Written by Shaun Clayton

Ah, YouTube. One of the three most popular websites in the world, and probably the most dangerous, since the only thing you can do on YouTube is waste time by watching videos, and although some people like to waster other people’s times by uploading said videos. Sure, YouTube is a great place to watch old commercials, illegal anime, videogame tricks, illegal TV shows, trailers, illegal cartoons and raps about robotic cops fighting Dick Jones, but those good things are actually just a very small portion of YouTube’s library of content. Actually, 90% of YouTube’s several million videos can easily be put into 10 distinct categories, and shockingly, none of the above are included.

10) The Internet Craze Du Jour

It appears to be if you do something in public that people would consider completely insane, but instead put it on YouTube, you become this Internet sensation. For example, you see some blonde crying man on the street screaming to “Leave Britney Alone!” Then you would probably cross the street immediately to get away from them. Yet, on You Tube, this man is an Internet star. If you see a kid on the street flailing around with a light saber, you would think he might be having a seizure. Yet, on You Tube, this kid is a sensation. See a man cover himself with chocolate syrup and sing…you get the idea. Sadly, this is what our technology has delivered. Not flying cars, but the democratization of video broadcasting, and the people have spoken with a retarded clapping and clicking of mice, long may we be punished for it.

9) Rednecks Blowing Up Shit

Most people would not think it is a good idea to put several pounds of TNT into an old car and set it off while being within range of jagged metal shards. Yet, for people living where even Google maps doesn’t go, this is not just a good idea, but quality entertainment and must be shown to the world. ust a casual search through YouTube, one can see such quality programming as “Shooting a Full Propane Tank with a Shotgun” and “Blowing Up a Hornet Nest with An M-80.” While these videos may be entertaining for the many very predictable mishaps that occur, one should realize with sorrow that in watching these videos you are probably watching the true face of America.

8) Insane 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Never mind the thousands of eyewitness accounts of the attacks, or the thousands of people dead or injured, or the scientific analysis of the attacks done by experts! There are people on You Tube and abroud stills of video footage that clearly show that the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, were done by CIA agents who planted explosives in the twin towers while news agencies faked video footage and thousands of actors pretended to have relatives who died while space aliens worked with big oil to start a war in Iraq to capture the power of ancient ley lines that unleash the power of the Yeti! Clearly the Bush administration is not full of incompetent morons who can barely drink their way out of tough situations, but in reality full of evil super geniuses who can pull of the greatest conspiracy of the history of mankind and laugh about it from their lair atop Mount Skull! I think if a YouTube video did reveal the truth about a huge nefarious conspiracy, then the fabric of reality will break down, cats will chase apes, and the universe will explode in a shower of wooden buffalo nickels.

7) Fake Snuff Films

It’s one thing to want to search YouTube for snuff films. It is another thing entirely to come across something that is the lamest excuse for a snuff film that you can possibly imagine. If I can put a pair of pants next to a pair of shoes sticking out of a couch and say “Oh no! The couch just ate someone!” I will reflexively punch myself for being so stupid. If I further film this effort and put it on YouTube with the title of “MAN EATEN BY COUCH!II” Part of my brain will attempt to shut down in an effort to kill me. Other people apparently don’t have that higher brain function. These people post footage of a shirt with ground beef in it with the title “MANS HEAD EXPLODE!!!” They also post videos in which a generic explosion generated from a pirated copy of After Effects is so cool they have to make their friends blow up over and over again. Somewhere a time machine is being built to stop the invention of filmmaking.

6) Video Blogs of People Who Should Not Be Allowed to Make Video Blogs

Everyone wants to talk about him or herself, everyone wants to be liked, but very very very very few people have lives that are interesting enough for other people to want to sit through and want to listen to them talk about. Yet, YouTube is filled with videos, video blogs, “vlogs” or “eeeccchhh” where people with uninteresting lives talk about them as if someone is watching, intently, with interest, possibly taking notes to record these moments down in human history. Search through the darkness YouTube and you will see these stories of human tragedy played out over and over again as lonely individuals stare into their webcams, blather into them, and provide solid evidence for the validity of assisted suicide.

5) Star Wars Re-Edited With Star Trek Footage

Man, what is better than reading fanfic? Perhaps it’s seeing someone’s wet dream of the U.S.S. Enterprise fighting a Star Destroyer come to life by badly editing together footage from Return of the Jedi and “A Balance of Terror!” Never mind that almost nobody (other than TR readers) gives a damn, this person took the time and effort to put mismatched footage together in ways that crap on all the laws of aesthetics. Lasers and photon torpedoes are firing haphazardly as ships are flying at opposing angles in clearly different places in their respective universe. Awkward dialogue between actors transpires that if it were between two actual people, you would think that someone had suffered a stroke, and that someone was you. Admittedly, there are a few good ones, but overall, it’s yet another example as to why Apple is going to Hell for inventing iMovie.

4) Horrible Skateboarding Accidents

See as someone takes their skateboard to ride the handrail of a flight of stairs only to fall on their manhood, fall sideways, and crack their skull open. See then as someone asks the stupid question of “Dude, are you all right?” When clearly that question should have been asked before the skateboarder said “Watch this!” before he rode four feet above the hard concrete stairs on the board bought with the best money a minimum wage fast food job can buy, without a helmet, kneepads, or cup. See further footage of other people falling onto concrete played in slow motion so you can see the moment the compound fracture occurs and the orthopedic surgeon makes six figures. The most impressive part about these videos is that someone who is supposedly the friend of these injured people not only filmed their horrible accident, but put it up where anyone could see it. Now, that’s a friend for sure.

3) Crappy Bands‘ Crappy Videos

What’s that grainy, shaky footage? Is it hard-hitting investigative journalism of a Senator doing cocaine in Lincoln Bedroom? No, it’s footage of a band that sounds exactly like every band you hear on the radio except the drummer has no rhythm, the guitarists fumble through chords like they spent too much time playing Guitar Hero, and the lead singer screeches like a rake dragged across a rusty piece of sheet metal. All picked up by a crappy microphone with a crappy image on a crappy phone/video camera from 1992. The text for the video will tell you how awesome the band is as they play Slipknot covers at a bar that looks like it should be closed down for fifteen fire code violations to an audience of five people with collective intelligence of one cat. The only enjoyable part of this cinema crapburger is trying to guess which band members will become bitter middle-aged furniture salesmen, bitter middle-aged sociology professors, or dead of a heroin overdose.

2) A Teenage Girl Who Only Gets So Many Views Because Perverts Masturbate To Her

Is there not enough porn on the Internet for some people? Horrifyingly, no! You will see a video of a cute teenage girl. The video itself contains almost nothing of relevance. The girl will talk about her day of going around and looking at trees, then maybe have a video of her running around a park in fairy wings. There’s no great artistic expression, no deep narrative, nothing. There’s a sad tragedy to this, with a girl just wanting to be liked, but being liked mostly by people that if she met them in real life, she would spend the rest of her life trying to erase the darkness that fell upon her like the Marquis De Sade at a nudist colony.

1) Air Show Disasters Edited to Metallica Songs

A Russian Jet Fighter slams into a crowd of people at an air show. There is screaming, there is carnage, there is chaos. A horrifying accident captured on video. I think we can all agree nothing accuratelys capture the human drama of this moment than the soundtrack of Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” Yes, on YouTube, plane crashes and Metallica go together like peanut butter and jelly. The fast moving crushing metal of a B-52 slamming nose-first into the tarmac along with the fast crushing metal of “One.” Never mind that five people just died in a horrible accident; that’s just part of the ROCKING. Expect also to see biplanes torn apart as they collide in mid-air to “Enter Sandman,” and a passenger jet pin wheeling across the ocean to “Nothing Else Matters,” in this artistic expression of akin to a teenager shouting “Hulk Smash” before throwing a glass bottle on the concrete outside a convenience store.