has been that long, but even now when I watch it years later it still brings me comfort. No matter how mad I am I know that I can at least tell this guy to calm down.

The man has taught me alot without knowing it. Jack has taught me swearwords and sentences that I never would have though of before. "Can you do me your kindness?" is now something I say out of habit when I'm yelling at someone. Jack also taught me to let it all out sometimes. You can't always be the calm cool and collected person everyone expects you to be, sometimes you need to swear! Sometimes you need to swat angrily around at flies! These are basic things.

The reason this video is my number one is not only because of the video itself but also the documentary it spawned (under the same name "Winnebago Man") The documentary looks to track down Jack Rebney, and has a lot of trouble in the beginning, but after a few months they finally find a way to contact them. Anyways they find Rebney as a recluse (it is assumed he was lead there after he found out about the video) who was pretty ignorant of the world around him.

Rebney seemed to think everyone who watched the video was laughing at him, instead of being angry with him. We felt his suffering! We've all had bad days, we felt his angst, but he didn't see it that way. Jack chose to ignore the world around him except for a select few.

After months of contact the director and crew finally convince Jack to attend a Q&A at a found footage festival. Jack comes in skeptical almost looking embarrassed when he hears the laughter of the audience. When his name is announced though, things all change. The room stands in applause as Jack makes his way to the front of the room and we are treated to an amazing story of human understanding, and in some ways forgiveness.

Anyways, heres the video that started it all!

Once again I'm sorry for my inactivity. I promise I will get the blog back up at full capacity within the week!

Thanks to all who are still reading!

Similarities.

So I've been hearing a lot of and seeing a lot about Lady GaGa recently, and not by choice. GaGa's crappy but catch tunes are played at work my at least 3 times a day, I see her in magazines, I hear her on the radio, I see her on TV, there's just no getting away.  She seems to have this style that makes people hate her, but are unable to turn away, almost like a trainwreck.



I was recently reading the blogs I had subscribed to and came across a picture posted by http://metastreamer.blogspot.com/. It was a picture of David Bowie from ala 1970's Ziggy Stardust, and it got me thinking.




Lady GaGa these days seems to have the media these days in the palm of her hand, everyone seems to be buying into her persona, and when people buy into her persona it gets them to not only interact with her music, but Lady GaGa the person as well. This in turn creates a bigger permanent following who will attend her shows(I don't know if concert applies) and buy her albums regularly. GaGa has created a cult following and it doesn't seem to be dying down anytime soon. Now I could go into how Lady GaGa and her types are destroying our youth and culture, but I'll save that one.

The fact is though, that when Lady Gaga dons all her makeup and a crazy outfit designed to make her look more insane then her last appearance, she is instantly recognizable. Now, I cannot confirm this, but I'm almost 90% positive that  growing up, "Lady GaGa" did not wear any outfits or crazy makeup the way she does now, she is simply portraying a character.  

Now, way back in the early 70's, a man named David Bowie realized that in order to create a legacy and make himself remembered (and not just his music), that he must gain a following of dedicated people who will buy his album and adore anything he puts out. David Bowie wasn't the first to realize this, as Elvis Presley and The Beatles (among many others) all had a certain persona that made people remember who they were. David Bowie was, however, the first to create a completely larger then life persona that grabbed peoples attentions and made them incapable of looking away, coupled with good music to boot!

Back in the 70's though there were no music videos and media was not nearly the same as it was today. Yet David Bowie decided that to create his legacy, and gain a loyal following he would have to create the "larger then life persona" I mentioned. Prior to his transformation Bowie wasn't well known in the American music world. He had already released the "Space Oddity" and "The man who sold the world" albums, which reached number 5 on the UK billboard chats, but with little airplay in the US he didn't have quite the international following he wanted. He realized he must act quickly, and that's what he did.

Bowie arrived in the US in 1971 to embark on his first tour. Bowie decided that to create interest and buzz he would don a dress and makeup on stage to be different. Bowie not only wore the outfit on stage, but to any interview he did as well. The US had quite mixed reactions to Bowie's actions, and most were not positive ones. It's ever reported that a gun was pulled on him on one of his tour stops by a man telling Bowie to "kiss my ass" (whether or not it was literal we will never know). While in New York he met up with local underground stars Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. Lou Reed was known for his warming melodies mixed with great guitar riffs, and Iggy Pop was known as a drugged out rockstar who would always put on an amazing performance for the fans. Meeting these people in new york changed Bowie's life, An ex-girlfriend recalls "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy" who wanted to appear as "someone who had just landed from mars"

Due to that meeting in New York Bowie had found his image by combining the great music of Lou Reed and the stage presence of Iggy Pop, and went immediately to work on testing out new images.

What happened next, biographer David Buckley says,"challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture". in 1972 at the "Toby Jug Pub" in England, Ziggy Stardust was born, and to great success. It boosted Bowie into superstar status in England, and a few months later he released "The Rise and Fall of  Ziggy Stardust" album. The Ziggy Stardust managed to stay on the English billboards for over 2 years, and catapulted his previous CD's and tracks back onto the billboard. The tour soon rolled into the US, this time to more success then his first venture.

The second tour catapulted "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust" as well as "Space Oddity" and "The Man Who Sold the World" onto the billboard charts. Shortly after his first tour he also released "Aladdin Sane"(which made it to #1 on the UK billboards)

This fame, however, came at a great price, and it is still a demon that haunts Bowie to this day. Early into his transformation Bowie described Stardust as "Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David.". This was the beginning of his cycle into madness. Bowie began portraying the Stardust character on and off stage, and after a while it became hard for him to separate the two personalities. After years of playing the character though, it became impossible. Bowie said, "wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour ... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity." He had become so deep in the character that he lost himself.

Bowie still to this day doesn't seem like the same as he was pre-stardust days, even in the way he looks (comparison picture)

1st picture is 1971 pre-stardust bowie. 2nd picture is 1976 post stardust bowie, after he decided not to play the character any longer.

I felt the need to write more about David Bowies en devours as GaGa is more recent and more well known, and her career exploits are all fresh in our memory.

Now back to Lady GaGa, ya remember that girl I started the article off with? Ya, if you noticed her career almost completely contrasts Bowie's, she has created a persona to gather media attention. GaGa was catapulted to #1 on the billboards and will remain there everytime she releases a new album. Gaga took a bland and boring music scene and added a unique character not seem before, for that she has my respect...but I still can't stand her music.

I wrote this as just kind of an observation I had but I guess I could throw in this question as well. Do you guys think that if Lady GaGa continues this character that she will go down the same path as Bowie? And do you think if she did stop portraying that familiar character if she would be able to retain fans?