national geographic has a lot of content hosted on youtube. the presentation has been foxnewsinated for the youtube generation, albeit in a sad way that suggests discomfort with the whole enterprise.
EXHIBIT A: LAGOMORPH DEFILED TO SATISFY POPULAR BLOODLUST
discussion / spoiler alert
What the hell is dad thinking? "My daughter doesn't know yet, so I wanted to, you know..."? NO! How many sane ways can you complete that sentence? ZERO. Also, aren't 5-year-olds all internet-savvy now? Seeing "Thumper" disintegumented on YouTube over and over again will be less traumatic than confronting her erstwhile friend's return to the void? Asshole.
I think the subject matter and production here seems geared to match TLC-level "edutainment": a presentation of tawdry subject matter whose entertainment value clearly lies in schadenfreude or other base titillation, and not in the, eh, noble facade of learning something stimulating about taxidermy.
EXHIBIT B: WHEN CETACEANS ATTACK
It's a clever tactic, anthropomorphizing the side that wins from the first couple of frames. This reminds me of an interaction I had with Kyl's uncle, over an adorable new calf that was stumbling around their farm in NE Ohio. "Did you give him a name?" "Lunch."
Seriously, this is not the N.G. that I grew up with: the dispassionate egghead explication attending hours of nothing but blank-eyed lizards clambering over dry dirt and rocks, punctuated by fleeting moments of mind-rending horror. To what end is this progress? John Madden narrates the Serengeti?
