5th grade love video
April 28, 2010 2:25 PM   Subscribe

I CANT LIVE WITHOUT YOY. Armed with air guitar, U2's With Or Without You, and a video camera that he can type overlays into, a kid professes his everlasting love to KELY KELLY.
posted by The Devil Tesla (78 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hey can I borrow a really powerful magnet from someone? I seem to have a few old VHS tapes I need to track down and erase before some dick puts them on the internet.
posted by Nothing... and like it at 2:29 PM on April 28, 2010 [25 favorites]


That VHS buzzing noise really did it for me. To think that noise, the sound of a dial-up modem/fax machine, and other noises or our analog past will be unknown to future children.
posted by birdherder at 2:31 PM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]


I must be missing something. Is there anything even remotely interesting about this?
posted by JaredSeth at 2:31 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


GIVE YOURSELF TO ME FORVERR
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 2:33 PM on April 28, 2010


It's much better if you drag the slider bar across. You can go through the entire video in ~4.2 seconds. ;)
posted by zarq at 2:33 PM on April 28, 2010 [5 favorites]


Each typo was a little bit of drama - will he catch this one? How long before he discovers it?
posted by idiopath at 2:34 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


Ha! You are stupid and unworthy of love.

Kid in the video is alright though.
posted by Babblesort at 2:37 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


Let it run at regular speed for 15 seconds or so, then fast forwarded through the rest. Awesome.
posted by yiftach at 2:39 PM on April 28, 2010


Efforts to recreate Star Wars Kid in the laboratory have thus far proven unsuccessful.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:41 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


What we have here is a white suburban youth expressing his love for Kelly in an honest if somewhat naive manner. The internet will crucify him for this.

Seriously, our culture has so glorified the pursuit of the ironic persona that when an individual actually says what they mean it's called a cardinal sin of the postmodern.
posted by quadog at 2:42 PM on April 28, 2010 [16 favorites]


FYI: Everything is Terrible is consistently spectacular.
posted by Adam_S at 2:43 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


You know what? This seems more YouTube than Vimeo.
posted by Pastabagel at 2:44 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


Some people are just going to have rougher adolescents than others. Responsible concerned parents would keep cameras out of the hands of those people.
posted by Some1 at 2:47 PM on April 28, 2010


When I was in the fourth or fifth grade, I seriously wrestled for about a week with the question of whether or not to go up to a girl I liked, during recess out on the playground, and start singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand to her in hopes that she would in fact be receptive to the idea of having her hand held by me.

At some level I think I understood what a tremendous risk it would be to try something like that. Socially clueless though I was as a kid (when our teacher let us bring in music from home one day for class, everyone else brought in current pop hits, I brought in a Flinstones sing-along tape), there was some small part of my brain looking out for the serious danger zone stuff, and I think it saved me some nuclear-grade embarrassment in this case.

And so I never did it, nor did I ever tape myself doing such a thing, and I can't even remember the girl's name now, but I have carried around this potent memory of that questionable romantic gesture and my internal debate about for the last 20+ years. I will probably carry it around for the rest of my life.

I feel you, kid.
posted by cortex at 2:48 PM on April 28, 2010 [37 favorites]


We need to burn all the movies that make us think that people respond well to elaborate declarations of love from people they're not already attracted to. Seriously, burn them till there's nothing left but movies where two people meet and do it immediately because that shit's hot and totally happens.
posted by shmegegge at 2:51 PM on April 28, 2010 [18 favorites]


kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly
posted by radiosilents at 2:51 PM on April 28, 2010 [8 favorites]


Probably half the guys on metafilter have done something every bit as young foolish as this. I certainly have. I hope the evidence is long gone.
posted by bukvich at 2:51 PM on April 28, 2010


U2 songs really aren't great for wooing people. Like Pearl Jam's "Better Man" or the Police's "Every Breath You Take", songs like WOWY or "One" are often used in romantic situations where it's obvious the people involved have never actually listened to the lyrics.

I suppose WOWY might work for an S&M couple though.
posted by kmz at 2:52 PM on April 28, 2010


"kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly"

"K-E-L-L-Y. Y? Because you're kelly kelly kelly kelly...."
posted by zarq at 2:52 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


also, I sure as shit hope that the first girl I ever slept with doesn't still have that mix tape I made her after she dumped me that had the liner notes about how all the songs meant something important I wanted her to know.
posted by shmegegge at 2:55 PM on April 28, 2010


Fortunately for me, when I (at age 16) wanted to express my unrequited love to a young lady, I had the good sense to pen a series of atrocious, painful to read to this day poems (which I called "songs" despite the fact that they were not set to music and I had no idea how they might be sung) and leave them anonymously in her mailbox at 2 in the morning. I later ruined the "anonymous" angle by compulsively asking her if she'd "gotten my songs." She graciously returned them and complimented me on them and we never said another word about it to each other.

Had the Interweb been invented when I was 16, I surely would have posted them directly on her Facebook wall (or written them as Facebook notes at tagged her) and one million people would have swiftly commented on the poor quality of my poetry - not to mention that fact that certain words can't even be forced to rhyme together no matter how you mentally mispronounce them to force the rhyme.

I used to think "kids these days have it easy." Now, thanks to the Interweb, I spent a lot of time thinking "kids these days don't know how easy we had it."

So, young U2 fan singing on a VHS tape, I salute you for your courage from (perhaps) a decade or two ago and acknowledge that, there but for the grace of God (and a pronounced lack of musical ability) go I.

Now excuse me while I go and erase the Monty Python inspired VHS "movies" I made when I was 17.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:58 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


Oh man, this is simultaneously amazing and uncomfortable to watch. What I want to know is how this video made it onto the Internet: did the kid ever give the tape to "Kelly"? If he did, did "Kelly" find it all this time later and decide to post it? Or did he never get the nerve to give it to her, then found his own tape years later and posted it in self-deprecation of his pathetic Jr. High self?

I hope he gave Kelly the tape and Kelly thought it was totally awesome and she totally let him get to second base.
posted by DecemberBoy at 2:59 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


Fortunately for me, when I (at age 16) wanted to express my unrequited love to a young lady, I had the good sense to pen a series of atrocious, painful to read to this day poems (which I called "songs" despite the fact that they were not set to music and I had no idea how they might be sung) and leave them anonymously in her mailbox at 2 in the morning. I later ruined the "anonymous" angle by compulsively asking her if she'd "gotten my songs." She graciously returned them and complimented me on them and we never said another word about it to each other.

Oh god. I once wrote poems about this girl that I was sure was "the one" and would send them to her, saying I just "ran across it online." Yeah. And this was during college. I did so much stupid shit back then. I'm sure twenty years (or 5 minutes) from now there'll be plenty of stuff I'm doing right now that I look back upon with regret.
posted by kmz at 3:03 PM on April 28, 2010


And yeah, everyone does shit like this. I once sang Husker Du's "Too Far Down" over the phone to some girl and pretended I wrote it when I was like 14.
posted by DecemberBoy at 3:05 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


If I made a video to girls in fifth grade it would be a warning that if they got too close I would punch them.
posted by digsrus at 3:07 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


And so I never did it, nor did I ever tape myself doing such a thing, and I can't even remember the girl's name now, but I have carried around this potent memory of that questionable romantic gesture and my internal debate about for the last 20+ years. I will probably carry it around for the rest of my life.

Try carrying around the same memory, only about Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)." That's me in high school.
posted by blucevalo at 3:08 PM on April 28, 2010


I once wooed a girl with Massona's excellent track "Like a Vagina". I put it on the stereo full blast and we ran around my house covering random objects with glitter glue, eventually she was naked and pressing glitter body prints into the walls.

I guess my point is the success of any given song for wooing someone is likely to be highly dependent on the chemistry between you and the relation of that song to that chemistry. There are no surefire formulas for sure. And make sure to get a glitter glue with a washable, water soluble glue.
posted by idiopath at 3:11 PM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]


What I want to know is how this video made it onto the Internet: did the kid ever give the tape to "Kelly"? If he did, did "Kelly" find it all this time later and decide to post it?

It's from Everything is Terrible. Dude scours thrift stores and flea markets for old VHS tapes, finds the really fucking weird ones, and edits together the best bits in a humorous way.
posted by ixohoxi at 3:12 PM on April 28, 2010


Fuck the haters.

I am that kid. But I am older now. I am, in fact, a stiffening middle aged man wondering how years speed by me despite my every effort to slow them down. Watching my daughter grow. Wondering what she thinks. And who she will turn into when I'm gone.

I hope she is like this kid. Willing to put herself our there. Willing to say something. Armed with innocence and passion against the inevitable mocking of the less brave. Because I know now that there is a short, fleeting time in life for this. When you aren't sure where you end and the rest of the world begins, and you find some connection to it...through song or image or dress. And that connection, that feeling that you are not alone in your emotion, makes you confident. Makes you resonate with adolescent spirit. And you are at your best and feel a power over your future. Until, inevitably, somebody senses that power...and crushes you. And infects you with a little of their insecurity.

And then you become different. You grow, but no branch grows from that pruned limb.

I for one am glad that the internet can take me back to those times, those feelings. Go ahead and mock the kid for being uninteresting. Or un-clever. Or for somehow managing to completely blow the dime-store trick of irony. It's what they did then. It's what they do now.

Thanks for the post. Long live the kids. Foreverr.
posted by nickjadlowe at 3:19 PM on April 28, 2010 [20 favorites]


I really wanted that video to end with him & Kelly's wedding picture.
posted by desjardins at 3:35 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


often used in romantic situations where it's obvious the people involved have never actually listened to the lyrics

Also R.E.M.'s "The One I Love."
posted by kirkaracha at 3:39 PM on April 28, 2010


And also Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."
posted by Prospero at 3:46 PM on April 28, 2010


Also, "No Woman No Cry"
posted by Nothing... and like it at 3:48 PM on April 28, 2010


Also "American Woman"
posted by Nothing... and like it at 3:48 PM on April 28, 2010


If you like this, you may like the based-on-reader-submissions Pathetic Geek Stories. Used to be a staple of The Onion AV Club along with Red Meat.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:51 PM on April 28, 2010


To try to retroactively make my story something other than bragging about a successful conquest: the real moral is you need to get the other person to be totally stupidly crushtastic with you. Being totally stupid crushtastic at someone out of the blue never has positive results.
posted by idiopath at 3:55 PM on April 28, 2010


Also: "Walking On The Moon"
posted by Splunge at 3:59 PM on April 28, 2010


Oops, I meant "Bed's Too Big Without You". But the other one is cool too.

::sigh::
posted by Splunge at 4:02 PM on April 28, 2010


I used to think "kids these days have it easy." Now, thanks to the Interweb, I spent a lot of time thinking "kids these days don't know how easy we had it."

Amen to that!
posted by small_ruminant at 4:05 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]




Damn, I hope my hopeless high school crush burned the letters I used to pen her on horrible dark stationary. Man, I'm sorry for being a total loser when it came to that stuff, L.

And as long as we're mentioning songs often classified as romantic but which are anything but, do I get to vote the intensely narcissistic "Wonderful Tonight" by Clapton as the worst of them all?
posted by maxwelton at 4:11 PM on April 28, 2010


He looks just like Lou Reed to me.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:23 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Man, I'm sorry for being a total loser when it came to that stuff

Anyone who isn't a horrible asshole is a horrible looser when it comes to that stuff.
posted by clarknova at 4:25 PM on April 28, 2010


Hi, my name is Splunge. I am a high school loser. I used to write long letters to my crushes and decorate them with multi-colored borders using Flare Pens.

I'll sit down now and listen. Where's the coffee and ashtrays?
posted by Splunge at 4:32 PM on April 28, 2010


I've been some variant of this, I'm sure, but even so, I kept waiting for "SURRENDER KELLY" to come up on his little Abyss screen there.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 4:33 PM on April 28, 2010


Ok, kid, here's some lady-type advice from me to you. There are some romantic situations in which you should ALWAYS be wearing both socks and shoes. And there are other romantic situations in which you should NEVER be wearing either socks or shoes. But if your intentions are amorous, you must never, ever, ever appear in your stocking feet.

Unless you're wooing a sock fetishist, I suppose.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 4:39 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've heard that humans have basically no impulse control before the age of 25. That sounds about right to me.
posted by rusty at 4:41 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Hi, my name is Splunge. I am a high school loser. I used to write long letters to my crushes and decorate them with multi-colored borders using Flare Pens.

Pssh, y'all were a bunch of losers. I asked out my first girlfriend on AIM. Let's just say she liked my away message, if you know what I'm sayin
posted by Think_Long at 4:47 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


You're saying she preferred it when you weren't available to talk?
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:56 PM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]


hmmm. . . I guess I am. What's wrong with me?
posted by Think_Long at 4:59 PM on April 28, 2010


WADDLES -- You said you wrote the song you played in assembly. ...

A) WTF? A youtube video with the volume control on the left? Why the hell would they start making the video controls different for different videos? How annoying.

B) Miles! This almost makes up for no Lost last night... Almost.
posted by inigo2 at 5:04 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Ahhhhh! I can't even watch this. You see, at my workplace, the receptionist has a phone that emits certain tones when certain things occur, e.g. when someone's been on hold for too long, when someone on hold hangs up, when someone calls in on a new line while a call is active, etc. One of the tones emitted sounds just like the opening note of "With or Without You," meaning that song permeates my headspace all day long.
posted by limeonaire at 5:19 PM on April 28, 2010


A youtube video with the volume control on the left? Why the hell would they start making the video controls different for different videos?

We're rolling out a new player UI and that's still in progress, so there may be temporary confusion (there are some videos it wont work on for a variety of reasons, all of which are temporary).

[Don't blame me. You can, however, blame me for the HTML5 player being pretty hosed. I'm working on it. Well, when I'm not on MeFi...]
posted by wildcrdj at 5:25 PM on April 28, 2010 [7 favorites]


Each typo was a little bit of drama - will he catch this one? How long before he discovers it?


I have a cousin, now a grandmother, who has been with her husband, Guy, since they were 12 years old. She is also an expert needleworker of all kinds. Sometime around when she was 13 or 14, she made him a quilt. She put some of the squares together in the wrong order, and it came out proclaiming, "I LOVE YOU YUG." For some reason this is one of those things that still makes me giggle every time I think of it, and it's been like 40 years or more. Good ol' Yug.
posted by not that girl at 5:50 PM on April 28, 2010 [12 favorites]


I knew a couple that got married, and got an engraved silverware set as a gift. Accidentally, their names were engraved as "Dave and Besty". I kind of fucked up by laughing when I saw that, we haven't been in touch since.
posted by idiopath at 5:54 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


The text gives me some vivid memories of our old 80's video camera (which was one of those that you had to plug into your VCR while recording, so you had a VCR in a shoulder strap AND a giant camera) and it's text/title input thing. Tiny keyboard on the side, under some random panel... typing out things like this... soooo slow. And you basically had to put everything down, otherwise you're holding a heavy camera, sideways, trying to type on it with the VCR slipping down your arm...
posted by wildcrdj at 5:55 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yug's surname isn't by any chance Suthuth, is it?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:56 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Try carrying around the same memory, only about Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)." That's me in high school.

Oh God, Phil Collins' raison d'etre is to encourage people to make questionable romantic gestures.

I know you dumped me but listening to "Throwing it All Away" will MAKE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND. *makes mix tape while sobbing uncontrollably*
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:27 PM on April 28, 2010


Flagged as unfair.
posted by DU at 6:49 PM on April 28, 2010


I remember that girl's name, cortex. And it was ninth grade, not fourth grade. And I - I mean you - were making her a cassette tape rambling about how much you wanted to be with her because you knew that would mean something really special to her when you finally were together.

Yep. You're clearly just not remembering correctly how it happened to you.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:34 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


rusty: "I've heard that humans have basically no impulse control before the age of 25. That sounds about right to me."

I got married for the second time at the age of 25. Yep. That's just right.
posted by Splunge at 8:11 PM on April 28, 2010


At some level I think I understood what a tremendous risk it would be to try something like that.

Kids these days will be so afraid of public, world-wide failure & subsequent humiliation that they won't try shit.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:08 PM on April 28, 2010


That was awesome.
posted by PHINC at 9:46 PM on April 28, 2010


songs like WOWY or "One" are often used in romantic situations where it's obvious the people involved have never actually listened to the lyrics.

Yeah... WOWY is actually a song discovering that someone you love and have a life with is having an affair and realizing that you have no way forward from this point. It's not a romantic song at all. It's about disappointment and longing and all manner of things dealing with love, but it's not really a love song, per se.

I think the most egregious example of this is when I went to a wedding some 25 years ago, and the big newlywed couple "first dance together" song, selected by the lovely pair themselves, was Meat Loaf's "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad."

I've never seen a wedding reception take on such a strange undercurrent so early in the festivities before.
posted by hippybear at 10:16 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


limeonaire: “Ahhhhh! I can't even watch this. You see, at my workplace, the receptionist has a phone that emits certain tones when certain things occur, e.g. when someone's been on hold for too long, when someone on hold hangs up, when someone calls in on a new line while a call is active, etc. One of the tones emitted sounds just like the opening note of "With or Without You," meaning that song permeates my headspace all day long.”

A propos of absolutely nothing: downtown here in Denver, the light rail train makes a little bing BING sound at all stops that intones exactly the same notes as that little pling PLING twang near the beginning of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I always expect to hear Kurt's rasp when the cars pull up to the station. And then I sit there wondering if that two-note riff is really as distinctive as I think it is, or if I'm just imagining things and nobody else hears it.
posted by koeselitz at 11:19 PM on April 28, 2010


The BART makes a noise on departure that's uncannily like the sustained guiter note in Blinded By The Light.
posted by breath at 11:53 PM on April 28, 2010


I thought Vimeo didn't allow this stuff. Especially not with the fat COLLEGE HUMOR WAS ALREADY TAKEN logo watermark goin' on.
posted by circular at 12:05 AM on April 29, 2010


kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly

even better with a link
posted by mmoncur at 1:22 AM on April 29, 2010 [2 favorites]


I sorta did this recently too, and it probably qualifies as being stupidly crushtastic at her, but I just had to do it. Why bottle it up, you know? I've never had such an easy time writing a song, and it's not that bad... at least not when compared to what I wrote ten years ago. Maybe MeFi Music will get a taste of it when I get around to recording it. Come to think of it, now that she's heard it, I don't know what better home for it.

Did it produce the desired result? She didn't jump into my lap, but I sure do feel better. So what I'm saying is, I feel you, kid. You had to do it, didn't you?
posted by randomyahoo at 1:55 AM on April 29, 2010


I haven't much to add to the discussion about the kid, so I'll address the derails instead!

songs like WOWY or "One" are often used in romantic situations where it's obvious the people involved have never actually listened to the lyrics.

I once saw somebody on a message board recommend "Whole Lotta Love" as a romantic song suitable for weddings. It could have been a troll, but I don't think so. It'd be pretty great to hear somebody preform it on a church organ (snicker) as a part of a wedding, though.

A propos of absolutely nothing: downtown here in Denver, the light rail train makes a little bing BING sound at all stops that intones exactly the same notes as that little pling PLING twang near the beginning of "Smells Like Teen Spirit ."

There's a subway stop here in Stockholm called Östermalmstorg where the northbound rails sing the opening to "Fool's Gold" every time a train approaches the platform. It's quite nice!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 3:48 AM on April 29, 2010 [1 favorite]


I remember some weird trend in middle school where all "couples" had a song. I remember one used WOWY, and another used "Don't Dream It's Over."

I had always thought it was a stupid choice, never having listened to or read the lyrics and thinking that the title was really Don't Dream, It's Over. Looking at the lyrics now, I see that the meaning was Don't Dream [i.e. predict that] It's Over [cuz it doesn't have to be].
posted by Pax at 10:17 AM on April 29, 2010


(you know, to the extent that 13 year olds have walls being built between them and won't let "them" win)
posted by Pax at 10:19 AM on April 29, 2010


What kind of video editor is this? I recognize that font from lots of old homemade and cheaply made videos.
posted by roll truck roll at 1:24 PM on April 29, 2010


hippybear: "It's not a romantic song at all. It's about disappointment and longing and all manner of things dealing with love, but it's not really a love song, per se."

The word romantic is in the process of changing meaning. It used to be that this was exceptionally "romantic" - that hardly anything was so romantic as despair and self doubt and the soul rending agony of betrayal. Somtimes this tragic state would even be considered more quintessentially romantic than infatuation and the magic of new attraction. But more and more romantic now means "happy and lovey".
posted by idiopath at 1:31 PM on April 29, 2010


I'm really weirded out by the fact that many mefites seem to hate this and are now driven to destroy videos that they made in their childhood. This video had the opposite effect on me. I don't see this as some sort of audition for the next big meme or something. How can you really criticize this as a video or speculate on what website it should or should not be uploaded to? I see this as a video made in earnest by a child who meant what they were saying at that time. I think it is a precious moment in that person's life, a window into the simplicity of life and love when you are young. It made me want to revisit my old videos, giving me insight into who I was as a child. At the very least this video is cute and mildly entertaining. It just happened to end up on the internet. That was not the purpose behind it.

Have you no sense of nostalgia?

PS- The fourth or fifth grade me would have been thrilled to death if someone ever made something like this for her.
posted by delicate_dahlias at 11:24 PM on April 29, 2010


Have you no sense of nostalgia?

I think it's more that nostalgia about this period dredges up significantly different feelings for different people, delicate_dahlias. I got out of childhood mostly unscathed, and have kind of a performative/expository bent these days, and so I'm neither put in any particularly foul mood by most of my memories of my younger self nor shy about putting them out there when I find some choice bit of evidence (and this has reminded me of an awful middle school video project I made that I think I have a VHS of, actually).

But some people are more likely, for any of a variety of legitimate reasons, to first and foremost cringe. Maybe they were extra foolish, or maybe they were really unlucky in how some of these situations played out, or maybe they had to deal with some seriously shitty context, or or or. Nostalgia-as-Wonder-Years is great and all but there's no guarantee that remembering something awkward from your childhood is going to be a warm fuzzy experience for everyone. It's complicated. Having a potent sense of nostalgia (and some sympathy for how a video like this could in some contexts make a kid's life hell) is precisely why reactions here have varied.
posted by cortex at 7:10 AM on April 30, 2010


it definitely reminds me of the times I tried to juggle that proverbial chainsaw,

And yea, that he who juggles chainsaws shall not be in my sight.

-Proverbs, 13:04
posted by shmegegge at 9:40 AM on April 30, 2010


and when the last scene of his life
flashed before him
the man looked back
at the footprints in the sand

and he noticed that
after a certain point
along the path of his life
there were only
one and a half sets of footprints

posted by cortex at 10:15 AM on April 30, 2010 [5 favorites]


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