Some may disagree, but I have truly found the best YouTube video ever — it’s funny, it’s clever, it’s cute, it has a good song, it’s well edited, it’s short, and it anesthetizes or distracts small children (specifically, my two sets of toddler nieces when they’re on the verge of exploding). Finally, a real use for YouTube! If you have not seen it before, and even if you have, allow me to ask you to consider the artistic validity of the following, the legendary Kitty Cat Dance:
Seriously, it’s been seen millions of times now, CONTINUES to pick up views and notice more than two years after its release, and it has to be among the most successful YouTube clips so far. Listen to the song: it’s tight, develops well, is a little twisted in parts, and the punkish chorus is genius, since it helps keep the whole piece from becoming too repetitive or too cutesy. And the use of stills works great, since it lets you edit super-tightly to the music while also creating that immediate sense of unreality. You can learn a lot about what works on the web from watching this one. Again and again and again and…
If you’re trapped in the office on this pre-holiday-weekend Friday, check out the Obamafier from Slate. Not a translator, but clever way to show off some pretty painful Obama puns in the form of random definitions from the “Encyclopedia Baracktannica.” And they very cleverly made it a widget so that we can embed it and give them free publicity:
Ink Different. On the subject of cults of personality and Obama tattoos: “Shouldn’t this guy at least have waited for the general? Imagine someone walking around right now with a Lieberman tat.”
Citizen media, yet another example of why I love thee: a genius parody of the Obama Yes We Can video, this one featuring John McCain.
Call me emotionally stunted, but while the original sends a shiver down the spine in a couple of places, the fundamental insincerity of the McCain version suits my style so much better.
Update: More news on the Obama surge from the Cafe Press primary: “After being nearly tied two weeks ago in weekly candidates sales (Obama at 28%, Hillary at 26%), now as of last week, Obama has surged to account for 48%, while Hillary is down to 19% of weekly candidate sales.” More here, and thanks to John Hlinko for the tip.
Hillary Clinton’s Online/Offline Town Hall. She’ll take questions via email, text and video, with Bill and Chelsea (among others) hosting satellite town halls around the country.
Republicans make Fox News sick. “To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O’Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that’s a week to remember!”
The Day After. The end of the Edwards campaign, through the eyes of his blogger outreach staffer.
Australia wild party child turns party pro. My teenaged near-namesake uses MySpace to promote a party, 500 “friends” show up and do $20,000 worth of damage. Delanys everywhere are extremely proud. Via my friend Doug McCammon.
Hey kids! E.politics is running a bit behind these days, but there’s nothing like 70s-funk theme song to restart a publishing groove. Obama Girl is back, this time with superpowers and backup singers (”she’s wonky/so funky”), and kudos to the Barely Political folks for bringing her to us in fine style. Nice commercial, too.
Update: Another powerful Obama video remix, this one consciously anthemic in scope. Warming: sincerity ahead. (Thanks to Katrin Verclas for the tip). This is the genius of an age of citizen creativity! People can make their own case for a candidate in their own way, and if it finds an audience, they’ve done their job. How can campaigns help them do it?
Update, Pt II:Garance Franke-Ruta has details on the song, plus Deadheads for Obama (save us) and more.
The good folks at Slate have found a revealing pop culture/political culture connection: by mashing up a clip from the movie Election with footage from the current Democratic race, they find Hillary Clinton’s inner Tracy Flick and capture what it must feel like to have some young upstart come along and steal your moment. Even if you haven’t seen the film, I bet you’ll get the point.
Nice! Thanks to Alicia LaPorte for the suggestion.
Friday Fun comes a day early this week, with a terrific video mashup courtesy of the CamPain2008 YouTube channel. Excellent work! It doesn’t tell us much about the political world, but that does nothing to detract from a standalone piece of genius.
Well, let me take back what I just wrote, because this video DOES tell us something significant about the political world: that it’s no longer an isolated part of our discourse, standing apart from the other endeavors with which we distract or enlighten ourselves. Politics is a part of pop culture, so a guy like Barack Obama can become a pop culture icon. Of course, you’ve got to have the right je nais se quois je ne sais quoi — can you imagine a similar piece featuring Chris Dodd or Tom Tancredo? Sure, but only with a healthy dose of irony. Via How The World Works.
A friend told me that the song is called “Chori Chori Gori Se” and it’s a love song. So, I guess it’s a take off on the Obama Girl video.
And…
A friend found a Chori Chori video with English subtitles. This song has a
lot of versions, remixes etc. It’s also in an english movie called the
Guru.
I’ve been trying to get through to the new John Edwards-created PlantsForHillary.com, which is supposed to be a little microsite that knocks Clinton for the apparently planted question at a citizen forum. Problem is, the site seems to be down — I get a blank screen when I try to view it with both Firefox and IE, and “view source” shows that the page contains only header information, no actual content. The site sounds like a fun idea, and its launch yesterday picked up some media and blog coverage, but it seems to have encountered problems since then. Did it go down for technical or tactical reasons? Enquiring minds want to know.
Update: According to an email from campaign staff, it was only a “a fun little debate day website” and not intended for posterity. I’m jealous; Wired’s Sarah Lai Stirland received a very bad pun in reply when she asked the same question.
Excellent parody of Hillary Clinton in a fake “Celine Dion is the winner!” song contest announcement, with lots of wacky edits and camera angles, wide-eyed expressions, a lapdance joke and a NEW contest — a song for every issue…
