Tuesday, March 25, 2008

How Is My Dancing Menstruating Man Not a Viral Video?


I may not be an expert in the absurd, but I know funny when I see it. How can this drag queen wearing a flashlight bra with crimson blood oozing down his/her leg NOT be a YouTube hit? His/her dance moves alone are worth cutting and pasting into a blog. Which I did:

I love it when crazy comes out to play. And on Halloween night, crazy took the form of a middle-aged white man with limited coordination at Susanne Bartsch’s Witches' Bordello party at Limelight. Sweaty and out of breath, he ran up to the velvet rope and started to assemble his costume OUTSIDE the club. First he strips naked, then he pulls out some fake blood from a Duane Reade bag which he pours down his inner thigh like period juice. Next up, he slaps 2 stick-on flashlights onto his chest, glues a red square on his crotch beforing running his bare bottom inside. And that’s not the end of it. Turns out my new hero grabbed front-n’-center on stage to show off his, well… look at the video and see...

Last October, when I took the above video, I was 100% sure I was going to be the next YouTube viral meme. What's a meme? According to Wikipedia, it's any unit of information that gets passed on from one mind to another--think of it as a cultural gene. Tay Zonday's Chocolate Rain was a meme, as was Miss Teen South Carolina's map/the Iraq/South Africa hiccup and the "Don't Tase Me Bro" kid. But what are the qualities that launch these videos into internet stardom? And why isn't my menstruating man cutting it?

If I go by YouTube viral video blogger Kevin Nalty's 10 Tips for a “Viral Video” Hail Mary, then I'd need at least $250,000. And boobs. And possibly MC Hammer. But Nalty's tips are geared towards marketers looking to mine the YouTube world to push a product/brand. I just want people to watch my video for fun. I'm not trying to manufacture a hit, I want success to come organically--that's much more satisfying.

In the next few weeks, I'll be carrying around my trusty camera to pick up any freakishly funny memes in the making. Be on the lookout.

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