As a young child, One of my favorite things to watch on YouTube were parodies of famous artists like Micheal Jackson and biz Markie made by YouTube channels like Weird Al’s, How it should have ended, Bart baker and many others during the early 2000’s-2010’s. Many small time YouTube channels would get massive views from making fun of big town celebrities or even fictional characters, often making gross exaggerations of these individuals and they’re situations to invoke humor.
(Can you spot the impostor lol)
In my opinion, The greatest parodies were ones I could imagine even the target of mockery seeing the content and laughing until they’re blue in the face. That’s one of the reasons why I loved watching Weird Al. He created high quality music videos for artists like Coolio and Micheal Jackson that didn’t just mimic the original work in a weird manner, the parodies themselves had a value from the noticeable intent, talent and strong quirkiness from Weird Al himself.
(Love this album cover!).
Another benefit of parodies is the fact that at times they can be educational!!!
As a young child, I learned about a large number of famous celebrities like Elton John and Mister Rogers from the YouTube channel Epic Rap Battles of History, where different characters both real and fictional both would face each other. I watched this religiously from around 2011 to just about 2016 where to be honest, the appeal by that point had completely fallen away. However the channel still has a special place in my heart and still searches for newer videos from time to time.
What are your guys’ opinions on you tube parodies? Are you still watching them now? Were you a fan of this type of humor as a kid? Why or why not? And in case you haven’t, please check out the media that I discussed!
Media musings 