07/27/1978
Although I’ve written about how i feel the Internet has changed over the past years, there are still these glimmering moments of brilliance that outshines a lot of the negative self-centeredness we have today. FatalFarm’s “Lasagnacat” is one of them. A series of weird videos published in 2008, exploring the digital tropes of the time only to go into a long hibernation. 9 years later, LasagnaCat reappears on the internet with an array of new videos, all published in a Netflix-esque fashion by dumping them all online in an instant. Of all these videos, there is one that sticks out above the pack of videos. 07/27/1978 starts out in the classic LasagnaCat format, starting with a reenactment of a Garfield strip followed by a capture of the original strip for comparison. After the sketch has ended, LasagnaCat provides their own commentary on the strip and in this video the commentary is a 1 hour long monologue read back by John Blyth Barrymore. The 1 hour monologue, cut to show a one-take shot is backed by a fantastic production value with a nonsensical, yet intriguing script set to the “Kundun” score by Philip Glass.
This is the perfect embodiment of internet mashup culture unlike what I’ve seen before. A deadpan commitment to the joke, creating the impression that the creators are serious about the intent of the video. In a world of short form video, episodic content striving to hit the magic barrier of 10 minutes to meet YouTube’s ad density requirement this video goes against all the established formats to provide one hour of monotone, yet unique and well produced content. It’s hard to actually recommend this video, as the enjoyment i got from the video didn’t come from the video itself. Rather the gratification this video delivers is the meta commentary on what i believe is the authors opinions on the state of YouTube in general.