I’m just like anyone else. I eat, I sleep, I wear a little watch that tells me whether I’m stressed or not. And at various points throughout the day I pick up my phone or open a new window on my computer, fresh with exhilarating hope that I just might glimpse the one: The Notification That Makes My Life Whole.
Many of us feel the weight of this delirious anticipation. We also know this notification can’t possibly exist. But even with this knowledge, we turn to our screens with the sense that, at any second, our lives might be filled with excitement and deep meaning. Why else would we abandon the things we claim to care about (sunlight/fresh air/a remotely healthy hobby/our loved ones) in favour of a swipe or click, and maybe another after that?
While the following things I’ve discovered during such click-based spirals have not tilted my life into one of total fulfilment, they’re as close as it gets – a brief hit of the sublime.
1. The Reject the Recession Dancers
I’m sorry to immediately subject you to the horrors of morning television, but it’s vital that you are aware of the Reject the Recession Dancers. This segment aired in 2009, protecting Australia from a recession for a full 11 years. Please don’t contact me to discuss the ways governments avoid this definition through technicalities – to do so would disrespect the dancers and invoke their wrath. Because these artists, with their wild and spectacular bodily contortions, clearly possess some dark power beyond our comprehension. We can only hope they are never needed again.
2. Jonathan Frakes asks you things
“Yes!” I say in response to some of the things Jonathan Frakes asks me. “No!” I say in response to others. I haven’t experienced everything he is asking me about, but I am engaging with him, because this video is comforting and makes me feel less alone. I hope it makes you feel less alone, too.
3. A dog ate Dan’s new heart
A moment like this one from One Tree Hill almost seems quaint in our post-Riverdale society. “Please,” I can hear you shout, “I have lived through the dialogue about the epic highs and lows of high school football! I have witnessed witches resurrect the boy who loves burgers! A scene in a later season of a long-running teen drama where a man drops a heart intended for use in another man’s transplant on the ground and then it slides along the ground and a dog eats it in front of them while others look on with their mouths agape means nothing to me!”
Well, to me it means everything. Chad Michael Murray’s gaze is a near-perfect comic beat, a masterclass in making a choice. Is this the look you give a man who just witnessed a dog eat his future heart? Is this the look you give a man abandoned by those around him, who had the chance to save him yet did nothing? Such questions plague me.
4. Who would post baby with a gun?
What kind of person would post baby with a gun? What inhuman monster? What ghoulish force? Such questions do not disturb me at all, for the baby has a gun, and it is safe, and that is all we need to know.
5. Scooter Saga: City Council
Some argue that comedy should be edgy and provocative. Others argue it should be funny. In this essential footage, Chad and JT show the West Hollywood City Council what comedy is really about: speaking truth to power.
6. My first day back on Twitter
The internet is, as we know, an engine of bad faith. If a back yard inventor were to emerge from their shed with a machine powered by misplaced anger, such a machine would run until the heat-death of the universe on the power of Twitter alone.
My hope is that their machine would do good and not evil, but unfortunately this wouldn’t be up to me. Instead it would depend on the inclinations of the inventor themselves, as well as factors such as whether they had received the appropriate support and guidance at a young age.
Anyway, this video is the most efficient demonstration of what the internet has done to our minds that I’ve ever seen.
7. Saturday Night Live must not hire Rajat
The “guys sitting around a table agreeing with each other” format is responsible for a great deal of social, cultural and political ruin. You may have listened to comedy podcasts of this kind – you may even have enjoyed them! But once you’ve seen Jeremy and Rajat’s discussion of the big rectangles with the handles, you’ll be cured, and will never be able to listen to a podcast again.
8. @thejazzemu on Instagram
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@thejazzemu (Archie Henderson) consistently produces the greatest comedy funk on the planet. The songs are catchy, the visual aesthetic divine. Someone must either stop him or force him to tour Australia.
8. WORLD IS FUKT
This is very simple, because I can describe it and tell you why I think it’s funny using the same sentence. The sentence is: nine years ago “WORLD IS FUKT” was printed as a headline on the front page of the Australian Financial Review. And who among us could argue the world is not, as the AFR claims, fukt?
10. What Saturday Kitchen feels like
Beyond the fact I find this sketch delightful, it’s included here as it also represents how I feel sharing this list: those where I have shown a friend a YouTube video and waited to discover whether they find it funny or not.
Who knows how many strangers will look at this list and scream at their device about how awful I am for sharing it? I am going to pretend you are all rapturously applauding instead.
