It was a dark and stormy <embedded video>.

Yeah, that sounds good. Another blog post off to a great start. Sometimes only a video will suffice. Har.

So the other day I went and embedded an internet video and made it the sole content of a blog post. Oh, that is so creative! And I foolishly didn’t include any kind of preamble. I simply let the video speak for itself.

One of the best ways for a writer to deal with an empty blog space that is actively mocking them is to go somewhere else, presumably where they aren’t completely devoid of talent, type CTRL-C, then come back and type CTRL-V. Now that is writing!

Sometimes I just can’t help myself. I’ll find a video that I think is the bee’s knees and/or I’m just feeling lazy and insipid. Or that monster known as “time” has dined on my ass for lunch. For whatever reason I decide to take the easy way out. It’s time to recycle some content.

Do it, though, and YouTube just might get the last laugh. I’ve tried to come up with a sniglet to describe this phenomenon and got nothin. Let’s call it videosnook.

videosnook – an unappetizing or non-representative “thumbnail” or “preview” static frame of an embedded video clip, usually one that dramatically discourages viewing.

Example usage:

“The other day I posted a video of a really cool song but got videosnooked hard when YouTube chose a picture from the video that said KERRY’S GAY, even though the video has absolutely nothing to do with that! Therefore I don’t think anyone watched the video and the posting didn’t get any comments.”

Quick! Someone dial 9-1-1 for the whambulance. 🙂

If you ignored the video because of that damn screenshot and are willing to give it a second chance, read on…

It’s a song called “Garbage” that I originally heard on Saturday Night Live way back on April 17, 1976. The lyrics stuck with me all these years and the other day I googled them. Lo and behold someone had made a video for another version of the song as recently as 2008. Sadly I couldn’t find the original SNL footage.

It’s worth a listen, especially if you liked the Story of Stuff web site. It’s sort of in that same vein.

Click here for my post entitled Rockin’ the Garbage.