Operation: Do A Thing: Absurdity Ad Nauseam

Discover an Absurd Phenomenon

So it turns out that the phrase “Discover an Absurd Phenomenon” is incredibly vague and open to wide interpretation. This is what happens when the week’s planning process consists of me coming up with random word combinations and making projects out of them, (more on this in the marshmallow mask post).

In the loosest definition, this Do a Thing required me to learn of a senseless or illogical occurrence. Initially I had envisioned this as unlocking some instance of pop-culture correlation, like The Nostalgia Critic did for Big Lipped Alligators. But it could also mean me finding out about something strange I was previously unaware of, or observing a bizarre moment out in the world. So I’ve put together four potential completions, just to cover all my bases.

1) Discover a strange pop-culture correlation:

All Disney-animated annoying comic-relief characters are dudes.

I know that critiquing Disney movies on a basis of gender roles is a bit played out, but I’ve never seen anybody else cover this. It seems like, in at least one of the fifty or so films they’ve made there would be one funny female sidekick.

Little Mermaid: Two dudes, three if you count the seagull. Beauty and the Beast: Clock-dude and Candle-dude. Aladdin has a whopping five dude sidekicks, (Carpet is clearly one of the guys). Even characters that act like girls, talk like girls, and have girl names turn out to be dudes, (I’m looking at you, Flower from Bambi).

I’m sure I’m missing one somewhere. I haven’t seen every Disney movie, and there are several I barely remember. But even if there’s an obscure funny female sidekick in there somewhere, the tremendous unbalance of it seems like an injustice.

2) Discover a bizarre moment in my everyday life:

I saw two crows chase a squirrel into the street where it got hit by a car.

That’s kind of it.

3) Discover a strange cultural movement that I was previously unaware of:

Vore (Vorarephelia)

While randomly surfing Youtubes I stumbled upon a video entitled Voir Clips. It is a bunch of short scenes involving people being eaten my monsters and frogs. Underneath it I found the following unsettling comment:

According to Wikipedia, Vore is “a sexual fetish and paraphilia where arousal occurs from the idea of being eaten or by the process of eating. The fantasy may involve the victim being swallowed alive, and may or may not include digestion.”

Here was my reaction:

But I don’t want to judge other people and their interests, so I will leave it at that. Wikipedia also tells me that if I want to learn more, (which I don’t), I could check out the book Le sexe bizarre: Pratiques érotiques d'aujourd'hui. Which is kind of an awesome name for a book.

4) Watch the film Phenomenon:

It was really bad.