Gawker
Roundtrip tickets to Larnaca, Cyprus: $1,300. Lodging at your pal's dad's pad on the Mediterranean: Free. Getting your goofy video turned into a symbol of generational excess: Priceless. I'm starting to feel some sympathy for the Camp Cyprus 20, the crazy Internet kids who filmed themselves cavorting poolside at Wall Street big Bob Lessin's gleamingly white vacation home, to the tune of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." The charge: That they lacked self-awareness. Hence, for example, this remix of the video set to "Highway to Hell."
Are you kidding? These guys had two hours a day of poststructuralist textually-agnostic confabulism theory before lunch in college. On the surface, "Don't Stop Believin'" sounds like an anthem of cluelessness, a party song to get your frat-rock dance on. Listen closely, though, and you'll see that it's actually a nihilistic, no-future tale sung by a senselessly addicted gambler. The schadenfreude crowd is bent on telling these happy-go-lucky Facebookers and Googlers and Blip.tvers and Drop.ioers how they're gonna sing the blues. Guess what, guys? These Cyprussians have figured out that some will win and some will lose. Here are the lyrics to the song, annotated to further your understanding of the video's wit; deconstructionist comments welcome, but only if you're showing your wasted liberal-arts education to best effect.
Just a small town girl, livin in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin anywhere
Google marketer Brittany Bohnet. Apple, her previous employer, likely the "lonely world."
Just a city boy, born and raised in south detroit
He took the midnight train goin anywhere
Was Facebooker Dave Morin raised in South Detroit? Or is that a reference to the tough environment he faced as Facebook's chief platform evangelist?
A singer in a smokey room
Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro, with a metaphor for journalism.
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
Her boyfriend, Drop.io founder Sam Lessin, whose dad provided the venue for wine and cheap perfume.
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and onStrangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Venture capitalists!
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night
Entrepreneurs!
Working hard to get my fill,
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time
That's pretty much how it works on Sand Hill Road.
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
The wrong startups will continue to get funded.
(chorus)
Dont stop believin
Hold on to the feelin
Streetlight people
Whoa ... uh oh!
