One of the wonders of the online world is the "Downfall" meme on YouTube. (For those whose time is too valuable to be wasted watching video clips, I should explain that the parody is based on remixing a scene from Oliver Hirschbiegel's film, "Der Untergang [Downfall]," which chronicles Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker.)
The clip takes the scene in which Hitler, memorably portrayed by Bruno Ganz, launches into a tirade upon finally realizing that the war is truly lost and overlays it with subtitles about contemporary issues or events. Thus Hitler rants about the inability of the iPad to do multitasking, that Sheffield United have been relegated or that Twitter has gone down again.
What brings this to mind is that a new version of the meme appeared last week. In it, Hitler is told about Google's decision to "retire" (i.e., scrap) its Reader app. "WHAT THE F-CK ARE THEY THINKING??!!" he roars. "HOW CAN THEY DO THIS TO US?!! How dare they take away Google Reader. I have over 300 feeds in there!! Have they any idea how much effort I've put in? Of all Google products I spend 99 percent of my time with Reader. Why do they do this?" And so on.
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