Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Dead Bart, Simpsonwave, and the lost generation

I recently stumbled across something called Simpsonwave. It's a sub-genera of punk (apparently) where you distort old footage of The Simpsons and put wavy music over it.

See this for further explanation.

This reminds me of another video that distorts old Simpson's footage, but for another purpose. There is a type of internet horror media called 'Creepy Pasta' It's short horror, mostly written, often using pop culture as the base.The "Dead Bart" story is one of the most widely spread, inspiring a wealth of 'lost episode' stories.

If you don't have time to read it, Dead Bart is an episode description, of, well, Bart getting killed, and the surrealist aftermath. It includes creepy descriptions of the funeral, weird animation, pretty typical of this sort of story.

Someone went to the trouble of re-creating as much of the 'episode' as they could with existing footage, and the story's narration.

Simpsonwave and the Creepypasta have VHS distortion. It's an integral part of the 'authenticity'. For the few generations  that grew up when VHS tapes were plentiful, before DVDs came along, we all know what those wavy lines mean. Kids today don't even know what a VHS is from firsthand experience. They won't understand the intrigue of finding an unlabeled tape; is it a Disney movie? Your mom's soaps? Something...dirty?
Let's see Indy snatch a piles of these from a cave.

Maybe it's because VHS tapes aren't easy to transfer to the internet, and are thus harder to share worldwide. You have to have a VHS play, hook it up special to a computer, convert it, all that jazz. There's an air of mystery in the blank black plastic.

That's not to say Simpsonwave or Dead Bart are necessarily good. They're interesting, but I wouldn't choose to listen to Simpsonwave. There are better Creepypastas than Dead Bart. Why pick The Simpsons as the focal point?

Maybe like the VHS tape the old Simpson episodes have an air of mystery. They're weird looking, the voices are off, and they're generally not rerun before season 3. Perfect fodder for 'artists' and trend hangers-on alike.

I know what DVDs I'll be breaking out tonight.

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