Fall TV Review: The CW's 'Online Nation'

The CW's 'Online Nation' boasts the strangest, wildest, most extreme, and funniest videos that the U.S. viewing public has to offer. But, even with all of that, is this concept exactly original?

The show started off with the introductions of the show's hosts, four twenty-somethings named Link, Joy, Stevie, and Rhett, who supposedly have spent countless hours scouring their own upload site for what they consider to be the biggest and best of the week, and then airing them (*while not in their entirety) on the TV waves for all to see. You might see a clip such as one of the ones that I have deemed the stupidest one of the evening, entitled 'Human Skateboard', where a skater was skating on another person and doing such tricks as grinds, ollies, and whatever, and it seems that they were making an attempt at making it look humorous. (Now, please note that I used the words ' making an attempt'). Then, while in the middle of said video, another pops up simply entitled 'Eggs', where a carton of eggs with distinct personalities are watching as a woman grabs one of their egg-shapped buddies, cracks them open, and begins to fry them up in a frying pan. Of course, one of the eggs goes completely insane with fright, and therefore decided to commit suicide by rolling out of the carton, and then onto the floor where it was cleaned up by the female fry chef in question. Then, we see the skater again. These are but a few snippets that were offered on the show, and it left me wondering what the producer of the show exactly had in mind.

For those of us that are Internet junkies and know where to look, most videos of this style can be found on such sites as YouTube and even MySpace. The only purpose of a show such as this is for someone to make a fool of themselves just that they can see their video be aired and say 'Hey, my video just got on TV!' But, again, what is the point of a show of videos that anyone can find on the Internet simply by typing in what they are looking for? Is it because the CW thought that it would be a hip, fresh, and new idea, or is it because people are just simply becoming lazier because they have nothing better to do with their time?