I like to think at the dawn of YouTube, founders Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, and Chad Hurley imagined a fantastic, utopian world where artists, journalists, and personalities of all stripes would have the opportunity to share their perspective without any filters. And for the most part, they were totally right. YouTube and the dozens of pretenders it spawned have totally reconstructed our ideas of what it means to be a content creator. Millionaires have been made on YouTube. Everything is possible.
However, I also think Chen, Hurley, and Karim probably didn’t imagine the underbelly of their utopia. There are those who don’t need really a platform, but that is hardly going to stall the momentum of puffed-up Internet rage and paranoia. As YouTube morphed into one of the fundamental building blocks of 21st century life, it also allowed the least reasonable people in the world to finally get their manifestos out.
Honestly, that’s my favorite part. I give you: The Vigilant Christian.
Just to set an operating baseline, here is the channel’s 40-fucking-minute explanation of “Why The Illuminati Killed Robin Williams.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-nvpgRk5to
You can click on any minute and hear something good. I just jumped to 9:21 and got “this sinister satanic cult of Hollywood star-whackers.” I clicked on 25:11 and got “the predictive programming of the Illuminati blood sacrifice of Robin Williams.” That’s the OG kush, man.
Somehow, this has over a million views. Somehow, he ties all of his conspiratorial ideas into an overarching conservative, Judeo-Christian framework. It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Our boy has over 300,000 subscribers and puts out videos at a remarkably consistent clip. In his universe, everything—seriously, everything—is connected. For example…
“Satanic Powerball 1.6 Billion Dollar Jackpot and the Deceitfulness of Money”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UElTAGObojE
“Star Wars: The Satanic Forces of Witchcraft Awakens”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-4xzLF6sZU
“X-Men Apocalypse Official SATANIC ILLUMINATI Trailer”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoJbj2Ea_Lc
That’s all great, obviously. But then there’s some other completely inscrutable, off-topic stuff mixed in. For example, here’s a video on the same channel called “Persian Cat Playtime Gone Wrong.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbnpkbiyDw
Please note that this was uploaded right after “B.O.B. Illuminati Cloning of Celebrities Exposed!!!”
Congratulations, Vigilant Christian. You’re one of the all-timers. Maybe not for the reasons you think, but nothing comes close. Thank you for all your hard work.
Photo via MIKI Yoshihito/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
