I guess we’ve all done it.
Someone gives you a link to a nifty
YouTube video. You log on to look at it, and then the video in the “related� file also looks interesting, so you click on to that one too. Then that leads to another, and then another, and before long, 90 minutes have gone by and it’s to Hell with working on those company reports, let’s just put some popcorn in the microwave and waste the whole damn afternoon.
And that’s pretty much what happened to me yesterday, although it’s not like I’m trying to make excuses or anything.
The thing is, I became mesmerized by a section in the YouTube library offering wine videos featuring local Vancouver wine gal
Mireille Sauvé (sommelier and wine educator). Ms Sauvé was giving samples of the sort of lectures she delivers as part of her service industry training seminars. “
Understanding Customer Needs.� “
Wine and Culture.� “
Developing the Palate.�
It’s not that I was so amazed to run across Mireille in Videoland. Rather, her use of YouTube as a promotional marketing tool struck me as quite modern and innovative. What had me square-eyed in front of the monitor was the display of twisted humour that must be possessed by the gremlin in the company's data banks -- the one in charge of the “related� videos selection.
And I only feel safe to mention this because I know Mireille's great sense of humour can also appreciate the absurdity … but there she is, crisply making her point like some serious, bespeckled school mistress...handling her bottle of wine with the delicacy and decorum of a product sales spokesmodel ...and right after her in the playlist was the video offered up as “related� that….. well, YOU
check it out.
As far as I can see, the only thing related about the two videos was that both featured a woman demonstrating a technique with a bottle of wine. But in each scenerio, the interpretation of “giving the customer what he really wants� couldn’t be further from that of the other’s.
And then as if that weren’t enough,
YouTube decides to take incongruity even further over the top with related videos
3,
4, and
5 featuring various performances of the “Dutty Wine Dance.�
For those who don’t know, the "Dutty Wine� is a
medically controversial dance craze, mostly favoured by buxom Jamaican women, and usually performed to a dance hall tune of the same name sung by Tony Matterhorn. As far as any contribution to arts and culture goes, it makes the Macarena look like a prim curtsy before the Queen Mother.
Now I figure that “dutty� is derived from Jamaican patois for “dirty� but what wine has to do with it mystifies me, unless you take into consideration that the dance can best be described as what one would look like if one were required to straddle a magnum of wine and unscrew the cork with nothing but the aide of one’s clenched butt cheeks. And that’s quite a technique in itself. More skill required than that cherry stem trick, anyway.
I suppose deciphering the lyrics of the music might help, as I did hear the word “wine� sung out a number of times, but all I could make out…and believe me, even that wasn’t easy…. the chorus went something like:
So BLEEP’n inna wata, BLEEP’n inna sea
BLEEP’n inna bushes, and BLEEP’n inna tree
If you BLEEP pon di bed your not BLEEP’n me
BLEEP pon di floor, BLEEP pon di t.v.
BLEEP pon di dresser, and bruk up figurine
BLEEP pon di fan, no gyal no finga me
When mi see di hot gyal dem dat a trigga me
BLEEP anywhere, let BLEEP’n be free ...
Well, I guess we can all figure out what Mr. Matterhorn is hinting at. And come to think of it, as marketing messages go, that’s a bleep’n more direct one than all those coy labels with dancing birds and bees could ever manage. Even Yellow Tail.
