Crazed In the Kitchen: Gee, thanks, Miley Cyrus, for leading me down a twerking internet rabbit hole last night   

Monday, August 26, 2013

Gee, thanks, Miley Cyrus, for leading me down a twerking internet rabbit hole last night

So, look.  I didn’t watch the Video Music Awards. I didn’t even know they were on yesterday until I got on Facebook. I wasn’t even aware that MTV still gave video awards—I thought they had given up on videos altogether.

But then, like I said, I got on facebook, and I was bombarded with “news” of Miley Cyrus’s bizarre performance at the VMAs. My friend Meredith over at the awesome blog Pile of Babies posted a link to a series of gifs on Buzzfeed taken from the performance—check it out HERE. Go on. It’s important—people are talking about this sh*t everywhere.

See? Obviously, I was totally confused. I mean, WTF is going on here??? Dancing teddy bears? Lots of twerking and scary tongue-wagging? Assaulting Robin Thicke? Why, Miley? WHY???
What. Am. I. Watching?
It seemed altogether too weird to be random, and that bothered me. There must be an explanation for all of this absurdity. But it was 9:30 pm and I’m 40 and I had an early morning coming up, not to mention children who feel sleep is for the weak. The smart choice would have been to say “screw it” and go to bed.

But I am not always that smart.

AND I have a degree in journalism. That means I’ve been trained to be compulsive about tracking stuff down at times like these. Is there a helicopter circling our neighborhood? Sorry kids—you’re on your own for lunch. Mommy’s stalking the local news sites to find out what’s going on.

Also? I probably need to read more books and stay off the internet after 8 pm.

Yeah, Smith family. I'm with you.
Anyway, regardless of the late hour, I went ahead and Googled Miss Miley. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand what she’s all about—I’m probably just too old—but her VMA performance began to make a little (just a little!) more sense when I saw the video for her latest hit. I’m not even going to post it here—it’s inane—but it includes twerking, dancing teddy bears, and Miley’s unnaturally long tongue, just like her VMA performance.

Great. Mystery solved. Time to close the laptop and go to bed, right?

Nope. Not yet. As usual, with answers come more questions.

Now I was confused about twerking. I thought I knew what it was—kind of sticking out your booty and shaking it around while you dance. I don’t do it—someone could get hurt and I don’t think our rental insurance covers stuff like that. But why is Miley getting all the credit for this “new” dance craze? Am I crazy, or has Beyonce been doing this for YEARS? I mean, my husband and I called that move “Doing The Beyonce” until the term “twerking” came along. (My husband won’t twerk for you, but I’ve seen him do it. It’s awesome/terrifying. Truly.)

Well, now I had to Google Beyonce. And twerking. And “Beyonce twerking.”

And what did I find?

I found crap. Loads and loads of internet crap. I know it was a LOT of crap, because I spent a LOT of time looking through it all. I went to bed late, didn’t get enough sleep, and was tired and foggy all day today.

But it was TOTALLY WORTH IT. Because I found these two things.

The first is an SNL spoof of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video, starring Beyonce and the amazing Justin Timberlake. Watch it! It’s awesome:


Justin Timberlake parodies Beyonce by LeNouvelObservateur

(I have a weird crush on JT in that I don’t really like his music and I don’t actually find him all that physically attractive, but I love how he’s willing to make an ass of himself in the name of entertainment.)

The second great thing I found is this video by some guy named Flula. It is the best thing I have seen on the internet maybe ever, and I watch a lot of videos of baby sloths. It’s hard to beat baby sloths on the awesomeness scale, but this guy does it. Check it out:

So, I guess I have to thank Miley Cyrus. Her special brand of cray-cray led me to my new internet obsession: that guy Flula. He has 178 videos on youtube, you guys. I’m off to watch them all. It’s only 10 pm, after all.

16 comments:

  1. Thank you for introducing me to Flula. Love. It! And now you know what I'll be doing for the next four hours...

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    1. I have spent so much time on Flula these past few nights...

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  2. I didn't know what twerking was. The whole tongue hanging out thing is just odd, kind of like a thirsty dog?

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  3. I'll have to check Flula to see what he's all about. As for twerking, it's been around since I was in college (back in '91). It was a dance started in the New Orleans area that finally caught fire in the late '90's. It was revived kind of like the Harlem Shake was (it was created in the '80's).

    Twerking is something usually reserved for strip clubs, night clubs and bedrooms. So, to see it on TV performed by a former child star was definitely a shock to most. However, Nicki Minaj did it during the last awards show (AMA's, I think) and no one made a big deal of it because A) she did it correctly and B) she wasn't a child star.

    Miley doing isn't a huge deal to me because I realize that she doesn't want to be known as Hannah Montana forever. She wants an edge to her. So, I understand why she thought that performance would be a good idea, I just hate that someone signed off on it. LOL!

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    1. Yeah, someone at the VMAs is either an idiot or a genius for letting her perform like that. It was awful, but--we're all talking about it!

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  4. I find that her behavior is very strange and odd and I know that I wouldn't want my daughter dancing or twerking or whatever the heck she is doing. I too wrote a post and I have been told to calm down. I expected it, it is a controversial subject. While kids might have seen the actual VMA's don't think they aren't exposed to her nonsense on social media, television, friends at school, ect.

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    1. I'm glad my kids aren't yet old enough to be exposed to this stuff--gives me time to think about how I'll respond when they *are* old enough!

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  5. I just hope Miley sorts herself out and finds some peace and joy in life that doesn't depend on sensationalism.... and I am thankful someone else finds themselves slipping into the rabbit hole late at night! G'night.

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    1. The internet is bad news when you have an early morning!

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  6. You're so funny. Isn't it hilarious how a leotard cannot be worn by men. They just can't pull it off, huh. YouTube is totally addicting. You could lose your life there;)

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  7. She needs someone to sit her down and ask what her the HE double hockey sticks she's thinking!

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  8. This totally sounds like a way I would spend my night! And I LOVE that photo of Will Smith!

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