...Wins The Internet!

A VIDEO

Remember the 80s? Of course you do. Or at least the parts that have been carefully curated by American Apparel and filtered through an Instagram lens to become a synthtastic vision exclusively populated by Debbie Harry. I’m personally still waiting for Vogue to address this historical imbalance and let Chris de Burgh guest edit a Lady in Red issue with Valentino. I was born in the 80s and all that’s left of this decade are overpriced pongy polyester dresses in Dalston vintage boutiques. Thank God for YouTube then, finest provider of kittens and a premium destination for trolls since 2005, which has now also become a repository for our collective memory and a proud pioneer in the WTF branch of history. Like the following video, a glittery ball of lycra lunacy that combines disco dancing, rudimentary rap and karate. Obviously excited by the discovery that teenage turtles can do karate (and eat pizza) this video takes it to its illogical literal conclusion. This video is not so much jumping the shark as creating the whole new discipline of shark parkour. You’ve been warned.

A VIDEO

On The Twitter, there’s a hashtag “trending”* at the moment called ##Dear14yrOldSelf. The premise is simple - you tweet something that you would tell your 14 year old self. As I was huffing and puffing on the cross-trainer at my gym today, I suddenly thought to myself “#Dear14yearOldSelf Exercise more before you leave school”. Well, that’s not quite right - if you try to imagine yourself saying a hashtag, you go a bit cross-eyed and it comes out a bit wrong, like you’re sending a telegram. More precisely, I thought - “this surely would have been easier if I’d spent more time actually running, rather than mashing the keys on “Daley Thompson’s Decathlon”.

Anyway, peeling myself off the floor after a particularly vigorous lunge, I returned home to see the other extreme - a baby sat on a table-tennis table, while his over-bearing father FORCES him to take up sport. Honestly. Some people, living out their failed sporting dreams. But this? Really. He should be ASHAMED.

A VIDEO

You think of Finland, you think of the 3 Ms: Moomins, moose and mobiles. Now you can add a fourth M to this fine collection: Memes! In 2006, Armi and Danny’s 1978 ode to steaks “I Wanna Love You Tender” became an internet sensation. It has all the right ingredients: a Doctor Who set created by Blue Peter, backup dancers with the mojo of Daleks, and a flying space convertible, which admit it, is almost as good as a Tardis. Smooth Danny is trying to woo the ladies with his perfectly coiffed He-Man barnet as he croons ‘Ooooooh you’re absolutely fine’. What next Danny? ‘You’re entirely satisfactory’? ‘You’re well above average’? ‘You’re utterly tolerable’? Also notice how the lovebirds serenading each other AT NO POINT establish eye contact. That’s too much invasion of personal space on a first date. In Finland, second base is taking your outer jumper off.

A VIDEO

Here at …WTI!!! we are great fans of people doing really stupid stuff and filming it for our entertainment. Because together with surprised kittens, Darwin nominees are one of the other great meme pillars that supports YouTube.

Particular recipients of our undying admiration are those true innovators, followers of the Dirty Sanchez school of science, who will not only perform a particularly harebrained experiment but do it bigger and better. Why stick a finger up to evolution when you can give it a wedgie? Take the cinnamon challenge, a meme that has been doing the rounds in halls/dorms for a few years now. The premise is simple - take a teaspoon of cinnamon and try to swallow it within 60 seconds without any water. Watch the hilarity unfold as the victim’s throat goes into full-on WTF mode.

This is all really well you say, but has anybody tried it with a LADDLE? Well, I’m glad you asked because glamorous internet raconteur GloZell is here to show you why the original challenge is done with a teaspoon.

A VIDEO

When it comes to Winning The Internet, YouTube is the anabolic steroid to the clip’s doped up cyclist. In this case, YouTube assists the Winner of The Internet for the fourth day in a row.

Anyone who hasn’t heard the honeyed Country Neue tones of Neko Case should go and check her out now (now, do it now. We’ll wait). This *marvellous* cover version of “Star Witness” was recorded in the stairwell of the Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School. Case herself posted on Twitter that she was moved to tears. A stone-cold Internet Winning classic.

A VIDEO

“April is the cruelest month”, poeticised cat-lover T.S. Elliott in “The Waste Land”. For music fans, the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party award for “Cruelest Month in Music” goes to January - witness the fact that “for real” lifeless toilet-brush headed grinning pop muppet Ed Sheeran has reached number one with sales of two copies.

But - BUT! - the 2 Bears are here to save us and if you haven’t bought their new LP - which came out on Monday - you must do. And if you haven’t seen the amazing video for “Bear Hug” you ABSOLUTELY must do. Must.

A VIDEO

The Muppets! Everyone love The Muppets! Apparently. Not me. What is it with the Muppets? There’s a pig! And it fancies the frog! What’s up with that?

I do, however, like Talking Heads. And I like seeing children’s cartoon characters doing odd things. So this works. And Wins, for today, at least.

A VIDEO

As Grace Dent put it on Twitter, “the strongest reason to have kids I’ve ever seen”. In no way is this not fantastically amazing.

Frankly, The Internet, you can close for the day, sit on the sofa and read the papers. This Wins The Internet.

...Wins The Internet!

10th February 2012

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29th January 2012