Something Wonderfully Weird
Hello blog. Happy Halloween… I’m not going to write about anything scary. Well, maybe to some. CREATIVITY! I’ve been thinking a lot this past month about what causes people to create absurd things. I, and I’m sure many of you, grew up online and saw a lot of things you shouldn’t have seen. In my case, I watched a lot of Cyanide and Happiness, Animation Domination, College Humor, and MondoMedia. All of these channels consisted of really raunchy cartoon parodies. I got none of the jokes. I just liked watching cartoon characters say bad words. As I grew up and heard more naughty jokes, I realized I understood what they meant because of the cartoons I watched. Most of these channels were funded by larger syndicates (such as Animation Domination being funded by FX) usually as a way to advertise their newspaper or network television station. Regardless of their origins, they led me down a long and winding road of internet cartoons that I believe wholly influenced my taste in media today.
One of my favorite distributors of internet cartoons was Albino Blacksheep. They started as a website in 2000, publishing independent Flash cartoons similar to Newgrounds. I discovered them through their later-created YouTube channel. The first video of theirs that I watched was The Ultimate Showdown, an animated adaptation of the band Lemon Demon's song of the
same name. I was in love. I loved the bold outlines, jittery movements, and garish colors. From nine years old till… well, now I actively indulged in hundreds of shottily animated Flash cartoons. They were my gateway to some of my favorite musicians. Weird Al, They Might Be Giants- really, any wacky musician I love was shown to me through animated characters on YouTube. My favorite Flash animations are two created by user RWappin: Albuquerque and Everything You Know Is Wrong. Both are two more animated adaptations of Weird Al songs. They feature the same made-up character, which bears no resemblance to Weird Al. Despite being animated on a computer close to 20 years ago, they are beautifully created. RWappin is still active today, with one of his animations making it into the video for Weird Al’s latest single.
What prompted this rambling was a video my friend Riley showed me last weekend. Gimme the Mermaid by Negativland. It made my head hurt, in a beautiful way. Negativland is an experimental band that uses samples
intertwined with instruments to create horribly splendid collages of noise. This video combines that noise with visual collages, mainly consisting of Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Just watch it yourself if you really wanna it’s hard to explain. Anyways. Whenever I see something of this sort, I’d really really really like to know WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY HOW. What kind of person could create something that makes me feel so ill yet delighted and curious? What prompted the creation of this? How can I make something of this sort? There are so many things I love that these questions also apply to. Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Xavier Renegade Angel, Wonder Showzen. Even some slightly normal things like The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Adventure Time. Really the whole point is I NEED and WANT to make something absurd and akin to these wonderfully weird creations that I hold near and dear to my heart. But I have been asking myself the same things… who what where when why and how?
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