Volkswagen have come up with a great new viral video campaign called “Fast Lane”. According to the company, “Fast Lane is dedicated to everyone who loves to go beyond the regular, who is curious for new stuff and who simply enjoys to speed it all up a little. FAST LANE – Driven by fun.”
Take a look at the following three videos – in each one a team modifies a humdrum regularity of our day-to-day life, all with the aim of making life a little bit faster and a bit more fun. Each video carries the slogan “Dedicated to everyone who enjoys speeding life up a little.”
First up – affixing skateboards to shopping trolleys…
Fast lane – The shopping carts:
Next, causing an elevator journey to make you feel a bit like an astronaut…
Fast lane – The elevator
And finally, making access to a Tube station that much more entertaining and speedy…
Fast lane – The slide
I think it’s a great concept, if purely for the fact that it would really perk up your day if you stumbled across this sort of thing! 10 points.
David Thorne, email prankster extraordinaire, was interviewed on Oprah this week. Okay, not really – someone has been playing around with video-editing software. I gonna guess David himself. But whatever, the thought was there.
Kinda random. Take a look:
So he has a book out, does he? That’s gonna be worth a look.
No idea who David Thorne is? Sigh…. click HERE for awesome.
Playboy’s new “safe for work”, i.e. no boobs (BOOOO!!!!!) site, the Smoking Jacket, recently decided to whip together what it deems to be the ultimate guy movie. Girls, guns, shit blowing up… you get the idea. Oh, and piranhas. You don’t wanna forget the piranhas.
Check it out:
Oscars for everyone! Can I get it in 3D please?
My one and only complaint: I saw a snippet of Twilight in there. How exactly did Twilight make it into Awesome: the movie? Sparkly vampires… I think not.
Some enterprising fella has gone to the trouble of compiling a nine minute clip to illustrate the awesomeness that is Mr Barney Stinson. It’s nine minutes that you need to take out of your day to appreciate the wonder and sheer comedic genius of this suit-obsessed high-fiving legend.
I swear I never tire of the genius Heineken adverts. In fact, I never tire of the ads for most of the beer companies in general. And it isn’t just down to my rather impressive fondness for the stuff, but rather that a number of the companies actually take the time to make decent advertisements. The same can obviously NOT be said for many other companies out there -- have you ever been forced to sit through the horror that is a health yoghurt commercial?
“Jirre Sannie, but your previously elephantine posterior can like to look maar moer klein these days.”
“Thanks daaaaaaahling, it’s all down to my eating nothing but these microscopic portions of yoghurt twice a day. Now with added E-coli!”
Well done. No-one cares.
Or my personal favourite: shampoo commercials. I swear these folks make ingredients up as they go along…
I are pragtig, but being pragtig means that my kuif gets the kak treated out of it. It’s apparently full of split-ends and dry and breaks easily and and and. Apparently okes don’t smaak that even remotely stukkend. (Not that any self-respecting guy would know a split-end if it lashed him across the bridge of his nose -- but apparently this stuff matters -- Ed). But never fear! I’ve discovered new and improved (so which one is it -- new OR improved -- you can’t have both? -- Ed) Oil of PanTimoSchwarzNier, because I reckon I’m worth it. It contains shiny nanoshit and extract of marsupial claw and chunks of avocado and amino acids fortified with vitamins from the lost city of Atlantis’s high priest’s breakfast scraps. Here’s hoping there’s some actual soaplike substance in there too.
Of course no whine about crappy (LOL -- wait for it…) advertising would be complete without at least a passing mention of certain cereals packed full of bran..
Random hottie struts around in spandex looking hot.
Random hottie then goes on to discuss crimping one off so regularly that you could set your watch to it.
Random hottie no longer so hot.
Which brings me back, in an extremely roundabout fashion, to the point of this post -- yet another rather amusing beer advert -- Heineken’s “Men with Talent” ad. Take a look:
A quick Google search for the top 10 most viewed Youtube videos of all time (as you do) revealed this pearler: the evolution of dance by Judson Laipply.
Apparently I’ve been living in a cave -- this video was posted in April 2006 and is now the third most watched video of all time on Youtube, with (at the time of writing) 147,416,530 views -- one of which was me. Finally. Coz I’m a little slow.
According to Judson’s website, mightaswelldance.com, this video has caused him to do rather well for himself. Here’s a snippet:
The popularity of the video has lead to appearances on popular TV shows including Oprah, The Today Show, 20/20, Ellen, BBC, Inside Edition, E!, Good Morning America. He has also been featured in Rolling Stone magazine and People magazine, among many others. In addition, he has also been in two music videos -- one for Bare Naked Ladies and one for Weezer, performed at halftime of the NBA finals, and continues to bring laughter into the lives of all those who watch it.
You need to see this (unless you’re one of the 147,416,529 people who already have). Watch the evolution of dance from the early 50s to the late 00s, all crammed into six minutes.
Despite the ever-so-slightly politically incorrect title of the song this post is about you need to see these two clowns performing their eloquent treffer “Big Booty Bitches”. This clip has done rather well for itself, and for good reason -- it’s hilarious. Of course when someone tells you that someone/something is hilarious you can generally be secure in the knowledge that it usually isn’t. In fact it’s usually rather shite.
Except when I tell you so.
Because I wouldn’t dream of lying to you…
I’m all about the truth.
Even if it’s inconvenient.
All together now:
Look into my eyes
Can’t you see they’re open wide
Would I lie to you baby??
Would I lie to you??…oh yeah
Don’t you know it’s true Girl Dear Reader there’s no-one else but you
Would I lie to you baby??
Would I lie to you??
Right ummm… cough cough let’s just agree to keep that between us, okay? I’m sorry, but it just needed to be put on record. For you to know.
oh yeah
And on with the music video. And I use the word video in the loosest possible sense.
Classic! Aren’t you just loving the lead guy’s vibe? (no Jeremy, Seth has NOT copyrighted the word.) He looks like he just moored his yacht and popped in for a bit of a sing-song.
Naturally this video went viral (are you even a little surprised?) and was therefore not far from the attention of Ray William Johnson, he of the =3 hit reviews (and by hit I mean an estimated 2.5 million views per viral video review). If you have no idea who I’m on about -- I didn’t either till being told about this one, so don’t feel too ashamed -- here’s some background info. According to his WikiTubia page:
He sprung into fame in 2009 when he started reviewing viral videos on Youtube. Users submit videos twice a week, and Ray will review each video adding his witty commentary. His show was entitled =3. On =3, Ray has helped popularize many internet memes such as “Communist Roll’d”, “Gingers Do Have Souls”, and the fact that “all women should be in the kitchen.”
Cue Ray…
Loving his work.
Although… he does kinda seem to have a face that’s just begging to be punched, not so? Sorry -- an unexpected side-effect of living in Pretoria: If you can’t braai it or tune it, you want to moer it.
— UPDATE: 14 June
This post’s title originally included the name of the song discussed in this post (Big Booty Bitches… Musical duo gets a little carried away…), but after checking the site out again it was pretty evident that the very first words a reader sees upon loading up Stu’s take on… were the first three. Probably not the best way to attract new readers, now is it? Might end up getting blocked all over the place by IT geeks who think this site is one of those websites…
Will probably also end up on the first page of some rather interesting Google searches. While I actively promote new readership, that might not be the best way to go about it.
Sweet! The new Castle Lite ad is out, and this time it features MC Hammer -- he of the insanely baggy pants and crazy dance moves. Following on from the rather successful Vanilla Ice ad, the campaign has evolved from one 90s rapper to another. Take a look:
Classic!
“You can’t touch this” -- now there’s a line I’ve heard quite a few times in my life…
So you know those custom voices you can load onto your GPS, right? Well, they don’t just magically appear out of nowhere, you know. They gotta be recorded at some stage. Really? Really.
And so, here’s a wee clip of the behind-the-scenes festivities at the TomTom GPS recording of the voice of Darth Vader for use on your magic-voice-box-that-gives-directions-but-you-ignore-it-so-get-lost-anyway-and-that’s-what-happens-when-you-think-you-know-better, otherwise known simply as a GPS. More of a mockumentary of sorts, or a really long advert… whatever you wish to call it, it is pretty amusing.
Fair enough. Custom voices. I can roll with that. What I do happen to find a bit weird is Nokia’s new system whereby you record your own voice for use on Nokia’s Ovi Maps. Would you really want to listen to yourself telling you where to go? That’s just odd. Besides, chances are you’ve got a spouse to order you around anyway.
I assume you lot have seen the legendary “Real Men of Genius” commercials over the last few years. And being in Pretoria while the ads only played in the USA is NO excuse to stare blankly and mumble “Huh?”. You can like to haff vat interwebs fing, therefore you should have at least heard of one or two, né?
Here’s a quick refresher in awesome. This one is about how men invented everything…
Stuff of legend!
Useless trivia for the day: the singy bits in these ads are crooned by David Bickler -- former lead singer of Survivor (you know: “Eye of the Tiger”, which featured in the Sylvester Stallone moerfest Rocky).
Anyhoo, back to the ads: naturally, there was (is?) an entire series of these pearlers, and Epic Carnival has valiantly put together a post of the 40 best ones. Who selected the 40? What’s makes these 40 better than another 40? No idea, but they’re well funny, so let’s not be difficult. Aiight?
