Youtube Nation: Drunks on Parade

Ever since the age of 18, which was the first time I ever lived in a big city, I've wondered just what it takes to send a person into the forbidden depths of complete reckless abandon. How exactly did the street corner bum become a bum? At what point did the full-on drunk transition from being a heavy but functional drinker to the hopeless gutter-dweller that he is now? While the change from contributing member of society to wretch is almost certainly a gradual process, there's got to be a single, defining moment. Just like growing regional tensions eventually resulted in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand to begin the First World War, the epic slosh in this week's video had to have a pivotal moment in his likely sordid history to culminate in his fifteen minutes of Internet fame.

But this hypothesis of mine isn't purely speculative. No, I speak from experience. I've definitely had my own abusive love affair with the bottle, but when things started to get ugly, even downright embarrassing, I decided to back off enough to keep my life from falling into a shambles. A teetotaler I certainly am not, but I'll also never bring myself within reach of the above slob and his simultaneously sad and hilarious quest to defy his own physiological fail-safes.

You see, Mr. DRUNKEST GUY EVER has reached that special point in his career of drinking when he first attempts to do things a horribly intoxicated person shouldn't be able to do, physically or otherwise. He's obviously something of an alcoholic neophyte, attempting to get his sea legs in what may be his first ever quest to buy a case of cheap beer while drunker than most people are even capable of becoming. A seasoned vet might be able to compensate for an effectively absent sense of balance and the way alcohol-addled eyes just don't process incoming data as quickly as necessary. Our protagonist unfortunately lacks those talents.

Because Youtube is magical, the original raw video, audio and all, is buried deep within the many musical remixes of DRUNKEST GUY EVER. While I still prefer the 2001 Space Odyssey version, especially for its glorious closing moments when our hero attempts (and fails) to put the bowl back on the counter, the raw video trumps it in unadulterated sadness. Mr. Drunk falls on his ass and informs no one in particular that he's messed himself, then he runs through the entire Christian pantheon looking for help. At first it sounds like the usual meaningless exclamations, but it soon becomes apparent that he's literally asking Jesus to help him stand up. Is he so drunk that he's hallucinating religious figures, or does he simply think that deities hang around waiting for sloppy drunks to find faith in a moment of desperation? Thankfully, most of us will never find the answer.

My favorite part of DRUNKEST GUY EVER is that it somehow achieves a narrative arc. Our hero goes on a mission to get drunker (re: dead) and meets adversity along the way. His determination, like struggling against quicksand, just pulls him deeper into disaster. Finally, he fights to find his way out of the convenience store, which is like some kind of existential state in and of itself. But there's hope in those final moments. Note how he isn't carrying that case of beer at the end, suggesting, however vaguely, that he has decided not to drink anymore, that he has had some kind of epiphany. It's more likely that DRUNKEST GUY EVER will just sober up enough to get drunk again, but the video as a piece unto itself hints at a happier resolution. For Youtube, that's good enough.