Lee Gomes's "Portals" column in the Wall Street Journal usually addresses the question concerning technology with a boomer-friendly sort of phenomenology—as in, "gee whiz, look at this phenomenon!"—and little else. Today's edition seems at first no exception: Gomes has discovered a YouTube "bulging" with all sorts of talentless novelty acts—actually mostly just one sort: pasty white guy incongruously singing and/or dancing—that become famous, in a way. But Gomes interviews some of them, and finds them remarkably attuned to the limits and liminality of "being the latest, greatest Web meme... [mere] human kitsch." We learn, then, that the struggle for First Life self-actualization still demands the imprimatur of Man. And what kind of Man?"Mr. [Adam "Chocolate Rain"] Bahner is hoping his appearances on the likes of 'Jimmy Kimmel' will turbo charge a career in show business and voiceover."

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