The Best Of The Internet In 2014

Transcript

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The Internet has connected us to faraway people and places, allowed us to share information from around the world. Oh, and it also gave us...

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "CHARLIE BE ME - AGAIN")

HARRY: Charlie, that really hurt.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "DAVID AFTER DENTIST")

DAVID: Is this real life?

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "EVOLUTION OF DANCE")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Evolution of dance.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "DOUBLE RAINBOW")

PAUL VASQUEZ: Double rainbow. Oh, my God.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DRAGOSTEA DIN TEI")

O-ZONE: (Singing) Maya hee, maya hoo (ph)...

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE")

CHRIS COCKER: Leave Britney alone.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE FOX")

YLVIS: What does the Fox say?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Remember those? I'd like to forget "What Did The Fox Say?" in particular. So we're here to bring you the best of this past year's Internet with the help from Sean Rameswaram. He's a producer at Studio 360 and hosts the pop-culture podcast Sideshow. Thanks for being with us.

SEAN RAMESWARAM: Wonderful to be here. Thank you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You recently did an episode on Sideshow where you asked different people to come up with their favorite video, song, website from the last year. Let's tick through a few of these, starting with...

RAMESWARAM: Sure.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: ...A music video by Sia. I love this, by the way. The song is called "Chandelier."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHANDELIER")

SIA: (Singing) I'm going to swing from the chandelier.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So tell us a little bit about this. What caught people's imagination about this video?

RAMESWARAM: If this eight-year-old, nine-year-old looking girl in this blonde wig just dancing frenetically all over this sort of, like, shoddy-looking apartment. It's simple, and yet, the dance is incredible and so powerful, and it perfectly matches this song. And it's well on its way to half a billion views.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Incredible.

RAMESWARAM: And rightfully so. The music video is alive and well and arguably doing better than it ever has before, thanks to YouTube.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHANDELIER")

SIA: (Singing) Over tonight, over tonight.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Also on this list, there is a site called See Hear Party. So I am bringing this up now.

RAMESWARAM: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tell me how this works.

RAMESWARAM: Yeah, so I'll explain it, but it's something that you truly need to experience to fully understand. But basically, you go to the site. It asks you to enter tags of anything. So my favorite things that I would put in are pizza...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Here we go.

RAMESWARAM: ...You know, puppies and maybe "The Simpsons," for example.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Pizza, puppies and "The Simpsons"...

RAMESWARAM: Yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm typing that in right now. OK.

RAMESWARAM: So you punch in those tags, and then you click next, and then you're asked to select a song. And, of course, for me, I would just punch in Drake and take any one of his many hits. And it asks you if you want to party.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we want to party.

RAMESWARAM: You definitely want to party.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: OK, so what I'm seeing now is, like, these unbelievably crazy gifs of just, like, "The Simpsons" and puppies under a tree in various extremely strange outfits. This really feels like a very hallucinogenic...

RAMESWARAM: (Laughter).

GARCIA-NAVARRO: A lot of fun. I like it. I like it.

RAMESWARAM: It's like instead of, like, back in the day, if you went to a really great party where there was, like, this really interesting video collage being projected on some wall. Now you can just make it yourself in three seconds, thanks to this site. It's truly a gift.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There's also the 11-minute TV sitcom parody "Too Many Cooks."

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "TOO MANY COOKS")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing) It takes a lot to make a stew.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing) A pinch of salt and laughter, too.

RAMESWARAM: Yeah, right. This was probably the most viral video of the year - at least, one that was satirical and really, really smart. It's this 11-minute take on the opening credit sequences and the TV cheese from, like, basically the '80s onward. It debuted on Adult Swim in late October, but was randomly uploaded by the guy who made it to YouTube and then, like, went just bananas. And what sets it apart from the competition is its density. Like, most viral videos have a few notes and, you know, they're like two minutes long. And then you watch it once, and you get the point. But "Too Many Cooks" dares to achieve more, and it really rewards repeat viewings. It's amazing.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sean Rameswaram - he is the host of the pop-culture podcast Sideshow. Thank you so much.

RAMESWARAM: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "TOO MANY COOKS")

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) So much love... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.