Reaction Videos as Anthropological Study of America - Sam Anderson via NYTimes.com →

Sam Anderson via NYTimes.com

The most striking thing about reaction videos, if you watch a string of them, is their sameness. There are little stylistic differences — one guy will shriek and jump out of his chair; another will just sit there open-mouthed — but everyone basically has the same responses at the same moments. The great lesson of the genre is that we are physically different — our couches, beds, hairstyles — but spiritually uniform. A grandmother sitting in front of a ferret cage is the same as two college girls in a dorm room. This is part of the appeal of reaction videos: they allow us to experience, at a time of increasing cultural difference, the comforting universality of human nature. It’s no accident that all of this started on YouTube in 2007 — at a moment when, and in a place where, human experience was beginning very visibly to splinter. Watching thousands of people react identically to “2 Girls 1 Cup” (“Come on!” they invariably shout, and “Why!?”) feels like a comforting restoration of order and unity. Which means that the most disgusting and offensive video ever to go viral was ultimately, oddly, a force of togetherness.

Reaction videos are designed to capture, above all, surprise — that moment when the world breaks, when it violates or exceeds its basic duties and forces someone to undergo some kind of dramatic shift. This is another source of the genre’s appeal: in a culture defined by knowingness and ironic distance, genuine surprise is increasingly rare — a spiritual luxury that brings us close to something ancient. Watching a reaction video is a way of vicariously recapturing primary experience.

Occupy Wall Street vs iPhone line

A very funny video featuring a lot of UCB people.

From the good folks at CollegeHumor. 

EDIT: Also, I think it speaks to the OWS divide of the original protestors (Adbusters type anarchists) vs those who came later after media attention (so called “Daily Show liberals”), at least that’s what I see after having just read the Pre-Occupied New Yorker article about the origins of the OWS protest. 

jensenkarp:

I’ve been pretty passive over the past month in regards to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not because I’m an asshole or part of the 1%, I’m neither, but because honestly, I’ve grown pretty used to the world being ruled by bankers, corporations, corrupt politicians and the select few who are terribly rich, and can also double as felons. I applaud the efforts of protestors fighting an incredible cause, but I am jaded beyond return and hate the greedy aspect of our society so much, I feel like it would make me sick to try and fail, and in turn become even more jaded.

Then, the UC Davis incident occurred.

I have never in life been so outraged by the actions of police in my life, as my feelings are only rivaled by the Rodney King beating and the shooting of Sean Bell. The King and Bell incidents were insane violations of human rights and police protocol that infuriated me, and a nation, and this moment when a horrendous police officer decided to pepper spray a dozen or so peaceful protesting students, linked arm in arm quietly, will find its place in history besides them. 

I won’t link the video of the incident, as you’ve obviously seen it 100 times, but I wanted to write about it on my blog purely to remind people, non-violent college organized protests have been vital throughout history, especially during the Civil Rights Movement and the fight for women’s rights. When I went to USC, political action, and the forming of political beliefs, was not only commonplace and an important part of growing up, it was encouraged by the University. Letting your voice be heard, while it grows, is part of your paid education. Obviously, you can’t be insane, violent or violate other people’s rights in the process, but that was not the case in the UC Davis quad Friday when Officer John Pike decided to douse these kids with pepper spray from 3 feet away, sometimes aiming intentionally inside of their mouths. These students continue to dry heave throughout the weekend, while one student has incurred nerve damage from how tight these excessive cops handcuffed him. Pike, much of the responding riot unit, and the the UC Davis administration, performed a horrific act and many of them should be fired for their decisions. I also believe Officer Pike should be criminally charged.

I encourage you to write to Officer John Pike and without stooping to his level, explain how disappointed you are what went down at UC Davis. I have. His email is japikeiii@ucdavis.edu. You can also call 530-752-3989 and vocalize your disgust at the school police force’s process for dealing with these non-violent student protestors. I did. 

Yesterday, at 2 pm, the Chancellor of UC Davis, Linda Katehi, who should, and will, probably take the biggest fall for these events, held a press conference where she announced that a committee made up of administrators, teachers and students will examine the use of force and action will be taken if warranted (which they will be if I know Public Relations at all). She also said she believes the actions taken by some of the police officers were “unacceptable.”

The weirdest, and greatest, part of yesterday’s press conference though was that protesting students surrounded the building, again peacefully, and seemed to expose how guilty the Chancellor must really feel inside. Now explained as confusion, Chancellor Katehi would not leave the building for 5 hours, as word spread she felt she was being held hostage. Students who stood around her eventual walk of shame, ready to let their voices be heard in this press conference, chanted “We are peaceful” and “Just walk home,” again trying to show the safe manner of their protest. Eventually student representatives convinced the Chancellor to go home, and above is video of the walk of shame to her car, as students sat silently, with arms locked, to let her understand exactly who was viciously attacked by Officer Pike just a day prior. This makes me happy to be a human and I can not applaud its effectiveness enough.

Obviously this incident has forced me to become more active with the current protests happening worldwide, and I’m sorry to have been so nonchalant and jaded in the past. The focus of the UC Davis protest, while still being under the umbrella of OWS, was based on an upcoming 85% hike in the University of California system tuition (which is insane). We all have different focuses, but our goals are the same. Mine have become human rights and the Freedom of Speech, which are both being violated currently in the United States.

Please let your voice be heard about Officer Pike’s criminal act and let’s all stay current about what’s going on with this movement, as I have the feeling it’s going to affect all 99% of us very soon.

“Physicists have discovered that the apparent solidity of matter is an illusion created by our senses. This includes the physical body, which we perceive and think of as form, but 99.99% of which is actually empty space. This is how vast the space is between the atoms compared to their size, and there is as much space again within each atom. The physical body is no more than a misperception of who you are. In many ways, it is a microcosmic version of outer space. To give you an idea of how vast the space is between celestial bodies, consider this: Light traveling at a constant speed of 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second takes just over one second to travel between the earth and the moon; light from the sun takes about eight minutes to reach the earth. Light from our nearest neighbor in space, a star called Proxima Centauri, which is the sun that is closest to our own sun, travels for 4.5 years before it reaches earth. This is how vast the space is that surrounds us. And then there is the intergalactic space, whose vastness defies all comprehension. Light from the galaxy closest to our own, the Andromeda Galaxy, takes 2.4 million years to reach us. Isn’t it amazing that your body is just as spacious as the universe?”

— Eckhart Tolle (via hippiescientist)

Tell Congress not to censor the internet: 

http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

halphillips:

People will be making fun of Rick Perry saying “oops” for the rest of our lives.  This will be iconic.  If a presidential candidate ever fucks up in a debate again, it’ll be their “Rick Perry oops moment”.

anthonyking:

toddbieber:

In May 2011 I decide to illegally grow a vegetable garden on a neglected patch of land in Brooklyn. While tending the garden this summer I encountered a thief, a dirty old man, and GOD — as documented in this follow up video.

Todd is a great filmmaker who’s not afraid of adventure.

Three years of auditioning for commercials without success, all leading up to me saying “Huh?” in this AT&T spot. 

“You have to be brave to take out that white sheet of paper and put on it words that could be evidence of your stupidity.”

— Sol Saks (via Go Into The Story)

“

According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.

So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe.

”

— http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Salvador Dali on the 1950s game show “What’s My Line?”

In addition to the hilarity of watching Dali answer most of the questions posed to him in the affirmative, also impressive/disheartening that the general vocabulary of both the host and the contestants seems several notches above what you’d find on any TV game show today.  

via reddit