Gee, thanks, Miley Cyrus, for leading me down a twerking internet rabbit hole last night

So, look.  I didn’t watch the Video Music Awards. I didn’t even know they were on yesterday until I got on Facebook. I wasn’t even aware that MTV still gave video awards—I thought they had given up on videos altogether.

But then, like I said, I got on facebook, and I was bombarded with “news” of Miley Cyrus’s bizarre performance at the VMAs. My friend Meredith over at the awesome blog Pile of Babies posted a link to a series of gifs on Buzzfeed taken from the performance—check it out HERE. Go on. It’s important—people are talking about this sh*t everywhere.

See? Obviously, I was totally confused. I mean, WTF is going on here??? Dancing teddy bears? Lots of twerking and scary tongue-wagging? Assaulting Robin Thicke? Why, Miley? WHY???

What. Am. I. Watching?

It seemed altogether too weird to be random, and that bothered me. There must be an explanation for all of this absurdity. But it was 9:30 pm and I’m 40 and I had an early morning coming up, not to mention children who feel sleep is for the weak. The smart choice would have been to say “screw it” and go to bed.

But I am not always that smart.

AND I have a degree in journalism. That means I’ve been trained to be compulsive about tracking stuff down at times like these. Is there a helicopter circling our neighborhood? Sorry kids—you’re on your own for lunch. Mommy’s stalking the local news sites to find out what’s going on.

Also? I probably need to read more books and stay off the internet after 8 pm.

Yeah, Smith family. I'm with you.

Anyway, regardless of the late hour, I went ahead and Googled Miss Miley. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand what she’s all about—I’m probably just too old—but her VMA performance began to make a little (just a little!) more sense when I saw the video for her latest hit. I’m not even going to post it here—it’s inane—but it includes twerking, dancing teddy bears, and Miley’s unnaturally long tongue, just like her VMA performance.

Great. Mystery solved. Time to close the laptop and go to bed, right?

Nope. Not yet. As usual, with answers come more questions.

Now I was confused about twerking. I thought I knew what it was—kind of sticking out your booty and shaking it around while you dance. I don’t do it—someone could get hurt and I don’t think our rental insurance covers stuff like that. But why is Miley getting all the credit for this “new” dance craze? Am I crazy, or has Beyonce been doing this for YEARS? I mean, my husband and I called that move “Doing The Beyonce” until the term “twerking” came along. (My husband won’t twerk for you, but I’ve seen him do it. It’s awesome/terrifying. Truly.)

Well, now I had to Google Beyonce. And twerking. And “Beyonce twerking.”

And what did I find?

I found crap. Loads and loads of internet crap. I know it was a LOT of crap, because I spent a LOT of time looking through it all. I went to bed late, didn’t get enough sleep, and was tired and foggy all day today.

But it was TOTALLY WORTH IT. Because I found these two things.

The first is an SNL spoof of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video, starring Beyonce and the amazing Justin Timberlake. Watch it! It’s awesome:

Justin Timberlake parodies Beyonce by LeNouvelObservateur

(I have a weird crush on JT in that I don’t really like his music and I don’t actually find him all that physically attractive, but I love how he’s willing to make an ass of himself in the name of entertainment.)

The second great thing I found is this video by some guy named Flula. It is the best thing I have seen on the internet maybe ever, and I watch a lot of videos of baby sloths. It’s hard to beat baby sloths on the awesomeness scale, but this guy does it. Check it out:

So, I guess I have to thank Miley Cyrus. Her special brand of cray-cray led me to my new internet obsession: that guy Flula. He has 178 videos on youtube, you guys. I’m off to watch them all. It’s only 10 pm, after all.