The Internet is Wonderful

Because this doesn't work anywhere else.  You can already envision the seven-minute opening SNL sketch, can't you?  Now, at which minute do you think the joke would play itself out, with or without Darrell Hammond's Clinton?  Even The Daily Show and Colbert--usually excelling at these little bits of cleverness regarding fleeting moments--would have to sandwich it between a bunch of other jokes that all have a slightly better than even chance of working and you may or may not remember it the next morning.

But on here, a simple--if hilarious--image and some clear text to amplify it and you have a runaway hit built for the gypsy moth-memory news cycle.  In three weeks, the Secret Service scandal, like the GSA spending thing, will be played out.  Boring.  Even George Zimmerman isn't getting the time he used to and he killed a guy.  Some will try to keep it going longer, and attempt to tie the scandals to Obama (who might have the best facepalm in national politics).  But these seem unlikely to stick, at least to him.  The man's untouchablility in and of itself is probably worth a post, but this election has another six and a half months to go (yes, really) and hell if I feel like talking politics tonight.  So when Republicans realize this ain't good election fodder, they'll move onto the next stupid thing. 

This is why we have moments like the above image.  Everyone has their one guffaw at this perfect moment and we move on, quietly awaiting the next.  When events and technology move as fast as they do today, our cultural moments have to happen just as quickly.  The Hunger Games movie's monster opening weekend was just a few weeks back and we're all already getting hard over The Avengers' release in a couple of weeks.  After that, it'll be The Dark Knight Rises and then The Hobbit and then Christmas will be in there, maybe.*  Texts From Hillary worked because of that one picture someone happened to snap and then it ended with a perfect crescendo; it lasted one week and was never allowed to get stale.  Twitter allows a few brilliant snippets and insights to flourish for all the world to see for a brief period of time; thoughts that would've been said aloud to the family dog and then dying before hitting the floor.  YouTube brings sneezing pandas and other cultural icons into our homes at speeds that would terrify previous generations, moving on before the next meme hits.  Tumblr gives us glimpses into bizarre trends from a half a world away that we'd never have gotten--or cared about--in the prior media age. 

Most of you are probably thinking that these outlets also highlight some of the worst of humanity.  Well, yes.  You don't have to tell me.  Lolcatz, Lemon Party, Newsmax.  None of that shit would have been allowed to infect people's eyeballs once upon a time.  And, yes, I'm aware that this cultural ADD and increased openness is also responsible for all that makes the Internet terrible, as well as wonderful.  And the loss of artistic and cultural permanence in all of this is something I may have a small stake in, myself.  That same wit I was just praising won't be remembered the way (is Oscar Wilde too obvious?) Oscar Wilde still is a century after his death.  So there'll be plenty more posts on that in the future.  For balance.

But for now, let's bask in one of those great little moments the Tubes occasionally deign to allow us.  Heh, Clinton. 

*For those who know me, yes, I'm already excited for The Dark Knight Rises and will be well into the winter movie season and likely long after.  But that's more of a chronic Batman fetish on my part and not to be confused with our larger cultural fickleness.