remember smosh? they’re still around, they have like a full on youtube empire. but this is how i know them. that and their mortal kombat / pokemon lip syncing videos.
look at the quality of this video.
you probably won’t dare click on it for the fear of losing your complete eyesight. and i get it. but i wanna talk about it!
because
i miss vintage youtube.
not that i want people to MAKE videos like they used to. i just mean, i miss watching those crappy blurry videos i watched in high school and modelling my whole personality off them for a week or two before they released another video with other funny things i could steal and say.
i actually still have my account from the early 00’s and some of the videos i have liked are perfect. they get me to that nostalgic place FAST.
remember mitchell davis? livelavalive. oh boy.
i often do this.
i will go back, back, back.
back in time to when it was better.
but it wasn’t better.
i’ve been chronically online for NINETEEN YEARS!
when i was in year 6, there was this website called MatMice and you could create your own website and it only used HTML so i was a kid in stem!
it was crazy!
i also was an avid user of MSN messenger. i would get home from school and log on straight away.
then myspace came and with all my HTML knowledge, i had the best profile in town.
oh, the internet. how i miss you.
recently i’ve gotten really into watching Jaime French on the tube:
i’ve been going through her whole catalogue and have been loving every. single. vid.
she reminds me of the internet.
the good olde internet.
she’s hilarious and generous and her editing team are fabulous (and hot, WHO is that guy with the moustache? i must have him). but there’s a certain essence to her videos that is reminiscent of vintage youtube. she uses sketches intercut between her commentary and green screen and characters and let’s us in just enough to her personal life. it’s all very 00’s youtube.
now, i can’t remember which one it was because i often just let her play as i fall asleep, she’s very relaxing company, but recently i was watching one where she said the following:
“exclamation point. exclamation point, exclamation point, one”
and i laughed in regards to both the context of the joke AND the reference.
but then i was like “wait, wtf is that from?” and it has been circling around my head ever since.
i thought it maybe was from this:
but it is not. this is great though. if you were 16 in 2011, this would have cracked you up! and if you know this, how many times have you said “beacuase” in a sentence only to have people look at you weird?
“exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, one”
where have i heard this?
i thought maybe it’s in Napoleon Dynamite. surely!
but no.
so this afternoon, after being awake for 17.5 hours (due to a 5am shift at work and my body clock being so anxious i got up an hour and a half before my alarm), i typed into google, the simple sentence that is:
“exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, one”
and found what i was looking for.
this reddit user asked my question TWO YEARS AGO
now, for the life of me, i cannot remember the emo characters name, but i do remember this Blake character.
Blake the Prep.
so, what is happening here is i am remembering an extremely vintage youtuber. a sketch comedy video, if you will, of this guy who would do an emo kid character, and his enemy Blake who was a prep.
the emo kid one was huge! if you know wtf i am on about COMMENT because ugh!
and in the Blake the Prep video, he struts around in his hallway to This Is Why I’m Hot by MIMS (great song) and talks about fucking heaps of chicks. it’s hilarious.
once i remembered “exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, one” i got so excited! it was like reuniting with an old friend.
“exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, one” was this thing that my bestie in high school would say to each other to get a laugh. it was a secret code. it was just ours.
i’d even write down !!!1 in my book and show her discreetly, knowing it would make her laugh. but, wait, let me be clear here, it wasn’t a classic “HA HA HA” belly laugh. no, these laughs were special. they were expensive laughs. the laughs that you have to keep down because the teacher is talking. the laugh that would distract the whole room. the inappropriate time to laugh laugh. i love those laughs. i love that silly joy.
and, i’m not saying i am going to scour the internet or dark web to find these long lost videos and model my personality off them at 30 years old, but there is a certain inner child huggy feeling i like to give myself when i remember stuff that made me laugh as a kid. the teen part of my brain often searches through every little brain cupboard i have to try and find crumbs of silly joy. no longer in the youtube cupboard. i just hope some aren’t completely lost.
and this isn’t some preachy post about how the internet used to be a pure place for comedy and nerds, but it was a pretty unique place. every website was distinct, every platform offered a different experience. the feeling i’d get logging onto myspace was dissimilar to the feeling i’d get on tumblr.
but maybe it’s the same now, kind of.
i feel safe on substack because there’s only like 2 of you here from real life. the rest of you are complete strangers (and all from new york!)
on instagram i have to remove myself weekly because it’s like being in a room full of EVERYONE I HAVE EVER MET but i have NOTHING to say or share or impress you with.
pinterest is great because it’s ALL MINE!
and facebook is important to check who is still alive.
my feelings of pure silly joy aren’t lost, i don’t know why i believe that? i think because i find them harder to grab onto now? but maybe they’re just in different cupboards. takes me a beat to remember which one.
what’s that bit from Pirates of the Caribbean?
“The world’s still the same, there’s just less in it.”
less unique platforms might mean that we feel like less unique people.
but nah, you’re a weirdo and you’re shaped by all your weirdo likes, especially the ones that you found as a kid.
how about you? do you have a vintage youtube video that you quote DAILY but no one knows wtf you’re saying? have you seen any of the vids above? if not, welcome to my fucking life. did you ever make youtube videos as a teen? i did. they’re still there. i cannot get rid of them and i don’t think i want to. live forever young lily. did you have a tumblr? what was your username? mine, at one point, was accio-malfoy hahaahhaha! do you remember formspring? now THAT was a platform! what song did you have on your myspace page? i had fuckin vitriol by bluejuice for months one year. and i made my player disappear so people HAD to listen to it (HTML biiitch). did you ever make a friend laugh so hard that it filled your entire soul up with joy?
xxxxxx Hensby