My Top 10 Rick Perry Ad Responses on You Tube

As of very early December 10, here are my Top 10. It appears a new response to Rick Perry's acutely stupid, homophobic and moronic christian fundamentalist idiotic TV ad - titled "Strong" and linked to below if you haven't seen it - (a new YT response) comes up every 15 minutes or so, most of them young people talking in their own homes (or bedrooms) about the ad.

Perry's ad was posted on You Tube sometime on December 6th. My colleague Annabel Lee had Perry nailed pretty well on her blog, Double Dip Politics, in a matter of hours, on December 7th.

But another form of rhetoric is the personal video response; it's difficult for me not to ponder the enormous implications of McLuhan's "the medium is the message" here, although I think Robert Anton Wilson hit on something when he wrote that McLuhan would've been more accurate to say "the medium shapes the message." At any rate, I think it completely marvelous that, via accelerated omniephemeralization of digital gadgets, anyone can make a "television" piece and, in effect, "converse" with TV and other media, both corporate and non. The potential in this, and the degree to which it might truly shape the electoral process, seems unknown. We will learn more as time goes on. Much has been written about social media and the Arab uprisings and the Occupy movement, but it still seems too early to see how powerful decentered, user-generated content can affect political change...

I'm a shade embarrassed I've spent so much time tonight watching this stuff, but I couldn't stop, it's so fascinating to see how democratic this sort of thing can be. And some of the responses are totally brilliant (also see below). I think this is the some of the best use of You Tube: talking back to power. I don't think I could do it - appear on camera and be witty or interesting - but I might be able to write some of the lines that had me laffing so much. (Watch as the list gets closer to my Numero Uno.)

There are all kinds of "remixes" and "mashups" but none of them seemed as acerbic or absurd or satirical or intelligent or godlessly irreverent as the ones I chose, which will necessarily reflect my esthetics. I heartily invite anyone to put a link in the comments to one or many Perry responses they think deserve to be seen.

My list favors the parodic over some really well-done and heartfelt and witty-intelligent personal reflections by hip young people. There's only one quasi-celebrity in my Top 10: a radio guy named Sam Seder. I just liked his style.

The Perry ad (which I link to first, so that we're all on the same page) has broken some sort of all-time You Tube record for the most "dislikes" ever, which I find comforting. (Hey, you have to enjoy the little things in dire days like these, eh?)

The original ad (31 secs)

Now (drumroll please), my Top 10:

#10: The ending made it for me (35 secs)

#9: Sam Seder (5 mins)

#8: a fulminating Aussie atheist, really letting loose in a profanity-laced tirade over religion and "strength" (8:52)

#7: Gay kid, I think named Jakey. Wonderful style, sweet and funny. The comment about Perry's outfit is gold to me (2:04)

#6: dinosaurs (22 secs)

#5: a series of three short vids, each one shimmering with not-so-repressed bile for Perry. So, numbers 5, 4, and 3 are all the same actor and writers (first one 43 secs) (there's a bunch of outtakes of this guy riffing that are pretty funny too.)

#4 (36 secs)

#3 (35 secs)

#2: I literally laffed out loud (2:08)

#1: I want this one to go viral (1:03) (I catch myself hoping something like this could, on its own, make Perry go back to Texas forever.)

He's Rick Perry, and I don't give a crap if he would disapprove of ANY of this: