"Party in the Fire Island Pines!"

August 28, 2009 3:11 PM

Seven gay friends who summer on Fire Island Pines [note: autoload music] decided on a whim to make a lip-sync video (in Speedos) of tween favorite Miley Cyrus' song "Party in the USA". She loves it. And it turns out that the family-oriented, intellectual property "überprotective" company that represents Miley also loves and endorses the fan video.

"'I assumed it would be taken down pretty much immediately, particularly because of the music rights issue,' said David Fudge, a 27-year-old marketing executive at Esquire who made the video, titled 'Party in the Fire Island Pines.' But Disney left the ditty alone and it soon exploded in an underground way, collecting 200,000 views in just three days. Disney employees started emailing it to each other, and before long Mr. Fudge’s office telephone rang. On the other end: Rich Ross, the president of Disney Channels Worldwide. 'I was like, who?' Mr. Fudge said. 'He just said that he loved it and wanted to tell us that. He was extremely nice.' Mr. Ross declined to comment, but another Disney executive noted that the video (and the reaction to it) demonstrates how Ms. Cyrus is broadening her fan base beyond little girls."

posted by ericb (89 comments total)

Note: Fudge joke in 3...2...1...
posted by ericb at 3:11 PM on August 28, 2009

No shock - YouTube allows the rights-holders to monetize viral videos. Disney's going to get paid as they guys get played.
posted by GuyZero at 3:19 PM on August 28, 2009 [7 favorites]

That looked really fun.
posted by phrontist at 3:21 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

The production values on the live show for Cyrus are insane. That expanding doublewide is a nontrivial bit of stagecraft.
posted by phrontist at 3:23 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

So those are what Americans call speedos? They looked un-speedo like for the most part to me
posted by A189Nut at 3:25 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Monetizing viral videos is how they can stay online. Otherwise, companies might complain that people are "stealing" the songs. Google was smart in providing the obnoxious option for overlaying ads. The other option that Google has provided on Youtube is to kill the sound.

Techdirt has an article questioning who gets the money when a viral ad gets click-through sales:

shouldn't the folks in the video (or, perhaps the person who shot it) get some of that monetizing as well? After all, if we base our thinking on traditional RIAA-style thinking, the whole reason why there are suddenly so many new sales and renewed interest in Brown and this song is entirely due to this wedding party and whoever shot the video.

People may not want the money, but at least they could have the option to take it, or possibly give it to a nonprofit of their choosing.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:29 PM on August 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

The production values on the live show for Cyrus are insane.

That was at this year's Teen Choice Awards. Her "raunchy" pole dance during her performance there has caused some controversy.

Methinks that she, her Dad and Disney are grooming her for a next phase beyond the tweens and teens. A marketing move very much like the changing images of folks like David Bowie, Elton John, Madonna, etc. Hence, the willing embrace of the "gay-boyz" fan club.
posted by ericb at 3:32 PM on August 28, 2009

Speedo in the States is used generically (such as Kleenex, Xerox, etc.) to denote a low-cut man's swimsuit. Many here consider them to only be worn by male swimmers and gay men.
posted by ericb at 3:34 PM on August 28, 2009

Speedo in the States is used generically (such as Kleenex, Xerox, etc.) to denote a low-cut man's swimsuit.

No, "speedo" is used generically to refer to a "bikini" style men's racing suit or diving suit. And that's not what these guys are wearing, at least in the shots of boring twinks that I had the patience to watch. Which ain't much.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 3:40 PM on August 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

demonstrates how Ms. Cyrus is broadening her fan base beyond little girls

What's the story here? Disney is a profit driven company? This isn't the National Bear and Cubs meeting where you have some 400 pound man-bear singing to his cub. These are the kind of gays you bring home to your mom. He's an advertising exec! Clean cut, good looking. Mainstream America can totally accept these non-sexual Will and Grace / Sex in the City gays. They have huge disposable incomes and marketing research shows they're leading indicators. I mean not to knock on these guys, but it isn't exactly 1975 and Mickey comes home with a guy mouse named Ray.
posted by geoff. at 3:43 PM on August 28, 2009 [10 favorites]

This just goes to show that the Gay Agenda is working. Of course, infiltrating Disney was not particularly difficult.
posted by Nelson at 3:43 PM on August 28, 2009

Yeah, Bear Force 1 this ain't.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:44 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

No, "speedo" is used generically to refer to a "bikini" style men's racing suit or diving suit. And that's not what these guys are wearing...

True ... you're right ... only some are wearing "bikini" style suits in the pool shots and in one segment on the beach. The other styles (boxer, board shorts) are featured more prominently.
posted by ericb at 4:00 PM on August 28, 2009

This is a viral for Gay Nair isn't it?
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:00 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

No, "speedo" is used generically to refer to a "bikini" style men's racing suit or diving suit.

FWIW -- the term "low-cut" also applies for such men's swimwear.
posted by ericb at 4:06 PM on August 28, 2009

I just inadvertently discovered that watching the Miley Cyrus video from the Teen Choice Awards with the audio off while listening to the track "Trilogy" off of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation album makes the video a lot better.
posted by The World Famous at 4:06 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Hence my statement: "Speedo in the States is used generically to denote a low-cut man's swimsuit" is accurate, as is your use of the term "bikini."
posted by ericb at 4:07 PM on August 28, 2009

Gay Fashionista Face-Off on MeFi!
posted by ericb at 4:08 PM on August 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Seven gay friends who summer on Fire Island Pines [note: autoload music] decided on a whim to make a lip-sync video (in Speedos) of tween favorite Miley Cyrus' song "Party in the USA

Stop. You had me at "seven gay friends who summer on Fire Island."

Watched it. Liked it. Cute.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:18 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

shouldn't the folks in the video (or, perhaps the person who shot it) get some of that monetizing as well?

No. Of course not. You use someone else's copyrighted work, it's their money. Same as when a band covers someone else's song. The band gets the fringe benefits, like higher sales on their other songs, general notoriety and such, but the author of that song gets the money from sales of that song.

This has nothing to do with the "RIAA" and everything to do with copyright, ownership of artistic works, and common sense. Should someone taking a camcorder video of you doing your job get your paycheck?
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:24 PM on August 28, 2009

Teenage girls love gay men. Why are people still surprised by this? What surprises me is that it's taken Disney this long to put two and two together (the first "two" being dancing adorable gay men; the second being tweens who love glitter)


Oh god this song is so catchy.
posted by oinopaponton at 4:35 PM on August 28, 2009

Teenage girls love gay men. Why are people still surprised by this? What surprises me is that it's taken Disney this long to put two and two together

You apparently missed the entire High School Musical oeuvre...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:36 PM on August 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

There are some really well-made fan videos on YouTube. Boards of Canada, who have one made one video in their career, has some* really quite good ones.

*NSFW-ish
posted by Bookhouse at 4:38 PM on August 28, 2009

Silly song but I loved the video. Super fun and perfectly summer-y. And yes, there were speedos in various spots.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 4:39 PM on August 28, 2009

What's the story here? Disney is a profit driven company? This isn't the National Bear and Cubs meeting where you have some 400 pound man-bear singing to his cub. These are the kind of gays you bring home to your mom. He's an advertising exec! Clean cut, good looking. Mainstream America can totally accept these non-sexual Will and Grace / Sex in the City gays. They have huge disposable incomes and marketing research shows they're leading indicators. I mean not to knock on these guys, but it isn't exactly 1975 and Mickey comes home with a guy mouse named Ray.

Gaaah how dare those gay people be successful?!
posted by xmutex at 4:39 PM on August 28, 2009

You're so right, Cool Papa Bell. My bad.
posted by oinopaponton at 4:40 PM on August 28, 2009

OK, isn't using über as a prefix for english words over yet?

What can I do to make it over? Please tell me, I am desperate.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 4:51 PM on August 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

You use someone else's copyrighted work, it's their money. ... Should someone taking a camcorder video of you doing your job get your paycheck?

Copyright is supposed to be an incentive for you to create, not an impediment to me to make works that improve on your creation. If you use someone else's work, or videotape someone about their job or whatever, and your actions somehow return you a benefit, then you should share that benefit with the entity that made the benefit possible. You should not be forced to fork over the entire benefit to them; they don't deserve it, because without your actions the entire benefit wouldn't exist. You have added value to their work. The idea that value-adding activity should be rewarded is so fundamental to economics that Ayn Rand and Karl Marx would agree on it.

There are benefits other than money as you point out but the easiest way to value things and the standard method of doing so in our culture is, through the miracle of accountancy, to estimate the monetary value of the benefit (including to you). For example, if I make a birthday card featuring Mickey Mouse to give my nephew, I have gained some benefit from Disney's copyright there, a few bucks at most. If that amount is less than the administrative cost of collecting it, that would seem to me to be a clear indication of fair use. Arguably I've made my nephew more likely to demand a Mickey Mouse DVD next time he's in the store and arguably I've raised the chances of my sister buying that DVD for him, which returns another small amount to Disney.

If I set up a stall at the market selling off my printed cards I'm in a much more accountable position: I buy paper and stall space and travel etc for $X, sell it off for $Y, and $Y-$X is my profit. Through the use of Disney's characters, whose popularity is ensured by Disney's continued marketing of them, I have made that profit. Disney should have a share of that profit.

My point is that as a general principle they should not be able to stop me from using their work to make money for myself, as long as I am willing to pay over some of the profit from that work to them. Obviously some issues arise around such things as artists' moral rights, direct competition for the same market, or un-profitable or non-profit activity conducted with a major purpose of diluting the value of the copyright.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:56 PM on August 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Should someone taking a camcorder video of you doing your job get your paycheck?

As long as I still get mine, I don't see what the problem is (aside from my not really wanting to be video-recorded while I work).
posted by The World Famous at 4:57 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I hate this song. I hate it. I hate hate hate it. I hate it.



God help me. I sort of like it.
posted by Darth Fedor at 4:59 PM on August 28, 2009 [7 favorites]

I really don't like the fact that I like this song and her other one "See You Again".
posted by nooneyouknow at 5:05 PM on August 28, 2009

Teenage girls love gay men. Why are people still surprised by this? What surprises me is that it's taken Disney this long to put two and two together

You apparently missed the entire High School Musical oeuvre...

Disney is very stereotypical-gay-male-friendly. I can't think of a single one of their tween shows that doesn't include a character somewhere on the Gay Male Spectrum, and the High School Musical films were actually fairly overt in their portrayal.

So they're doing that right, for the most part--they're fairly sensitive if a little clumsy with it, and of course the characters aren't "out" but then, even straight characters on these shows rarely have significant others or displays of affection, it's all incredibly clean and nonsexual. The shows are aimed at pre-teens, after all, they are meant to be aspirational in the sense that eight year olds pretty much just aspire to be twelve some day.

What they fail at portraying is any sort of stereotypical lesbian character. They barely have any tomboys, even, although they do a good take on the "feminine but assertive and wisecracky" trope and like countless sitcoms before them, they trot out the "older woman who is now desexualized and isn't that funny?" every now and then. This bugs the shit out of me and it is a small dream of mine that before my kids outgrow the Disney Channel's programming entirely, I will get to witness a character who is clearly a lesbian in the way that High School Musical's Ryan is clearly a young gay man.

my kids watch way too much television
posted by padraigin at 5:05 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

boring twinks

They are way too old - by a decade or so - to be twinks.
posted by rtha at 5:31 PM on August 28, 2009

i liked the part where the little dog walked through the shot.
posted by janepanic at 5:32 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Miley Cyrus's voice freaks me out. Have you heard her speaking voice? Even her singing voice sounds like that of a 35 year old woman. And has since she was about 13.
posted by peep at 5:33 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

No. Of course not. You use someone else's copyrighted work, it's their money. Same as when a band covers someone else's song. The band gets the fringe benefits, like higher sales on their other songs, general notoriety and such, but the author of that song gets the money from sales of that song.

Not entirely accurate. When you cover someone else's song, you pay them a mechanical license fee (about 9 cents per copy of the recording, unless you negotiate something better with the copyright owner) and you get to keep the rest of the money. Bob Dylan didn't get all the money from the Byrds' version of Tambourine Man -- just the mechanical license fee.
posted by katemonster at 5:36 PM on August 28, 2009

Go directly to 2:10 for hot rolling in the water Speedo action.
posted by vespabelle at 5:40 PM on August 28, 2009

Is Miley Cyrus related to that So You Think You Can Dance lady? She looks like she walked straight out of Hannah Montana: The XXVIIIth Movie.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:47 PM on August 28, 2009

You have arrived at the official web site of Fire Island Pines: Your summer wonderland. Summer 2008 is the summer of fun...

What was summer 2009 then?
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 5:59 PM on August 28, 2009

who are these gay people that everybody keeps telling me about?
posted by Avenger at 6:24 PM on August 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

The video was cute but I only got about halfway through before the song required me to either turn it off or claw my eyes out. And I like my eyes.
posted by localroger at 6:28 PM on August 28, 2009

ericb: "Seven gay friends who summer on Fire Island Pines"

Not to take away points on a technicality, but just so you know, these seven friends summer at The Pines, not on them.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:42 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I have a hard time watching any "viral video" like this anymore without thinking of the "viral" wedding video set to the Chris Brown song "Forever" that was supposedly spontaneous and turned out to be a big PR stunt. Yeah, I'm skeptical, so sue me.
posted by blucevalo at 6:59 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Not to take away points on a technicality, but just so you know, these seven friends summer at The Pines, not on them.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:42 PM on August 28

haven't you heard of the multi-purpose uses of pines?
posted by liza at 6:59 PM on August 28, 2009

OK, isn't using über as a prefix for english words over yet?

It's über over.
posted by dirigibleman at 7:02 PM on August 28, 2009

As my former roommate would say, "It's so festive!" (which was his code word for gay -- or maybe it's a universal gay code word? -- back when he was mostly in the closet and felt the need to use euphemisms to talk about gay-friendly places and events).

The video is really cool, but some of them need to work on their lip-synching skills. And, I'm not a fan of Miley Cyrus, but damn that song is so fun and catchy!
posted by amyms at 7:05 PM on August 28, 2009

Miley Cyrus' voice sounds like she is 35 only to the degree that dime store gold filled jewelry resembles a solid piece of precious metal. I loathe that trained-in adult sound coming out of a youngster's soundbox; it's squarely in the acoustic uncanny valley. It grates on me almost as much as AutoTune.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:21 PM on August 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'm disappointed by the relatively lack of speedos, and enraged by the reemergence of c. 1985 plastic-framed sunglasses.
posted by CKmtl at 7:29 PM on August 28, 2009

I have a hard time watching any "viral video" like this anymore without thinking of the "viral" wedding video set to the Chris Brown song "Forever" that was supposedly spontaneous and turned out to be a big PR stunt. Yeah, I'm skeptical, so sue me.

Aw, dang, I hadn't heard that yet (note: yet) :(
posted by tristeza at 7:29 PM on August 28, 2009

It grates on me almost as much as AutoTune.

There's a healthy helping of electronic pitch correction on her voice all the time, as well. It doesn't sound like T-Pain, because it's not being used "for effect." But the fact that she's being Melodyne'd to death contributes to the "standard recording artist" sound of her singing voice.
posted by The World Famous at 7:29 PM on August 28, 2009

Mainstream America can totally accept these non-sexual Will and Grace / Sex in the City gays.

You think these guys are non-sexual?
posted by incessant at 7:30 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I put a Ducktales/Battlestar Galactica video on YouTube a couple of years ago, and Universal had it taken down. At the time, I was kind of surprised that it wasn't Disney who complained, but all my other Ducktales stuff is still there, so maybe they're cool with that kind of stuff.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 7:34 PM on August 28, 2009

Not to take away points on a technicality, but just so you know, these seven friends summer at The Pines, not on them.

You know... if you swap the vowels in "pines"...
posted by hippybear at 7:38 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

from NYT article: ... before long Mr. Fudge’s office telephone rang. On the other end: Rich Ross, the president of Disney Channels Worldwide. “I was like, who?” Mr. Fudge said. “He just said that he loved it and wanted to tell us that. He was extremely nice.” Mr. Ross declined to comment, but another Disney executive noted that the video (and the reaction to it) demonstrated how Ms. Cyrus was broadening her fan base beyond little girls.

I'm sure Rich Ross was very 'nice' on the phone, but rest assured, Mr Fudge, that if his morning meeting with Satan, Hitler, and Stalin about that video hadn't gone so well, he would've been eating your stewed brains from your skull. The Walt Disney Company will leave no butterfly's wings untorn and no cute bunny rabbit undisemboweled in its vast and vainglorious pursuit of all-consuming power, and if they have allowed even a single cute little gay lipsync video to remain on Youtube then we can be certain that they have done so only because whatever crude, shifting echoes of evil they employ as their advisers on the highest executive level have judged that allowing it to remain will aid in some small way Disney project to conquer the world and fill it with insipid, empty nonsense sold as high-quality entertainment worth a premium simply because of its ubiquity, and to destroy the last vestiges of beauty our society still can carry with it by raping those last fading memories of joy mercilessly, removing every trace of soul or meaning, and rendering them up as nothing more than entertainment for an army of dull-eyed children who probably will never even know what it means to be happy.
posted by koeselitz at 7:46 PM on August 28, 2009 [12 favorites]

They are way too old - by a decade or so - to be twinks.

In my neighborhood, twinks start development in childhood.
posted by Tube at 7:52 PM on August 28, 2009

Not to take away points on a technicality, but just so you know, these seven friends summer at The Pines, not on them.

At the Pines. Nope. It's either "on" or "in."

New Englanders (like myself) traditionally use the noun "summer" as a verb. We also refer to vacationing on an island as "on" an island -- as in "I am spending the summer "on Nantucket." I am summering "on Martha's Vineyard." I've got a share "on Fire Island" for the summer.

If a New Yorker, however, one often says "I've got a share in the Pines," just as he/she will say "I've got a share in Cherry Grove."
posted by ericb at 8:15 PM on August 28, 2009

koeselitz, I think I love you.
posted by dejah420 at 8:16 PM on August 28, 2009

Gay Prepositiona Face-Off on MeFi!
posted by ericb at 8:18 PM on August 28, 2009

I have a hard time watching any "viral video" like this anymore without thinking of the "viral" wedding video set to the Chris Brown song "Forever" that was supposedly spontaneous and turned out to be a big PR stunt.

Huh, I hadn't heard that. And some quick Googling didn't give me anything concrete. Link?
posted by kmz at 8:23 PM on August 28, 2009

that's a really slick video for something that's a 'fan video.' i bet it was produced by some shell operation for disney.
posted by lester at 8:26 PM on August 28, 2009

BTW -- for those interested there's the documentary "When Ocean Meets The Sky" about The Pines (and a bit about Cherry Grove, particularly the annual 4^th of July "Drag Invasion of the Pines").
posted by ericb at 8:30 PM on August 28, 2009

>> I have a hard time watching any "viral video" like this anymore without thinking of the "viral" wedding video set to the Chris
>> Brown song "Forever" that was supposedly spontaneous and turned out to be a big PR stunt. Yeah, I'm skeptical, so sue me.

> Aw, dang, I hadn't heard that yet (note: yet) :(

That's not quite the case. The theory is that the video is real, but it's initial popularity was manufactured by Sony's PR machine and not a natural consequence of people thinking that the video is awesome: The JKWeddingDance video was real; the viral effect was MANUFACTURED
posted by nooneyouknow at 8:30 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

"In" and "on":

"Seven friends in Speedos, summer in Fire Island...What started out as a few good friends setting out to create a memento of their summer getaway on Fire Island has turned into an Internet sensation..."

posted by ericb at 8:47 PM on August 28, 2009

A compromise between Boston and New York would best be: "Seven gay friends who summer on Fire Island (in the Pines)..."
posted by ericb at 8:53 PM on August 28, 2009

Why cock jocks?
posted by uncanny hengeman at 8:59 PM on August 28, 2009

ericb: "A compromise between Boston and New York would best be: "Seven gay friends who summer on Fire Island (in the Pines)...""

On Fire Island, in the Pines is correct. I'm from NYC and I spent my summers there; I don't know what to tell you.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:05 PM on August 28, 2009

Fire Island: I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming. Homer Phobia
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:12 PM on August 28, 2009

DarlingBri: "Not to take away points on a technicality, but just so you know, these seven friends summer at The Pines, not on them."

DarlingBri: "On Fire Island, in the Pines is correct. I'm from NYC and I spent my summers there; I don't know what to tell you."

So, I was right all along. "At" (your preposition) is incorrect. Thank you for the clarification.
posted by ericb at 9:13 PM on August 28, 2009

I know I grew up on Long Island, not in Long Island or at Long Island, but maybe on Lawg Gggg- Iislanddd.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:18 PM on August 28, 2009

The theory is that the video is real, but it's initial popularity was manufactured by Sony's PR machine and not a natural consequence of people thinking that the video is awesome.

Thanks for that, nooneyouknow. That makes a lot of sense. I read a lengthy description of it before I saw the footage and my initial reaction was: Huh? Is that it? Worst. Awesome. Video. Evarr. Give me the swearing Winnebago Man any day.

The two ladies at the start were a bit of a hoot. It went SERIOUSLY downhill from there. The supposed "summersault" turned out to be a forward roll, for Chrissakes. Then next thing I know the freakin' opening of Australia's Dancing with the Stars had all the contestants doing it - matching suits and dresses, roses in mouths, the works.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:22 PM on August 28, 2009

I'm shocked--shocked!--to find that there are gays on Fire Island.

It's über over.

Ich sehe, was Sie dort taten.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:32 PM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Love this. Thanks for posting.
posted by kylej at 10:14 PM on August 28, 2009

hmmm...this works pretty good in the Benny Hillifier
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:18 PM on August 28, 2009

Ich sehe, was Sie dort taten.

beyond gut gespielt, mein Herr.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 10:27 PM on August 28, 2009

Not 'on.' Not 'in.' Over Fire Island.
posted by koeselitz at 11:15 PM on August 28, 2009

Even her singing voice sounds like that of a 35 year old woman. And has since she was about 13.

All of those overprocessed female singers sound exactly the same.
posted by adamdschneider at 11:32 PM on August 28, 2009

hmmm...this works pretty good in the Benny Hillifier

And the music is better!

Cute. Adorable. I was definitely expecting more Speedos.

And when I think I Speedos, I'm not thinking about "low cut shorts." I'm thinking about banana hammocks. I'm thinking grape smugglers.

I'm trying not to think about an hirsute former roommate's favorite bright fuschia pair. Oh God.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:11 AM on August 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm gay. I'm also nauseous.
posted by bukharin at 3:43 AM on August 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wait, Miley Cyrus' twitter page has John and Yoko in bed as the background?
posted by nax at 5:34 AM on August 29, 2009

I was kind of unimpressed by this. I mean yeah, cute, ok. But seriously boys... lipsyncing is not difficult.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:32 AM on August 29, 2009

Huh, I hadn't heard that. And some quick Googling didn't give me anything concrete. Link?

I retract. It seems that the video itself was probably real but had help because it was likely boosted by Sony's unusually beneficent attitude about not pulling it from YouTube for copyright infringement. This post lists other rumors about the video's authenticity (or lack thereof).
posted by blucevalo at 11:17 AM on August 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I have to agree with dirtynumbangelboy. On another unrelated note, it makes me feel more than somewhat old when the Fire Island boys are lip-syncing to Miley Cyrus and not Gloria Gaynor, Madonna, or Lady Gaga.
posted by blucevalo at 11:25 AM on August 29, 2009

I give this both a piffle and a pish-posh. It's nothing compared to the homage to the song supplied in the video "Party in Bunnyville".
posted by Salmonberry at 12:45 PM on August 29, 2009

What they fail at portraying is any sort of stereotypical lesbian character. They barely have any tomboys, even, although they do a good take on the "feminine but assertive and wisecracky" trope and like countless sitcoms before them, they trot out the "older woman who is now desexualized and isn't that funny?" every now and then. This bugs the shit out of me and it is a small dream of mine that before my kids outgrow the Disney Channel's programming entirely, I will get to witness a character who is clearly a lesbian in the way that High School Musical's Ryan is clearly a young gay man.

Padraigin, to be fair to Disney, they caught an *unbelieveable* amount of flak from the religious right for daring to give Ellen a sitcom not so long ago.
posted by Amanojaku at 4:11 PM on August 29, 2009

NO. I fell for that stupid wedding procession 'Forever' video. NEVER AGAIN.

I don't care if I find the song irritatingly catchy. I can't. My music taste borders on terrible already, what, with my inane love of Journey and Neil Diamond. I used to make GREAT mixed cds filled with My Morning Jacket and Elliott Smith and Ween and.... and now I'm grooving to the radio.

I'm getting old, aren't I?
posted by Bageena at 5:14 PM on August 29, 2009

Amanojaku: ... to be fair to Disney...

Yes, folks, and next time on 'out-of-place phrases' we'll take a look at 'giving Wal-Mart's employment practices a chance for just a moment' and 'to give Nazism the benefit of the doubt.'
posted by koeselitz at 10:08 AM on August 30, 2009

Blah blah gay men and Disney. Old news, we knew this since Turing and Snow White.
posted by vsync at 10:42 PM on August 30, 2009

Yes, folks, and next time on 'out-of-place phrases' we'll take a look at 'giving Wal-Mart's employment practices a chance for just a moment' and 'to give Nazism the benefit of the doubt.'

Yes, well, it doesn't make us look any smarter if we're inaccurate with our reasons for disliking something. You can hate the Nazis for killing millions of people, but not for making the narwhal extinct. Or something.
posted by Amanojaku at 4:20 PM on August 31, 2009

Sorry—snideness misdirected.
posted by koeselitz at 5:00 PM on August 31, 2009