The Internet can’t replace TV — yet

Viewers turning to Web during writer’s strike find just two girls, one cup

By Helen A.S. Popkin
MSNBC
updated 8:33 a.m. CT, Tues., Nov. 27, 2007

“There’s never been a better time for Americans to crack open a book!” As if.

That pedagogical rejoinder turns up in almost every conversation both online and off ever since rumors of a Hollywood-crippling writer’s strike started circulating early this year. But guess what kids? It ain’t happening. If you didn’t enjoy reading before the Writers Guild of America stopped working, you sure aren’t going to start now just ‘cause the talky box is on reruns.

Even a protracted writer’s strike with no end in sight won’t herald a utopian future — like that one episode of “The Simpsons” when Marge ruined “Itchy & Scratchy” and kids poured from their houses, rubbing their eyes against the sunlight’s bright glare. That’s just not us. And anyway, drama, scandal and intrigue happening right outside our door is hardly ever as good as what’s going down on Wisteria Lane… or the “Big Brother” house.

If history’s taught us anything, it’s that when Americans are faced with the loss of quality entertainment, we simply lower our standards. That includes doing what many media critics predict and what Europeans figured out already — spending more time turning to the Internet for our viewing pleasure. Too bad inconvenient copyright infringement crackdowns had to happen right around the time writers started demanding their fair share of new media money.

When the new TV shows start running out of episodes and we start logging on en masse, we’ll quickly learn what the WGA’s been trying to tell the Entertainment Complex for years — there’s a reason some people get paid to write. All our dreams of a connected future don’t change that right here and now, there’s a whole lot more dreck floating around in cyberspace then there are fully developed characters, interesting plots and actual story arcs.

Law-abiding Internet viewers of the future — as in the next five weeks, or however long it takes for networks to run out of fresh episodes — no longer have access to the plethora of entertainment once available on BitTorrent tracking site Demonoid or video link index site TV Links. While these peer to peer sites weren’t heavy hitters compared to other video hosts like, say, Google or YouTube, they would’ve provide welcome respite from the ensuing TV dry spell.

Not only did Demonoid and TV Links provide access to jillions of American shows ranging from the current “Battlestar Galactica” to, um, old “Battlestar Galactica,” they featured brilliant British shows beyond just the expected comedy of “Little Britain,” but procedural crime dramas that put our endless “Law & Order” and “CSI” franchises to shame. (Thankfully, “Life on Mars” is coming soon to BBC America.)

While there are sensible arguments positing that Google and YouTube do the same thing, without the monolithic money power, sites such as Demonoid and TV Links were bound to get shut down. Of course, there’s still a bounty of interesting 30-minute to one-hour entertainment finds, but not many you can download legally.

Network sites, as well as other short-term TV show archivists like Hulu , offer reruns of shows you’ve missed — or want to see again. But Hulu and similar libraries rarely host shows longer than five weeks after the original airing — so once new episodes start to dry up, their supply will too. You know what you’re left with then, right? Oops! I Got Hit in the Crotch aka Oop! I Got Killed In A Horrible But Ironic and/or Entertaining Way aka YouTube … and its ilk.

Seriously, though, how long are you going to enjoy watching “Two Girls One Cup” reaction videos? For those lucky enough remain ignorant of the “TGOC” video’s existence, it’s loosely described as about a minute of footage featuring two young ladies enamored both with each other and their bodily functions.

Happily, you can go your whole life never viewing this video and still enjoy today’s Hottest New Internet Meme. That’s because it’s not so much about the original footage, but people tricking their so-called friends into watching it and uploading the resulting reaction shots for all to enjoy. Yeah, it’s howlarious, features interesting characters and somewhat of a story arc, but not 4 hours and 34 minutes worth. (That’s average amount of daily television watched by individual viewers, according to Nielson.)

When faced with filling our daily viewing requirement with streaming online offal, many discerning viewers, I predict, will resort to tactics employed during the 1988 WGA strike – such as beating ourselves over the head until all memory of, say, that time it turned out Chuck’s college arch rival Bryce wasn’t dead but cryogenically preserved or something. Then we can watch it all over again, like new.

Seriously, though, how long are you going to enjoy watching “Two Girls One Cup” reaction videos? For those lucky enough remain ignorant of the “TGOC” video’s existence, it’s loosely described as about a minute of footage featuring two young ladies enamored both with each other and their bodily functions.

Nah, inet will never replace TV, if you work all the Powerglidein' day with computers, late in home more pc? No thanks.

Most parts of the country don't even offer high speed intarnets yet anyway. I've lived in 4 different states and have yet to live anywhere that offered anything better than dialup. The only time I watch anything on Youtube is when I get invited over to city folks' houses.

High Speed Satelite is availble everywhere...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

mom was gonna get internet through directv... when i read it over i pissed my pants laughing at how ridiculous it was. not only do you have a limit on your traffic (that i could seriously spend in a day), but you also have to pay out of your ass for it.

i guess i missed out on the '2 girls 1 cup' thing coz i cant find the video anywhere lol. is it as bad as the tubgirl ???

i guess i missed out on the '2girls1cup' thing coz i cant find the video anywhere lol. is it as bad as the tubgirl ???

srsly, 2G1C should only be revolting if your a net virgin. it's not really all that bad. the pain series is far worse, and then you can take it a step further with BME Pain Olympics or *shudder* zippo cat.

although zippo cat would probably rank between the pain series and the bme pain olympics for most, but i have a huge soft spot for animals. i admit i've not been able to bring myself to watch zippo cat (or kitty crush for that matter), but the thumbnails are horrific enough.

So I know for future reference and to make sure I don't accidentally get hit by these things... What's zippo cat, BME pain Olympics and kitty crush?

I should mention that the last video is an extension of a fetish. I'm gonna spoiler the next two or so sentences for those who do not want to see it:

Typically, the woman kills smaller animals, such as frogs and whatnot. Never heard of it being extended to kittens, though... God, I hate humanity sometimes.

Worse. Tubgirl is just an enema shot. 2 girls, 1 cup is one girl taking a mushy bowel movement into a plastic cup that the other girl is holding. The two then proceed to "erotically" lick the feces as if it were ice cream.

(delete the spaces)

Warning: The following contains a pretty graphic description of some extremely gruesome shock videos. the descriptions have been spoilered for the squeamish, and those not wishing to read such graphic content.

zippo cat is where they take a cat, soak it in zippo lighter fluid and set it aflame, the cat runs around screaming as it's burned alive.

BME Pain Olympics has these two guys going at it to get folks to cringe, one guy cuts his dick off and smashes his balls, the other guy takes a hatchet to his balls, reaches into is scrotum, pulls them out then proceeds to hack at them with the hatchet.

Kitty crush is where this pretty asian lady in high heels places a live kitten on the ground and stomps all over it, at one point in time crushing it's lower jaw with the Powerglideing heel of her shoe and eventually kills it all the while it's screaming in pain.

yes, humanity sure is Powerglideing superior to every other animal huh?

for the record, i've only watched BME Pain Olympics. humans hurting themselves doesn't bother me in the least, i have, however, been the victim of a bait and switch of the thumbnails of the other two videos and even the pics turned my stomach. OH YEA, I FORGOT ONE

i dunno what it's called, but the pics float around /b/ quite often. i don't know if a video exists but the pics are Powerglideing sad as Powerglide too. somebody takes a cat thats alive, kills it, guts it, does stuff with it's head.... i haven't seen all the pics just the one of the cat's head hanging by some kind of wire with a cd or something in a computer case. i refuse to look at the rest of the set. i thought it was a Powerglideing stuffed animals head until i saw the bigger picture.

lots of shock stuff involving the killing of animals floating out there. if you look up zippocat on ED (encyclopedia dramatica) you'll see the screen caps which i'd imagine to be no where near as bad as the video. kitty crush caps are on snopes.com here. feel free to visit the snopes page and get a good run down on what the video contains as well as some sweet justice, the snopes page does have the graphic pictures, but they're not on the linked page. you have to click a link on that page to see them. i don't know if any screen caps exist for BME Pain Olympics.

well, vore is a fetish too, but thats not an excuse to go around eating folks.

I take it you forgot to read my last sentence.

I think we could all make our points here without the graphic descriptions thx

though I do appreciate the spoiler tags

No, just... you know, this is just (literally) extreme shock stuff that most people don't want to know about. I don't want to be a dick about it.

No, just... you know, this is just (literally) extreme shock stuff that most people don't want to know about. I don't want to be a dick about it.

Eh tv pretty much sucks.

Digital cable/satellite is pretty much more of the same suck and I wouldn't pay for either.

I can't even watch tv where I reside.

Haven't missed it one bit. The internet is huge but it's increasingly seeming that acquired home entertainment is becoming the most popular. Why pay to watch something once tv/movie when you can just buy it and watch it whenever and as many times as you want. I'll never understand why some poor sap would want to pirate pay per view and reprogram a specialty card every other week. BullBlot waste of time, money and effort.

Can't believe people are still using Dial up this day and age. WTF? I thought by now DSL was universal. I've been running with it for the past six years and for $45 a month I get fast unrestricted internet service.

No, just... you know, this is just (literally) extreme shock stuff that most people don't want to know about. I don't want to be a dick about it.

Precisely WHY we need to talk about it. For people out there ignorance is a tool, they say they dont want to know as knowlege would compel them to do something about it. There are MANY times that I have sat there and said "I dont want to know" and though I will NEVER forget the images/sounds that I have observed, just by watching I have shown myself that we need to do something. Hell I have found a petition to shut down a server of this horrific crap, AND I SIGNED. Yes I only spent 2 minutes of my life so far to type my e-mail and my tiny message but I still tried. Im not sure if we acheived anything but at least 6 of the pages are impossible to find.


The main issue of the web when it comes to broadcasting is that if we pick and choose all of the shows we watch we will miss out on other shows which may change us. Take DragonBall/Z/GT I may have hated the series but I did take positive messages from it and am truly thankful that I had the oportunity to see some great stories. Now look at the fantastic number of Documentary channels out there, when you are bored Blotless and cant find something even remotely interesting you end up watching what? A documentary about the history of Gothic Design, you find out that the designer of a building had a grudge and put all kinds of phallic symbols all over the house he designed. Now if you were online and saw "Kid skates into a bus and survives" and "Gothic Design: a history" you will choose the kid. Choice in entertainment can be a bad thing, how many times have you been the local library and headed for that arts section you normally avoid?

i understand what your saying, but honestly, i gotta disagree. yes, you can hold this on the same level as snuff, but, we kill animals every day, by the thousands. PETA's website is full of Blot like this, and while i don't agree with them on alot of issues, and the way they go about things, i have to praise them for going undercover in these places and bringing this kind of sick Blot out into the open. i once saw a documentary about class B dealers that sell dogs to companies for medical and scientific testing. the documentary showed some of the WORST animal cruelty i've ever seen.... Powerglide, just thinking about it i'm tearing up, but i suggest you watch it, it's called Dealing Dogs. anyway, you can't just go around and say "ok, you're allowed to possess and distribute videos and pictures depicting animal cruelty, but you over there cannot", and you can't just outright outlaw this kind of stuff because it has a purpose. not only did that documentary get that dealer shut down, thrown in jail, and fined heavily, but i'm also sure it had a part to play in the recent bill that would outlaw class b dealers.

...............Freefalll learned life lessons from Dragonball Z?

WHAT? Where did I support it? I supported talking and discussing but I did not in any way support ownership of the materials or creation of. Morality is a WORLD WIDE issue, saying OK FOR THEM NOT FOR US is hypocrisy. The Earth is our home wether in the UK USA or even Iran we are all neighbours and need to change ALL the injustices and make a UNIVERSAL set of laws away from religion.

Precisely WHY we need to talk about it. For people out there ignorance is a tool, they say they dont want to know as knowlege would compel them to do something about it. There are MANY times that I have sat there and said "I dont want to know" and though I will NEVER forget the images/sounds that I have observed, just by watching I have shown myself that we need to do something. Hell I have found a petition to shut down a server of this horrific crap, AND I SIGNED. Yes I only spent 2 minutes of my life so far to type my e-mail and my tiny message but I still tried. Im not sure if we acheived anything but at least 6 of the pages are impossible to find.

yeah I definitely think people should know what NOT to go looking for.... there is some truly messed up stuff out there, and I wish I didn't know about it

yeah.. I really wish I hadn't clicked on this thread.. im one of those kidn of people, that ifI read something horribly disturbing, I HAVE to go click on it and see it.. I dont WANT to.. I just HAVe to. curiosity just gets the best of me

I looked at those kitten pictures, I saw the preview thumbs, then hesitated and almost clicked the X button to close it.. but I ended up clicking all the additional links..

poor, poor kitty