July 24th, 2008 by Jemaleddin Cole

Truer words have never been written:

The pur­pose of the Inter­net is to make in-​jokes more obscure.

I might be biased though, since they’re my words. Regard­less, I bet you’d like an example!

Unless you’ve beaten Guitar Hero III or are a fan of “extreme power metal,” you’ve prob­a­bly never heard of Drag­on­Force or their first big hit, “Through the Fire and Flames.” The video is very impres­sive, at least if you’re into super-​fast simul­ta­ne­ous guitar solos - and have 5 min­utes to kill. I’d rec­om­mend that if you truly want to appre­ci­ate it, don’t look at the lyrics. Seriously.

But with two vir­tu­oso metal gui­tarists, it lends itself to the obvi­ous mashup: replac­ing the audio with Duel­ing Banjos.

Another good meme is the SomethingAwful-​inspired tech­nique of making videos where a movie scene is ruined by an inap­pro­pri­ate sound­track. It’s amaz­ing how easily and com­pletely you can ruin Ter­mi­na­tor 2 with this tech­nique and a little cel­e­bra­tion. And screw­ing up Con­tact is as easy as 3-2-1. Oh, 1980’s edu­ca­tional sci­ence pro­gram­ming, how I loved you.

But you know what we call that? Not obscure enough. How about ruin­ing Deliv­er­ance by replac­ing Duel­ing Banjos with Through the Fire and Flames? That, dear friends, is the Inter­net prov­ing its worth. All it needs now is an LOLcat joke and for some­body to cite it as a good exam­ple of FAIL and we’ll have achieved pefection.

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2 Responses to “Jemal’s Law of Internet Obscurity”

  1. ooooooo…3-2-1-CONTACT! Not every­day you see a men­tion for that one.

    I miss Con­tact so much. And that “Time for Timer” char­ac­ter that taught us all how food is broken down into carbs and fats. And how he taught us “Don’t drown your food” in gravy and sauce. I can still feel the Sat­ur­day morn­ing ice-​cold bowl of Froot Loops freez­ing my little hands as I type this…

    “I can go any-​where! Just take a look / it’s in a book / on Read­ing Rainbow.”

    — Jolene July 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pm #

  2. You, my dear, are sooooo stuck in your child­hood. It’s this kid that’s doing it to you.

    — Jemaleddin Cole July 28th, 2008 at 12:56 pm #