Awesome Internet Parodies

The Internet has and will always be an awesome source for creative content. You can write about anything you were interested in, see videos of actual episodes uploaded by others, watch movies, and see hilarious parodies. In regards to the parodies, the idea of seeing popular characters portrayed in different contexts were one source of parody that was interesting to look at. Sometimes, seeing other characters portrayed in a way that was completely the opposite of the source material could be something that people could enjoy for a long time. One example was the YouTube video Racist Mario, which parodied and mocked both the racing game franchise, and the idea of video games cross-overs all at once. Even the idea of certain sub-cultures could be parodied through song, like in the music video ME! ME! ME! And for an alternate interpretation of popular cartoons, one good example was Yu-G-Oh! Abridged, which took the content of an actual show and made of parody where the characters sounded completely different from how they were portrayed originally. With the advancement of the Internet, people gained many alternatives in how they could share their creations. Some of these creations may be surreal on some levels, but somebody thought people would like them.

Super Mario Bros. has been around for a long time. As a franchise, this meant that all sorts of games came as a result. On the other hand, this also meant that all sorts of parodies came as a result as well. Titled Racist Mario, this parody was one where the video game protagonist, one of the biggest icons in gaming, was portrayed as a jerk. This video started out with a crossover of Nintendo and Sega characters in a race. Suddenly, Mario used a Bob-bomb against Knuckles the Echidna, killing him. Luigi, Mario's brother, then stated that Mario took racing too seriously. What followed was Mario systematically killing off all of the racers on the track. First, as a reference to the Star Wars Episode I: Racer, Mario severely injured Anakin Skywalker. Then, Mario used an item cube to kill Yoshi by smashing it over his head. Next, Mario used a giant banana like a spear and shoved it through Donkey Kong's butt, killing him. After that, Mario turned into a Bullet Bill to destroy Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet Karting. Almost immediately after killing Sackboy, Mario seriously mauled Sonic the Hedgehog by using a spped booster to tear off bits of Sonic's face, incapacitating him. As a plot twist, rather than kill Luigi by incinerating him, Kratos from the God of War series used one of his blades to impale on his face, leaving Mario and Kratos as the only racers. Racist Mario the ended with Kratos killing Mario and impaling his eyeless face on a stick.

Sometimes parodies could have interesting or serious symbolism from the real world. For example, liking animated characters is not a bad thing. Acting like you were in love with an animated character could be considered weird. Interestingly enough, Japan has an entire culture filled with men who were obsessively interested in animated characters. Referred to as otaku, these were people who watched Japanese cartoons, referred to as animé, and read a lot of Japanese comic books, referred to as manga. Initially ME! ME! ME! highlighted the physical reasons as to why someone would like an animé character. Some of them were physically arousing, sometimes their personality was just so adorable to see, and sometimes they were just addictive for lonely people. Of course, that addiction got shown in a darker light by showing that lusting for some animé characters could be considered unhealthy. See, otaku culture was portrayed as lonely because the otaku here essentially shut himself away from the world. And while the music video implied that animé was used as an emotional crutch for the guy in the video, it was shown that the artificial world of animé was not a positive replacement for whatever problems the guy in the video was facing. Unfortunately, by the end of ME! ME! ME! it seemed like the guy was still obsessed with animé even if nothing he gained from it was healthy.

An abridged series basically took a show, replaced all of the voices with different people, and interpreted the events of episodes differently. One good example was the web series Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged. Made by the user LittleKuriboh from YouTube, Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged took the plot of a show where the characters solved their problems by using a children's card game, made it so that most of the characters were either stupid or not as menacing as they were in the original series, and hilariously pointed out all of the flaws hat were present in the show. For example, in the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game certain monsters had to be sacrificed so that even more powerful monsters could be summoned and used. In the animated series based on the card game, that rule was not used in the first season. A fact that Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged gleefully pointed out in its first episode. Because when one of its characters summoned three monsters simultaneously when doing so was against the rules, all that could be said was, "Screw the rules, I have money!". As the first episode of this series Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged did not possess the quality in this episode as it did in later episodes, but it was still funny to watch.

The Internet has become a good source of entertainment. Net Neutrality has made it so that people had the freedom to look at content with having to pay money. And while people could look at episodes that would normally be on the television, see other people play video games, and listen to music videos, looking at parodies was also a valid option for entertainment. Like with the video Racist Mario, where the viewer got to see various video game characters portrayed in ways that the creators of said video game characters could never get away with. As a music video that took a somewhat serious look at otaku culture, ME! ME! ME! parodied the life of a nerd and how isolating that lifestyle could be. Even parodies of actual cartoons like Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged were neat because the viewer could see a serious story portrayed as whimsically as possible. Which was not a bad thing.