{"id":10894,"date":"2011-09-05T10:04:20","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T10:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisblogrules.com\/?p=10894"},"modified":"2011-09-05T03:33:32","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T03:33:32","slug":"bum-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/bum-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Bum Genius"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PZ3CS2u_gtc?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"345\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Michael McLaughlin is something of a &#8220;bum genius,&#8221; so to speak. He created the video above, which is causing quite the stir on Youtube. We asked Mr. McLaughlin to explain why he filmed it, and he was happy to oblige. Take a look at what he had to say, after the jump.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>With the plethora of videos now available on the Internet, instant entertainment has never been closer to people\u2019s fingertips. Professional, semi-professional and homemade videos of all types are nearly everywhere you click. Trailers for movies, or advertisements for products must necessarily keep their content safely nestled in the \u201cprime time\u201d category &#8211; that is, clean and friendly enough for all to watch as if it were family viewing time at home in front of the tube. Not so for the purveyors of home made videos that do not depend on a customer base or TV network to keep them afloat! The simple joy and creativity of making a video for no other reason than to please yourself, and hopefully others, with no constraints on content is now available to anyone with a video camera and an internet connection.<\/p>\n<p>The availability of professional or semi-professional video editing software has allowed people to produce videos that, while homemade, still rival the production values people are used to seeing. But it\u2019s often the completely amateur, shaky-camera, pixel-ridden clips that people are drawn to. For many, it\u2019s infinitely more interesting to tune into footage of real life and real people. There\u2019s an endless fascination with peering into an event, be it funny, heart-warming or disturbing, that was experienced and caught on camera by an everyday person just like yourself, and who you would otherwise never know anything about.<\/p>\n<p>Of course in a medium such as this, people can post almost anything they want. So inevitably, among the sea of funny cat videos, precious babies uttering their first words, and overcome women being proposed to on camera (by the way if anyone ever did that to me, I\u2019d be like \u201cturn OFF the camera you dink!\u201d), it\u2019s also easy to find videos of the truly stupid, the disgustingly scatological, and the downright offensive &#8211; all ranging somewhere between hilarious and useless.<\/p>\n<p>For those who enjoy and find funny what others deem offensive, such videos are easily found. But what about people who somehow or other are exposed to something they find distasteful? Let\u2019s face it &#8211; no one can be shielded from running into all manner of strange animals when surfing links linked to other links within pages related to other pages.<\/p>\n<p>Thus we finally get to MY video &#8211; \u201cBum Bum Cartoon.\u201d My two favourite movies are \u201cAmerican Beauty\u201d and Terrence Malick\u2019s \u201cThe Tree of Life.\u201d I cried watching \u201cForrest Gump.\u201d I am university-educated, full of love for the world, and consider myself to be a very sensitive person. So WHY would I make a video called \u201cBum Bum Cartoon\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Well, first of all, I was keen on using my new video editing plug-in that purported to turn plain footage of me (or actually, not so plain) into a cartoon. And hey, it works &#8211; very well!<\/p>\n<p>Okay, if you haven\u2019t watched it yet, you\u2019re thinking \u201cWTF is the Bum Bum part about?\u201d But you see, dear video watcher, the big surprise of the video will be ruined if I tell you what this means.<\/p>\n<p>Well, let me see\u2026. Bum Bum! Not butt, ass or posterior &#8211; Bum Bum! Not even a single Bum! No, it\u2019s got to be Bum Bum! Why? Because it\u2019s something a child would say. Remember back to childhood? \u201cI have to go pee pee!\u201d Yes, the doubling of such words was taught to us as children to render non-offensive and innocent the terms and phrases we were to use when referring to various actions or body parts. Thus, for me, Bum Bum is an attempt to communicate something silly, childish and harmless. As the phrase appears in my video, if I\u2019d used anything other than Bum Bum, it would have indeed been too literal and not nearly as inconsequential as I believe it to be.<\/p>\n<p>But apparently, it\u2019s not as inconsequential as I believe it to be! When I first posted this video, it sat there for awhile at 200 views after I directed my family and friends to it. Then one day, due to the nature of the internet (and probably the nature of the video) it shot up several thousand views.<\/p>\n<p>I was thrilled! \u2026Until of course I started reading some of the comments. The \u201clikes\u201d and \u201cdislikes\u201d were equal and have remained so. But a taste of the comments follows:<\/p>\n<p>1. This is the worst s**t I\u2019ve ever seen! God I hate you!<\/p>\n<p>2. I can&#8217;t wait until the entirety of the &#8220;YouTube Generation&#8221; grows up to be in their 60&#8217;s and has to explain why they did stupid bulls**t like this on? the internet to their grown kids or grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>3. This is disgusting.<\/p>\n<p>4. Get a life. Not cool.<\/p>\n<p>5. Are you on meth?<\/p>\n<p>Of course there were some good comments too, but I was indeed surprised by the amount of negative feedback. I mean, okay! It\u2019s over the top and strange. But that\u2019s the point! I was trying to make a video that would make people laugh their heads off at the sheer absurdity of what they would see. I assumed (half-mistakenly) that everyone would know that I am not serious &#8211; not one iota!<\/p>\n<p>While I WAS prepared for some people to find it stupid (it\u2019s not exactly brimming with PhD material\u2026), and a few others to find it distasteful for their own (as I saw it) puritanical senses, I was fully unprepared to discover that a \u201cfew\u201d would be roughly half of the viewers!<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly enough, ALL of my friends and family found it hilarious. I suppose that\u2019s because they know me, know who I am, and are aware that I\u2019m KIDDING! And to be honest, while I understand that some people will not like it, I find it a little sad that others have found it literally enraging or horrifying. It just shows how seriously some people insist on taking things.<\/p>\n<p>And in the shifting, sometimes scary world in which we live, my video is supposed to be an ESCAPE from seriousness, a reason to laugh even as you say \u201cWTF?\u201d and forget the trials of the day. This is supposed to be laughed at! You be the judge!<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Michael McLaughlin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael McLaughlin is something of a &#8220;bum genius,&#8221; so to speak. He created the video above, which is causing quite the stir on Youtube. We asked Mr. McLaughlin to explain why he filmed it, and he was happy to oblige. Take a look at what he had to say, after the jump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3081,3084,3086,3083,3089,3082,3091,3088,3087,3085,3090,3080],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.9.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bum Genius 2023 | This Blog Rules<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Michael McLaughlin is something of a &quot;bum genius,&quot; so to speak. He created the video above, which is causing quite the stir on Youtube. We asked Mr.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/bum-genius\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/\",\"name\":\"This Blog Rules | Why go elsewhere?\",\"description\":\"Leading Entertainment Blog and Daily Source for Fun\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/bum-genius\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/bum-genius\/\",\"name\":\"Bum Genius 2023 | This Blog Rules\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-05T10:04:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-09-05T03:33:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d78308be163898f015bbabbec22e9db0\"},\"description\":\"Michael McLaughlin is something of a \\\"bum genius,\\\" so to speak. 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