A while ago I saw a strange and vaguely disquieting video. It is funny, vaguely exploitative, and borderline surreal. For a minute I didn't know if it was real or some viral satire. I know the video isn't new by even the laxest standards, but to be quite honest I still wonder if I will 'get over it', to borrow an approximate phrase. The first viewing was followed by a few more for verification and I am almost certain it is the Real McCoy. How foolish of me to doubt the reality of 2013 internet video.
Really, though, the above video is obviously too earnest to be hoax, which fact actually makes it slightly more worrisome than if it was a well-timed joke. Hello, yes, this is the sort of thing that is not considered insane or cruel in our reality. But, also, you have to admit it's quite a funny video – this thing could have wrecked America's Funniest Home Videos (and might've, I don't know). Finally, as a true event, and not even a particularly remarkable one, it probably speaks volumes about this era or dawning era of time.
Imagine that the American Bald Eagle in the video represents something important, like a country's economy, the possibility of freedom, the hope for world peace, or a large tract of unspoiled land. Maybe that crashing eagle represents hamburger joints, ecological protection, civil equality, animal rights, low gas prices, or legalized euthanasia to you. Maybe it even reminds you of America, The Beautiful (it is in fact supposed by many to be a national symbol of the United States). Fixed with a greater meaning or different perspective the clip can take on absurd or tragic overtones. Of course, the real tragedy is what happened, and it's a multifarious tragedy at that.
You may be thinking, 'Why not make a few casual video remixes of this eagle crashing and post that? You know, instead of writing a bunch of words like a dork? You know, a good edit or parody can get you into high places and big money.' For starters, I don't have the software for it, and I don't want to be hassled on the internet – but I've got at least three funny ideas already. I would love to see what sound bytes or song excerpts or hilariously slowed-down samples would do for that clip. It's OK to laugh and make fun because the eagle didn't die, though later it was made to pay with its life for damaging property.
In the wake of what is being called (somewhat laughably in my opinion) the Government Shutdown of America, the video gains so much poignancy that it could cut backwards in time, alerting everyone in 2005 of the recession. In the video, the eagle plays the part of whichever major political characters, parties, or concepts you wish to deride with regard to the Government Shutdown. Meanwhile, it is absurdly likely that the States will eventually Balkanize as a result of what is essentially political pageantry. Things are getting pretty surreal around the world, but in the United States one can still, after all these years, bear witness to many high-caliber amazing and surreal things.
Yet perhaps it was all too real, and the video (posted and likely videotaped in August 2013) actually was meant as a sort of warning. Of course if go into the past looking for warnings, you're liable to find them... maybe sometimes a Youtube video, no matter the consequences, is just a Youtube video. However chilling the context of a video, however wicked a reality it exposes, the world is of course what news and comics make of it: a big place that's not so dangerous as everyone says, but instead actually kind of funny. While we slide into chaos it's the small things that prove us to be small time idiots that are actually pretty good examples of things we could do, as a species (which includes American Humans whether you like it or not), to better ourselves before we slide entirely off into the deep end – if we're not already there.
Hell, I've gone and made the whole thing sordid. It started off with a funny video with numerous deeper meanings and then I was going to say how unfair it was to the eagle (not to mention frightening and disorienting) but I don't want to be taken as an animal rights nut (even though the eagle was being exploited and was specifically property in the situation in the video – which in metaphor could make the handler either China or Liberal Lefties depending on who you are – because then well meaning realists (and anti-animal jack-offs) would scoff at me. As a symbolic video it has some value, as a 'funny video' the view count speaks for itself, and as a warning – heed it and weep.
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