Dew Army
The Dew Army, or Dew fad is a word, short phrase, or line taken out of the context of a song, looped, and presented with text and image representation which have another meaning entirely. The humor comes from the disparity between the image and what it represents, and the song loop and its context.
Dew got its name from the DEW!!!! YTMND. It is similar to the interpretation fad but does not require a full listening of an long sound clip. The announcement of the Dew Army contest started a new wave of creations with an accompanying guidelines site imitating a black-and-white newsreel.
Contents
Styles
There are three categories of Dew Army site:
Direct Style
One or two words are presented in text which are homophones with the 'misheard' or 'misinterpreted' word, and tie in with the image. To use a well known example, one might take the line 'There's a bad moon on the rise' from the chorus of CCR's 'Bad Moon Rising', include behind it a picture of a hallway with a bathroom, and set the text as 'bathroom on the right'. Examples:
Contextual Style
The phrase is presented in text as sung, but humor comes from the wide gulf between the contexts of the image and the sung phrase. Examples:
Rebus Style
This style uses an entire line from a song, either a non-English language song or a rock song where the words are sung so forcefully they're unclear. As in the direct style, the text renders the misinterpretation - however the image is a contrived assembly of objects which visually spell out the phrase. Example:
Sound
Any style of music may be used. In the case of the Dew site using misinterpreted words, the words can be heard in different ways because they are not enunciated clearly by the singer or are masked by loud music.
Image
With any Dew site, the preference is for everyday mundane objects, as opposed to artwork, celebrities, pop culture icons, etc.
Reactions
When a Dew site is well executed, the humor is fairly instantaneous and gets a very positive response. However, many site creators take too literal of an approach and simply attatch an image of exactly what the phrase is talking about, and these sites are not judged favorably.
Contest
The Dew Army contest, coordinated by MasterSitsu, has far surpassed other YTMND contests in terms of participation. Entries were judged by a secret panel of YTMND users. The deadline to submit an entry was on the midnight of March 13th, 2006. Runners-up were announced in stages leading up to the announcement of the winner. The top entrants' songs were featured as a special "bonus disc" for YTMND Soundtrack Volume 10.
See also
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