MFT: Chappelle's Show - If The Internet Was a Real Place Sketch

"If The Internet Was a Real Place" is a sketch from Chappelle's Show. It is a part of 8th episode of 2nd season of the show. The sketch is a neat kaleidoscope of all stuff going on in the early-to-mid 2000s Internet. While it is rather simplistic view of the World Wide Web it also manage to adequately depict its essense - i.e. complete and absolute mess where you rather stumble upon stuff than find something.

In the sketch, the Internet is imagined as a giant mall with all sorts of "characters" bumbing onto Chappelle. In a way, if your pareidolia skills are high - you can interpret Kevin Smith's "Mallrats" as another elaboration on this concept albeit a retroactive one. Chappelle plays a man who is on his journey though the magical space of the web for the very first time. He is a straight man who just wants to explore what it is and if there is anything worthwhile in it.

There is general sense of lack of purpose lingering upon everything.

The sketch starts with that particular feeling of being lost in the vast seemingly endless sea of web that happens the first time you get online. Without further ado, things gets weird. The first character Chappelle bumps into is personification of a fishing scam - "make your penis extra-large" kind of spam. The ensuing conversation quickly devolves into pointless attempt at persuading to spend money on a suspicious scam.

Next go free mp3 downloading sites and the whole illegal music downloads affair that was all the rage back then. There is even a cameo by then-still clumsy legal music purchase venues. Things go in a familiar direction - Chappelle grabs whole lotta stuff, most of which he will probably never even listen.

Then things move to the main event - porn. Ron Jeremy plays pornography representative who invites Chappelle to watch Paris Hilton's night vision sex tape (remember that?), which he does two times to be sure it was she for real. And then some old man in a coat and not much else invite Chappell to watch goat play with a maid in a leather uniform, which is as weird as it sounds.

After that Chappelle stumble upon a pop-ad purgatory in which he moves in a loop for a bit. Getting into a pop-up loop was something of an initiation into the Internet back in the day and seeing it play out in live-action is really-really funny.

At last there is a section with chatroom where Chappelle finally settles on a semblance of calmness in the sea of pointlessness. He even hooks up with the girl who says all the right words before it turns out to be that fishing scam guy from the beginning. It is sad sadness.

"If The Internet Was a Real Place" is a fine example of how to make highly contrasting cognitive dissonance inducing exploration of a concept while also exposing its built-in ridiculousness and not making it an infernal travesty. The key is subtlety and easygoing tone. Nothing of it really makes sense but that is the point and that is somewhat endearing.