The Internet picked up where shows like America’s Funniest Home Videos left off, in the wide world of recorded fails. It’s always amazing to me that a) someone caught the fail on video in the first place, and b) that they then shared it widely with the world. But they did and they do, and we can watch and enjoy from there.
Thanks to the Fine Brothers, there are two types of fail video memes that I’ve seen lately, and which I thoroughly enjoy. They end up a little different from each other, but also pretty similar, so let’s give them both a look.
Shooting Stars
These tend to be fails although I suppose they don’t have to be. Basically, an awkward pose or movement is captured from a video, turned into a repeating .gif, and sent hurtling across all of time and space. Often into what looks like the quantum space from like Ant-Man or Doctor Strange, as well.
And always with that same song (which I believe is called “Shooting Stars” so there you go).
The way that this meme tends to be framed is you get to see the start of a video, see the move that becomes the shooting star – you odyssey across creation – and then you return to the original video to generally find out that it was a fail video, and someone gets hurt or something funny happened.
Because it’s the same music, and often the same backdrops, I don’t find this one to be a super re-watchable sort of meme. It’s amusing, it has a good setup, but once you’ve seen a few you’re set.
If you’d like a recommendation, I really like this one.
To Be Continued
It’s To Be Continued memes for the first half of this video.
Again, these tend to be fails, but even moreso don’t have to be – in particular, the compilation that they watched in this video wasn’t as many fails. Basically, this meme shows the start of a video, up to either a funny moment or, more commonly, something just starting to go horribly wrong – and it freeze frames and cuts to the “To Be Continued.”
And always with the same song (and graphic). Though to be fair, it’s for a much shorter time than for the Shooting Stars meme. The song is longer than is normally used, so sometimes with longer videos I’ve seen them start to play the earlier bit of the song, as you build up anticipation to the moment when it freeze-frames.
Although I’ve seen a couple where they do, almost none of these videos show you what happens next. And I actually find this some of the charm of these videos – they leave it to your imagination to fill in the rest. The React channel has been showing some challenges lately where you try not to move, because you want to flinch or look away. Some of these To Be Continued videos might be of the same sort, except that the potentially worst part happens after the freeze-frame.
I’m okay with not seeing the limbs break, or the final hit as someone crashes, or whatever awful thing happens – however, the leadup to things going wrong? Turns out, I enjoy watching that. And maybe you will as well. I’ve found this meme to be much more watchable, and may have binged quite a few compilations of these videos…
Which meme do you prefer? Is there another fail video meme that you like? Let us know in the comments below!
Long title, but it’s a bit of a complex idea… when you review or talk about someone and their work online, do you expect it to be seen? Say, like in this video?
Teens react to Linkin Park reacts to Teen React to Linkin Park!
The Fine Brothers have a few times now had the subjects of their React videos watch the React video… taking it next level to getting those original reactors to watch the reaction is just so meta.
But there’s also the attitude that the teens really never expected anything they said to be heard by Linkin Park. And really, that seems reasonable. There’s so many people saying so many things online, every day. Being found by interested readers or viewers is hard – think of every YouTube video you’ve ever seen where they ask you to like and subscribe to their channel. You’ve found them, and they don’t want to lose you.
Being noticed by the people you’re reviewing? It’s rare.
We’ve had it happen at times, with our site. Elliott Morgan did. Focus Features shared our review of The World’s End, that was cool. But other things we’ve done that seemed like they should get notice – say, using a hashtag – end up going unnoticed. You just never know.
So I get it – the teens thinking they could speak without the thought that they would be seen by the subject. Not just in this case, but really, all of the reactors in all of the react videos. Every once in a while, they’ll ask them a question like “if you could talk directly to” the subject of the video. But still, without the thought that they would actually see it.
Let me turn the question around to you, dear readers: when you’re putting your thoughts and opinions out online, do you do so thinking that the subject of your comments will see them? That your positive reviews might elicit joy in them? Your negative ones elicit defensiveness? In your social media, in your blog posts, in your YouTube videos and all the rest. What do you think?
So challenges on YouTube are definitely a thing. For one thing, they can definitely go viral – and once they do, they seem like a way to ride the wave, and to get your video seen along with the others. After a certain threshold of people doing it, it then seems like others need to do it or get left out – so it spreads more.
The best and most known challenge of all was the Ice Bucket Challenge, and there are still several elements of that which are above and beyond anything you see with other challenges. In particular, the charity aspect and the challenging someone else to do it next aspect. Those two aspects, however, drew in big name celebrities to get involved.
I think challenges after that have been just trying to strike gold again, to be a “thing” like the Ice Bucket Challenge was. But it hasn’t happened. That, or they’re just a way to do something crazy…
So, there’s doing a challenge to see if it takes off. There’s doing a challenge because it has gone viral. But then… there’s doing challenges because challenges are a thing being done. Enter: Challenge Chalice.
Fine Brothers Entertainment is no stranger to challenges, with plenty of videos of people reacting to challenges and trends, and then some challenges of their own – like their laugh challenges. But here’s a show just doing whatever challenge because: challenge. It’s been amusing so far! Hope you enjoy.
We’ve been catching up on things and getting life sorted back out now that we’re back from traveling, and some of that has included catching up on our YouTube Channels. Many of them were on hiatus while we were traveling, but some just keep chugging along. One of these is the Fine Brothers’ React channel.
We’ve mentioned the React channel before, and in many ways I think it’s ended up with more of the shows we end up watching from them than their main channel – all the various “X Reacts” shows (on the Fine Brothers Entertainment channel) are great, but we tend to only watch ones where we know what they are reacting to. But there are whole series on the React channel where we watch every one.
So here’s another of those: the “Do they know it?” videos, where they take a group and see if they recognize pop culture. Generally, it’s the youngin’s and they make us feel old by not knowing 80’s culture, or worse, not knowing 90’s culture.
Comparative Geeks 