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One of the greatest things about the internet is that it’s a place where no question goes unanswered. What was the name of Garry Marshall’s first feature film? Young Doctors In Love? Cool. What are the first signs of the zika virus? Fever, rash, joint pain, and/or conjunctivitis? Yikes! How do you make cut-off denim shorts? There’s a mystifying, mesmerizing, two minute long video on Amazon Prime for that. Gaze into the abyss that is “How To Make Cut-Off Denim Shorts.”
When I told my co-workers that this video is a thing that exists (and that was briefly trending on Amazon’s InstantWatcher page), they were confused. Don’t you just cut the legs off jeans to make cut-off denim shorts? Yes, but apparently there’s more to it than that. Hence this trippy video.
There’s something simultaneously soothing and disturbing about this short film. It’s soothing because I get to watch a happy young woman who looks vaguely like an Irish Kate Middleton take us step-by-step through one of the easiest craft projects in the history of mankind. The music is a bouncing polka with a techno dance beat. It sounds like something that would be popular in a club on a lesser known Greek isle. Like, you wouldn’t hear this song in Mykonos, but maybe in a discoteque on Hydra (which is a real place, I swear). This clip is also horrifying because it makes you realize that there are some people who can’t figure out how to make their own cut-off denim shorts. It offers a bleak look into our own culture’s creative nadir. Not only that, but it’s sassily approaching this darkness with a hip jut and a “Devil may care” ‘tude.
The clip was made by online content company Kin Community and they have a fascinating backstory. They were launched 2011 in the middle of YouTube’s big push to fund original content studios. Kin Community, however, failed to get YouTube’s attention, so they went to outside advertisers. Their biggest online get was The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but now they also offer videos on complex issues like “How To Make Citronella Sand Candles” and “How To Wear A Maxi Dress.” (Yes, that last one is just a video of a woman wearing a long dress with different accessories.)
You could even argue that the whole thing is a fascinating commentary on internet content itself. Every clip Kin Community makes comes with the subtext: “We don’t need to make these videos, but we did anyway.” Then again, those citronella sand candles will help me get rid of mosquitos carrying the zika virus…
[Watch “How To Make Cut-Off Denim Shorts” on Prime Video]
[Gifs copyright Kin Community]
