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YouTube Fuckhead of the Week
by Doom
guest starring Michael Richards
Week 25: More fucking something or other
Another week, another piece of YouTube shit to scoop up and try to make something vaguely amusing of. I've dropped all pretense of going for some sort of theme or point with these things - at least for right now - and would rather just make fun of ridiculous shit I hate. Hence this week and last music videos are the subject, regardless of their present relevance or irrelevance. For Week 25 of the increasingly tired YouTube Fuckhead of the Week feature I chose a video by none other than hip hop's event horizon, Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy is an interesting character insofar as I still am agnostic as to whether he really exists. He could be marketing scheme, he could be video hallucination; I don't know. I do know Brian O'Blivion was Mr. Collipark's first victim and I need to kill the people at Spectacular Audio with my flesh gun before it's too late. Sound insane? You bet I do. But you'll understand the insanity once you glimpse upon the video for one of his "songs". I warn you: this is not for the faint of heart. Women and children, look away if possible. Let the professionals handle this.
I like how each of Soulja Boy's video tries to tell a story with a concrete moral lesson, or at the very least each deals with a moral issue. Like Kieślowski's Decalogue. (This is the first and last time Soulja Boy will ever be compared to Kieślowski. I'll accept any awards you thrust upon me for that.) In this case, Soulja Boy learns the consequences of shirking his duties as a student. Or something like that. Within a minute the entire thing becomes a drug trip, though, as the video game Soulja Boy (the video game he and Arab are playing looks to be some absurd ClayFighter ripoff starring Soulja as a besieged gremlin fighting haters) leaves the video world and becomes a being able to interact in the real world. No one gives an explanation for the character, nor does anyone seem freaked out by the thing existing as such. They only react when he jumps around in their face. And who wouldn't react to anybody doing that?
The intriguing method of "Yahhh trick yahhh!" or however you want to spell it seems to me to be a defense mechanism designed to shield the two boys from responsibilities and human contact other than each other. A nod to Heavenly Creatures, perhaps, in which two children construct a private fantasy world to escape the harshness of reality and, when the world is intruded upon, resort to drastic measures to hermetically seal their fantasy once again? Eh, probably not. Arrogance appears the more likely of explanations; Soulja and Arab (pronounced "Ay-rab" in true black tolerance of other cultures and ethnicities) believe themselves megastars who receive innumerable autograph requests from people of several different types, including an apparent American Gladiator Ron Perlman, white women, a mailman and a horrible Jewish stereotype of an educator. Now, my social circle tends to skew towards the burnout wastoid demographic, so I'm unaware of the popularity of this music. But I really doubt he's being swarmed by middle aged white people no matter where he goes, unless they intend on lynching Ay-rab and sticking a fucking fork up his ass.
The lesson I spoke of earlier comes into play deceptively. For the first several minutes one might think the video about the invasion of privacy and Soulja Boy and Arab's desire for individual liberty and perhaps the ability to shoot people on their property. Then in the last half Soulja Boy and Collipark flip the script, change the video's setting, and show what his actions led to, apparently: despite his teacher talking up how cool he is, Soulja still receives straight F's. He understands the quandary he's in and has lowered his expectations accordingly, imploring the teacher to replace the F's with D's. Not only do we learn the consequences of flagrant truancy, we learn not to hold expectations far beyond the realm of possibility. Of course, the video ends on a fourth wall breaking note as Soulja Boy claims he did in fact get A's, and kids ought to stay in school as well as listen to the album souljaboytellem.com. Promotion and advice at the same time! Brilliant!
Listening to the music, one does get the feeling the universe conspires against quality and does whatever it takes to ensure flotsam floats to the top of popular taste. As I've said before in the review for the album, Soulja Boy barely qualifies as music. Half of his songs cannibalize his other songs for beats and lyrics, like Russian nesting dolls in which one big song gets broken down into more and more specific songs until it's something like "Pass it to Arab". The repetitive beat for "Yahhh!" disgraces professional beatmakers like Madlib, RJD2, DJ Shadow, the great corpse J Dilla and the like with the utter simplicity and inanity. Yet in the end, does it matter? Does the bareness of the music matter to any significant degree? I don't think so. People listen to Soulja for his philosophical insights and his in-your-face intensity, not for things like "music quality" or "lyrical flow" or "lyrics at all". Better yet, I compare Soulja Boy to a hurricane. No one really likes hurricanes, but the experience will happen to some people, like it or not. The level of devastation resulting from the two also compares admirably.
For a more, uh, colorful perspective, I turn to resident incidental racist Michael Richards for his conception of the video and Soulja Boy as a whole. Take it away, Michael.
He's a nigger, Jerry! He's a nigger he's a nigger he's a nigger he's a nigger he's a nigger! A NIGGER! Uh, um, excuse me for that outburst. It happens a lot. I don't know why it happens, or what came over me, but it does occur with some frequency. Anyway. Soulja Boy represents the downfall of our civilization. This nigger - I mean, this guy - gets to sell lots of records while the Michael Richards Show is cancelled before a full season? I mean, to paraphrase Jerry, what's up with that? He's 20 years old and yet far more popular than I am. When I do get recognized, it's never as Kramer or stand-up comedian Michael Richards, it's "hey, the guy who called black people niggers!". I-I deserve fame a lot more than this n-word does. Look at him! He doesn't do homework, he's disrespectful towards others, he's loud and he constantly shills himself! That's not art, it's advertising! Bad advertising at that! I don't think we ought to be rewarding these niggers with fame. Yeah, I said it, Jerry. It's appropriate in this context, Jerry! It is!
Thanks. Your hood should be back from the drycleaners any minute now.
I want the record to show I consumed no substances during the writing of this article except for a cup of Instant Coffee. No alcohol, no illicit drugs, no prescription painkillers, no glue, no eye glass cleaner, no mouthwash, no lighter fluid, nothing that could ever possibly give me a sort of high or a low. Just coffee. Shitty, shitty coffee. This is significant because through the eyes of sobriety the video is still fucking terrifying. I shudder to think of a substance-flecked viewing of Soulja Boy's Videodrome signal. My guess? Complete brain annihilation. Just uncontrollable tumor growth until Barry Convex happens.
See? Therefore, the Daily Raider advises you not to drink, smoke, snort, pop or inject in the general vicinity of "Yahhh!/Report Card". Your sanity depends on you not taking the action.