You Kids Get off my Lawn! (O’Reilly on Gangnam Style)
The following is both amusing and telling:
The first thing that strikes me is that this is just further confirmation that FNC’s target demo is older whites.
The second thing that strikes me is the reaction based on race and culture. O’Reilly makes a number of disparaging remarks (e.g., calling Psy “a little fat guy from Yongyang [sic]”) linked to nationality and both he and his guest, Keith Ablow seem to consider a foreign language gibberish. Indeed, the laziness here is amazing: why bother trying to, you know, get a translation of the lyrics into English so that they could at least know what the song means in Korean? Far easier to just go on and on about lack of meaning.
I also love the older white guy talking about understanding Elvis, the Stones, the Beatles, (and even Bieber!) but not getting this, because, of course, the older folks back in the day never questioned the music the kids were listening to at the time. The faux intellectual “analysis” from Keith Ablow (likening the video to drugs, for example) is ridiculous.
Apart from general entertainment value, I think that this clip is actually interesting because it illustrates the general FNC approach, which is a myopic view of the world tailored to reinforce the views of the audience, rather than to inform and expand it. This approach permeates its editorial approach to the world, and informs the way it deals with issues of far greater importance than YouTube videos.
I only listened to half, in which they pretend there are no cute Korean girls in the video at all …
In other words, Conservative?
I know I know, a low blow, but the GOP is continually trying to turn the clock back.
This is further proof that blacks are the real racists.
Outstanding post and analysis Steven – thank you
And really, Elvis had meaning? Tell us, Bill-O, what exactly was the profound meaning behind songs such as “Hound Dog” or “Blue Suede Shoes” or “All Shook Up”?
This is a song. It is no more or less profound than the Beatles “Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how the life goes on” or Sheb Wooley’s “It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater”. Or any of the countless tunes humans have amused themselves with over the years that make no sense at all.
As for Citizen O’Reilly he is the cretin who stated this about a kidnapped child. “The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn’t have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.”
http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/01/17/oreilly-abducted-child-liked-his-circumstances/137753
Why anyone pays attention to this gasbag is beyond me.
And yet I will bet that each and every one of those old folks can break out into “The Chicken Dance” at every wedding they attend…..
@ernieyeball:
Oh I sooooo wish I had never hit that link and read what that SOB had to say…
My daughter was sexually abused by her father for 13 years. Trust me, Stockholm Syndrome is very real. It is 2 years later and I am still trying to fix the damage inflicted. Grrrrrrrrrrr………
*time to go clean something before I throw my laptop across the room*
@Stormy Dragon:
Indeed. In fact, I was thinking, after I posted this, as to the profundity that was “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time/You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.”
Really, though, what I want to know is: who put the ram in the rama-lama ding-dong?
@ernieyeball:
That song is at least telling a story (admittedly a silly story, but still a story), which frankly gives it more meaning than Elvis, which was frequently just two or three lines being repeated over and over.
I don’t know how old his old audience is but O’Reilly is just a little older than me (58). Most of the people I know would find this video fun. I’m not sure who the demographic is that would cluck over this.
I still can’t get over how the dance has next to nothing to do with the lyrics.
Honestly, most of the lyrics deal with drinking a ton of coffee and finding the perfect woman. I don’t recall horses entering the equation.
Also, great, I just watched that video again.
@Steven
“… it illustrates the general FNC approach, which is a myopic view of the world tailored to reinforce the views of the audience,…”
In the case of O’Really I often wonder if it’s deliberate pandering to a particular demographic or simply the reflection of his own myopic view of the world.
They could have just checked Wikipedia:
Voila! Context! Amazing what a little research can do, isn’t it?
I have no problems with saying you don’t care for the song, but they should have taken the time learn what the song was about (shoot I learned all about its meaning on a different conservative website so I don’t think it is particularly fair to say this is a conservative problem, although it likely is an age problem).
On thing I learned a long time ago-any song that has a recognizable dance will almost always become a hit and with the internet this seems to be even more the case.
I actually enjoyed being able to watch my college age daughter do the song and dance on the ice at a college hockey game as part of the marching band.