So the Christian side hug video sure has been popular these last few days, huh? Pretty perfect unwitting send-up of Christian abstinence programs, right? Right! Except that it’s fake. Some comedy thing by some shmos whose stock in trade is terrible comedic raps and terrible Office re-imaginings. You may think they deserve credit for mimicking the stupid shittiness that is Christian rap, but the video falls flat in the face of the thousands of real Christian music videos that make you feel terrible for knowing that you won’t have the heart to tell Grandma the truth about God before she dies.
What makes great crazy evangelist music so great is that you get the crazy and the Christianity in equally excessive proportions. This is why Robert Breaud here is fantastic - he is plainly out of his goddamn mind, he occasionally references his past life as a “homosexual drunk,” but I’ll be damned if he’ll be damned if he’s going to stop playing without converting at least one of you wrist-lispers. In comparison, the more popular Baby Got Book just can’t wow you the same way - it’s almost as clueless, but it’s not nearly as evangelical and in-your-face. They can sing about girls reading bibles all day long - it’s not going to sway me from believing in “if she smokes, she pokes.”
Kristian Kids Krap isn’t always as good because it demands more gentleness/less fag-bashing, which usually limits the “message” to some vague generalizations about how God “rocks.” Add too much levity and the whole thing falls flat, as demonstrated by Christian crunkcore detritus Family Force 5’s worthless cover of Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. Take another step in this direction - make the whole thing a joke - and you’ve got the Christian side hug rap, which is forever ruined for me.
So the lesson here is: if you’re going to take a shot at the massive barndoor that is Christian music videos, you can’t let anyone know it’s not the real thing, dammit. Nobody likes their jokes ABLA (already been laughed at). Actually, except Christians.
