T w e n t y S i d e d
Weezer made a music video, and they invited the internet.
Understand that it is an act of extreme generosity for me to link to a video that doesn’t allow embedding. I’ve passed over many videos I wanted to blog about because the maker didn’t allow me to embed the video here. Sending you off to YouTube with instructions to come back here and read what I have to say once you’re done is pointless delay and busywork for you, and interferes with the conversation I’m trying to start. But I’m willing to tolerate it here because I think the video is worth the extra effort. If you’re up for it, you can go and watch it, and then come back here.
They actually got together with the people behind some of the most legendary memes on YouTube. Here were the ones I recognized: (I’d embed them, but this many videos would be too dang much on one page.)
Numa Numa
Dramatic Chipmunk
Afro Ninja
Diet Coke & Mentos
G.I. Joe PSAs
155 Shirts
Chris Crocker
All Your Base
Caitlin Upton’s meandering nonsense
Evolution of Dance
Chocolate Rain
Daft Hands
Daft Bodies
Kelly Likes Shoes
Ryan vs. Dorkman (My favorite.)
It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!
Will it Blend?
I know I didn’t get them all. There were several people I didn’t recognize, particularly in the big meme orgy at the end.
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Yes! Someone sent me that link a while ago. I’m not a big Weezer fan, but I thought the video was great. At first I thought they were just using clips of all those well-known memes, but then it became pretty obvious that they were actually in the video. Great stuff!
Thanks for the link. Oh, and I did come back!
That’s why Weezer rocks, but where was the dancing baby?
I think they merged a few memes as well. Some of the afro ninja moves seem to have come from the Star Wars Kid.
Eric: I’ll never be able to see the afro ninja without thinking of you and your previous haircut.
Are you secretly a ninja?
“Dramatic Chipmunk”
It’s actually a prairie dog =P
In the “big meme orgy at the end” I saw one of my faves, Charlie the Unicorn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5im0Ssyyus
I made it back. And I even watched all the other links you gave :D
That was a lot of fun, Shamus. Thanks :D
Sorta upset there was no Rick Astley.
I really enjoyed that. Thanks for linking it.
I just sat there smiling the whole time until the end, when I just grinned like a fool.
They had charlie the unincorn in the background at some point
wow… just wow.. That was really cool!
now i must get the cd…
and some people say Rock stars live a different life
That was actually pretty cool. Of course my opinion is somewhat tainted by the fact I like that song, and I recognized a lot of them. What was with the Dramatic Chipmunk’s face though? Best part was their Diet Coke and Mentos performances. Thanks for the link.
Shamus, out of curiosity for all the memes they had, I went on a search and came across a site that did just what you have done, except they have ALL the memes, in order of appearance, with videos as proof. It’s a fascinating timesink, to be sure!
I think you really should have linked this Will it Blend? instead.
Just a quick note before going there to watch the video: a lot of plugins or browsers don’t allow you to maximize an embedded video – so you’re forced to watch it in the painfully small piece of screen YouTube (or whatever) gives you as standard format. I, for one, vastly prefer linking to embedding. And now, I’ll go and spend the rest of the evening watching meme videos. D’oh.
*Edit* Just watched it, my favourite bit would be the lightsaber drumsticks. Man, I want to drum with lightsabers too. And Charlie, of course. Let’s go to Candy Mountain!
Also: obviously, what I modt prefer of all is people linking video’s so that they open in a new tab/window, not replace what I’m looking at :-P I’m annoying, I know.
Now that I went back and looked it over a little more carefully, I noticed that the site I linked earlier skipped a couple memes that I think I spotted but can’t place – they all appear during the “meme orgy” at the end.
The first is something that looks like a flying Xbox system or some sort of UFO.
Second, a trio of animated characters, the middle one of which looks like some sort of retarded Donald Duck.
Anyone have any idea?
Evidently I don’t spend nearly enough time on youtube, and/or I don’t look at the things most people are looking at. I didn’t recognise anybody :(
Hi Shamus. Longtime reader, first time commenter.
I know I’m in the minority here. I’ve seen this video twice, first when it came out, and again just now, and I found that both times I did not enjoy it. It’s like when these memes are out in the real world they lose their odd sort of charm. It feels like Weezer is just grasping at straws trying to be edgy while still fulfilling the needs of the record label. So they pick a subject that would register with a certain niche of the population, but also would be caught on the radar of the rest of the public. It just feels very forced to me. I was never a Weezer fan to being with, but this video made me wish I didn’t know 75% of those memes. Although I will admit it is a rather catchy tune…which was their only real goal in the first place.
On the plus side, you have a marvelous site, sir. I do enjoy reading most of your posts, particularly those regarding DRM and the sadness that is the gaming industry’s focus on bleeding-edge graphics.
Heh heh… I like old Weezer, but not the new stuff. In fact, I only like the old stuff because of nostalgia, not because there any other distinction in their work. Memes are kinda like fart jokes. Everyone knows about them, but they are kinda embarassing. I’m surprised I didn’t see Trogdor and/or Strong Bad show up. Perhaps one thing that annoyed me was how the song said how they don’t care what we think, yet they’re clearly pandering to the meme crowd. They come off a bit too much like the pretentious hipster to me. But that’s my opinion.
I’m a bit bored and disinterested. But if you enjoyed it, than that’s good enough. Can’t say I would have done anything BETTER with that time. :)
Having said that, don’t worry about embedding video necessarily. Opening another tab isn’t a big deal at all.
Well, watched them all now.
Geekiness factor++
Thanks for thelinks.
I expect you’ll see more anti-embedding in the future as youtube implements profit sharing for the ads. Of course they also want exposure, so it’s a fine line to draw.
I liked it! I thought it was clever, the way they got all those people to be in their music video. I wonder how long it took to track everyone down? And if there were people/memes that they invited, who turned down the offer?
Update: Just found this behind-the-scenes video. Very interesting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQCAqS43Tw&NR=1
What? No over 9000?!
The reason Weezer wrote this song in the first place is because they say the record company wanted something that would work as a single. So they made a catchy-sounding song with some of the most sarcastic lyrics on earth.
“Everyone likes to dance
To a happy song
With a catchy chorus and beat
So they can sing along
Timbaland knows the way
To reach the top of the charts
Maybe if I work with him
I can perfect the art”
I mean, jeez.
Also, I think the reason they included all the memes here is because, well, they’re pretty much nerds.
If you check out this link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpstyFKZETs&NR=1 there are pop-ups showing all the different Meme Vids that they borrowed from
Thanks for that annotated video. I thought that was K-Fed behind the mixing board… Nice to have it confirmed.
And no Mahir! (I kiss you!!!) I guess since he was pretty much pre-video/YouTube he doesn’t really count.
Anyone old enough and geeky enough to help me come up with a Usenet-era list of memes?
Like:
Kibo
Joel Furr
alt.fan.warlord/Warlording
Rush Quotes in .sigs
Amiga Checks
Green Card Lawyers
The RTM III Worm
alt.wesley.die.die.die
etc.
Meme… overload… argg..
(but I just discovered the Lightsaber fight. Awesome, thanks Shamus for listing the memes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoFMRXlNJ6Y
Barenaked Ladies did the same thing a while back too :)
I don’t mind clicking on a link to off the site but I wish I didn’t have to click a link to see the rest of your post, seeing as that means going back and forth and back and forth to read the whole blog.
Love that video.
According to Wiki, Neil Cicierega and the Potter Puppet Pals were supposed to show up as well, but there were problems with prop shipment – but there’s a Dumbledore somewhere in there. I haven’t seen it yet, though.
I can’t believe you missed the All Your Base Are Belong To Us in your list, there, Shamus.
Teppesh: All Your Base is the 8th entry on his list.
Wow. Just wow. New favorite music video.
Not a chipmunk, but a prairie dog.
If you haven’t seen “Where the hell is Matt?”, you gotta!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY
You know something weird?
After hearing a band that you had never heard of before, it suddenly is EVERYWERE! Suddenly, it’s mentioned on every and every other website on the whole internet, and suddenly everyone you know listens to them.
Interesting that you escaped WoW for Weezer ;)
BTW, what was the highest level you got a character to? Did you ever get to Outland (it shows real improvement in a number of areas, all in all)?
It did make my formerly crappy day
Weezer have long been among my favourite nerds (ever since “In the Garage” from the first album), so this was a nice surprise. The song rocks, too!
@Eric:
The dancing baby appears at 2:37, bottom right corner, along with what appears to be a dancing ninja, and a dancing anthropomorphic duck.
I enjoyed this a great deal. There’s a danger with this kind of thing that it can seem esoteric, cliquey and exclusive, but instead this video manages to communicate a sense of fun, and – most importantly, perhaps – the idea that these people are just doing what they want regardless of what the homogenous hoi-polloi think. Which is the point of the song, I feel.
Zukraham – Wow, seriously, you’ve never heard of Weezer? My heart cries for you a little. I loves me some Weezer. They’re part of the nerd-rock scene that made it fashionable to be people like us doing the things we do. And their music is pretty awesome, IMHO. Plus, that River is a hottie. You hear that, Shamus? You want sexy guys in video games to pander to the girls? Make one staring River Cuomo.
Not until this video no. But now their name seems to pop up everywhere I go. They made it fashionable? But… but I want to be un-fashionable. :( Ah well, I don’t hate the song yet, so that’s a good sign so I guess I’ll check out their other songs. And the singer guy looks cool, the one with the moustache.
“moves away from the microphone to breathe” is probably a reference to JamesAtWar’s “ShatnerBack”.
Heh, look what I found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamus_(computer_game)
i’m not a weezer fan, but this video gets full marks :)