(this feels like the future I was promised)

December 2, 2016 10:12 AM

The Police but every time they say "roxanne" it gets faster (single link Twitter video)
posted by MCMikeNamara (80 comments total)

if the front page were nothing but this sort of thing for the next four weeks i'd be pretty okay with it
posted by beerperson at 10:13 AM on December 2, 2016 [17 favorites]

It speeds up yet the song still goes on too long.
posted by Keith Talent at 10:17 AM on December 2, 2016 [16 favorites]

See also Tunak Tunak Tun but every time Daler says "Tunak" it gets faster.
posted by mikesch at 10:20 AM on December 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

Somewhere Eddie Murphy is flipping out.
posted by jonmc at 10:22 AM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

if the front page were nothing but this sort of thing for the next four weeks years i'd be pretty okay with it
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:22 AM on December 2, 2016 [17 favorites]

This feels like a pretty accurate metaphor for the way it feels to be old enough to remember this song being ubiquitous.
posted by egypturnash at 10:26 AM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

if the front page were nothing but this sort of thing for the next four weeks years i'd be pretty okay with it

but every time one of them is posted the world speeds up
posted by beerperson at 10:28 AM on December 2, 2016 [41 favorites]

I've been wondering lately if the snake people consider The Police to be "relevant".
posted by thelonius at 10:28 AM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I mean, compared to other 80's music.
posted by thelonius at 10:29 AM on December 2, 2016

Just to be clear, red light alone cannot tell us whether Roxanne is speeding up (or indeed, slowing down), only that she is moving away from the observer.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:30 AM on December 2, 2016 [92 favorites]

These are the craziest things.

The other day my son got in my car and without saying anything else he goes "BEE MOVIE BUT EVERY TIME THEY SAY BEE THEY REPLACE IT WITH BUFORD T. JUSTIVE FROM SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT GOING 'SOME BITCH' AND THEN IT GETS FASTER AND MORE DISTORTED!" and then he laughed like I was in on the joke.

Then I told him about the Smashmouth one because I'm hip to the memes of today.

He's also into similar things with some Icelandic (?) TV show about nutrition and there's a song called "I'm #1" or something and he showed me a video of it last night that made me feel a) out of touch and b) like I was on acid.

Also, all y'alls making fun of The Police, please don't confuse The Police with Post-Police Sting. The Police were the fucking shit back in the 1970s and 80s and if any of you don't agree you can go pound sand.

(but every time you pound sand it gets faster and gets replaced with that guy going I LIKE COLD BEVERAGE YEAH! from that special sauce song.)
posted by bondcliff at 10:35 AM on December 2, 2016 [20 favorites]

Stewart Copeland was a better drummer than I remembered.
posted by fuse theorem at 10:37 AM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I do not get the appeal of the "every time they say" thing. Relevant: I am old.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:43 AM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

So perhaps you have played the drinking game where some people are team "Roxanne" and some people are team "red light" and each team drinks when their phrase is sung.

This would make that really hard.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:45 AM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

I didn't even know "everytime they say [x] it gets faster" was a thing when I posted this, and now I'm so happy.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:49 AM on December 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

I do not get the appeal of the "every time they say" thing. Relevant: I am old.
posted by Rock Steady

Geoponysterical!
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:49 AM on December 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

I would love a more programmatic approach.

One word speeds up, another slows down, another shifts pitch up, another down, another performs the inverse of the next world's action, another jumps forward or back depending on the current state (shift up/down, tempo up/down)

Someone please extend this to lyrics as a Turing Machine tape.
posted by zippy at 10:52 AM on December 2, 2016 [19 favorites]

I want Rihanna's Work where it speeds up every time she says "work"
posted by GuyZero at 10:52 AM on December 2, 2016 [7 favorites]

Someone needs to do this with Daft Punk's Around The World
posted by sacrifix at 10:53 AM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

beerperson: but every time one of them is posted the world speeds up


Good! Brings about the heat death of the universe faster.
posted by SansPoint at 10:59 AM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've been wondering lately if the snake people consider The Police to be "relevant".

I don't understand how the cops come into this. Isn't this the song from Moulin Rouge? I like it better when Obi-wan sings it.
posted by maryr at 11:02 AM on December 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

The above is clearly a joke because millennials are too young to remember everyone playing the Moulin Rouge soundtrack CD constantly because they are also too young to remember CDs.
posted by maryr at 11:03 AM on December 2, 2016 [14 favorites]

He's also into similar things with some Icelandic (?) TV show about nutrition and there's a song called "I'm #1" or something and he showed me a video of it last night that made me feel a) out of touch and b) like I was on acid.

I'm kinda ashamed (It just came up on my recommendations after watching the Bee Movie ones, I swear!) to know exactly what you're talking about. The show is called Lazytown and has apparently been something of a meme among the cool internet kids for some time now. These crazy meme kids.
posted by eykal at 11:05 AM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Back in college I got really drunk one night at a party and decided to declare war on pants - not unusual for me. This time, though, I made some slurring speech - while trying to take my pants off - about how every day is nothing but getting up, putting on pants, then coming back home, taking off your pants, then getting up, putting on pants, just over and over and over again. At the end of this stirring speech, I shouted that pant wearing just "repeats like a Police lyric! It just repeats like Sting! The horror! The horror!" before I fell over all tangled in my half-off pants.

I get teased about it to this day, but listening to this I have to say: I was goddamned right.
posted by barchan at 11:07 AM on December 2, 2016 [34 favorites]

barchan grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
posted by thelonius at 11:09 AM on December 2, 2016 [11 favorites]

The show is called Lazytown and has apparently been something of a meme among the cool internet kids for some time now.

No kiddin.

This meme but every time it's repeated it gets more convoluted and in-jokey.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:15 AM on December 2, 2016 [9 favorites]

All Star by Smashmouth, but every other word is reversed.
All Star by Smashmouth, but the vocals get higher as the instruments get lower.
All Star by Smashmouth, but it gets 15% faster every time he says "the"
All Star by Smashmouth, but every word is someBODY
All Star by Smashmouth, but every other word is "bee" from Bee Movie and the instrumental is Seinfeld
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:37 AM on December 2, 2016 [25 favorites]

Waiting for Godot, but every time he turns up it gets faster
posted by fizban at 11:43 AM on December 2, 2016 [15 favorites]

Žižek on accelerationism, but every time he touches his face it accelerates
posted by finka at 11:45 AM on December 2, 2016 [9 favorites]

I want to see the HAL shutdown scene from 2001 with it speeding up after each line from "Daisy" is sung.
posted by doctornecessiter at 12:05 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

The show is called Lazytown and has apparently been something of a meme among the cool internet kids for some time now.

No kiddin yt .

Or even earlier, probably.
posted by Kyol at 12:08 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every Breath You Take, except this time, She dumps Him.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:13 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Er, pretty sure she did dump him. It just hasn't dawned on him yet.
posted by praemunire at 12:18 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

LazyTown's "You Are A Pirate" but every time they say "pirate" the pitch shifts down 5% and a tiny stock image of a naked man is added to the screen
posted by koeselitz at 12:26 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I want to see the HAL shutdown scene from 2001 with it speeding up after each line from "Daisy" is sung.

Waaaaaaait a second
posted by beerperson at 12:29 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

the "Bee Movie" trailer, but every time they say "bee" it goes to the "Bug's Life" trailer, and every time they say "bug" it goes to the "Antz" trailer, and every time they say "ant" it goes back to the "Bee Movie" trailer
posted by koeselitz at 12:46 PM on December 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

Somewhere Eddie Murphy is flipping out.

Baader-Meinhoff in full effect today after yesterday's impromptu viewing of 48 Hours (and subsequent ignoring of Another 48 Hours.)
posted by carsonb at 12:57 PM on December 2, 2016

the "Bee Movie" trailer, but every time they say "bee" it goes to the "Bug's Life" trailer, and every time they say "bug" it goes to the "Antz" trailer, and every time they say "ant" it goes back to the "Bee Movie" trailer

i want one where the gimmick takes longer to describe than the video takes to watch
posted by beerperson at 12:58 PM on December 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

"We are number one", but every one is replaced with the lazy town episode that the song came from (robbies dream team). Also the first note is slowed down and loud. But everytime Sportacus does a flip it's pen pineapple apple pen but every pen is replaced with the mine song but every mine is the nutshack and every nutshack is cooking by the book and every cake is we are number one but once pen pinapple apple pen ends You are a Pirate takes its place with every pirate triggering the next song. Also once Sortacus leaves the scene it's everytime Stephanie picks up or puts down her bionoculars, except for one time where instead it's ms busybody saying apple. also one time sportacus does two flips instead of one and in cooking by the book when Stingy sings it's loud. Also beware the branch, except youtube made it quiet instead of loud and the word net is looped for 30 straight seconds and is loud, the banana peel is 12 semitones higher and messed up and the last hey hey is funky

posted by Glow Bucket at 12:58 PM on December 2, 2016 [22 favorites]

I was expecting this to be stupid, but instead I laughed slowly and then much more quickly towards the end.
posted by storybored at 1:19 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Er, pretty sure she did dump him. It just hasn't dawned on him yet.

In the song, sure, but I believe in real life, he terminated a relationship then had the gall to pull that out of his emotions about dumping her. Maybe that's just a nasty music biz rumor.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:24 PM on December 2, 2016

> I would love a more programmatic approach.

I bet that at this very moment there's someone working on a parser for the video titles that will spit out arbitrary ones.
posted by lucidium at 1:24 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wow, Glow Bucket. Wow. 🙇🏾
posted by mistersquid at 1:25 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Baby It's Cold Outside but every time he says "baby it's cold outside" it's just the ominous doom sound from Inception and his eyes melt out of his sockets
posted by cortex at 1:25 PM on December 2, 2016 [18 favorites]

i know you're supposed to listen to it straight through for the full effect but i like listening to the first 5-10 seconds and then skipping directly to the middle and screaming with lols
posted by poffin boffin at 1:38 PM on December 2, 2016

"The above is clearly a joke because millennials are too young to remember everyone playing the Moulin Rouge soundtrack CD constantly because they are also too young to remember CDs."

I'm pretty sure that most of the generation born between 1980 and 2000 remember CDs.
posted by I-baLL at 1:40 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

"We Are Number One" but every 'one' is replaced by "Cooking by the Book" but every 'cake' is replaced by "You Are a Pirate" but every 'pirate' is replaced by "Bing Bang (Time to Dance)" but every 'bang' is replaced by "The Nutshack" but every 'nutshack' is replaced by "We Are Number One" but every 'one' is replaced by "Cooking by the Book" but every 'cake' is replaced by "You Are a Pirate" but every 'pirate' is replaced by "Bing Bang (Time to Dance)" but every 'bang' is replaced by "The Nutshack" but every 'nutshack' is replaced by "We Are Number One" etc you get the point
posted by numaner at 1:48 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

well, there goes my day.

A super cut of every time someone says "there goes my day" from every movie since 1/1/2000, but every time they say "day" it's faster and replaced by Batman from the Animated Series sneaking up on commissioner Gordon and every time he says "commissioner" it's really high pitched
posted by numaner at 1:55 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought Sting wrote EBYT while getting divorced. I did not realize, before I read Summers' autobiography, that Sting had a wife and at least one child before the band was formed. I believe there were divorces all around by the time the band ended, although Summers and his ex-wife later reconciled and remarried.
posted by thelonius at 2:00 PM on December 2, 2016

Wow, the trailer for A Bug's Life contains the word "bug" slightly more than the Bee Movie trailer contains the word "Bee", but "Antz" needs two and a half different trailers to meet the same count of the word "Ant". I would have expected Antz and A Bug's Life to be the other way round, but shows what I know. You learn something new every day.
posted by eykal at 2:18 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okay now do Dolly Parton's "Rocky Top" but every time she sings "rocky top" it slows down and it outlasts the heat death of The Universe.
posted by sourwookie at 2:50 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

[A m🐝tafilt🐝r comm🐝nt, but 🐝v🐝ry tim🐝 th🐝 l🐝tt🐝r '🐝' is typ🐝d, it is r🐝plac🐝d by th🐝 b🐝🐝 🐝moji.]
posted by Hamusutaa at 3:15 PM on December 2, 2016 [11 favorites]

Someone needs to do this with Daft Punk's Around The World

I was thinking every time they say "c'mon" in "Lose Yourself to Dance."
posted by straight at 3:47 PM on December 2, 2016

TOO SLOW!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:24 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

One of the workout classes I go to sometimes ends with what our instructor calls the Roxanne challenge, where he puts on Roxanne and you do a burpee every time the song says "Roxanne". Coming as it does at the end of 45 minutes of Tabata, it's pretty frigging hard.

This would make that so much worse.
posted by Itaxpica at 4:26 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster

It's seven minutes. I can confirm it affects the comedy timing.
posted by jaduncan at 5:48 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was thinking that most of Trevor Horn's mid-80s production would be improved by it speeding up every time there was an ORCH5 stab. Jon Anderson's voice would appeal to bats by the end of the track
posted by scruss at 7:46 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Baby It's Cold Outside but as a duet between Thulsa Doom and Indiana Jones.
posted by zippy at 8:01 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

The main thing I've got out of this is that LazyTown looks like a pretty decent kids' show.
posted by solarion at 8:05 PM on December 2, 2016

Oysters, Clams & Cockles just straight up. IT NEVER SPEEDS UP.
posted by stevil at 8:20 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Someone needs to do this with Daft Punk's Around The World

Around the World but it gets faster every time they say "world".

It quickly becomes untenable.
posted by solarion at 8:40 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

Please disconnect the bluetooth speaker. And we need to talk, come downstairs.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:19 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

This meme but every time it's repeated it gets more convoluted and in-jokey .

Watching this meme eat itself is the most fun I've had on the internet in a long time.

(Also I 100% blame Neil Cicirega for all the All Star stuff)
posted by Itaxpica at 10:55 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

The song is fast enough as it is if you divide the people into two teams, "Roxanne" and "Red Light" and drink every time your team gets mentioned.
posted by ikalliom at 3:12 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

You know how there's a theory that the Salem Witch Trials were possibly caused by ergot poisoning from bad rye bread? I wonder to what happenstance the Science of the Future will attribute all of this *gestures expansively yet poignantly to encompass this meme in particular, and every other damn thing happening in the world of 2016 at large*.
posted by thebrokedown at 6:09 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Leroy Van Dyke -- "The Auctioneer."
posted by spitbull at 7:24 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

GuyZero:

I want Rihanna's Work where it speeds up every time she says "work"

Of course someone made it
posted by thefool at 8:08 AM on December 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

All Star by Smashmouth, but every other word is "bee" from Bee Movie and the instrumental is Seinfeld

This is the best
posted by aka burlap at 8:45 AM on December 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Smashmouth's Twitter feed, but every time someone tweets the word "Shrek" it gets angrier and more defensive.
posted by No-sword at 10:03 AM on December 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Tunak Tunak Tun except everytime Daler says Tunak it gets faster.
posted by mavrc at 10:34 AM on December 3, 2016

I think my favorite example of the form is Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up but every time he says "never" it gets faster.
posted by bookish at 3:36 PM on December 3, 2016 [9 favorites]

I think there's something genuinely interesting (and good!) about the fact that this meme allows consumption of copyrighted works by beating content detection algorithms, but I'm too busy watching these videos to ponder them.
posted by aedison at 5:37 PM on December 3, 2016

I think I was just Rickrolled… in 2016 no less.

and I had such hope in my heart
posted by mistersquid at 5:40 PM on December 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think I was just Rickrolled… in 2016 no less.

He's let you down.
posted by jaduncan at 10:21 AM on December 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

He's given you the run around.
posted by jaduncan at 10:50 AM on December 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

And hurt you.
posted by flabdablet at 12:20 PM on December 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ouch.
posted by carsonb at 10:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Haddaway - What is love? but it keeps getting faster.
posted by carsonb at 1:43 PM on December 5, 2016

I think the "speed up every time they say X" videos for songs would be a lot more interesting if the speed increases were much, much more gradual (like you can hardly tell anything is happening until you realize that somehow it's gotten too fast) and kept the pitch the same.
posted by straight at 7:38 PM on December 6, 2016

And hurt you. yt

holy shit i died
posted by numaner at 1:21 PM on December 12, 2016 [2 favorites]