Damn that's one fine skinjob on you
February 18, 2011 6:39 PM   Subscribe

 
behind the scenes video
posted by garlic at 6:51 PM on February 18, 2011


I will not be in my bunk.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:52 PM on February 18, 2011 [3 favorites]


I feel dirty for enjoying that.
posted by Thistledown at 6:55 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Aren't references like "Big Bang Theory" and "Naboo" sexual kryptonite in these situations?
posted by Navelgazer at 6:55 PM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


Nerds can do better.
posted by maryr at 6:55 PM on February 18, 2011 [5 favorites]


I was hoping for a Cee-Lo Green Battlestar Galactica mash up.
posted by cazoo at 6:59 PM on February 18, 2011


Hey look you can unlock your car with a tennis ball if you've locked yourself out! Awesome neat!!

I loves the interwebs.
posted by Skygazer at 7:01 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Frell, that's 180 microts I'll never get back.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:04 PM on February 18, 2011 [6 favorites]


The song is terrible, but goodness that Princess Leia is an attractive girl.
posted by empath at 7:06 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Skygazer - it doesn't work. Mythbusters busts.
posted by ChrisHartley at 7:12 PM on February 18, 2011


The video was actually well done, but the sound mix was awful. Oh how I've been spoiled by the parody musicianship of Weird Al.
posted by Gucky at 7:17 PM on February 18, 2011


The song is terrible, but goodness that Princess Leia is an attractive girl.

I, uh, think that's Alessandra Torressani.
posted by Justinian at 7:18 PM on February 18, 2011


goodness that Princess Leia

I'm ashamed that I know this, but I'm pretty certain she's the actress from Caprica. The YouTube comments (yes, this is a youtube video, click the YouTube logo to go there) seem to be under the same impression. And now I think I've discovered something even more wretched than citing Wikipedia: citing YouTube comments. Honor requires me to go and boil my head now.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:18 PM on February 18, 2011 [4 favorites]


So do all these things have to have the rap break?
posted by valkane at 7:19 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


These are really starting to seem a little formulaic.


Pandering referentiality. Check.
Cute geek girl. Check.
Really bad rap about 3/4ths of the way through. Check.
posted by paradoxflow at 7:20 PM on February 18, 2011 [7 favorites]


I'm pretty sure the woman in the Ghostbusters outfit is Tinkerballa from The Guild.
posted by sephira at 7:23 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh... I read it in the youtube comments! Exactly! I didn't recognize her or anything.
posted by Justinian at 7:23 PM on February 18, 2011


If "Leia" wasn't Alessandra then she was certainly someone who could have been her security double. The whole non-Star Wars references to "Frakking" and "skin job on you" suggest that the whole thing might be about her.
posted by localroger at 7:37 PM on February 18, 2011


yeah i recognized the "sci fi actors" and was cringing the whole time. feels like a weird rip off of the guild's do you wanna date my avatar except more sloppy and just... ugh. doesn't do it for me.
posted by cristinacristinacristina at 7:37 PM on February 18, 2011


It's still "funnier" than Star Trek Girl.
posted by crossoverman at 7:41 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


There's so much win in that vid that it's hard to choose, but I think I have to go with black Thor.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:45 PM on February 18, 2011


I'm ashamed that I know this, but I'm pretty certain she's the actress from Caprica. The YouTube comments (yes, this is a youtube video, click the YouTube logo to go there) seem to be under the same impression.

Yup, that's her.
posted by homunculus at 7:56 PM on February 18, 2011


Tink a.k.a. Amy Okuda. I have such a crush on her.
posted by MrBobaFett at 8:06 PM on February 18, 2011


It's still "funnier" than Star Trek Girl

Yeah? More costumes and better production value, but the song doesn't have as much of a hook, and, call me a romantic, but I'd rather have someone telling me she'd be my Star Trek Girl than someone telling me I'm Frakking You Tonight.

But that's just me.
posted by valkane at 8:08 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Jesus Christ, I'm not going to call you Doctor Who while riding "your TARDIS" because there is no "Doctor Who." Like Kenobi? Puh-lease.

A message from geek girls to geek guys everywhere: we don't want to be frakked. Now please leave us alone because that TNG slashfic poetry isn't going to write itself . . .
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:08 PM on February 18, 2011 [8 favorites]


But you're right. It's funnier.
posted by valkane at 8:19 PM on February 18, 2011


That was disappointing and awful.
That's what she said.
posted by so_gracefully at 9:14 PM on February 18, 2011 [3 favorites]


Yeah, I was with that until Doctor Who, at which time I pointed at the screen and screamed like Donald Sutherland's snatcher.
posted by katillathehun at 9:27 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


I normally love stuff like this, so why does this fall so flat?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 PM on February 18, 2011


Superficial, obvious-name-checking pseudogeekiness is the new mainstream pop culture, and this video is the cultural form of astroturfing. This is so painfully vanilla, calculatedly insubstantial and inoffensive, and utterly passionless, that no true geeksman could possibly identify with it, because geek culture has to be, at least nominally, a subculture. It just runs down the checklist of head-slapping obvious references, as if there can't be anything in there that some viewer might miss, because it might make them feel left out of the joke; they want to produce the feeling of being in the "in-crowd" but exclude exactly no one. What happened to homage with an ounce of genuine feeling in it — or even to name-checking anything that several hundred million people haven't watched? Did that not get enough venture capital?
posted by RogerB at 9:29 PM on February 18, 2011 [21 favorites]


Too much vamping and voguing. Not enough frakking!


BALLS!
posted by Skygazer at 9:34 PM on February 18, 2011


Too much cheese. Not enough squeeze.


In your pants!
posted by Skygazer at 9:35 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


You know, when this Geek Fad is over, and we are all still geeks? Yeah, people won't think of us as geeks any more, they'll think we're just Geeks - people stuck in time.

Oh God I just had a vision... there is gonna be a Geek Pride parade....it'll be awesome! Robots! Catapults! Pirates and Ninjas! Giant flaming mechanical mechanized art pieces like something from Mark Pauline's most tortured nightmares....troublemakers in white lab coats running around chasing feral steampunk rats
posted by Xoebe at 10:48 PM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


I was sort of smiling until the facial.
posted by serazin at 11:13 PM on February 18, 2011


Adderall is a terrible drug.
posted by at the crossroads at 11:13 PM on February 18, 2011


I LOVE IT! HAHAHA! The Vader part about killed me, GAWD!

But I'm drunk.
posted by Marla Singer at 11:23 PM on February 18, 2011


I was hoping for something steamy with the women from Battlestar Galactica.

I'm so disappointed.
posted by bwg at 11:23 PM on February 18, 2011


Aren't references like "Big Bang Theory" and "Naboo" sexual kryptonite in these situations?

Well sure in real life -- but in my sexual fantasies, that's all you ever talk about.
posted by Marla Singer at 11:26 PM on February 18, 2011


Tennis ball, no. Ninja rock, yes.
posted by Splunge at 11:44 PM on February 18, 2011


Isn't Big Bang Theory what non-geeks think geeks are like? Always seemed a bit contrived that way.
posted by mippy at 12:06 AM on February 19, 2011 [6 favorites]


Okay, I'm calling it: we nerds have finally jumped the shark. If your internet video boils down to "the things I like were not mainstream at one time", please understand that you are not making a clever in-joke, but preaching to a very, very large choir.

I'm not not mad that previously uncool things have become cool. I love it. I think it's fantastic that sci-fi shows pull down some of the highest ratings on TV, I'm thrilled that people packed the theaters to see Iron Man, and I'm still shocked that I can mention Dungeons and Dragons in a room full of strangers without hearing a single person snicker. I *like* that I'm part of the mainstream now, or rather, that the mainstream has become so fragmented that there are no true "outcasts" anymore, at least not for us tech-inclined 18-45 year olds.

We're the new "normal," folks. Accept it. Embrace it. And with that in mind, I think we should seriously consider getting some new material. For a lot of us, simply referring to something funny -- or referring to anything at all -- has become our substitute for an actual joke.

If this trend continues, I fear that we'll be entering a very unfunny future. We'll be the out-of-touch old fogies of the world, complaining about how the younger generation just doesn't "get it," how *their* goofy interests can't hold a candle to *our* goofy interests, how things were so much better back before Episode 1, how kids today don't know what it's like to WORK to beat a video game, and how we saw the Simpsons back when it was actually CLEVER, goddammit, and even though we haven't watched the show in over five years we can say with absolutely certainty that it's not worth watching.

Oh dear, has it already happened? Have we become a generation of persnickety whiners, complaining about how the past was so great and the present is so awful?

Well, I say phooey to that. I bite my thumb at it. I spit on it. At least in terms of recreation, we're living in a paradise: my Netflix queue has more quality programming than I could ever hope to watch, there are more "must-read" comic books than I could ever fit on my shelves, and yes, video games ARE more fun with unlimited continues.

My phone even has software which tricks me into exercising. Can you believe that?

Now I'm rambling, and for that I apologize. Here's my point: it seems like a lot of us have stopped seeking out new experiences, choosing instead to endlessly re-live or re-mix past pleasures. There's nothing wrong with that, but the remixes have gotten so lazy and formulaic that faux irony is becoming indistinguishable from the real thing. When I watch the "Frackin" video, I don't see an edgy declaration of nerdy niche passions, or even a self-aware parody of nerd stereotypes. Instead, I hear wistful reminiscing wrapped up in a hip-hop beat. I feel like I'm in a room full of crabby old men who won't stop jabbering about how great the "olden days" were, and how great it is that they can finally talk about 'em. Even worse, I'm turning into a crabby old man myself, but the kind who screams and yells at people to open their eyes and see how good things are right now.

I know how hypocritical it is to complain that my peers aren't being the "right" kind of nerd, and how utterly ridiculous it is to write hundreds of words about a silly online video. I don't want to become a curmudgeon just because I'm getting older, and I know it doesn't have to be that way: my middle-aged mom plays Puzzle Quest on her Nintendo DS, and my octogenarian grandmother reads Facebook on her iMac. Frankly, they're both setting a very high bar for me to live up to, and I can't fathom what kind of crazy future-skills I'll need to master in the next thirty years.

Again, rambling. Tldr version:

A reference is not a joke, and if you think it is, please read/watch/play something that was created less than a year ago. We're living in a Golden Age of Entertainment, and if the rest of you 20 and 30-somethings don't wake up and appreciate how lucky we are, I swear I'll write something ranty on the Internet.

posted by ®@ at 12:10 AM on February 19, 2011 [27 favorites]


(*Coudoctorwhogh*)
posted by crataegus at 12:11 AM on February 19, 2011


The force is weak in this one

Still, nice to see Tink smiling
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:46 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


And then there's that other kind of fracking that's devastating.
posted by mareli at 5:53 AM on February 19, 2011


Do.not.link.to.Break.
posted by 3.2.3 at 6:33 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


Bah. Mediocre all the way around.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:32 AM on February 19, 2011


Man that was awful. Sad to see people I like involved in crap. (I mean.. other than Caprica.)
posted by graventy at 7:43 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


I generally don't skip through parts of music videos, but by the time the rap started...
posted by ipe at 8:32 AM on February 19, 2011


A reference is not a joke

This is the heart of it: this piece seems seems to have been created by and for those who watch things like Date Movie with giddy glee. Many funny situations in genuine comedy are made funny by a resemblance or reference to another situation, but that does not make the reference in and of itself funny. We are supposed to laugh because we recognize a costume, is that it? A little more effort would pay off.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:43 AM on February 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


Also, the male lead is entirely unappealing. I'm sorry, but that's too pale, even for me.
posted by maryr at 9:14 AM on February 19, 2011


That's not a video....This is a video.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:19 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


I don't see it linked so maybe people don't get the reference:

Tonight I'm Loving You
posted by P.o.B. at 1:07 PM on February 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


A reference is not a joke, and if you think it is, please read/watch/play something that was created less than a year ago.

This is the heart of it: this piece seems seems to have been created by and for those who watch things like Date Movie with giddy glee.


I don't want to go overboard defending this because I don't think it's genius comedy or anything, but I think you guys are kinda missing the joke.

The humor here is not really, "Hey! I recognize Ghost Busters! And Thor! Ha Ha I get it!" The humor, such as it is, is the silliness of taking an already silly song (Have you listened to "Tonight I'm Fucking You"? That is like a total parody of itself already) and making it even sillier by transposing it into the silly world of cosplay.

The joke is not "look we're referencing Princess Leia!" but rather "look we're celebrating how goofy it is that people cosplay Princess Leia with a goofy version of an already really stupid song." (With a side order of "we're getting away with ogling attractive women by doing it ironically," of course.)
posted by straight at 2:35 PM on February 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


Fuck me, Ray Bradbury is a much better tune and more enjoyable video.

Nerd Culture has reached a critical mass and is now self sustaining-we have our own stereotypes for each other.
posted by bartonlong at 2:45 PM on February 19, 2011


@straight: Thanks for the link, I wasn't even aware that this was a parody of an existing song.

Also, after watching your link, I have to say that the limo gags in the original video were leagues funnier than anything in the parody.
posted by ®@ at 4:11 PM on February 19, 2011


I was sort of smiling until the facial.

That's what she said.
posted by crossoverman at 4:12 PM on February 19, 2011


Reminds me of that sentimental WW2 song:

I'll be frakking you
In every lovely summer's day;
In every thing that's light and gay.
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be frakking you.
posted by Twang at 5:57 PM on February 19, 2011




Dear God, no.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:01 PM on February 19, 2011


Well said, Restricted At. I would go even further:

Sooo... I'm supposed to like this because it refers to a few things that I paid a high social price to be a fan of when I was a kid. But because it casts such a wide-nerd-net, it violates one of the tenets of nerd/geekdom which is obsessive focus, which makes me strongly believe that it wasn't created by geeks or nerds, but people trying to exploit or ingratiate themselves with the culture because it has become the interesting norm.

You fucking whores (creators of this video) are the reason that dogshit like "Big Bang Theory" exists and it's obvious that you don't get it and you never did. You never grew up and awkward geek/nerd and therefore didn't pay your dues and do not have the right to wave the flag.

Being a geek and a nerd in the 80s/90s is a club. An exclusive group? Damned right.
posted by hellslinger at 10:17 PM on February 19, 2011 [4 favorites]




Being a geek and a nerd in the 80s/90s is a club. An exclusive group? Damned right.

Oh, please. I was into that shit in the seventies, n00b.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:38 PM on February 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


(With a side order of "we're getting away with ogling attractive women by doing it ironically," of course.)

Oh, I get it, that's part of the joke, right? That's sarcasm, right? Because, clearly, that's a frakking stupid logic to give for this video, or anything, so that part must be a joke too, right? Ha ha? Irony makes everything hilarious!
posted by maryr at 10:00 PM on February 20, 2011


Maryr, that's too many layers of sarcasm for me to pinpoint who you're aiming at, but my comment that you quote was not meant as part of my lukewarm defense of the video. I was rolling my eyes at the notion that having an attractive woman dancing half-naked in your video is somehow better if you're doing it "ironically" or "tongue-in-cheek" than if you're just doing it because you think she's hot.
posted by straight at 3:04 PM on February 21, 2011


I'm supposed to like this because it refers to a few things that I paid a high social price to be a fan of when I was a kid. But because it casts such a wide-nerd-net, it violates one of the tenets of nerd/geekdom which is obsessive focus, which makes me strongly believe that it wasn't created by geeks or nerds, but people trying to exploit or ingratiate themselves with the culture because it has become the interesting norm.

High school was a long time ago, man. Time to move on.
posted by empath at 3:27 PM on February 21, 2011


OK, we agree then, straight. I was worried that you meant that it was OK to do ironically which... gah.
posted by maryr at 9:02 PM on February 21, 2011


Is it not ok to ogle attractive women? We have to stare at their eyes and tell them we admire them for their mind at all times?
posted by garlic at 7:59 AM on February 22, 2011


Have you even read the thread, garlic?
posted by Justinian at 9:14 AM on February 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Is it not ok to ogle attractive women?

That's a whole different question. I'm just saying that it's pathetic to think you can make peace with people who have a problem with ogling women by saying, "But we're doing it ironically! We're making fun of people who ogle women!"
posted by straight at 9:31 AM on February 22, 2011


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