Five Things You Had to See Online This Week

March 24, 2018

By Sean Rameswaram

This week in “Thanks, Internet” — Inside America’s rooms on YouTube, defending Fred Flintstone, the “Pendulum” inFKA twigs’ pocket, Sad Full House,and slug solos.

1.The American Room

Paul Fordspends a lot of time on YouTube. He gravitates towards those stark videos ofpeople speaking, singing, and crying directly into their cameras for an anonymous audience. This week, Ford wrote about what’s going on in the background of those videos. In “The American Room”, he notes that, though these videos differ widely in subject matter, they’re often set in the same, generic-looking suburban bedrooms.Ford psychoanalyzes video stars through their living spaces and decides their medium is one big attempt to transcend homogeneity:

The people dancing and talking and singing in beige rooms with 8′ ceilings are surrounded by standards, physically and online. Technological standards like HTML5 also allow us to view web pages and look at video over the Internet. All of their frolic is bounded by a set of conventions that are essentially invisible yet define our national physical and technological architecture. Their dancing, talking bodies are the only non-standardized things in the videos.

Thanks, PJ!

2. In Defense Of Fred Flintstone

WaPo Letter to the Editor of the day pic.twitter.com/L3NnApPKc3
— Kevin Reiss (@kevin_reiss) July 31, 2014

There’s nothing funny about domestic violence, and you should refrain from making Flintstones references when opining about it. This week, a WaPo columnist learned that lesson the hard way from a reader who takes domestic violence as seriously as he takes Hanna-Barbera.

3.Face-Melting R&B

FKA twigs has been building up to her first full-length album for a few years now. LP1finally arrives later this month, and this week she shared “Pendulum,” which sounds like Portishead drivinga Mack truck into an Aaliyah song and not really caring how the repairs turn out. There’s a barely-there beat that comes and goes, lots of layered vocals, and a pained chorus that screams as it soars.

4.Sad Full House

It’s always awkward when a sitcom tries to turn from funny to seriouson a dime, as comedy writer Benjamin Applereminds us withSad Full House. Somberand seriousmoments from Full Houseall of a sudden become funny— or even sadder, depending on your sense of humor.
Thanks, Jordan!

5.Slug Solos

Guitarists make great faces mid-solo. Now we finally have a blogthat makes them even better.
Thanks, Matt!