The Simple Life

Take a look at the following video:



The guy who did this goes by the name "DaxFlame". I think I've seen his videos once before, and didn't pay too much attention to it.

Your first impression might be "can a person be more annoying?". But why would you say this? Then, you start to think "Oh, oh, he probably suffers from mental retardation". Indeed, if you can watch the entire "vlog" (DaxFlame does a video blog), he's ecstatic about seeing the most beautiful woman ever (a lifeguard).

He said he had gone to a slide, and tried to go down real fast. He wants to go their as often as he can (but his mom probably won't let him). He thinks she's noticed how he was sliding so fast.

And the reaction is "You're kidding, right? That girls thinks you're a total weirdo, a mommy's boy" and so forth. You're not comfortable with the guy. Yet, he's so infectiously exuberant as he is socially awkward. His speech stutters. He thinks of something he wants to say, but changes his mind, and says something else, and this happens several times in a sentence.

Then, you think, why should I react this way? It brings you to regress to middle school or elementary school where socialization means trying to fit in, to figure out what's normal or acceptable, and sometimes failing. If you're repulsed (initially) by DaxFlame, it may be for exactly this reason. This was the kind of person you didn't want to be, even if DaxFlame doesn't know any better.

So you wonder if those strong childhood reflexes, your sense that you shouldn't react like this because you're a frickin' adult, are more powerful than you imagine. You realize that as mature as you are, some things are burned in from experiences as a kid. Is this experience quintessentially American, brought about by the kaleidoscope of growing up in the US?

Then, you might say, as awkward as he is, there's something oddly beguiling about what he does. And you might see that he has fans.

And then, your mental thought-experiment is jerked to reality. And you say, "Can I really trust anything I see on YouTube?". And, so here's a follow-up video:



This is done by another guy, named Derek Sigafoo. Apparently, he also "vlogs".

He's certainly less socially awkward, more typical of someone you might meet. There's perhaps an obsessive-compulsiveness, which earns big-time geek points, as he tries to figure out whether DaxFlame is as he appears, a somewhat mentally challenged, but overly excitable fellow, who has engendered a bit of a following, or whether, like Lars Von Trier's The Idiots, he's trying to reach his inner idiot, realizing in some bizarre stroke of genius, how to capture this total awkwardness into an act, and produce fresh material.

Derek investigates this showing he has mad geek chops, and finds some evidence (not terribly strong) that DaxFlame is more of a put-on than he appears to be. But, even Derek makes a compelling argument. He says "I love DaxFlame! Even if he's not real, I'd still watch every episode.", because there's some vaguely real about what DaxFlame does. If he's faking it, you don't feel completely offended (I'm sure you could if he were trying to push buttons), but instead he forces you to re-evaluate what you think about someone like Derek, and if it is indeed an act, it's due to strong observations about how people are.

And of course, the slightly scary thing is, that if you know enough geek types, you realize that this kind of mental retardation is honestly that close to the kind of social awkwardness (or as Lance might say "Asperger's!") that you might see in a geeky fellow. That being bright in a computer sort-of-way can sometimes be at odds (at least amongst us Americans--is it cultural?) with being smooth with da ladies.

And even Derek's follow up shows another facet of this, and of both their needs to be online, and for the kind of online communities to care enough to watch.

Indeed, are the lives of those on the edge, vlogging about themselves, the future of entertainment?