Canadian Satire visits a 'Medical Building' - Scott Stephenson editorial

Greetings, Chafflings, Chaffers and Chafflettes! It is time again to separate the wheat from the laughs, in the ever-spinning downward spiral of introspection that is our weekly foray into the untold depths of the trenches of human humour. 

 

Today’s topic concerns a funny feeling that only a lucky few ever get to feel - that feeling of finding a funny video that you feel is exceedingly funny, but has only been seen by very few people. This kind of discovery, in this day and age, is a rarer and rarer thing, and finding just one can change your whole life forever. 

 

Discovering something funny on the internet and showing it to other people is a powerful social currency - the new generation’s equivalent to having an actual point to make. A person with a fresh, funny video to share walks with a spring in their step - they carry a winning lottery ticket into the world of conversational power-players. 

 

Fretting about potential lulls in the chit-chat at home and office? If you have a funny video to share, first, you fret not, then, you fret never again! Falling in love for the very first time? Let this video be your litmus test for romantic compatibility - it will not fail you. Make all friends in the same fashion. Come across a potential friend who “just doesn’t get” your newfound vid? Congratulations, you now have a nemesis for life! Allow your hatred of them to fuel your every waking moment. 

 

And so we come to a little musical video called “Medical Building”, the most recent offering from an odd little channel on YouTube known as Canadian Satire. The channel is home to the undeniably catchy, surreal song stylings of Ontario-based artists George Westerholm and Kevin MacDonald. And before you ask, no, it’s not BAFTA Award-winning Scottish documentarian Kevin MacDonald. 

 

These two men have had long, storied careers in the entertainment industry, but that doesn’t matter here. When you’re showing off a hot new vid you found on “The Web,” the only acceptable context is no context at all. 

 

What does matter is that their song “Medical Building” is an absolute banger of a synth-drenched silly song and it has, at the time of this publication, under 100 views. To come across a truly funny internet video of so few views is like striking bubbling comedy crude - there is no limit to the places it can take you. This video even has the potential to cross the treacherous humour gap between nephews and grandmothers.

 

But “Medical Building” is not alone. The Canadian Satire YouTube channel is full of hidden gems adding a catchy beat to all of life’s most mundane moments. Popular songs include “Wake Up, Beautiful!” and “I Like Fun”, which address issues like falling asleep on a bus, and having a baked bean picnic. The duo is also preoccupied with the rotting refrigerator contents and the specific details of holiday meals. Front yard pools are deemed the worthy subject of a trilogy of videos.

 

But what makes Westerholm and MacDonald’s “Medical Building” a cut above? Well, Webster’s Dictionary defines “medical” as “of, relating to, or concerned with physicians or the practice of medicine” and “building” as “a usually roofed and walled structure built for permanent use”. There’s no set architectural style that defines the typical Canadian medical building, but they exist in our collective unconscious as a building with a particular aura. Some medical buildings are squat brick toads, slumbering in the shade of municipally-maintained elm trees. Some are glass giraffes, towering over a city skyline full of buildings containing lesser services. And that about sums it up.

 

But be warned! The funny video of few views is an entity that cannot be contained. In exchange for helping you to win friends and influence people, it must be fed. The video needs views if it is to survive. Each new viewer in the early stages will gain second hand power as a person who has a friend who shows them funny videos. That person’s friends will feel the contact high of your obscure, edgy, video-finding prowess, and so on, in the never-ending pyramid scheme of content consumption that comprises modern life.

 

So go forth, Chaff-hive, and amuse your friends and neighbours with Canadian Satire’s “Medical Building,” today at youtube.com/@CanadianSatire.