Life

Awkward Man Literally Dances Like No One's Watches

by Jessica Blankenship

I no longer trust anyone on the Internet. There was a simple time, long ago, when I would see a video of a young man dancing with abandon alone in a secluded wood, and think, "Look at him go! He's dancing like no one is watching, and it's funny because we are watching! Woo, boy, I bet he never expected anyone to see this!" And that would be the core of the humor of this video – that it was never meant to be seen by the public. Which, yes, now that I think about it, does bring up some moral questions, but we weren't really having those conversations back in the early, innocent days of the internet when "found videos" could generally be counted on to be honestly "found". But now, whenever I see a video like this, I immediately assume that it was entirely conceived and filmed for the sole purpose of ending up on the internet. We're the Culture Of Likes now; we're all, to some degree, only motivated to do cool/weird/funny things in our real lives in the hopes of possibly going viral online. I JUST WANT TO SEE SOMEONE DO SOMETHING ACTUALLY EMBARRASSING, NOT FAKE EMBARRASSING FOR THE SAKE OF A YOUTUBE VIDEO.

I'm going to try to believe that this spritely young buck is shaking it out in the woods for himself and himself only. I want to go back to a time when that actually happened. I'm going to close my eyes, cross my fingers, and pray to the Angel Steve Jobs that this guy didn't tell his friends that day, "Yeah, I'm going to the woods to make some dumb video to make me internet famous." Don't make me regret giving you this attention, sir. Don't make fools of us all. We're counting on you to have danced this dance with sincerity and integrity.

Image: YouTube