The author of today’s video rose to prominence last year with An Engineer’s Guide to Cats. The funniness of that video (as well as today’s) depends on your position on the cat spectrum. If you are on the “cats are disgusting” end of the spectrum, then these videos will do nothing for you, and you can jump to the next paragraph:

In watching this video, we are forced to contemplate the possibility that YouTube is accelerating the rise of human silliness and stupidity even more than TV has. I am torn on this – parts of YouTube raise human intelligence and contemplation. But, like television, there is definitely a lowest-common-denominator element to YouTube, as demonstrated by cat yodeling.

The problem with YouTube is that there appears to be no bottom on the lowest-common-denominator effect. With television there are certain constraints like FCC rules, the need to generate revenue, etc. On YouTube there are no such constraints. All there is is the search for audience. Prior to YouTube, teenagers and adults who wished to act out for an audience were confined to a very local venue. Now they have an easy-to-access, free worldwide platform.

There is a possibility that, fed enough stupidity, the world becomes sated with it. But porn argues against that. So we wait to see if YouTube ever reaches bottom. Today’s video takes us a little closer.

Perhaps there is another perspective. Perhaps human silliness and stupidity are an art form that should be celebrated in all its diversity. In that worldview, YouTube becomes an accelerator for this art form, which should reach its zenith soon.

[[[Jump to previous Funny...]]]