South Park’s Crash Course in Youtube Celebrities

This week’s South Park included a ridiculously hilarious segment lampooning some of the biggest “Youtube celebrities” (video below). When I first saw the show, I was already familiar with about half of the clips. After watching it, my friends and I went online and found all the rest. We had so much fun (I literally hurt myself laughing when I saw the real Afro Ninja clip) that I decided to simulate the experience for you right here in the blog. So, you get to have all of the fun with none of the work (That’s a nice mantra, isn’t it?).

After watching these clips, you’ll be in on all the web’s biggest in-jokes. That’s sure to impress at cocktail parties, right? I recommend watching the South Park clips first, then the others but do what suits you. One note, I left off the “Leave Britney Alone” guy because I find that one creepy and don’t enjoy watching it. Plus, you’ve probably seen it already anyway. Ok. go on now… ENJOY!

Watch the South Park here

Chocolate Rain

Afro Ninja

Numa Numa

Dramatic Look Prairie Dog

Sneezing Panda

Laughing Baby

Chinese Kids Lip Synching

Tron Guy

Star Wars Kid

Not just one to take things at face value, I have to say that as we watched all these last night, I was really struck by the whole phenomenon of Youtube celebrity. It’s easy to brush it off and laugh at them but ,on another level, I think it’s amazing that these little videos have been seen by so many people. Look at the view counts when you watch the clips… the numbers are ridiculous. It really is a paradigm shift. It turns out that democratically chosen entertainment is far more eclectic and even offbeat than what I ever would have imagined ten years ago. Hollywood would love to be able to bottle whatever magic has drawn 18,000,000 people to watch “Chocolate Rain” but they simply can’t, because that’s not how this medium works. I like that very much. Besides that, how fun is it to have celebrities with names like Afro Ninja, Laughing Baby and Star Wars Kid!? What a wonderful subversion of the whole concept of celebrity!