I’m delighted to impart to you the news that Tony Gallichan today posted what could can only be described as a audio blog pilot episode to compliment the community fansite www.staggeringstories.net.

Adam J. Purcell who maintains the Staggering Stories website explained the turn of events in his blog:

“So, he took it upon himself to do a solo podcast. Will this be a one-off? I doubt it, certainly this has pushed the idea forward quite a bit, even to the point where I’m willing to give it a go as part of a group Staggering Stories podcast.”

Despite being out of contact with Tony for a while I’m delighted he has taken this action as I believe his unique perspective on life will make worth while listening to an international audience.

I first met Tony when I was only 9 years old when he set up a Doctor Who fan club in Jersey. Only to have the whole thing ruined by the cancelation of the show in 1989.

Since then he moved to (creepy) Crawley and whilst remaining a steadfast fan and at one point even a fandom glitterati (should such a thing be possible) before diversifying into other subcultures. Never worried about public opinion and nearly always true to himself I’m proud to admit that he has informed my work.

Should he read this it’s also worth pointing that the he will no doubt be furious that I should write about him as being anything other than ‘just some guy’ - but that’s the way it goes with the public image.

Still in self exile from Jersey, Tony is very much as Jersey-man much like the saying “There’s nothing more English than an Englishman abroad”. Yet he is also a very much loved by those who surround him including but his many cats (I assume they’re still around - it was a few year ago since I checked).

I very much look forward to hearing what insights he has to share in the future - especially if, as is more than likely, they are littered with obscure references to Doctor Who.

As yet the podcast does not have an itunes ready rss feed but the audio file can be accessed here.

http://www.staggeringstories.net/audiopodcasts.html

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1. Gi Joe PSA - Computer

Without doubt the funniest video I’ve watched all week. Made as part of series of 26 similar films by Eric Fensler back in 2003 these viral videos are still just as funny as ever. This one stood out for me as being off my chair hilarious.

2. David Blaine’s Street Magic pt2

This one wins out in terms of performance alone. A brilliantly observed parody of Blaine who stares into the camera whenever something magical happens.

3. That Boy Needs Therapy, music video.

I’m getting really sick of Democracy player now and it’s stupid ways. One night it decided to download 50 files from a feed for no reason at all. It’s lost some of the videos I set to keep; deleted files are gone forever rather than sent to trash; it jumps out of full screen mode if it can’t play a file (very often) and it gives me the colour wheel far too much.

And I can’t find the video anywhere online. Maybe I dreamt it.

4. Space Adventure 14 - RCK Chain of Command

It has perhaps the worst production design I’ve seen for stuff like this and an equally uninspiring title but this hit or miss show really hit a home run for me this time round (GOAL!!!!). Perhaps the children who are clowns but don’t know it. I’ve no idea if the clown stuff was appropriated or new but the whole thing fitted together really well and is very funny.

5. I gave them [stuff]

The highest ranking youtube poop this week is again by Pikawil64 who I featured last week. Having watched many of these films now I’m counting myslef lucky that my way in was via one of the best.

6. Thread Heads 15

A pretty average episode of a quality show by worthy of inclusion in this chart for a second week for this quote alone: "Fuck fashion. Fuck the Fashion industry for perpetuating this need for newness amidst this huge surplus and fuck you for taking away our creativity. " Priceless - and a damn shame the guests and their view don’t match with those of the braindead show hosts.

7. Youtube Poop: The Quest for Gannon’s Dinner

The brilliant Tim Drage (from Spite Your Face) turns up as a bone fide pooper (and before me - the swine) - to prove that once again he’s on the pulse of what is too cool for school. Apart from introducing me to circuit bending he also was the first person to tell me abou the wonders of After Effects. This was many many years ago when AE was on version 4 and I’d just bought my first computer! His poops are amoung the best - natch.

8. Hotel Mario Intro (Nouns replaced with explosions)

Well let’s not forget I’ve been building a YTP website all week so it makes sense that a good few of them oud turn up here.

9. MAMA LUIGI IS A NUCLEAR WEAPON

Perhaps the most aggressive youtube Poop I’ve seen thus far. Luigi exploding is especially effective and somewhat chilling.

10. Dr. Bill - Netcast 10

And here in the covered ‘vlog-crime’ spot is a rather sweet man with a big beard and one of those hidious headset microphnes. Here’s clearly a little bored and one wonders why he’s posting at all - but then that the problem - if you don’t post then you piss off your auidnce for not being consistant. Stupid!

I’d also recommend you listen to this to further understand the nature of the problem. It’s a brilliantly articulated critique of the quaintness of home brew media such as Dr. Bill here. Another example of the consistently brilliant Fabrications

 

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Following previous post about youtube poops I’ve done a lot more research on the matter and discovered a number of things.

It seems that someone who uses the internet handle of SuperYoshi was the first to post what he thought was just a meshed up cartoon mash up that would annoy some of viewers on youtube. It was based on a Mario brothers cartoon and was called I’d Say He’s Hot on Our Tail.

Prior to that there had been a fad (or meme) called over 9000 which (I believe) had used Dragon Ball Z cartoon footage and mashed that up too, often repeating footage and sequences for comic effect. So it made sense that SuperYoshi would want avoid meme status for his work - or worse still derivative mini-meme status.

So he just called his stuff cartoon mash-ups. If this were the 80s then no doubt he call them scratch vids

But others were quick to notice certain hallmarks that made these films stand out. Let’s not forget that youtube uses a system of video reponses, something I think has had a massive impact. Rather than allowing these films to live in isolation a user (I’m always careful when using the world artist) riffs upon a previous film - or even samples it, building upon a joke like variations on a theme. Much like he way bloggers with put their own spin on the same news stories so too have these users spun out the same footage in incredible new ways. A poster called Yamino offhanded referred to these new films as poops. And it somehow that name caught on.

The thing about youtube poops is there are actually quite hard to define. As soon as you identify a hallmark you’ll watch a new one that doesn’t have it yet is without doubt still a poop. The use of Mario Hotel or Zelda Cd-i footage for example, born out of nessessity is so common now that it’s quite brave to not use it at all.

That article I mentioned last time also had some very interesting comments. Things like “Poops also foreground the narcissism of new media connoisseurship and its associated literacy.” and from none oter than Tim Drage “A more apt musical analogy for poops really is Noisecore (actual noisecore, not any of the 100s of genres of music that get randomly labelled so by lazy journalists) in that the aim, when it comes down to it, is to make something absurdly terrible, with no conventional talent, bad sound, zero production values, and to do it again and again and again.”

And there’s the explosions and fast cutting and a hell of lot of repetition too. And the whole thing is definitely very lo-fi. They are in fact - technically - quite shit - and maybe that’s why they are so very funny. I would imagine a ‘pooper’ would advise not worrying about “What makes it a real poop” and instead recommend making intuitive choices regardless of what has been - but then I might miss who it was who coined the phrase “Where There’s Smoke They Pinch Back” which has became something of a mantra.

So I made one myself - and here it is:

I think it’s a true to the form whilst still being true to me - it’s got Mario and violent repetition but also contains the faces and clips that resonate with me personally. It has also got a resonably clear message yet is funny and annoying. It’s the things I’ve seen on youtube - absorbed and shat out again.

But whilst I’m just a beginner I’m also a fan so - like any other switched on new media person - I registered the domain name youtubepoops.com and I’m in the process of building a database and forum.

The trouble with youtube of course being that things can be really hard to find - what with general search and also tags plus lots of other media that just get in the way it’s been hard to even find poops I’ve not seen already or know when they were posted or by whom. So after looking round I installed a CMS called Drupal - which is like wordpress on steroids and I’m going though the slow process of tweaking it all and adding in the data.

It’s not something that I’d even consider monetising but rather takes more seriously the work of an increasing number of film makers (or whatever they want to call themselves) and hopefully will get more people to see these incredible films. I hope to that it will encourage more people to make them as I think poops are a very good way to cut ones teeth one when starting out with video editing. I think though that really depends on whether the genre can evolve beyond Mario or Zelda.

I’ll let know you when the site goes up properly but email if you want in early!

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