I try very, very hard to keep my ears away from today’s pop music, because autotuning is like Fran Drescher scraping her teeth across a chalkboard to me. So when some girl named Carly Rae Jepsen became an overnight sensation with a song called “Call Me Maybe” I was determined to avoid it as well, because people kept Tweeting about how catchy it was despite being terrible. Then I attended two weddings this weekend and that was shot to hell, because I think I heard it roughly a dozen times.
With that plan destroyed, I figured it was time to check out that Harvard baseball video that has racked up 8 million views on YouTube over the past few weeks. In case you’re unfamiliar – and if you are, you deserve a Purple Heart – the Harvard boys performed a little choreographed dance routine in their team van and the Internet went apesh*t for it. Admittedly, it was inspired, despite the song being cookie cutter, assembly line pop regurgitation.
Sadly, I didn’t watch my step as I turned away, and I fell into a terrible YouTube wormhole of “response” and “tribute” videos to the Crimson, and by response and tribute videos I mean terrible, blatant rip-offs. Apparently some other sports teams saw Harvard’s unique performance and successful viral video as a glove-drop and they all tried to out-do it. You know, by doing the same freaking thing.
After the jump, take a leap into the wormhole with me and watch how a meme is born and then slaughtered in a matter of days.
A meme is born. The world rejoices in this new discovery. “All hail Harvard baseball,” the Internet chants. An era of prosperity begins and YouTube flourishes.
The first challenger arrives. Responds Harvard baseball, “Uh, cool.” Suddenly, more wanderers arrive at the gates, demanding their shot at the YouTube throne. The worshipers take notice and their faith and allegiance begin to dwindle.
Caravans arrive at Harvard’s blossoming kingdom, as opportunistic pretenders try to sell their snake oils and magic potions to Harvard’s faithful. Soon, everyone begins to question what they even saw in Harvard in the first place.
The kingdom is now overrun with beggars and thieves. Nobody feels safe anymore. The quality of effort and production is at an all-time low and Harvard has lost the love and appreciation of its people. Talks of a coup spread like wildfire.
Vagabonds and derelicts rush the palace gates and slaughter Harvard in its slumber. Pieces of the body are delivered to the four corners of the Internet with messages that no sports team will reign supreme over YouTube with originality and creativity in this chaotic era.
As expected, pretenders try to assume the throne, but the people have grown ill and malnourished. A plague threatens a once lively and beautiful kingdom. It will take a miracle now to save this wretched slum.
The plague washes over the once loyal people of Harvard’s “Call Me Maybe”. The final death blow arrives in the form of a Matty B rap video. Survivors have begun bundling their gear to travel to new realms. Some even send their children up the river with hopes that they’ll be discovered and saved by other people.
The children are all eaten by alligators. Dragons have been woken from their slumber as well, and they spend their days feasting on the flesh of the surviving populace as they try to escape Harvard’s certain death and decay.
Waves of feral animals invade the kingdom’s remains and devour the corpses of the pretenders and “challengers”. All that remains is a land of feral animal excrement.
A few survivors arrive at a new kingdom that appears to be unaffected by the illness of the neighboring darkness. They’re taken in and treated well. This kingdom doesn’t have much, but at least it’s better than what the survivors had been dealing with.
The dragons and feral animals catch up to the survivors and they brought the plague with them, too. Everyone in the new kingdom is dead now, too. And the feral animals are crapping everywhere.
And the decay continues to spread in one form or another for the rest of eternity…
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