This flood of home video trash that's hitting the Net via YouTube, Google Video, etc, is funny and all but I'm not sure how closely I want to look at the freaks. I recently watched a video some Net-heads have labeled "Dad scares kid with computer."
I don't really like practical jokes, especially ones that involve startling someone. We all have autonomic reflexes, they're embarrassing, big whoop. Here, a Dad is playing a game or teaching his boy something, probably from a computer in another room in the house, while simultaneously monitoring the kid with a webcam. The kid is about 8. The game is boring, and the kid is asking his Dad questions about how to proceed. Suddenly Dad puts a horrible monster face--it reminded me of the subliminal demons from the Exorcist, eyes and mouth opened wide--on the kid's screen, which simultaneously emits a loud roar.
The kid screams and goes into utter panic, literally pushing the screen with the flats of his hands to make the monster go away. He looks up at the webcam lens, crying, his face a mask of utter fright, mingled with betrayal that his Dad would do something so shitty to him. He can't turn off his emotions, and the camera continues to impassively record his wracking sobs, while you hear his Dad's meek little doughy voice saying "heh-heh...heh-heh." The Dad offers no words of apology or consolation, and the sobbing goes on a while.
I was reminded of the film Peeping Tom, 1960, where a father, a scientist studying fear, puts reptiles in his son's bed while the child is sleeping and films the child's frightened reactions when he wakes up. In the film the boy grows up to be a psycho killer.
I'm not linking to "Dad scares kid with computer," sorry.
what's disgusting is there seems to be a (small) subcategory of viral homevideos devoted to parents scaring their own children. one really popular video going around last year involved parents wearing masks and usng a real chainsaw to wake their kids up in the middle of the night after they had watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre...
these videos seem so much more evil in the YouTube context than in the context of America's Funniest Home Videos. they have certainly have slipped out of the original authors (the parents') hands. (but its definitely their own damn fault for leaking it on the Internet/filming it in the first place)
Thanks for the context, guthrie (and I have to admit hearing about the 'Saw thing makes me laugh, although I'd probably rather not see it). I liked your "baby's first steps" collection a lot, and the observation that "parents apparently take a lot of pleasure in their babies falling down over and over again." And the quadruplets laughing you linked to is one of the stranger, funnier things I've seen. They were like the psychically linked kids in Village of the Damned except funny instead of evil.
It's quite possible the Dad in the scary computer vid just had the webcam on to communicate between two rooms of the house and acquired the record inadvertently. I hate him for not immediately destroying the clip and for being so passive when his son needed consoling. If he actually let the footage out for America's Funniest... or whatever then he really is a monster like the Dad in Peeping Tom.
the best (worst?) example of this nastiness is the "star wars kid", who became significantly famous on the internet (and beyond) for being nerdy/overweight, totally against his will: classmates stole the videos and put them online. the internet can screw up your life!!
and i guess his parents sued the kids:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars_kid
btw, those quadruplets, yikes..! every single time that they cry or laugh or do anything at all, it must be like a chain reaction. everything they do must always happen 4 times...wow!
nanny cam?
Those sorts of pranks are definitely evil, but I think that youtube, google video, et al are a mostly positive development as they allow amateur webmasters with no money for streaming server licenses to make videos available for everyone to see. Besides, without these services, how could Moto Man have become so famous?
concho.tv/cgi-bin/apps/main.pl?moto-man.html
Uggh--the exact wrong combination of narcissism and shyness. The availability of all this video is great on the political front. I'll bet Joe Lieberman wishes he hadn't bounded out his seat first to give Bush a standing ovation during the Iraq portion of the last State of the Union address, now that that clip is circulating all over the Net showing what a warmonger and suck-up he is.
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This flood of home video trash that's hitting the Net via YouTube, Google Video, etc, is funny and all but I'm not sure how closely I want to look at the freaks. I recently watched a video some Net-heads have labeled "Dad scares kid with computer."
I don't really like practical jokes, especially ones that involve startling someone. We all have autonomic reflexes, they're embarrassing, big whoop. Here, a Dad is playing a game or teaching his boy something, probably from a computer in another room in the house, while simultaneously monitoring the kid with a webcam. The kid is about 8. The game is boring, and the kid is asking his Dad questions about how to proceed. Suddenly Dad puts a horrible monster face--it reminded me of the subliminal demons from the Exorcist, eyes and mouth opened wide--on the kid's screen, which simultaneously emits a loud roar.
The kid screams and goes into utter panic, literally pushing the screen with the flats of his hands to make the monster go away. He looks up at the webcam lens, crying, his face a mask of utter fright, mingled with betrayal that his Dad would do something so shitty to him. He can't turn off his emotions, and the camera continues to impassively record his wracking sobs, while you hear his Dad's meek little doughy voice saying "heh-heh...heh-heh." The Dad offers no words of apology or consolation, and the sobbing goes on a while.
I was reminded of the film Peeping Tom, 1960, where a father, a scientist studying fear, puts reptiles in his son's bed while the child is sleeping and films the child's frightened reactions when he wakes up. In the film the boy grows up to be a psycho killer.
I'm not linking to "Dad scares kid with computer," sorry.
- tom moody 4-11-2006 3:14 am
what's disgusting is there seems to be a (small) subcategory of viral homevideos devoted to parents scaring their own children. one really popular video going around last year involved parents wearing masks and usng a real chainsaw to wake their kids up in the middle of the night after they had watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre...
these videos seem so much more evil in the YouTube context than in the context of America's Funniest Home Videos. they have certainly have slipped out of the original authors (the parents') hands. (but its definitely their own damn fault for leaking it on the Internet/filming it in the first place)
- guthrie (guest) 4-11-2006 6:15 am
Thanks for the context, guthrie (and I have to admit hearing about the 'Saw thing makes me laugh, although I'd probably rather not see it). I liked your "baby's first steps" collection a lot, and the observation that "parents apparently take a lot of pleasure in their babies falling down over and over again." And the quadruplets laughing you linked to is one of the stranger, funnier things I've seen. They were like the psychically linked kids in Village of the Damned except funny instead of evil.
It's quite possible the Dad in the scary computer vid just had the webcam on to communicate between two rooms of the house and acquired the record inadvertently. I hate him for not immediately destroying the clip and for being so passive when his son needed consoling. If he actually let the footage out for America's Funniest... or whatever then he really is a monster like the Dad in Peeping Tom.
- tom moody 4-11-2006 6:49 am
the best (worst?) example of this nastiness is the "star wars kid", who became significantly famous on the internet (and beyond) for being nerdy/overweight, totally against his will: classmates stole the videos and put them online. the internet can screw up your life!!
and i guess his parents sued the kids:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars_kid
btw, those quadruplets, yikes..! every single time that they cry or laugh or do anything at all, it must be like a chain reaction. everything they do must always happen 4 times...wow!
- guthrie (guest) 4-11-2006 7:11 am
nanny cam?
- bill 4-11-2006 3:23 pm
Those sorts of pranks are definitely evil, but I think that youtube, google video, et al are a mostly positive development as they allow amateur webmasters with no money for streaming server licenses to make videos available for everyone to see. Besides, without these services, how could Moto Man have become so famous?
concho.tv/cgi-bin/apps/main.pl?moto-man.html
- G.K. Wicker (guest) 4-11-2006 9:13 pm
Uggh--the exact wrong combination of narcissism and shyness. The availability of all this video is great on the political front. I'll bet Joe Lieberman wishes he hadn't bounded out his seat first to give Bush a standing ovation during the Iraq portion of the last State of the Union address, now that that clip is circulating all over the Net showing what a warmonger and suck-up he is.
- tom moody 4-11-2006 9:33 pm