It's no surprise that when YouTube pseudo-celebrity Tay Zonday was featured on Jimmy Kimmel's Show, the audience reaction was a little less than positive. Most of them looked confused, bewildered or non-plussed. That's exactly the reaction a normal person would have when subjected to the baritone stylings of some weird kid off of the Internet.
This is the problem with the Internet, its audience and its chosen idols. Internet heroes aren't chosen for their skill, good looks or positive effects on society. They get chosen because they're kinda weird but, in a maladjusted social reject's eyes, also totally awesome. That's Tay Zonday. A small black kid with a freakishly baritone voice.
"Give him a radio contract!" the Internet hordes shriek. "His voice is, like, really bass!" Sounding less like the odd-looking gnome he is and more like a Protoss Arbiter, Tay Zonday is basically a freak show turned celebrity, mostly due to the combined effort of the small ghetto's worth of similar freaks with far-less baritone voices who upvote his videos.
Forget the fact that he'd be eliminated on day one of American Idol for being an obviously shitty singer, or the fact that his stage presence is tantamount to someone you're videoconferencing with at the office. Forget that he's a crazy-eyed giant earphone-wearing virgin-looking kid with a psychotic expression. Thanks to the marvel of modern telecommunications, those qualities make you an Avatar of the Internet.Oh, and you can thank Mr. Zonday for the eternal travesty that is Chocolate Rain, a grating and endlessly-remixed funeral dirge of talent.
In the end, Tay Zonday's creations are useful only for one thing: punishing Internet denizens for making him famous.
