In analyzing visual culture it is important to remember that everyone’s interpretation can be different. What one person finds beautiful can repulse another. A great example of this can be found in WTF (which stands for “what the fuck”) imagery as well as videos. The genre is difficult to pin down but can generally be categorized as a video or image in which something unexpected happens or when what one perceives to be normal (or possibly banal) is obviously repulsive and unsettling to another. One of the great things about WTF is that it generally violates a principle rule of those who wish to produce visual culture, and that it is not up to author of the image to decide how it will be interpreted. Therefore some of the most successful WTF videos and images are unintentionally disconcerting. The images and videos are like watching a train wreck but for some reason a large internet community shares and saves the images and videos. While many WTF pieces of visual culture lean towards comedy there are also a large amount which are truly disgusting, but there’s always a comic element present in the image which makes the viewer question exactly what is happening in the photo.
Kathie Lee Gifford Is a Creep. In these clips from an exercise video made by Kathie Lee Gifford we are watching very banal scenes created in an undoubtedly suburban and hygienic environment. I am sure this video was distributed to many suburban moms and others who saw absolutely saw nothing disgusting or unsettling. Yet to a larger community for some reason the style, the lighting, and the words of Kathie Lee Gifford make us tremble with revulsion.
In “Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend” we see what is mostly likely an intentional attempt at creating a WTF video. It bridges into the surreal because of its unexpectedness but still leaves many viewers questioning what the fuck they just watched. A recent user of the popular website Reddit.Com remarked that in a hundred years the definition of WTF will be accompanied by this video.
