Jeremiah McDonald ponders his younger self
No, seriously… this video is the reason I love the internet. Before I explain way, just watch actor and filmmaker Jeremiah McDonald arguing with a recording he made of himself when he was 12 years old.
All done? Still thinking about how sad and cute it is for a 12 year old to believe his dog will be alive in 20 years? Right.
Anyway… here are the reasons this video makes me love the internet:
(1) It’s funny to imagine a kid in 1992 recording a series of questions for his older self, but it’s even funnier to actually see that kid. It reminds me of my own awkward youth, which is endearing, and it lets me laugh at how dorky someone else used to be, which is awesome. If it weren’t for the internet, I’d never get to experience that. (Or this kid voguing in 1991.)
(2) Without the internet—and the easy-to-use filmmaking technology is supports—this film might never have been made. Sure, McDonald is funny, and he does an excellent job editing this piece to tell a funny/moving story about how we do and don’t live up to our childhood expectations of ourselves. But let’s be real: No television network or major film studio would ever distribute something like this. Only the internet will make room for this kind of art. Or maybe, like, an art gallery in an alleyway or a theatre in an abandoned billiard hall, but screw that. Only the internet can get something this weird and brilliant to the masses.
(3) That thing about the old cartoon characters he used to draw, and now he doesn’t draw them? It’s hilarious and heartbreaking. I’m not actually sure what that has to do with the internet, but there you go.
(4) This guy’s cute, but he’s cuter in motion than he is in still photos. It takes the power of online video to appreciate his make-out potential.
Previously: Can we please get Ari Graynor some more work?
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Mark Blankenship tweets as @IAmBlankenship. Somewhere in his parents’ house, there’s a video of him doing a slow dance to the Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson version of “Beauty and the Beast.”
