There’s nothing like a video of people doing crazy dancing across the globe to remind you that we’re actually all just human beings.
According to his website, Matt is a 35-year-old “deadbeat from Connecticut” who’s friend started taking video while Matt danced. Badly. In Hanoi. The video viralled, Matt got a sponsor, and all of a sudden, he’s making videos of his dancing all across the world.
The original now has almost 3 million views
And then he repeated the experience in 2006.
Now, 2012, and there’s a brand new Where The Hell Is Matt? for us to enjoy.
If you haven’t heard Carly Rae Jepsen’s catchy song Call Me Maybe, where have you been? This song has been played and parodied all over the place. Please stop listening to sad.fm and hanging out on boring websites, and check out the original track here.
For the rest of you, here’s a compilation of the best videos, rage comics and meme pieces floating across the interwebs. Please add your favourites in the comments!
How much fun are Jimmy Fallon and The Roots having with Carly on this cover?
You know it’s blown up when ObamaDubs gets amongst.
The powercut version: With all your favourite internet stars like Keenan Cahill and Sam Tsui, pop stars Katy Perry, Jesse J and Justin Bieber, and actor James Franco:
Just in case you’re bored, have nothing better to do, or are looking to fill in 10 minutes of your day… Here’s an addictive game that’s a twist on the spacies you use to play as a kid. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Ouka is a Japanese artist who performs amazing acts with rings. He will make you suspend your belief in gravity, and the fact he only has two hands.
While performing across Japan and France, his first YouTube clip reached a million views quickly – a feat my google translator tells me he’s very proud of. You can check out Ouka’s site here, but be warned – it’s all in Japanese!
Meanwhile, check out his performances – they are rad.
May brought us a high-water mark for low behaviour when a creepy carpet cleaner was seen tugging violently at the fabric of decency during Target. May also brought us the 2012 Budget, with all of its hope despair politics. Here are your Kiwi tweets of the month…
Grinding our gears
@beanbiz That feeling when you get home and remember you’ve stashed a trashy food treat! Then realise it’s gone. Then you eat a baby’s rusk biscuit.
@ryansallan For the first time in my life, I think I lost a dance off. Not even mad, that guy was awesome. @not_friends Today I was almost in a moderate traffic accident while belting out ‘Only The Good Die Young’ and I feel like that’s why I’m still here. @emsaddis Oven went on fire before. Was going to take a picture, but then decided I better put the flames out. @BigNateNZ GOT all sorted. Cheers regan. To the dick in the waiting room, music only heals when you don’t suck. Can’t sing or play guitar @BexieLady Just managed to hit myself with my car. Fucking ow. @guywilliamsguy “Can you die while boxing?” “Why are you asking?” “No reason.” @littlemisspie Where can one buy road spikes and a gun? Asking for a friend. @pinkdeedle I did ballet when i was 5 & I sat on the loo & pulled my leotard to the side to pee & then let go & peed up my back. Never did ballet again. @GrowFromHereNZ Are there hallucinagins in the new Friskies @hdpaONENEWS Searched the house top to bottom for my jeans. Then, found them in the freezer. Now too cold to wear. @lmfbs Just made a delicious salad for dinner. Went to the toilet, came back to a happy looking cat with lettuce sticking out of his mouth. @catspyjamasnz Woman on carriage been talking loudly to BF on phone for 15 mins, explaining how she prefers car travel. We wish she’d taken the car too… @CateOwen If I could choose a superpower, it’d be to know troll’s real names. So when they troll I can be “I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, CLEETUS JONES”.
Of life, love, and LOLs
@not_friends I pretty much only have a boyfriend so that somebody favourites my tweets.
@Kittengloves Looking forward to bed so I can surprise warm up my frozen nose on my husband’s back.
@MeghanMutrie My neighbors are either shooting an ad for Viagara, or a pride of lions are taking down a zebra that just won’t die. Come on lions. @manikpixi 16yo: Can we kidnap Gok Wan and keep him in our wardrobe? Me: But he came out if the closet years ago. 16yo: Ha! Good one mum! @irihapeta Ha – Mr 16 still gets his birthday email from Buzz and Poppy. Maybe it’s time to unsubscribe.
@HungryAndFrozen Stockings are so unfairly expensive. Manufacturers, you’re not making artisinal Spanish ham here, just socks and underwear joined together. @VickyRF Surrounded by people gracefully eating scrambled eggs with chopsticks and I drop my giant spoon on the floor. @snappy_nz Turns out I’ve had a fruit burst in my suit jacket pocket for six months. I think I’ve ruined my suit. @nicmclay Graveyard today: Me: this is where people r buried when they die, like the bird u found at kindy. Son: All these people flew into a window? @Maorigirl3 Today I bent down to pick up my laptop bag and lost my balance as the elevator came to a stop. Fell into a stranger’s crotch. #NiceToMeetYou @RugbyIML Saw the main Maori guy from GC at St Lukes, he was with one of his Aunties. Actual Aunty. @TophHooperton You pop into a public toilet and a man is standing there stark bollock naked washing his balls in the sink. Is that ok? @Psygnal Great day today. Went to work. William Shatner was there. Had a great chat before he left with Daniel Craig. Might be hallucinating. #unwell
Class Acts @pkstowers On Sydney flight sat next to man who imports corrosive acids, industrial lubricants & oils. Made bad joke about greasing wheels of industry. @davidfarrier just wanted to thank all of you who’ve been sending me various great new human centipede images. i’d RT them but my mum reads this account @hamfritta I fully agree with the reddit proposal to follow Gerry Brownlee around with a tuba, ala Family Guy. @HungryAndFrozen Good thing Les Miserables is easily accepted in its shortened form as Les Mis, it’s like whoever coined it knew we’d tweet about it one day. @SpeelyFreaking There’s a special place in he’ll for people that don’t proof-read. @leslup awkward moment: realising yve said another guys name in yr sleep nd partner hears it, saving grace, character from star trek. @Sportzfreak Wonder how Shane Jones will pass the time when stood down @AliIkram just to clear up a bit of confusion that seems to have been created I can’t really cook food with laser beams from my eyes. @jonohutchison I’m off to Hong Kong tonight! Attention burglars: I’m not off to Hong Kong tonight @WendyWings Paper beats rock? Let’s test this theory. Have someone hold up a sheet of paper in front of their face, then throw a rock at it. Who wins? @AnnaGConnell Driving down Ponsonby Rd in my pjs blasting Sweet Child of Mine. Living my life like it’s golden @JeremyReesnz @nzherald farewells two great characters and stalwarts. Wonderful celebration of journalism in the newsroom for Jim Eagles and Wayne Harman. @patrickgowernz Wayne Harman has retired from Herald after 50 years in journalism. A legend. Wayne gave me my first job. And even a couple of pay rises! @guywilliamsguy I won the Billy TK award! Thanks to everyone who helped. Finally, I’m still getting the recognition that I’ve always gotten!
Entertainment on a Budget @kaupapa Spammers in bikinis standing out like dog’s bollocks #nzbudget @williamleith Fran O’Sullivan’s top strobing on TV3. @googleismygf Oh dear… I was about to write “Trevor Mallard” under “Lecturer Name” on my assignment. Too much politics today @stevendpaul Result is neutral, forecasting surplus results in the near to medium future. Which rings true? #AllWhites or #nzbudget2012 @Shellface When Bill English says “our policy is…” he sounds exactly like the Pak’n’Save ad stick man.
Clean and Jerk @allstarangel Clean the carpets? His pants are gonna need waterblasting @VinLew Clean a stain, make a stain, clean a stain, make a stain @_victoriajayne_ Is he watching videos of girls staining carpets? @yvettevy When are we going to find out what score this guy gets out of 10?? @AaronM_NZ They didn’t even rate his carpet cleaning ability! Target blows loads. @jzindel#target can I get #fapfapfap dudes number? Three times AND he cleaned the carpet? More stamina than most guys I know! @hello_im_megan After all is said and done, I was impressed by a man multi-tasking
Choosing a winner is always a difficult exercise, so this month’s winner has been been determined by an advanced selection process which began and ended with me shutting my eyes and poking at all the names with my index finger. When my eyes opened, the digit was settled on @shellface! Be sure to follow @OldMoutCider so they can sort you out with your liquid reward.
Longtime readers (and followers of me on Twitter) know I can’t resist a good YouTube clip, or a good tune. And sometimes I find something that meets both of those drives.
First up:
cdza create what they call “musical video experiments”, and here’s one called Pianists in Paris – seven players, one piano. Enjoy!
Kindof reminds me of the Walk Off The Earth version of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know
And while you’re checking out unusual covers of modern songs, check out Aston – here they are covering Katy Perry’s ET.
If you’ve discovered some amazing covers, I’d love to take a look – link me up in the comments! x
With lines like “If Twitter raised the character limit from 140 to 200, it would finally allow 90 million German speakers to finish a sentence” and “The world’s 2nd most common lie after “I love you too” is “You have successfully been unsubscribed from our database””, this parody video is well worth a watch.
It’s always amusing – and facepalmy – when a song with stupid lyrics makes it to the Top 40.
What’s worse is when the lyrics are in equal parts stupid and disrespectful. It’s as if the lyricists don’t have two braincells to rub together.
What if we swapped the genders – make the women the singers and the men featured in the lyrics – would we see them for what they really are? Here’s a sample of upended lyrics from some fine tunes that hit the top of the charts this year – that’s 2012, not 1962.
Whistle – by Flo Rida
I’m betting you love creep mode, and I’m betting you like boys that give love to boys, and stroke your little ego
The moral: Men like boys that give love to boys. It strokes their egos, hard.
Turn All The Lights On – by T Pain
This must be his song, dancing like ain’t nobody else in here, Sexy as he wanna be and he dancing so close to me. I said ‘please excuse you steppin’ on expensive shoes’. He is a perfect ten, this angelic body made you sin. I love the way you get it in, come over here and shake it for a lady – cause you want it
The moral: It turns out men actually really WANT to dance in front of leering women! And true ladies want men to “shake it”. Just mind my shoes, pet. They be pricey.
Sorry For Party Rocking – LMFAO
When I’m in the club, sippin bub, really drunk, and I see a guys ass, gotta have it. I’ma grab it.
The moral: If you’re drunk, just grab some random ass. No one minds.
International Love – Pitbull
I’ve been to countries and cities I can’t pronounce, and places on the globe I didn’t know existed. In Romania, he pulled me to the side and told me “Pit, you can have me, and my brother.”
The moral: Pitbull should have stayed in school, and these lyrics are actually fucking creepy… Even when the genders aren’t reversed.
The Motto – Drake
Some Spanish boys love me like I’m on Aventura… Clubbing hard, fucking men, ain’t much to do.
The moral: When bored, get busy. It makes you look cool.
Leave You Alone – Young Jeezy
[Dear boyfriend:] keep your stomach, inner thighs, and your legs right, while I’m out here focus getting this bread right.
The moral: Women won’t support a man with a beer gut. Get it sorted, guys.
I’m actually sick of this stuff. It’s awful. Why do we buy into it, and let it lace itself into our culture?!
To finish, I’ll paraphrase the worst of them all: Faded, by Tyga and Lil Wayne. These men are class and I hope their families are proud.
Women are dogs, so sexual partners get the nickname “Lassie”.
During sex, put your thumb in a woman’s anus, and then make her smell it, in the hopes that she vomits.
“Pregnant bitch titties” are bad because you can milk them.
Have sex with a woman while playing your own music, then break “a bitch heart” once you’re done.
This holiday, I went on a social media fast. No Twitter. No Facebook. I wasn’t allowing myself to see anything remotely work-related. I was having a Proper Break.
Sounded good in theory, but I didn’t realise just how much I used Twitter to keep up with news, and find alternative perspectives from the ones in my head, in the paper, or on the TV.
I Googled "Twitter Troll" and this came up. Pretty much exactly what I look like.
I’ll cheerfully admit, I’m sometimes a Twitter troll*. I’ll make a big, bold, topical statement, and then watch for fireworks. It’s interesting, the reactions you get: From the earnest to the angry, people on either side of the coin will either call you out or triumph their hurrahs!
Luckily, there’s truth mixed in there somewhere. The answer is never black-or-white, and opinion trolling – although must be used with caution – usually starts a fantastic discussion where we can all learn something, gain perspective, or feel grounded.
Another thing I didn’t do this week was share stuff I was reading or watching to Facebook or Twitter. It made me feel very disconnected – it turns out I’ve been using Twitter almost as a bookmark: A place where I can go back later, find the link, and share again. Not to mention the enjoyment my friends get from the good oil. I didn’t get to read their comments. I didn’t get to see what they were sharing.
No, this week, I haven’t been on Twitter. I haven’t seen the 140-character vox pops of people’s take on news and current affairs. I haven’t seen the trending topics. I had FOMO. It makes me feel out of touch, and I don’t like feeling out of touch.
The flip side is, I didn’t facepalm. Not once.
During my holiday, I never felt misunderstood (a misunderstood sometimes-troll? Who would have thought!). I didn’t get frustrated. I didn’t have to adopt the fetal position at all! I didn’t feel scrutinised – that at any moment something I tweet may get twisted and end up in the paper. No stress that a tweet – oopsie! – could come from an account it shouldn’t have. I did not see any of the mob-mentality, angry, angry tweets about something that doesn’t even matter in the scheme of things. I know, I know. Us “professionals” are supposed to wax lyrical about how we’re all amazingly thick skinned, and you shouldn’t be working near flames if you can’t handle heat etc. Wah, wah, wah. But let me tell you: This week, muting Twitter was bliss.
Well, it was very nearly bliss.
I missed seeing my friend’s streams of consciousness. I did miss taking advantage of “anyone free for a drink” tweets. I missed the warm humour and the pithy one liners. I missed knowing the news when it happened. I missed BexieLady’s amusing pregnant oversharer tweets and TroyRFs ragey bus tweets.
It’s tweets like these that make Twitter what it is
It was also hard to not share my own random thoughts – having a really funny untweeted thought was almost like putting a note in a bottle and then never releasing it to the ocean to see what will happen.
Gawd, I did just write that.
Oh the things I could have tweeted! There was the half-hour phone call with my older brother, explaining why he couldn’t just use his first name as his Skype login, and then working out that he didn’t have an internet connection in first place. That would have been awesome to live tweet. There was the time my flatmate a random person I was hanging out with, upon seeing a happy child skipping along the street remarked, “bet that’s a weird little kid… I mean, ‘unique’ little kid. Whatever we’re supposed to call it these days.”
So Tweet-worthy.
But I digress.
The NZ Twitter crowd really is one big whanau. There’s the younger siblings, who bring us Bieber and Gaga and Shore Girls news. There’s the mums who make sure we’re all doing okay and eating our veges. There’s the angry uncles getting drunk and arguing the Demise Of Everything in the corner. There’s the older sisters who say “fuck it” and wear leopard print jeans with tie-died hoodies even though they look a bit mad. There’s the grandparents who are mostly graceful and amazing but turn out to be batshit crazy enough to hang out with the rest of us.
I missed you, tweeple.
*Trolling. Not to make people uncomfortable, or to show a company what a dick I am, but just to get people talking. And thinking, hopefully.
I think it’s awesome when people re-tell classic stories. I don’t even mind a modern twist or two.
How about when one combines two of my favourite things: Amusing YouTube clips and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Yes please! So you know I’m going to love The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is basically a modern take, with a gorgeous Lizze and her two sisters (the older, Jane, a doting sweetheart, the younger, Lydia, a loveable “whore”.)
Episode 1: My Name is Lizzie Bennet
Episode 2: My Sisters: Problematic to Practically Perfect
Episode 3: My Parents: Opposingly Supportive
Episode 4: Bing Lee and his 500 Teenage Prostitutes
Choosing a winner is always a difficult exercise, so this month’s winner has been been determined by an advanced selection process which began and ended with me shutting my eyes and poking at all the names with my index finger. When my eyes opened, the digit was settled on @shellface! Be sure to follow 
It’s tweets like these that make Twitter what it is