Though the point of this blog is to plumb the ridiculous depths of the Internet and find the mistakes of nature that dwell along the bottom of the ugly abyss, I have managed to avoid the floating minefield of memes and stereotypes that come with the territory. Still, I feel compelled to address the role of Scientology in the medium of Youtube.

Before I get started, I have to qualify this endeavor. I don't give two sloppy tosses about the myriad crackpot bull-hockey, yes bull-hockey, an ice-based team sport as played by male bovine, of Scientology. As far as I can tell, it's nothing more than the inevitable fusion of modern marketing schemes and classical religious tropes. Pay to ascend? Big deal. Catholics have been passing around the collection plate since before English was a language and my own people skip the guilt trip and just charge people for synagogue membership. Nobody should be shocked that a religion devised whole-cloth from 20th century America by the Ayn Rand of science fiction writers turned out the way it did.

That said, I have some issues with the Church of Scientology Youtube channel. First of all, it's way too snazzy. And I don't use that term lightly. It is not so quaint as to be called "nice" nor is it so tasteful that I can call it "elegant". It is exactly snazzy, wrought with the kind of superfluous graphics and vague style points that have made cable news networks what they are today. The background is of a blue sky and classical columns for some reason. From what I understand, Scientology doesn't associate itself with Greco-Roman culture, but I guess that's what suffices as "classy" these days. Hell, white-bread idiots put columns in front of their McMansions, so knock yourself out with the Dorics, Scientology.

Then there's the embedded player. When you first enter the channel, the player has some sort of epileptic seizure and flails all of its features at you for no reason. Then, like the set to a 50's western collapsing when some sound tech leans up against it, the familiar Youtube player sort of emerges from a line of lazy code. In the end, it's the same old red bar and universal Play button as you'll find on some bored jerk's vlog about vacuuming.

Finally, the Scientology channel breaks what I consider to be a key component of Youtube etiquette. Youtube has accepted its place as a popular sub-medium of the Internet and therefore encourages Net ideals, not the least of which is user choice. The Scientology page implements an automatic playlist, following one video with another before viewers can even process the nonsense they just saw (i.e. a barrage of religious images like monks, cathedrals, the Wailing Wall, aka "take use seriously as a real religion- the movie"). That's not what Youtube is about, Scientology. If I don't get that nifty "related videos and embedding options" screen after your silly commercial ends, I don't feel like I've watched a Youtube video. And when I come to Youtube, for better or worse, that's not the experience I want.

So, aside from being an absurd scam that leaves a trail of celebrity bodies in its wake, Scientology has failed its citizenship test for the Youtube Nation. Now, if only we could deport them.