The Internet at-large has produced many mashups both terrific and mundane. But “We Used to be Friends”—a 22-minute, 47-second cut of every episode of season one of Friends overlaid on itself—argues that the powers of cheap, consumer-grade video editing tools are best used to capture the horror of Baconian nightmare.
Instead of the comforting faces of Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and the rest of the gang, the viewer is instead greeted with a swirling, fleshy mass of color accompanied by the discordant clash of the show’s opening theme song and canned laughter that can be best described by this Paris Review recap of Canto III of Dante’s Inferno:
As Dante passes beneath the archway, he can … hear only the noises coming from the swarm of sinners, babbling in different languages, the sound of their hands slapping against their bodies—the vast, cacophonic gang eager and hungry to cross, being stung by insects and bleeding.
And then, for several minutes, a Central Perk logo hangs like a ghostly apparition amid the frenzy.
“Hell. This is hell,” you say. But no, it’s only Friends. And they’ll be there for you–if you’re there for them too.
[via The Indepedent]