Best Of 2021: The 2021 Barstool Instagram Submission Hall of Fame

KB 12/28/2021 11:00 AM

It’s now been a year since I unintentionally took over as one of the faux arbiters of the Barstool Instagram submission process. And to say it's been some type of daunting or undesirable task would be a bold-faced lie. These video submissions I get on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis, while jaw-droppingly terrible, have been the highlight of the Covid pandemic for me. And that's saying a lot coming from the man who's traversed Michigan and won a handful of virtual trivia contests against oddly-haired Smokeshow bloggers in that time frame. It's honestly fascinating what these humans deem worthy of a viral masterpiece, let alone of just straight up filming and uploading in the first place. Much like the modern phenomena of suburban sophomores thinking they could become successful rappers in the early 2010s, and me thinking I could adequately interview and host a live event involving women a few days ago, it's nearly impossible to comprehend their mindset and thought process.

The following exchange was just something recent that I wanted to include in blog-form, but the full, ceremonious Hall of Fame montage is embedded afterwards.

It's included in the final video below, but this gentleman's submission consisted of his college compadres, seemingly amidst the tail-end of a drinking game, loudly chanting the classic expletive "pussy" three-and-a-half times over before finally waking the star of the film from his drunken stupor to incite the quick-witted and timeless "you are what you eat" rebuttal from him. I was instantly enamored.

This wasn't some pawn in one of my little games; this was a dude's dude — the type of team player who would do anything to ensure that his boys could enjoy the fruits of internet vitality with him.

I don't know what else to say aside from I unironically envy the children 5-10 years from now who will get to learn from this gentleman on a daily basis.

A legend's legend. The type of contender who I could not (with a good conscience) exclude from the 2021 Hall of Fame. And as soon as the two-word phrase "faint puss" was transmitted from his mobile device to mine, I knew I loved this man and wanted nothing to do with "trolling" or tormenting him with parodic Captcha puzzles or consent forms. The joke would just be on me — he was down for anything. I had to stop it prematurely but I'd be god damned if he wasn't rewarded in some way for his effort...

Now mind you, I was only able to screen record a fraction of the submissions I received, so many deserving candidates will be excluded. Also, a small percentage of the clips have been very slightly edited or manipulated by me, in order to provide more context, but otherwise, everything in this compilation has been completely unaltered. I would say "enjoy" but to be as transparent as possible, don't watch a single second of this:

They say good viral videos make you giggle, but great viral videos make you ponder. For instance, I'm still struggling to find even the vaguest meaning behind the one with the Italian men flirtatiously harassing their female coworker with various cold cuts. I also can't entirely comprehend the motive of the young men who permanently and violently marred their body in the extremely off chance of being the temporary star of a social media account whose entire audience exists solely to belittle and ridicule. But I guess that's the beauty of it.