The other side of YouTube.

January 26, 2012 2:57 PM

TVTropes calls it a "Neo-Dada art form consisting of video remixes. . . to confuse, stun or entertain the viewer". A recent top ten list (more here) fills the gaps of that description with ample WTF, which is almost too appropriate for a video genre that first garnered attention as a misdirection troll.

Youtube Poop (or YTP) first started subverting viewers' expectations in 2004 when "I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL" made its way onto the internet. It wasn't until 2007, however, that the the term YouTube Poop came to prominence, not so incidentally overlapping with YTP's first boom in popularity. These days, bolstered by an active forum and wiki, YouTube Poop has seen many changes and innovations, having even spawned sub-genres, most notably the YTPMV.

(Some links have NSFW language and volume bursts)

Foraging for memes, digesting continuity and evacuating a digitally enhanced form of fringe psychedelia, YouTube Poop might not be for everyone, but some may find it to be rich ferilizer at times.

posted by I've wasted my life (33 comments total)

I am confused, but I think it's a good kind of confused.
posted by cortex at 3:23 PM on January 26, 2012

I'm not confused at all. It's been made perfectly clear to me that I'm getting old.
posted by ODiV at 3:28 PM on January 26, 2012 [4 favorites]

I was gonna take issue with the phrase "Neo-Dada," but some of these could consciously be Dada, and I can't come up with anything better for the ones that aren't.
posted by cmoj at 3:32 PM on January 26, 2012

I...





.



 
posted by seanyboy at 3:34 PM on January 26, 2012

But it just occurred to me... How do these people have so much of, say, Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons memorized to the point where they can call up when the chicken guy says "poopoo?"
posted by cmoj at 3:37 PM on January 26, 2012

I despair. I think part of me might have died.
posted by hudders at 3:37 PM on January 26, 2012

Eh. There are a million (probably more) incoherent videos on youtube.
posted by delmoi at 3:38 PM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

That was surprisingly entertaining. Did not thing I'd watch the whole top 10 through.
posted by svenni at 3:42 PM on January 26, 2012

IIRC the original Dada movement also stemmed from people trying to grief other people.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 3:45 PM on January 26, 2012 [6 favorites]

Numbers 3-1 are quite different from the earlier ones... what actually makes a "good" Youtube Poop? I'm having trouble pinning down why, but #5 and#1 are great, somehow.



If that ain't fair use, I dunno what is.
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 3:49 PM on January 26, 2012

These remind me of the jandrew edits of TNG.
posted by sparkletone at 4:02 PM on January 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Fascinating to see the concept of "remixing" to take it to this level in video. As much of a mess as a lot of this is, the ease of control over video (and parts of video) is certainly opening up new modes of expression.
posted by lubujackson at 4:08 PM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Needs more Muppets.
posted by EmGeeJay at 4:11 PM on January 26, 2012

Like all good art, I don't know how one would even begin to start to consider making one of these.

Watching that was like anti-meditation, it bludgeoned the senses and forced everything else out of my head leaving me empty and refreshed.
posted by minifigs at 4:12 PM on January 26, 2012 [5 favorites]

Uhhh... what?
posted by ph00dz at 4:18 PM on January 26, 2012

But it just occurred to me... How do these people have so much of, say, Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons memorized to the point where they can call up when the chicken guy says "poopoo?"

Given how disconnected the art feels, it's shocking how robust and detailed the wiki is. The page on Poopisms gives a good overview methods common to the genre. To directly answer your question, however, the Sonic cartoon was a common source for early YTPs, so that footage has been mined quite extensively for provocative material.
posted by I've wasted my life at 4:21 PM on January 26, 2012

Is this some kind of Oxymoron: Limited animation cartoons based on toys edited with a punk aesthetic?
posted by xtian at 4:26 PM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Pretty sure this is what it feels like to be possessed by Pazuzu.
posted by roger ackroyd at 4:29 PM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the history and background, I've wasted my life - I've been trying to feel out where the head of this ouroboros was.
posted by gusandrews at 5:10 PM on January 26, 2012

Watching that was like anti-meditation, it bludgeoned the senses and forced everything else out of my head leaving me empty and refreshed.

Same here, but I wish there weren't so many overt jokes interrupting the barrage. All the comprehensible parts have to go before we can arrive at a pure expression of What.
posted by obvious at 5:24 PM on January 26, 2012

Okay!
posted by Miko at 5:44 PM on January 26, 2012

I just. want TO say, I donotunder STAND. this. POST
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:52 PM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I love it!

Things just don't always have to make sense... and sometimes, you find truth in the absurdity.
posted by frecklefaerie at 6:11 PM on January 26, 2012

MetaFilter: what it feels like to be possessed by Pazuzu.
posted by Nomyte at 7:22 PM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've come across this stuff before. It is . . . something.
posted by IvoShandor at 8:31 PM on January 26, 2012

Love it.
posted by melt away at 2:59 AM on January 27, 2012

I knew Brony remixes were a gateway to something.
posted by whuppy at 6:28 AM on January 27, 2012

I love this for some reason I don't understand. I think it is best explained by this statement:

I love living in the future, but lately, I am still in the present, which is now, for some, the past.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:30 AM on January 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I feel like if there's a magic box with a dial on it, and you feed some cartoon stock footage and some live action stock footage into it, and you turn that dial up to maybe 3 or 4, you get Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Then somebody fucked up and turned it up to 11 and here we are.
posted by cortex at 8:35 AM on January 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think Tim & Eric Awesome etc. inhabit a point along this spectrum somewhere, too.
posted by speedo at 6:28 PM on January 28, 2012

My first exposure to the genre: You are already subscribed to BILL COSBY
posted by barrett caulk at 12:06 PM on January 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

My first exposure to the genre: You are already subscribed to BILL COSBY

Muy fabuloso! Mine too.
posted by IvoShandor at 4:09 AM on February 2, 2012

I got my Master's in TV Production at Boston University. This is what I would have loved to do and get graded for while I was there. However, all their editing equipment was still analog, and I had "real" projects to do, a job to hold down, a new baby, and ... well, not enough time to create my dada masterpiece out of all the used 3/4" tape that was floating around the top floor of the COM building.

I am glad the technology has provided the time, and the internet has provided a place for dada'ers to dada their dada.

Da-DAAAAAA
posted by not_on_display at 2:14 PM on February 13, 2012 [1 favorite]