Entertainment
“Damn, Daniel”, The Newest Viral Hit
Memes wouldn’t be half as adored by the general audience if it weren’t for their inclusiveness – ANYONE can get turned into a meme. Yes, you too. The latest lucky guy is Daniel, a high school student who can’t be accused of actually deserving the fame he gets. All he does is, well, to stroll and grin a few times. Not much, eh? His fascinating endeavors are being commented live by another teenager from the campus.
“Damn, Daniel” has already garnered more than 330,000 likes and 265,000 retweets since it went online a week ago. The video is focused on Daniel and his friend called Josh mainly owes its popularity to BuzzFeed. What exactly is it about “Damn, Daniel” that has made it into such a phenomenon? Well, we can’t say much, as there’s not too much to be said… Josh, the guy who takes care of the simple narration, throws a complimentary “damn, Daniel” every few seconds at the titular high school dude struts about, showing off his attractiveness and fashionable choice of clothing. In the first few videos, their primary hero looks anxious, but he quickly gets used to the new role – he even raises his leg for the camera to get a better glimpse of his chic shoes. “Back at it again with the white Vans!”, comments Josh, as we stand amazed. Or do we… Well, we’re supposed to.
Via: twitter.com
Actually, what makes this video fun is how easy it makes it for us to go back in time to high school times and witness how natural interactions between teenage boys develop. I mean, who are those dudes to each other? Best friends or fierce rivals? Is Josh the loser trying to butter Daniel up or does he as a matter of fact represent the higher caste of high schoolers and is mercilessly mocking the other boy? We’re free to interpret who is who – and which of the boys is the real main hero of the video? The good-looking one who caters to the viral’s aesthetics or the artsy narrator, Josh?
The neat aspect of the video is that not only does it take us back to high school times, but it also provides for an amusing reflection on the nature of friendship – how one dude can make fun of the other without being a vicious bully about it. Like, would anyone else wear those Vans quite like Daniel does? Josh doesn’t think so and you probably already have in mind a long-unseen friend of yours who would always act in such a unique way back in high school times. The nerdy one, the jock, the posh group – you would have recognized them all with hardly even looking, and you joked about them with the coolest kids of all, which is the group YOU were part of, right? The only thing that’s changed since you were a teenager is that now, whatever happens, it can be so easily etched in the stone called The Internet.
