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For an Internet celebrity is born this day! Retweet! Retweet!

Ugh. Who am I kidding – I’m jealous.

Had I grown up in another time, been born in a different year, things would be remarkably different. I could be achieving so much just from losing a tooth. The book deals! The TV shows!

You’ve seen it by now. “David After Dentist” captures the antics of a 7-year-old boy as he deals with the side effects of pain medication following a tooth removal. Frankly, he’s on a medically sanctioned high that makes hard-core drug users wonder his secrets.

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The YouTube video – available at snipurl.com/bmy0i [and embedded above] – is hitting the viral equivalent of musical platinum. A YouTube site search for “David After Dentist” yields countless results for remixes and satirical posts before you actually find the original, posted Jan. 30. It’s achieved numerous YouTube Channel No. 1 claims and, as of writing, is nearing 8 million views. By comparison, the most watched “Boom Goes the Dynamite” YouTube video is sitting at about 2.2 million, and it’s been online for three years.

Envious am I! He’ll grow up known to the adoring masses as “the cute little video kid on drugs.”

I guess McCauley Culkin did that, too. Anyway, David’s path to success will soon become his own responsibility.

Creepy as it is, he had little choice in putting that video up online. Dad dad it. David can’t fully understand the repercussions and taunting that could ensue during the coming years of adolescence. It could very well haunt the child through life.

Or he’ll use it to get laid.

Remember the Nirvana baby? No, of course you don’t. This year’s freshmen were barely two years old when the 1991 “Nevermind” album hit stores. Not to say I remember it, as I was fresh off my NKOTB high.

I digress. You’ll recognize the infamous album cover if you see it. Naked baby. Pool. Dollar bill. Yeah, that kid’s walking the earth still. In fact, Spencer Elden is a little celebrity in his own right. He scored an internship with Shepard Fairey, the LA street artist who designed the now legendary Barack Obama campaign posters, a December CNN.com article said.

And now that he’s 17, he’s using the incidental fame – worth way more than the $200 his parents got for the original photo shoot – to find some of his own teen spirit.

“I have to use stupid pickup lines like, ‘You want to see my p—s … again,’” he said in a 2007 MTV interview. Mind you, he was 16 or 17 when that interview took place.

David is 7 years old. Ten more years, and he’ll be worrying about proms, cars and colleges. He’ll probably have an agent, too. The child is going places! Think of the offers. This opens doors to a series of “after” moments throughout life.

“David after prom.”

“David after Spring Break.”

“Forty-year-old David after his first prostate exam.”

I gather we’d hear many of the same noises and phrases. All three scenarios seem likely to have the subject roaring, “Will this last forever?” or “Why is this happening?” followed by intense screaming and body posture resembling prehistoric animals.

And it could have been me! It all makes sense, I mean seeing as my name is David and I, too, have experienced many visits to the dentist. Between braces and a tooth removal, I’ve had my fair share of oral discomfort.

I showed David’s experience to my mother, watching her facial expressions slowly transform from “What is this?” to “Aw, how cute.” In the post-video discussion, I couldn’t help but ask if I was the same way after my visit in the third grade or so.

“Oooh yeah you were,” she exclaimed, breaking into laughter. My friends sat grinning.

I inquired as to the lack of video. My father confirmed my internal speculation.

“We just had that VHS cassette tape recorder,” he said. “You remember how big that thing was?” he said, motioning to how big it was. (Like, big.)

I looked back to my mother. “So would you have posted it to YouTube?” I asked, giving way to only a slight pause in her thought process.

“Yeah, probably!” she said laughing more. She later added that she should find some of those “older VHS tapes” of my childhood. I graciously but firmly declined.

Luckily for other David, the age of broadband Internet access and inexpensive portable video devices is upon us. Technology was not pulling for me back then. Alas, my childhood failed to reach the stardom status other David recently hit.

And now that I think back to some of the content on those old VHS tapes, I feel some things are best left to their original medium. Actually, the taunting ability my parents have because of those tapes is a bit unsettling.

I better make a trip home …

–
Originally published in The Ball State Daily News, BEWILDERED SOCIETY: Starting to feel a little jealous of Internet star

No, the Daily Show mocked Obama’s tendency to pause (something Armisen, bless his soul, just can’t seem to get down) and not answer things fully. It’s because Obama is a real, flawed human being, sure, but it’s also a trend. They also get in some good jabs on hope (it’s dead), The Huffington Post, The Washington Post (who deserved it), and Elkhart, Indiana (who really deserved it).

And, of course, Stewart ends on what is always gold: mocking the talking heads of Chris Matthews and Bill O. Watch, kids, and enjoy.

Fauxbama

What other pressing things are facing Americans today? Auto sales tanking. Multiple political changes and appointments. And, wait a second … hover over that one … right … there:

Happy Holidays!

The hate crime and workplace discrimination initiatives seem strong. Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would eliminate an extremely ignorant policy, which was an act of workplace discrimination in itself. Obama also supports extending adoption rights for gay couples, getting more children out of the system and into healthy and happy families.

Obama also supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and giving committed gay couples the rights married couples have. The plan indicates a desire to stamp out efforts to restrict same-sex marriages, but doesn’t suggest redefining marriage as a union between any two people. As I understand it, the LGBT community is split on this one. I think if you’re going to give us the rights — hospital visitation, tax breaks, etc. — who cares if you call it marriage.

The initiative that set me off was his HIV/AIDS prevention measures. HIV/AIDS support is important, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not a civil rights issue. And despite popular opinion, I don’t think it it’s an LGBT issue. The verbiage tries to identify that here:

Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma — too often tied to homophobia — that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.

What I don’t think he realizes is that by identifying HIV/AIDS awareness as part of his plan to support the LGBT community, he’s essentially perpetuating the stereotype. According to the CDC, African Americans are the largest demographic in new diagnoses for HIV.

Although blacks, or African Americans, made up only 13% of the population in the 33 states [reporting], they accounted for almost half of the estimated number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses made during 2006.

HIV/AIDS awareness should simply be standard in sex ed programs. Everyone needs to be educated about it. Not simply gay men who have unprotected sex.
Overall, it’s clear LGBTs are going to be much better off with Obama as president than when we had good ol’ W around.

Article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/18/hillary-clinton-obama-white-house