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Miranda Sings

The current funniest thing on the Internet for me is Miranda Sings. Miranda is a singer from Tacoma, WA, who is just trying to make a name for herself using nothing but her talent, her drive for success, and some YouTube videos. Check out her rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner. You can even learn how to sing like her from her free voice lesson!

Before you click, though, I should warn you that her videos are not for the faint of heart. And by "heart" I mean "musical appreciation." Because Miranda is terrible. She can't sing on key, with or without accompaniment. Her vocal technique is cringe-worthy. Her musicianship is off the scale -- the low end, that is. My poor wife usually can't make it through 30 seconds of her videos.

But what isn't entirely clear (to many of the commenters on YouTube especially) is that Miranda is a joke: she's a character created and played, as best I can gather, by Colleen Ballinger, a recent Azusa Pacific University graduate in vocal performance. Colleen has some YouTube videos that display her interest in contemporary Broadway fare, and in them, she's just fine; she's even pretty good, if you like that sort of thing. But I'm somewhat sad to say that her future may be in comedy, because Miranda's lampoon of self-obsessed singers in the age of YouTube is spot on.

This hits my sweet spot for Internet weirdness for a number of reasons. First off, the videos in and of themselves are so bad you can't help but laugh. And once you understand it's satire, you add that level of humor (one that's particularly appealing to me, because I can't stand singers with an ego). But I love love love the reactions. The usual "OMG your terrible" ones are good, but there are people trying to correct her "advice" in the voice lesson, or telling her what she's doing wrong... they're all just so earnest in their criticism. And then there are the people who get the joke, who post the supportive comments! I love it. Plus, I have so many friends who really are professional musicians, and some of them are just as taken in as the broader public. Fantastic.

Go Miranda. And haters, back off. You're just jealous.

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