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Thursday 28 April 2011

The T-Mobile Royal Wedding Video Is GENIUS!


I am so jealous of the people who make these, who conceive of the ideas. This video is absolutely marvellous (I have not used the word marvellous in a long time, and even had to check the spelling).

I wrote about a viral video called Sexy Sax Man a little while ago. I wrote "That's why this video is so funny. Because it's a big fuck you to the man. The Sexy Sax Man is above the law. He's being creative and hilarious in a way we rarely are in our well-planned, carefully constructed lives. He shows a side of us we crave for. He's liberated. And for the five minutes we're watching, we're liberated too." And I think the same things apply to the T-Mobile Royal Wedding Video. 

Sure, everyone will be watching the wedding when it happens tomorrow, but it'll be boring as hell. Loads of Royal people walking into a Church, sitting down, and listening to all the boring stuff. When we're at weddings, we get so bored and just want to get to the meal afterwards-- but tomorrow we're sitting down to watch this and we don't even know the participants. It's crazy.

But this video breaks free of all the Royal rules. We get to imagine a different wedding. And when you think about it --- the wedding could be this way. I mean, why not? Humans came to Earth, just another piece of nature, and then as time went on we got more and more rigid, self-aware, and boring. The way we walk down a street, the way we greet a friend, these aren't natural, they're socially conditioned. It could easily have been that men have ponytails and women kick a ball around a football pitch. But society went a different way. Most of what we do is acting. Acting and restraining. That's how we've decided to live.

So when we see a good viral video, like this one, we see a part of our nature that we oppress. I am not a dancer, not at all; I'm a writer who sits in a corner and avoids conversations. But a part of me would love to come flying down the isle like Prince William does in this video. It's in me somewhere, it's in you too, whether you believe me or not.


And that's the reoccuring theme with viral videos. They're a new art form which expresses the little tiny parts of ourselves that get amused by absurdity, or by betraying authority, or by seeing Prince Charles and Camilla getting their groove on. I guess the lesson is that we should try and inhabit a bit more of the spirit of the characters in this video, but the likelihood is that we won't. 

7 comments:

  1. weddings are the exact type of boring ceremonial events in which I often imagine what it'd be like if something completely out of the ordinary, taboo or just plain weird happened. like if a streaker suddenly interrupted the service or you came wearing a hawaiian shirt and flipflops. not sure if others have done this, or if it's just me? next time you're in another boring place wanting to pass away the time. try this. it's fun ;)

    this is why I love this video so much. it's exactly that.

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  2. This is GREAT! Thanks for sharing! I am off to see Sexy Sax Man. I mean come on! Someone else use the Fuck word in public! I HAVE to go watch now! :)

    Jonesie~~

    My daily blog of whatever comes to mind!
    Some censorship warnings may need to be applied here:
    http://msjanetjones.blogspot.com/

    My personal blog recounting memories good & bad from my life:
    http://thingsinmyrearviewmirror.blogspot.com/

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  3. I can't stop watching this video, I think it's truly fantastic!

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  4. I was amazed when I saw that video for the first time.
    I've got the day off work due to the national holiday tomorrow but I've no intention of watching the wedding.
    Give me the sexy sax man and T-mobile every time!

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  5. HILARIOUS. Man. I wish the real wedding was going to be 1/10th that interesting.

    Thanks for posting this!

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  6. Just too bad that they basically stole the whole concept from people like Jill and Kevin.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

    Just sayin'...

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  7. If you're suggesting that in a natural state, men and women are completely blank slates with no differences, you couldn't be more mistaken. If anything, we've become unnaturally androgynous today.

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