Geezer Virus Tue. Aug 15th, 06
Bubble-bursting time.
Septuagenarian YouTube user geriatric1927 became an overnight Internet celebrity this week with nothing but a web cam, cheesy video editing and some old-guy rambling. And I can see why. He’s 78 years old and on YouTube. Not put there by a grandchild, mind you, but on his own. He recorded himself, uploaded it to YouTube and got 900,000 views in a week. I got hooked.
I watched each video with delight, fascinated by this most unlikely phenomenon. When, in one of his videos, he nearly breaks into tears over the amount of attention he is receiving, you can’t help but cheer him on. And you want to know more about him. He senses this and obliges. In the video posts he tries so hard to keep to under 5 minutes he begins to tell his story. Growing up during WWII. His fascination with motorcycles. His conscription. It seems the beginning of an awesome tale. I imagine the stories he will tell; machine guns, night-time motorcycle rides, lost loves, dead friends. I wait for it. But, it doesn’t quite come. He tells his story in posts called “telling it all”. As the story progresses hopes of exciting stories begin to dim and he indulges himself more and more, allowing his posts to stretch from 5 minutes to 6, to 7 to 10 minutes each. And as his posts lengthen, his story begins to truly disappoint. He was married, had kids, owned a small business. Didn’t fight in the war. Rode motorcycles. This is no confessional. The story never veers from the filtered version he might give to a stranger at the pub. He loves the attention, but he’s not willing to give anything for it. He seems to believe his life is interesting enough to warrant a million and a half views. But, it’s not. His first post has almost a million views. The rest of them less than 10% of that. Still a lot, to be sure. Which is why I am writing this post. To point out that yesterday nearly a hundred thousand people watched a really boring video of an old man talking about his boring life. Such is the power of Web content gone viral. So, I offer this anti-virus. When your cow-orker tells you about this cute old man on the interweb that you just have to check out, say, “Hmm, that sounds pretty boring. Is it?” If they tell you, “Oh no, not at all.” Make a mental note to never heed their movie suggestions. If you see a segment on your local news station, wonder why they aren’t doing any actual reporting. And lastly, don’t read this, or any, blog post on the subject, because it’s just spreading the virus.
