Leeroy Jenkins, Tron Guy, Techno Viking, and Tay Zonday. If you’ve spent more than five seconds online, there’s little doubt you’ve witnessed the comedic exploits of said viral video heroes before firing off links to your nearest and dearest via social media. The you-gotta-see-this elation of sharing YouTube oddities and other streaming treasures is what seemingly drives the Internet these days (well, that and porno) and is at the heart of Society of the Spectacle at Jobot.
Every Tuesday, co-organizer Joey Grether, (a.k.a. “Geezus,”) projects a nonstop stream of online videos requested by attendees onto a paint-splattered dropcloth erected in the coffeehouse's front yard. It’s more than a public viewing party, he explains, and is akin to an anthropological experiment digging through web detritus.
“We leave it wide open for any kind of participation, so we’re spontaneously filtering through what other people have found each time,” Grether says. Which means if you stop by Jobot from 8 to 10 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8, you might be engaged by the stop-motion depiction of Italian street artist Blu’s grafitti, or delighted by a hilarious parody of annoying illusionist David Blaine.
