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Best music video for a book you will ever see. Ever

Seriously Internet, what is your problem?Mr. Dave Hill — by most accounts, the most incredible person on the Internet — has an awesome video promoting his upcoming book, "Tasteful Nudes ... and Other Misguided Attempts at Personal Growth and Validation" (St. Martin's Press, $24.99), which hits shelves May 22. Yet you, Internet,  have yet to make it … what is the word? Ah, yes. "Viral." I
Dave Hill / YouTube / Today

Seriously Internet, what is your problem?

Mr. Dave Hill — by most accounts, the most incredible person on the Internet — has an awesome video promoting his upcoming book, "Tasteful Nudes ... and Other Misguided Attempts at Personal Growth and Validation" (St. Martin's Press, $24.99), which hits shelves May 22. Yet you, Internet,  have yet to make it … what is the word?

 Ah, yes. "Viral."

 

I’ve seen what you’re into Internet — Auto-Tuned adolescent girls singing about days of the week whom you claim to "hate," small boys hopped up on goofballs after oral surgery, kittens — and it’s time to up your dang standards. Dave Hill is the man to help you do that. He’s a regular on social media lists like the Huffington Post's "50 Funny People You Should Be Following On Twitter," a contributor to Will Ferrell’s comedy website Funny or Die, and one time he engaged in a six-month flame war with a Norwegian black metal musician just because. Also, he's got a pretty popular podcast and he’s totally in some kind of rock group with Moby.

Dave now takes on the next level of online awesome: The promotional book trailer. Long before Kindle and iPad, the publishing industry has been trying to trick the Internet into reading books using the same method MTV employed to make us stop listening to music — with videos. Most book trailers are faux noir affairs, with rushing silhouettes cryptic narration — except for that one for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" — it's pretty cool.

Dave's "Tasteful Nudes," however, is cooler.

In about two minutes and eight scene changes, this self-described "Entertainer/Man About Town" ambitiously shoe horns everything he’s online-famous for — axe mastery (that’s musician speak for guitar shredding ), awkward bon mots, rambling non sequiturs, funky threads and a willingness to expose his doughy self from the waist up — with skin so pale you can only look at it through a special box your science teacher made. (As Sita, this one lady I know from Facebook, commented, "James Patterson has his work cut out for him!")

The original video (which you can totally look at on Funny or Die) has a few instances of blue language that work within the context of the video’s overriding theme, but are not suitable for a family website. So Dave considerately agreed to provide us with this bleeped version which you can enjoy with your children. So check it out! It’s not like somebody’s asking you to actually read a book. 

Well, Dave is, but it’s not like he can make you. (But this video probably can!)

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.

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