• Published 19th Apr 2014
  • 1,586 Views, 18 Comments

The Viral Video Voyagers - CassandraMyOCisBestpony



Three freshman girls at Canterlot High are on a Crusade to become internet famous by any means necessary. These are the adventures of the Viral Video Voyagers

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First!

At the Canterlot High School library, three freshman girls sat at one of the computers, watching their recently published music video for the umpteenth time.

"♪ ♫We'll have to figure out what we're supposed to do, until our cutie marks are here!!♪ ♫."

"54 views." remarked Applebloom, "how many'd we have yesterday?"

Sweetie Belle flipped through her notebook,

"Let's see, the last time I wrote it down was when I did my 11AM check-in, and we had...only 44 views! That's ten views in a single day! We did it girls! We're famous!!!"

"Woooooo!" whooped Scootaloo, leaping into the air, pumping her fist.

"Hold on a minute," cut in Applebloom. Scoot froze in mid-air. "Ya said 11AM check in right? How often were you checkin' in?"

"Every hour, on the hour," replied Sweetie proudly, "well except for the hours where I was sleeping of course.

"So then if you went to bed at nine, that means you refreshed th' page..." she counted on her fingers, "ten times! Ugh, Sweetie, all those views came from you!"

"Oh" said Sweetie Belle, looking embarrassed.

"Well, nobody else will know that" pointed out Scootaloo.

"Girls, the view count don't mean nothin' if we don't have an audience" said Applebloom, "we need ta figure out what we're doin' wrong."

"The lyrics are kind of weird" suggested Sweetie Belle "when you're a younger human, and your flank is really bare...'

"The syllables had to match” replied Scootaloo

“And just what is a Cutie Mark anyway? Is it like a butt tattoo?”

“It's finding out where you belong."

“...because my sister says that only tramps and drunks get butt tattoos."

"Is our song gonna encourage kids to get butt tattoos?" asked Applebloom worriedly, "'cause ah dunno if ah'm comfortable with that."

"IT'S NOT ABOUT BUTT TATTOOS, OKAY???"

Cheerilee and all the kids in the library tuned their heads to the three, expressions ranging from shock to great amusement.

"Look," said Applebloom dropping her voice to compensate for friend's outburst, "th' fact of the matter is, this song ain't doin' it for us. We need ta try more things."

"Yeah" agreed Sweetie Belle, "if we expand our horizons, we'll find our special talent a whole lot faster!"

"Alright, yeah!" agreed Scootaloo, perked up again, "so what should we try first?"

"Ah was thinkin' we do a talk show where we share our thoughts on th' important news stories."

"Sounds boring" snorted Scootaloo, "we should do something fun like video games! We can post the game footage, and our reactions too! It'll be like two videos for the price of one."

"Hmm" said Sweetie Belle, "I want to do something easier, like write a song parody."

"I thought writin' songs was 't in yer wheelhouse" pointed out Applebloom

"True, but I don't have to write the melody and rhyme scheme, just change the lyrics. You don't have to be a genius to come up with parody lyrics."

"Weird Al was valedictorian of his high school," pointed out Scootaloo with a smirk. Sweetie Belle glared at her.

"Girls" interjected Applebloom, stepping in between them "Let's each do a solo project tonight, an' we'll share 'em tomorrow an' see what works. Ah just know we’re gettin’ close, ‘cause we are…”

Together the three declared, “THE VIRAL VIDEO VOYAGERS!!!” Cheerilee glared at them, and they grinned back sheepishly. Dropping their voices to a whisper, they added “Viral Video Voyagers go! Yay!”


The next day, the three girls found themselves a spare computer in the library. They had each completed and uploaded their projects online, but had agreed not to watch one another's until the three of them were together. They sat at chairs, looking over Applebloom's shoulder as she cued up her video

On screen, Applebloom and her older brother Big Macintosh sat in her living room in front of the fireplace, all the furniture cleared out of the frame except for two loveseats. "Welcome to th' first episode o' Applebloom's talk show, where ah give mah own thoughts on th' news. Ah'm Applebloom an' this is mah co host Big Macintosh."

"Howdy."

"Before we get to our stories, Big Mac, is is true you can lift fifteen crates o' grape juice at once?"

"Eeyup"

"Wanna put yer money where yer mouth is?" Applebloom got up from her chair and rotated the camera to the other side of the room, where 15 crates of grape juice were stacked in a pyramid formation on a large palette.

"Eeyup" said Big Mac confidently, striding over to the crate stack.

"Wait, lemme hold onto yer shirt for ya."

"Why?"

"Er, 'cause Applejack's gonna pitch a fit if ya get grape juice on it."

"Hmm, good call." He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and tossed it aside, giving the audience a full view of his chiseled biceps, abs, and pecs.

Sweetie blushed and grinned, while Scootaloo just rolled her eyes.

On screen, big Mac squatted down, back to the camera, and grabbed hold of the palate. With a deep grunt he slowly but surely heaved the stack off the ground, his muscles bulging and sweat pouring down his torso. After holding it aloft for about thirty seconds, he lowered it to the ground.

Applebloom applauded, "Well ain't that somethin'?"

Big Mac returned to his seat, still shirtless. "Eeyup"

"So, onto th'news," she glanced at a newspaper lying on the arm of her chair, "Yesterday, two firefighters rescued a cat from a tree. Ain't that sweet, Big Mac?"

"Eeyup"

"Ah bet the kitty was real scared. Ah wonder why she thought ta climb that tree. Maybe she was chasin' a bird, ah couldn't say, ah'm more of a dog person mahself..."

Scootaloo began fast-forwarding the clip

"What're ya doin?"

"Skipping ahead to the end of the cat story. No offense but I thought you'd have something more interesting. When does the next story start?"

"that's th' only story ah had."

"This clip is 20 minutes long! How is that possible?"

"Me an' Big Mac had a lot ta say about it."

"Sure he did. You just brought him on so that the audience would have some eye candy. That's so cheap, isn't it Sweetie Belle?"

"Er, wha?" she asked, still flush-red with her mind somewhere else, "oh, uh, yeah Applebloom! Reprehensible!"

"Well Scoot if yer so smart about videos, why dontcha show us yers?"

"Alright. Get ready, this is gonna change gaming forever!" She clicked the play button.

"Why's there an ad poppin' up on screen? Content ID Match?""

"Oh, my phone's alert tone is a three second clip of Bruno Mars, and I got a text while I was recording. Now shush, no more questions, the video's starting."

"Alright gamers, get ready, it's time to rock n roll!"

Her two friends looked furtively at her

"Catchphrase needs work," she conceded, "but whatever, pay attention to the video."

"It's like a labyrinth in here.... and it's so dark... I guess I'll go this way- wait, is that, a g-g-g-g-GHOST!!! Run away!!! ...Aww he caught me and I'm dead. Oh well, till next time gamers."

"So? What do you think? Wasn't it eye opening to see my raw unedited reaction?"

"It seemed a bit forced" replied Applebloom, "like it was really obvious you were only pretendin' to be scared."

"She's passing up an opportunity to call you a chicken?" added Sweetie Belle, "Must be pretty bad."

"Very funny."

"Yer choice of game wasn't all that scary."

"Well, it's true you have to use your imagination a little..."

Sweetie Belle shook her head and laughed, "Scoot, you were playing Pac Man for goodness sake."

"I was going to play Dead Space, but my mom wouldn't buy me a PS3. I told her it'd practically pay for itself, but she just said to get back to my homework. Fine, I guess I can see where I might've gone wrong. Sweetie, you're up."

"I made two videos!" she bragged, "I told you it was easy. Here's the first."

On screen, footage from Portal played, and Sweetie sang, " ♪ ♫It's a quarter after five, I'm still alive, and I need tests now... ♪ ♫" As the song continued to play, Applebloom and Scootaloo looked bemused.

"Well? What do you think?"

"It's ok..." began Scootaloo

"There's no purpose to it, it's just a bunch of phrases from Portal," said Applebloom bluntly.

"Well maybe, but I bet you can't guess what I wrote under 'performed by'"

"Lady Sweetiebellum?" asked Applebloom cynically.

Sweetie Belle pouted. "Whatever, you'll like the other one better. It's a parody of All Star, a retro song from 1999." She beamed, proud of how culturally refined she was. "Here, listen."

" ♪ ♫Hey now, you're a porn star, get a har- ♪ ♫"

"GIRLS!" They looked up to see Ms. Cheerilee standing before them imposingly. She reached over their shoulders and shut off the video. "You are free to do whatever you like outside of school, but I will not have you watching your lewd videos in the library! Now get out!" she pointed at the door harshly.

"No matter, I have another idea for a video" said Sweetie Belle optimistically

"It ain't another parody is it?"

"Better" said Sweetie, "in fact, I need to get home now, so I can get started!" She ran off before the other two could respond.

"Ah thought we could try workin' together this time" suggested Applebloom.

"Maybe next time" said Scootaloo, "I've got an idea too, and it'll work better if it's just me. You understand, right?"

"I guess so." replied Applebloom glumly.

"Great! See ya tomorrow!" she hurried off too, leaving Applebloom standing alone in the corridor.

Author's Note:

Would you believe that the Smash Mouth parody was the first thing I thought of, and the rest of the ideas expanded from there?