The YouTube Haiku subreddit collects good movies as much as 30 seconds lengthy. The perfect are generally humorous, generally touching, generally bewildering. I’ve been a connoisseur of the style for seven years. I’ve collected my favorites under. They’re absolute snack meals—you assume you possibly can have only one or two ten-second hits, however by the point you cease, you’ve spent half an hour. However in contrast to scrolling Instagram, you stroll away touched, modified, enriched, obsessive about how that one woman pronounces the phrase “handbag.”
There’s a sure mixture of humor and “what the hell”-ness that does nicely on this subreddit. For instance, this excerpt of Iron Chef submitted by consumer naive_springwater:
Remoted line readings, like this one from u/yeemeister, are a standard theme:
Some weird-video subreddits can get mean-spirited. Whereas that tone does exist on some r/YouTubeHaiku submissions, extra typically a video is a celebration of the bizarre and the earnest. Like this submission from u/p6fitz, taken instantly from a boy’s YouTube channel, with not one of the punchy edits added to most submissions.
“Boy doing something silly” is a standard theme. As is a real-world state of affairs with timing as good as any scripted farce. See each on this u/SirJacobTehgamarh submission.
Generally the Reddit submission title completely recontextualizes the video. This one was submitted as “My grandpa on his new Dell.”
One type of recontextualization is an try, actual or joking, to elucidate what bewilders us. Why did that actor ship the road that manner? Why is that little one behaving so oddly? Why are the employees in u/AitkenGG’s submission chipping away uselessly at a crosswalk? It’s potential this can be a completely cheap solution to tough up the stripes on a crosswalk so that they’re recognizable by the contact of a cane. Nevertheless it’s humorous to use online game logic, and say they’re doing development the Age of Empires manner.
Watch sufficient of those, and also you begin to see {that a} brief video is qualitatively totally different from an extended one. The identical guidelines of pacing don’t apply. Most two-minute comedy sketches could be a lot improved by reducing out 90 seconds. See this profitable bit submitted by u/jcs1994j. It has simply sufficient time to get humorous, keep humorous, and minimize out.
Video video games can inform a particular sort of story that motion pictures often can’t: one the place the hero definitively and humiliatingly loses.
I feel we overlook what number of artistic idioms (the class broader than a style however extra particular than a medium) have been invented by web memes. There was no room, prior to now, for sure sorts of joke. As soon as the know-how was there, it may unlock all types of earlier materials for comedic reinterpretation. Take this instance posted by Wighen18:
Some haiku, like this one submitted by u/generalmaks, are three seconds lengthy. They might have been Vines, if Vine had lasted lengthy sufficient.
Some haiku have a lot happening. It’s unimaginable that every one this occurs in 11 seconds:
Some make a degree fairly succinctly. Some can convert folks to socialism in six seconds.
Generally a haiku sits on the finish of an extended video. Just like the final ten seconds of this clip, submitted by Monatok91:
There’s a controversial subset of movies which are simply iterations of a recurring meme. A lot of them trip on recognition greater than precise humor. This video, submitted by u/MonkeyStrings, is definitely humorous. Nevertheless it requires that you simply’re conversant in the video “Duck Army.” So watch that, then this.
Just like the faux soccer sponsorships above, this video (submitted by ThisIs_MyName) rides on the humor of slightly gibberish. It’s as advanced as a fart joke, however I dare you to assert it’s not humorous.
Not the entire movies are about humor. The well-known “takes a pet like no problem” bodega cat clip, submitted by u/Derpazard, is solely cozy.
This video (submitted by u/Josephthebear) is equally unassuming. It’d fully fail to curiosity you. Or it’d heat you want a blanket. There’s nothing fancy or garish right here, simply an appreciation of the tiniest private quirk. The highest YouTube touch upon this video is “He sounds like a nice guy.” Once more, this can be a story solely tellable throughout the medium of brief web movies.
These movies are a window right into a world. They revel within the lack of context, at the same time as they supply their very own. Our final instance, although, comes with a backstory.
After Teckham posted this video, SarudeDandstrom commented with an evidence, copied from the YouTube uploader. The blond boy within the grey sweater had pissed off the varsity by bragging about his chess prowess, and promising to beat Luke, the boy with darkish hair. To settle issues, the varsity organized a chess match for charity. And goodness prevailed.
There’s countless leisure on r/youtubehaiku. But when the range dizzies you, and also you need to drill down on sure emotions: For movies the place all the pieces goes to shit without delay, go to r/AbruptChaos. For movies the place somebody is emotionally gutted, go to r/WatchPeopleDieInside. For one thing even shorter, go to r/gif, r/gifs, r/reactiongifs, and r/HighQualityGifs.
