CollegeHumor dares fans

On June 25th, CollegeHumor.com, a website known for its signature brand of often off-color or downright dirty humor, released a video that completely departed from their usual content. “I Dare You to watch this Entire Video,” a three minute and five second long short, isn’t humorous. It isn’t exciting, nor does it have any particular kind of action to it. Instead, the entire video is a single man, dressed in a blue suit, sitting at a table in front of a plain white wall with a clock counting down the time. He immediately starts into his dare. “I dare you to watch this entire video. No skipping ahead, no pausing, no opening another tab and letting this run in the background. I dare you to sit still, and do nothing but watch a three minute Internet video.” It’s a direct challenge to everyone on the Internet. Facebook users, Twitter users and any other group who surfs the Internet on a regular basis including College Humor’s fan base are among those challenged.
Despite the normally irreverent tone of College Humor’s content, the video brings up some extremely valid issues. The attention span of our culture has dropped.  It’s almost like our society is submitting itself to a form of voluntary ADD, searching for the latest buzz, the latest distraction that the Internet can provide. “A decade of instantaneous entertainment has made you so mentally soft and fat that you find even 10 seconds of boredom excruciating.”
Admittedly, the video’s tone isn’t the most compelling, and at times it’s downright insulting.  As a people, we have become distractible, sometimes outright ignoring the things we have to do in favor of things that do very little for us. I personally consider myself a gamer and have often caught myself playing games like League of Legends or DotA instead of doing homework.
I recommend watching it, and taking the dare. There’s more to life than watching cat videos and switching tabs. After all, in the end, life is filled with choices, and perhaps the biggest one is the choice to take charge of life. To be a part of other people’s lives instead of just spectating. Go ahead and try it. After all, as the video says, “To decide what you’re going to do with the rest of your life, you’re going to have to dare yourself.”