Tangent: Surreal Videos
Added 2024-06-06 23:15:08 +0000 UTCHi friends,
The topic patrons voted on this month was "A curated collection of surreal and obscure videos from across internet history with in depth commentary and analysis." I decided to drop the "obscure" criterion for reasons explained in the video—I found that the videos I most wanted to discuss were not really all that obscure. So here is what would more appropriately be called a curated collection of famous surreal videos from across internet history, with commentary and an introductory ramble about surrealism in general.
This one took longer than I anticipated because I decided that in order for this to stand on its own as a video essay, I needed to include a lot of clips of the source material, which means more editing time than usual for a Tangent.
So I continue to fall behind schedule, and at this point I think I'm going to have to beg you to forgive me my Tangent debt. It's turned out not to be practical to produce more than one of these a month while also working on a main channel video. So there will be a June Tangent, but I'm abandoning my hopes of getting two Tangents out for one month.
I originally intended the Tangents to be more of a low-effort, minimally researched and edited type of thing, but at this point I just can't bring myself to slop out mediocre content. There's too many people watching—and I can hardly complain about that, but it does make me feel like I need to meet basic quality standards for the work I put out. I know some of you think you'd be happy to hear me read a bus schedule. But no, you wouldn't. So I appreciate your patience with my impressionistic approach to deadlines.
For the next few weeks I'm going to dive into work on a main channel video, because I have an idea for it that I'm excited about, and it's best to harness that excitement when it strikes. So hopefully I can get a script together by the end of this month too and ideally finish that video by the end of the summer.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
-Natalie
P.S. Here's the video link, in case embedding doesn't work: https://youtu.be/I8gmEhL2MRM
Comments
Is there a creepy lady in your fireplace?
Ahri Clevinger
2025-11-26 09:40:44 +0000 UTCMy favourite Garfield branch is as simple as it is beautiful: Garfield without Garfield: https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/page/445
Heinrich
2025-10-17 18:40:02 +0000 UTCI would never have guessed conspiracy video seedlings here
Viviane P.L.
2025-07-21 22:25:35 +0000 UTCWell I'll definitely be checking out Lasagna Cat. Missed out on that one during its prime
raggedy-jenna
2025-07-15 20:52:36 +0000 UTCgenuinely so scared after the first two entries. 🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣
poopee doodee
2025-06-16 23:35:20 +0000 UTCI’m a little jealous of anyone who got to experience this internet as it occurred.
Nikki Cobb
2025-05-05 19:55:15 +0000 UTCA tangent on cults 😍
Jens Temberg
2025-04-19 11:52:02 +0000 UTCloved this! as someone from outside the US who did their dissertation on analog horror, i adore the Morthamshire County Council channel. you're exposed to old images of American TV all the time through movies and different media but there was something chilling about seeing an unnerving account of a surrealist news story, using the bumpers and TV channels I grew up with. completely threw me off guard and made it all seem the more real, which then made it feel unreal. definitely check out the dont hug me im scared tv show if you haven't yet. its surprisingly hilarious!
ro cull
2025-04-13 00:17:06 +0000 UTCI genuinely got so much out of this video. It has helped me enjoy surreal film so much more and expanded my thinking about these kinds of videos. Thank you and I hope you feel called to make more videos like this at some point
ellie swann
2025-04-12 18:03:40 +0000 UTCSankyew.
Jeff Traverso
2025-04-12 08:47:31 +0000 UTCi be area!!
Clementine Keenan
2025-04-11 07:32:17 +0000 UTCI would scream of euphoria if my two worlds collide like that, I've already recommended her Cortázar in the liminal tangent. It would be amazing if she reads those amazing argentinian authors
Paola Nicoll Alzuru Castillo
2025-02-19 04:34:22 +0000 UTCHave you read A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enríquez? It’s a collection of surreal and unsettling short stories that a lot of these videos gave me vibes of. I really enjoyed the book.
Lisa D
2025-02-04 18:12:02 +0000 UTCWait which parts of leviticus is Natalie referring to at 40:45 ish
Zoë Collis
2025-01-12 15:47:16 +0000 UTCI love the texture and the spookiness of digitized records and wax cylinders from the 1900's. Something far enough in the past or depicting a far enough future has a perceived classic timelessness.
rj
2024-08-24 03:22:29 +0000 UTCMy friend’s little sister who is maybe 12 made this short film recently that was soooo surreal and creepy and it was the strongest “the kids are alright” moment I’ve had in a while. It’s really unsettling like analog horror but the whole plot is just that they brushed their big fluffy dog and froze the hair it shed in a ziploc bag, and then got one of the neighbors to take it. That’s the whole plot.
Mikayla Holland
2024-08-20 04:09:23 +0000 UTCGARFIELD SHIRT
Evelyn
2024-08-11 01:51:48 +0000 UTCnew patron here, loved this retrospective of the kind of shit me and my mates would share with each other in the mid 2000s. some weird nostalgia here
Nihilore
2024-08-09 05:02:52 +0000 UTCI think a video on the liberals who don't seem to realize 'project 2025' has been tacitly cosigned by every democratic president who didn't codify your rights into law when they had ample opportunity would do you more good. Or one on how it's a not-so-secret bipartisan tactic to hold those rights over your head, and keep you in a binary system that requires you to choose between two genocidal imperialists who will both use your tax dollars to carpet bomb refugee camps full of Palestinian families. But if your content preferences are driven mostly by nostalgia, and if right-wing rhetoric makes you angry but not pretty much every democrat continuing to fund the most digitally documented ethnic cleansing in world history for 9 months, then I'm likely barking up the wrong tree. I was a 'blue no matter who' 4 years ago, fully agreed with Natalie's video on how voting is a strategic choice, but the landscape has changed since the era you want to return to. Anyone paying attention has realized at this point that fixating on the alt-right symptom of the larger imperialist disease is myopic 2019 dialogue and serves mostly to make us feel like the good guys in a valiant fight against evil. Rather than increasingly powerless expendable citizens who need to divest from it and show that we have collective power, instead of acting from a place of short-sighted desperation and continuing to enable it.
Emily
2024-07-23 17:41:43 +0000 UTCReally missing and desiring a project 2025 or similarly political analysis video of where the alt right headspace is. I know you’ve moved away from your debates with Tiffany Tumbles and Tabby and such but I loved granola fascism because it felt so true to your older content.
Maya
2024-07-23 02:30:32 +0000 UTCMissing so much this month's tangent, is there going to be one?
Antonio Calvo Elorri
2024-07-21 22:36:08 +0000 UTCI must share this with my 13-year-old who has always had a love of the weird, surreal, and macabre.
Bea A. Bookreader
2024-07-15 21:27:15 +0000 UTCTik tok Ms.Points we're waiting eagerly for the next tangent
Oscar Glass
2024-07-15 06:18:09 +0000 UTCHey Natalie, I really loved this tangent, this whole thing about the relationship of surrealism with the need to decode hidden messages reminded me one of my favourit films, the 2018 Under the Silver Lake, by director David Robert Mitchell, I think it portrays a sector of people who grew up under the influence of pop culture and conspiracism, in addition to other topics such as male gaze, pornography the exploitation of people in the medium of spectacle and the nihilism of millionaires. I hope this can contribute to the dialogue and analysis. Greetings from a teenager who grew up with surreal videos on the internet.
Oscar De León
2024-06-22 23:41:40 +0000 UTCI watched this just after waking up from a dream where I met with a friend who had totally different face from her own but still it was absolutely her… I think a movie that’s better at conveying the absurdity of dreams is The science of sleep by Michel Gondry.
Pauline Drillet
2024-06-22 13:41:24 +0000 UTCAt least put "Natalie reads a bus schedule" on the next poll and let democracy work
XavierTeatime
2024-06-07 02:13:54 +0000 UTCLove the hair. But also, I must have that shirt!
Gautam Madhivanan
2024-06-07 02:12:35 +0000 UTC
