Over the first two entries of this blog, I’ve explored the two extremes of Viral Classics: The incredibly well made video with a nuanced and thoughtful message, and the incomprehensible screaming of a man at his cats with no particular message whatsoever. But, rest assured, the Internet is by no means limited to such stereotypes when it comes to producing new videos, and this blog entry’s subject is one such case.

At its heart, the story at the heart of The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is a pretty generic plot. Basically, a regular guy is cursed and is being constantly hunted down by a being sent to kill him. However, the short film manages to take that stereotype and make it humorous in its own ridiculousness. You see, the murderer in question not only moves at an incredibly slow pace, his only weapon with which to kill his victims is an ordinary spoon.

This makes for a video both very long and very funny, as the main character traverses the world, going to experts and just trying to get away from the spoon-wielding assassin. As he becomes aware that he is in fact, dying very slowly due to blunt force trauma (Again, from a spoon) he begins to try to take out his enemy by any means necessary. It is exceptionally well made (The video was adapted into a larger film that actually did quite well), but what sets it apart from both videos so far is its commitment to its ridiculousness antics.

Though the concept of being beaten to death very slowly over time by a monster only you can see could be considered a dark metaphor for cancer or illness, in this case the pure absurdity of the character’s action in the film make it anything but. For example, there’s a typical horror movie parody scene where the main character attempts to call 911 on the murderer, but the murderer stops him by….. attempting to saw the phone cord in half very slowly with his spoon. Though you expected a more serious response from something following the plot of a murder movie, your expectations are always met with some kind of ridiculous plot twist, usually involving a spoon, which makes you laugh and keeps you interested in the next minutes.

Honestly, this video is one of my all-time favorites. It has 33 million views as of my writing of this, and it deserves so much more. The quality of its production is very high, and the quality of its humor and creativity is even higher. Even if you’ve seen a Cat and Mouse/ Murder kind of movie before, I guarantee you’ve never seen something as ridiculous(-ly cool) as this before.

Now, as you may or may not remember (Probably may not) my first entry into this series of the best videos of the internet was a video that covered a serious topic in a couple humorous, yet insightful lyrics of a song. It was creative, it was meaningful, it had substance, and the video I wanted to emphasize for this week is not any of that.

You see, more often then not the internet isn’t a very serious place. In fact, when looking for videos, most of the time people aren’t really looking for something grounded in reality at all, instead choosing to giggle or find humor in something so absurd or ridiculous it can’t be taken seriously. That’s where this edition’s video “Some Guy Yells at Some Cats” comes into play.

The video itself is very simple, it consists of a series of clips of a man screaming obnoxiously loudly at his cats, who he makes very clear were just minding their own business before he started filming it. Uploaded in 2006, this is one of the oldest videos on YouTube, and its popularity hasn’t really abated much, as the video has amassed almost 7 million views since its been uploaded. Be warned though, the video does feature pretty extreme vulgarity, with which you will be barraged at a deafening volume. Despite this, though, and despite the lack of a message or purpose in general, this video is absolutely beloved by veterans of the site.

These videos, ironically enough, to me have always been the most interesting and funny. By all accounts, this video shouldn’t exist, or at least be as popular as it is. I mean, it doesn’t have a purpose, story, message, and this man appears to be at the very least inflicting some pretty legit psychological trauma on his cats.  But I think perhaps the lack of a story is perhaps what makes the absurd behavior so transfixing. The video is funny, not because of any inherent humor, but because it is so absurd and shocking that it leaves you with several questions that are simply up to your imagination to answer. ‘Who is this guy?’ ‘Why would he make this?’ ‘Is this real?’ all are very valid questions to ask. Whether you think its funny or not and, although I find it funny I can see how others would just be confused. But that’s the beauty of the internet. Not everything has to have a purpose. Some things just are what they are, and this is just some guy yelling at some cats.