I have no reason to post these videos except that they are jaw-droppingly cute, and they remind me of my cat, and I love cats, and isn’t that reason enough?
Apr 282009
I heard a story the other day about a person who turned on the television in a strange city, and happened across a random channel that was just a closeup of a foot, clenching and unclenching. Asking the person he was staying with, “Uh, WTF?” he found out that it wasn’t some weird European art film, it was the fetish channel.
This YouTube video makes me feel like I’m watching a similar television station.
What’s that? You want more? Check out dude’s YouTube channel. His self-description:
This page is devoted to long hair. I belong to the rare species of guys who like to grow their hair really long. I have many other interests but you won’t find anything about them here…
As a child I already hated haircuts. I always felt some kind of admiration for guys with long hair. When I started to grow my own hair, I didn’t have a clear goal. It just felt good so I let it grow and grow…I have had very long hair for years now, at the moment (March 2009) it’s almost at knee length. Of course I’m proud of my long hair and so I thought I’d show it to the world!
This is an English version of an online French comedy series. I heard about it the other day on CBC — the guy decided to make stop-motion videos, but was too lazy, so superimposed his own eyes and mouth over the puppets, saving himself about 90% of the niggly little animation stuff.
His “Têtes à claques” series became a sensation in Quebec, then across the ocean in France, too, and now creator Michel Beaudet is making lots of money from his site, plus fending off TV and commercial directing jobs. Nice work! It’s a reminder that, for all the massive amount of English-language content on the Internet, there are these parallel Internets that hardly ever cross over, in whatever language you want.
Thankfully — because they’re hilarious — the “Têtes à claques” are crossing over. Check out this infomercial-style video for the Willi Waller.
Lots more on the website, tac.tv, though they aren’t all as funny as this one. I find many of them to be funnier in the original French, but “Willi Waller” works well in English. You can switch languages up at the top of the page, if you’re bilingue.
Oh, and “têtes à claques,” loosely translated, would be: “a person so ugly or annoying that you can’t help wanting to slap them.”
Mar 022009
This video is a great example of how differently people tend to perceive the same situation. I used to follow these Tales of Mere Existence, created by Lev Yilmaz, quite a bit, but because of typical Internet-induced forgetfulness (and distraction) I stopped. Luckily, I came across them again last night, and was rewarded with several new videos.
Yilmaz’s technique of continually drawing as the video goes on isn’t particularly innovative, but it’s interesting to watch. The animation style is simple, yet incredibly expressive. What attracts me most to these videos is their application to everyday life and their confessional nature. He tells stories that we can all relate to. Like this one. I swear, that’s my relationship with my Grandmother.
More of his really funny and really interesting videos can be found at his YouTube page.