Sometimes people ask me what’s with the image of the guy in blue greeting visitors to my blog. I don’t know who it is, but I’m moved to share its provenance: In the first Youtube video I ever watched.
17 years later, this clip is just as funny as it was the first time.
It’s culturally significant because it bridged a gap: The 99% of viewers on some weekday afternoon who saw this air and didn’t know who Mike Patton is would just keep folding laundry, or figure (accurately) that the program was merely referring to some rock guy. The other 1% of us would have had our jaws on the floor catching this scene, then telling our friends about it without the ability to play it back for them. That’s the gap YT bridged that exposed this little bit of unintentional comedy in an episode of All my Children to a brand-new audience, one where the majority of viewers may have gone years or decades since watching or thinking about that program. 17 years ago, it was pretty novel. I’d say most content on YT back then was short, of generally low image and sound quality, yet just plain old worlds more culturally significant than what’s been uploaded to YT since I started writing this post.
Around 2007-09 the quality got “there,” and it promptly became the greatest movie repository this world has ever seen for a solid three years. Today? Demonetization for the creators that have set up camp where the movies were swept away, and ads for the viewers. But I’m grateful and sentimental that this original clip remains up on YT, at the very same link where I first watched it in my 17th summer. One day, for some unknown reason….. It’ll be gone. I’m sure you’ll be able to find it somewhere else. (Good luck.) The artistic force behind Destination Hell will always be here at the top of my page to greet you.
You’ve been reading my blog...
So, thanks for reading my blog.
Leon Ferri 