A while ago I searched Netflix Instant for “Netflix” (BRAAAAHMM) and this is what I found. This video has several duplicates on Netflix, presumably because it’s test footage and there are many variable to test. Hypnotized, I watched it over and over, imagining what went into it, who thought of the ideas, whether or not they intended to traumatize me, etc. It starts off as a very plain collection of ambience. Then, just after a minute, a hand appears. A human hand, the hand of a stranger, slowly and intimately fingers the waterfall of a babbling fountain for well over thirty seconds. The kind of thirty seconds where you’re like, wow that was thirty seconds? That felt a lot longer, I can’t believe seconds can be so slow. At the three minute mark a Strange Man darts about. Is he the hand? Does he have agency? Is he as forgettable and useless as the scenery? HELL NAW, because then he moonwalks behind fountains with a laptop in his hand, and suddenly he is the God and we his subjects. Bow down before his cartwheels and dad clothes. Cut to trains. The babbling water is as constant as lunar silence. The Strange Man treats us to a silent babbling carnival, full of soccer ball tricks and juggling acts. Suffocatingly amateur Shakespeare monologues and the abject horror at the Eight Minute Mark. If this isn’t the weirdest thing on Netflix, I must know what is.
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The Morning Links
The Best Performer At Bonnaroo Was Wu-Tang Clan’s ASL Interpreter |UPROXX|
The Rap Lyrics Jimmy Fallon’s Show Wrote For The Super Mario Brothers Theme Will Blow You Away |Warming Glow|
Supercut: Watch John Goodman Freaking Out |FilmDrunk|
Here’s Your Feel-Good Fat Guy 100m Dash |With Leather|
‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ Character Details Leak |Gamma Squad|
World’s Greatest Mom Dresses Like Teen, Takes Daughter’s Exam |Smoking Section|
Mike Florio Got In A Twitter Fight With An NFL Mascot |Kissing Suzy Kolber|
11 Things We No Longer See on Airplanes |Mental Floss|
6 Life Hacks for Incredibly Lazy People |College Humor|
The Unexpectedly Moving James Gandolfini Tributes You Might Not Have Seen |Grantland|
5 Things Video Games Do Better Than Any Other Forms of Art |Cracked|
10 Things We Love Despite the Presence of Paris Hilton |Pajiba|
The Saddest Pool Jump Ever Attempted |Clip Nation|
The Feminist Taylor Swift Twitter Account Misses the Point Completely |BuzzFeed|