Happy 9/11 Day, You Guys
Just as every year downtown New York is illuminated by twin beams of memorial light, so too does Videogum observe it's own 9/11 tradition of posting the video in which a terribly misguided mime impersonates the mime airplanes hitting the mime towers (mime yikes). That treat is after the jump.
You know, last year was Videogum's first 9/11, and we tried to match the solemnity and national importance of the day by pointing out the fact that there was an incongruity between writing Brody Jenner hair-product-updates while the actual news carried genuinely meaningful remembrances and tributes to the 3,000 people who died on that horrific morning. Perhaps this is what they mean by survivor's guilt. At times you can feel like you're not taking the responsibility of being alive seriously enough if your time is spent in superfluousness (although, to be fair, these Brody Jenner hair-product-updates aren't going to write themselves!).
But this year feels different.
It's not that the tragic events of 9/11 are any less tragic in themselves, but that the "tragic events of 9/11" the concept has become a punchline. Whether the very real, and very enduring fear and anger that continues to boil from that day is being exploited to sell souvenir nightmare coins, or explain why Glitter was not the box-office success that it should have been, or fuel Charlie Sheen's borderline-mental illness, not to mention the fucking Fringe finale, the conceptual impact of the day has completely divorced itself from the emotional reality. While none of us will ever forget where we were, and all of our lives are forever changed by it, the term "9/11" has been turned into a tool of emotional manipulation and sarcastic exaggeration ("this is worse than 9/11").
This was probably true last year as well, I just didn't have 12 months worth of ridiculous 9/11 things to link back to. BLOGGING THROUGH TIME.
Anyway, we all remember and honor this day in our own way. And I remember this day through horrible, horrible mime*.
*No, I don't.
Posted by Gabe at 9:32 AM in Where Are They Now?
Tags: Mimes | September 11th
Ugh... I think I ate a mime for breakfast this morning.
Score = 11
Youtube Doubler was invented for mime:http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dh8VGQTtENSs&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWPIPfE4WvYs
Score = 2
Mime's colors dont run
Score = 8
Score = 24
I like leaving the music running, but watching this mime video to it instead.
Score = 3
I like leaving the music running, but watching this mime video to it instead.
Score = -2
ugh.
Score = 5
Where is An American Patriot when we need him?
Score = 6
PLEASE SEE below.
Score = 1
is that a yahrzeit candle in your pocket or etc etc
Score = 3
i think it's unfortunate that the word 'mime' doesn't write rhyme with the word 'intolerable-performance-art-nedenholery'. shame shame. lots of good jokes lost to this oversight.
Score = 9
the terrorists just won.
Score = 9
I looked at the screen cap of that mime video and thought "move on, that's unwatchable" then I saw the 3:29 run time and thought "well maybe, I've got a few minutes..." then watched the first 30 seconds and confirmed that my initial thought was correct. Moving on to the Chewbacca Norseman....
Score = 7
The mime kinda looks like Voldemort....
Score = 3
Honestly mime? No. Just, no.
Score = 0
Nothing says "dignified tribute" like mime.
Score = 6
I spent 9/11 in a panic. I was in high school in Connecticut and my best friend's dad worked at WTC. We broke out of the lockdown school trying to get any infomation. Luckily, we eventually got good news.
Today, I opened up my Facebook. First thing I see, "9/11
I heart 9/11.
Score = 2
Strange, apparently the less than sign kills Videogum. That was suppose to say "I opened up my Facebook. First thing I see, "9/11 (less than sign here)3". Seven keystrokes says it all."
Score = 3
))<>((
Score = 6
superfluity.
Score = 0
I was in the 6th grade when it happened, and got in trouble when I made a joke about the Gateway Arch (STLer right here!) getting hit by planes. Then my teacher proceeded to humiliate me in front of the class for saying it (I was in the fucking 6th grade!).
So, I have some horrible memories associated with 9/11.
Score = -9
sounds like it was pretty tough for you.
Score = 14
I know, right?
Also, it was a joke, if you didn't know.
Score = -7
I think they got it, you clearly didn't. But I'm from St. Louis too so I'll try and let it slide.
Score = 0
I think the label on that yartzeit candle has a typo.
Score = 3
So how long before a big budget, soaring soundtracked, Ben Afflack movie is made? Or is that only reserved for other tragic events in American history?
Score = -1
But you forget, they already made a few 9/11 movies. I personally refuse to watch them because I feel they have thoroughly exploited what happened.
Score = 5
we hispanics also care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NecoBo0BhEk&feature=PlayList&p=619204B37AB0079B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14
We love you dudes
Score = 0
Score = 0
"Waving a flag like it actually means something automatically makes you the biggest douche in the world. Fuck the flag. If you want to salute something or pledge allegiance to something, well, don't. Pledge allegiance to common sense and decency or some other guiding moral principles rather than a real or imagined political entity." - David Cross
Score = 12
i feel kinda bad for laughing at this. not as bad as this mime should feel, though. after all, this art form is his life, and his life definitely sucks.
Score = 0
i remember being in my 7th grade science class when i heard the news. my teacher started freaking out out of nowhere. scared the crap she was probably the worst person to break the news to a bunch of 12-yr-olds considering she was already off her rocker to begin with. during a tornado warning that same year when all the student were lined up in the hallways she was pacing all over the place mumbling "Oh dear! This is it! It's the big one!" To this day I still don't understand why she was allowed to supervise children.
Score = 2
never thought i'd see yiddish on videogum. shows how little i know.
Score = 3
That miming bore no relation whatsoever to 9-11. He may as well have been doing 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Score = 1
It was a bad idea to be listening to Sigur Ros while reading this post...
I always feel awkward at 9/11 because I am so cynical about everything that happened as a result of it, like the war and ridiculous flag-waving and jingoism, etc. Not that I don't think we should stop "remembering" it, but I always wonder what people are actually remembering. I was not able to fully comprehend what had happened that day. Not in the way that THE HORROR WAS TOO MUCH FOR ME, but in the way that what's a terrorist? I didn't get the symbolism of the attack, and I certainly didn't get the politics of it. So 9/11 Day is always a little emotionally confusing for me, because it didn't mean anything to me at the time, and I didn't really feel anything at the time ether. To be honest, I now always feel a twinge of guilt because that day we just watched TV in class until the bell rang, and I was happy we didn't have to take an algebra test. I just think a lot of people, not to say anyone in particular, make it this very compartmentalized, easy day of PRIDE and STRENGTH and AMERICA. Which I don't really relate to. Surely I'm not a monster. Good thing I can count on Gabe to acknowledge the awkwardness of things like this.
I don't even know how to be eloquent about this, obviously, since I couldn't get this all into two sentences, so sorry about the dumb russian novel over here.
Score = 11
didn't mind reading your Russian novelette at all. I read the first sentence then fired this up while I read the rest...
Score = 0
Im listening to Sigur Ros too!!!!
Score = 0
I have to say, the quality of the comments has severely declined since Videogum's first 9/11.
Cf. "what do these letters in Jewish written on a package mean?"
Classic!
Score = 2
A few years back i remember walking down the street and noticing a mime in crutches looking really beat up. at first i thought i was all an act like, ha ha, i get it, you're playing a mime that got the shit kicked out of him because everybody hates mimes. but as i got closer it looked like he really did get the shit kicked out of him. i really hope this was the same mime
Score = 2
While that mime video rates pretty high on the Whoops scale, THIS NIGHTMARE is at least ten times worse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akoHyZyD8oQ
Score = 0
-Knock knock
-Who is it?
-9/11
-9/11 who?
-I thought you said never forget
Score = 12
Thank you for bringing this joke into my life. Upvotes to the stars.
Score = 0
I liked the part where he got trapped in the invisible box by terrorists.
Score = 4
This is worse than 9/11.
Score = -1
Living a block from Ground Zero (now, but not then), I feel a lot of 9/11 resentment along exactly the lines you are describing. What is with the throngs of tourism? The shitty souvenirs? The incredibly incompetent dismantling of the Deutsche Bank building (whoops, we dropped a section of pipe through the roof of the fire hall next door)? The naming and renaming of the new tower and the arguing and the slow expansion of the fencing around the construction site wasteland where nothing ever seems to happen. And of course, every year when they toll each of those four bells, I ball my eyes out.
Score = 1
This is worse than the time I was having sex with Adolf Hitler on the top of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 and he gave me AIDS.
Score = 3
If there was ever a post tailor-made for ol' AmPat, its this one. WHERE are YOU?
Score = 0
THIS IS SOME shit I won't just TOUCH. i LOVE this country, and OBVIOUSLY 9/11 meant a GREAT DEAL to me and IMPACTED ME in many ways. HOWEVER, WAS I one of the many PEOPLE who--unfortunately--PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY dealt with the IMPACT of all that evil? No. I LIVE NOWHERE near fucking New York. While I can CERTAINLY feel horrible about THE SITUATION and still remember how FRIGHTENED I WAS for my family, that fear and UNCERTAINTY CAN never match those of THE ACTUAL victims. Who am I THEN TO comment on this? 9/11 has been TWISTED INTO some major bullshit in the past FEW YEARS with people and COMPANIES WHO had nothing to do with IT USING IT as some dumbass angle.
I love MY COUNTRY. I love the PEOPLE IN my country. I love them enough TO CARE ABOUT what happened BUT TO ALSO know when I have nothing WORTH saying ON THE subject. 9/11 effected ALL OF US, but we GOTTA STOP talking about IT LIKE IT was as devastating FOR EVERY single American because THEN WE ONLY undermine those WHO IT actually AFFECTED--people I respect AND PRAY FOR every goddamned day. 9/11 is a solemn day. One IN WHICH WE should remember the PEOPLE; a day in which we should TAKE A MOMENT to think about WHAT SOMEONE else experienced. I'm not TRYING TO UNDERCUT anyone feeling sad on 9/11 (THAT'S ALSO not my FUCKIN PLACE to say ANYTHING), but I only WISH THAT AS a Nation (TM) we could stop REMEMBERING the event--and all the FUCKING HUBBABALOO and ME-TOOism it has SPURNED--and remember the people: the people who LOST THEIR lives not for believing in anything or creating any anger, but people who lost their lives simply because they lived. I was HORRIFIED, undoubtedly, but WHAT I experienced WAS nothing compared TO THE real horror that occurred THAT DAY. The people who had to go through with it have my undying respect, love, admiration, and sympathy whether they know it or not.
Score = 9
Sad piano music and title screen explaining event being mimed = mime fail.
Score = 0