In other news, I registered UniversityFunny.com tonight. It was available!
Fimoculous.com - nyc - Lip Dub
The first time you saw the video, you probably also felt the pang of cool — a jealousy of all those pretty young thangs bouncing and boozing at their successful dot-com. Maybe it’s a recession, or maybe those particular hot cool kids have expired, but a year later don’t you sorta want them all dead like the Cloverfield yups?
I feel like I’m going to get myself in trouble by going here, but:
The Collegehumor kids came up with the most obvious idea in the world and had enough financial backing to toy with their favorite ideas constantly, and somehow got rich off of it. I think the financial backing was the key part. Out of hundreds of comp-sci stars cranking out ideas, they somehow became the biggest rockstars with the least talent.
And in every interview, in every one of their blogs (Lodwick’s recent JA-related meltdown aside), in every picture, they’re so happy and goofy! They never express any irony about their success, not one moment of humility, not one olive branch to the rest of the whiz-kid world in the form of sponsored public networking events, lecture series, office tours or whatever. None of that which I know of (if you know something, make me aware). Believe me, from day one, they were despicable. “Dead” is a strong word, but I think hoping for a couple of hot coffee spills was more appropriate for the various offenses.
Then again, many of us want a ride in that particular passengers’ seat, or even drivers’ seat, if the opportunity ever arises. If you ever had a shot at having a career at a higher level than a blue-collar web monkey, that would be it. How can you fault them for grabbing the right shooting star and then having fun after the fact?
I certainly hope they’re having fun. I blew my entire trust fund on college (paid in cash, no scholarships), graduated with a CS degree in 2001, ended up with shitty jobs over the next six years, went broke trying to survive and today I’m still working outside of my field of interest. I often decline to eat out because it’s too expensive, and I severely hesitate about spending more than $50 at once on anything. I’ve worked harder since high school to get less done and earn far lower capital gains. NOT FUN.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t know about this video until the other day because I don’t surf web videos much - they’re banned at work and time-consuming at home. But even if it’s an obvious idea (reverse karaoke) and there’s prior art everywhere, it looks like it’s fun to do, and I plan to make a few of those “lip dubs” myself. Also, I’m currently browsing the Connected Ventures website for open positions, based on a conversation I had with a friend, who offered this observation about my financial industry job: “You have to transition out of that at some point, right?” If that means I’d rather have a job I’ve always badly wanted than a job I never wanted, yes indeed.
And if I find myself in a job interview at CV with a bunch of glasses-wearing hipster dudes who have money I can only dream of and throw parties that I’ve never been invited to (even though we have a hundred friends in common), I’ll be happy to admit that jealousy is a deadly sin and I’ll print out this blog entry on heavy-stock paper and eat it with ketchup.
But, you know, until the day I find myself not worrying about money, then everyone with money can go fuck themselves 