I don't know whether it's the (post-post) modern age, or if we're just internet-crazed shut-ins (it's both, of course), but when I'm with my closest NYU friends we watch YouTube. Collectively, socially, ridiculously, we binge. I theorize that it's because our friendships germinated in dorm rooms at a moment in time where everyone had a) laptops, b) wireless internet, and c) social anxiety. What better way to bond with a room full of new people holding laptops than a round of YouTubing?

So anyway this habit has persisted. Last weekend a confluence of my friends descended upon New York (and my apartment), all back from somewhere or on their way again, and perhaps due to the long-time-no-see dynamic of the weekend we watched a really disproportionate amount of YouTube. Here now is a description of one YouTube sitting:

My dad had sent me this video:



in an email with the subject line "Strange Religious Performance Art." I think it's been viral for a while, but I had just seen it, so when I showed up to Adena's place to hang around with her and Emily before meeting our friend Jack for dinner I immediately showed it to them.

This then reminded Emily that she had wanted to search for the heart-wrenching climax of the movie Day of the Dolphin, the 1973 dolphin-man love story starring, for some reason, George C. Scott as a scientist who trains dolphins to talk...or something. We had gotten drunk and watched it while visiting Emily in Louisville this past summer. In one of the final scenes George C. Scott is trying to make his beloved dolphin (Fa) flee into the wild from evildoers (I passed out while watching it, so I'm not entirely clear on the exact narrative). But Fa loves George (who he calls "Pa"), and an absurd conversation ensues between man and dolphin that goes something like this:

Pa: Swim, Fa! Swim! You can't stay here!

Fa: Faaaa looooveeee Paaaaa!

Pa: Pa love Fa! But you have to leave! You're in danger!

Fa: FAAAA LOOOOVEEEE PAAAAAAAA!

Pa: Swim, Fa!

Fa: PAAAAAAAAA!

So obviously we figured that had to be on YouTube. Oddly enough, it wasn't, but some clicking around in the related videos led us to some recordings of the theme song, and this...



Which...was more or less like finding a winning lottery ticket on the street. Mouths agape, we delved, or shall I say dived, into her related videos. This one just about sums it up:



If I had unlimited resources I would travel to Merlissa's underwater kingdom and ask her what the meaning of life is because clearly she has some idea.

Due to the extreme nature of this YouTube session we were late to dinner.