As a rule, Internet sensations rarely find success in the real world, because our standards, online, are pathetic. It’s not our fault: We’re enchanted by new technology. Remember when everyone got swept away by the bit of nothingness poofed out by video blogger Chris Crocker? Jon Lajoie is nothing like Crocker, but he is part of a new breed: comedians who get famous online without ever standing up in front of a crowd, then do so and continue to succeed, despite the trail of tears they must wade through. It helps, though, to be talented, and Lajoie went viral because he’s truly funny. “Everyday Normal Guy,” a video about a rapper with ordinary ambitions and tastes (“I like the show Grey’s Anatomy, motherfucker!”) has 10 million views; “2 Girls One Cup Song,” a number about two girls and their drinkwear (“She’s covered in vomit and human feces/That’s how I know that she needs me”), has six million. Recently, Lajoie coughed up a “Michael Jackson Is Dead” video. The lyrics are totally scandalous, fighting words if you think sleepovers are normal, and we'd feel nauseous printing any of them except “Really, did you love him? 'Cause from where I’m standing, it kinda looked like you hated him.”
July 31-Aug. 1, 8 & 10:15 p.m., 2009
