PPAP Rant: Why Pineapple Pen is Cancer

May whatever deity you believe in forgive the “genius” who came up with this audio-visual tumor. In case you’ve been living under a rock, that video was Pen Pineapple Apple Pen. It’s a comedy piece by Japanese celebrity Kosaka Daimaoh. Assuming you haven’t seen it before, I expect that by the end of that clip, you will have one of two different reactions. Either:

a.) you can’t stop laughing, you call your friends over, and you hit the replay button, or

b.) you stare at the screen with your eyes squinted, trying not to cringe, and you tell yourself: “Well that’s one minute and nine seconds I’m never getting back.”

WATCH: PPAP Video via verified YouTube channel

Now if you picked reaction A, I commend you. You probably see some form of humor that I will never be able to understand. You are enlightened, and you are at some unimaginable league above me. Actually, no. That’s a lie. The truth is that the video is entertaining to you only in the same sense that Baby Micah here thinks torn paper is funny. The only difference is you’ll never be as adorable as he is.

WATCH: Baby Laughing Hysterically at Ripping Paper via Brubearbaby YouTube channel

PPAP: The beginning

August 25, 2016. That was the day this whole mess began. A YouTube video was released wherein Piko-Taro — Kosako’s stage persona — demonstrated how to create a pen-pineapple-apple-pen. According to Piko-Taro, first you stick a pen into an apple to form an apple-pen. Then, you take a second pen and stick it into a pineapple. The result is a pineapple-pen. Finally, you take both apple-pen and pineapple-pen and put them together, and voila! End result!

PPAP: Going viral

Now honestly, I have no qualms about Japanese comedy. I enjoy a good episode of Silent Library every now and then. We also have videos from artists with similar eccentric personalities to Pico-Taro (Michael V gets the closest). To be honest, the wordplay in the clip is actually not half-bad. The problem isn’t the clip. It’s the “fans” who abused its popularity and caused it to explode on Facebook.

Come mid-september, the Internet decided the international success of the PPAP video was not enough. Japanese teens started lip-syncing to the music clip ala-musical.ly style, and then it was everywhere. See, the original video was mildly annoying, but it was fun, and it was weird. But when you see it at least three times on every Facebook timeline you visit, you’re gonna suffer from burnout faster than you can stab an actual apple with a pen.

Oh, and save me please. Don’t get me started on the parodies.

I have a dog, I have a daughter…

I saw this post once, and I laughed. Then I saw it again. And again. And again, and it just wouldn’t end.

For those who don’t know, see how it ends here.

Why!? What is it about this specific post that gets it spread around so much?  And fine… it was funny enough the first time around, but when the same joke is regurgitated over and over again, it just gets a tad bit annoying. Just the tiniest bit.

The Problem with PPAP

You want me to be real? I don’t hate PPAP. I don’t even dislike people who spread it around. If you genuinely find this funny, then more laughs to you. The real issue that makes me (And quite a few others, apparently) hate this clip is because not everyone who shares it is a fan.

There is no shortage of people on the Internet looking for attention. Everyone who ever posts anything online does it to be seen. And if you’re recycling someone else’s joke because you can’t come up with something eye-catching on your own, then that just makes it sad.

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Yah.”

“Yah who?”

“YAHOO!”

Oh dear Lord, I’m exactly the same. My point is, seeing ONE person get five seconds of fame from this won’t be a problem. What pisses me off is seeing a whole damn generation doing it. There was a time when you needed to be good at something to be famous. Now, you can get a jumpstart by finding out what’s hot, and copying it. I mean try searching YouTube for PPAP. Go on, try it. The video that tops the list is a reupload of the original, and it has over 38,000,000 views (compared to 18,000,000 on Pico-Taro’s official channel). Yes, mankind is officially that desperate for attention. THAT is the level we’re at. THAT is what pisses me off.