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White & Nerdy

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"White & Nerdy"
Song

"White & Nerdy" is the second single from "Weird Al" Yankovic's album Straight Outta Lynwood, which was released on September 26, 2006. It is a parody of the song "Ridin'" by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone. The song is a lamentation by the subject over his inability to "roll with the gangstas" because he is "just too white and nerdy", and includes references to concepts normally associated with nerds, such as Star Trek, Wikipedia, Dungeons & Dragons, Internet slang, computer science, and mathematics. Upon the release of the album, the song rose to #3 on The iTunes Top 100 Songs chart.

Chamillionaire himself has commented that he enjoys the parody and praises Al's rapping, saying "He's actually rapping pretty good on it, it's crazy [...] I didn't know he could rap like that."[1]

The single was leaked onto the Internet on August 27, 2006, almost one month before the record's release date. It is currently streaming on Chamillionaire's MySpace page [2] and Yankovic's own MySpace page.[3]

White & Nerdy debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #28. It also debuted on the Billboard Digital Download Chart at #10.

Video

The single has an accompanying music video, which was recorded in high-definition video.[4] The video was unique in that Yankovic personally recruited extras to participate in its filming. A request was posted via the blog on his MySpace page, and he received interest from a number of extras who were willing to work for free.[5]

The video was leaked onto YouTube on September 17, 2006 just one day before the video was planned to be officially released at 9 PM Pacific time at AOL.com. Due to the leak, the premiere was cancelled,[6] and AOL silently slipped the video onto their website hours before the premiere was set to take place. VH1 started airing the video in "large rotation" on September 20, 2006 and debuted at #5 on their Top 20 countdown.[7] It is currently available to watch on Yankovic's MySpace page, as well as on several other video hosting sites.

A trivia quiz (the white & nerdy quiz) can be found on his song's website.[8]

References in video

  • (Geography) In what city is the largest ball of twine built by one man? (Also referenced in Yankovic's song "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota"; answer: Darwin, Minnesota)
  • (Entertainment) What's the deal with Lindsay Lohan? I mean, seriously?
  • (History) F.D.R.—Was he faking it?
  • (Arts & Literature) On what page does Harry Potter die in the next book? (Days before the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a meme that mentioned the death of a predominate character from the book and which page that occurred in the US publication had spread across the Internet; this question is likely based on this meme. J. K. Rowling has stated that a major character will die in the seventh book, and some fans believe that this very well could be Harry Potter himself.)
  • (Science & Nature) What is the melting point of a gorilla's head?
  • (Sports & Leisure) How many Wicket men are there on a 43-Man Squamish team? (Answer: 5)
  • The Wikipedia article Yankovic edits (by typing "YOU SUCK!" in big letters) is the article about Atlantic Records, referring to Yankovic's not receiving permission from the company to include "You're Pitiful", a parody of James Blunt's song "You're Beautiful", on his Straight Outta Lynwood. Yankovic uses huge letters to make it clear to viewers what he is doing, although this is not actually possible in the current version of MediaWiki.
File:Pacman candles.jpg
Yankovic stands before a burning emblem of Pacman
  • In the background where Yankovic is rapping on the street with the road flares, the road flares are in the shape of Pac-Man, parodying shots of the original song's video, which featured Chamillionaire rapping in front of a group of road flares forming the Chamillionaire logo.
  • Yankovic created Web pages for the filming: the "home page for [his] dog"[11] and his "pimped-out" MySpace page.[12] The "Foofie" page has since been removed.
  • The scene with him playing Minesweeper (a game included with the Microsoft Windows operating system dating back to v3.1) is actually being played on a Macintosh. The logged in user is listed as "whitenerdy". The reason that Finder is the currently active application listed in the menu bar is because Minesweeper is running as a Dashboard widget.[13] He incorrectly is shown using the keyboard to play this mouse-controlled game.
  • The keyboard used in the video is a Microsoft Wireless Comfort Keyboard 1.0 a.
  • According to the cover of the yearbook, he was in high school in 1985. In reality, Yankovic graduated from Lynwood High School in 1976.[14]
  • During the drinking on the poarch clip the gansta has a 40 where as Weird Al has an earl grey tea referencing Picard's favored drink. At the very end, he throws up the Vulcan Salute, referencing both Star Trek (the hand gesture is a traditional Vulcan means of expressing goodbye, as when Spock says "Live long, and prosper" or Sarek says "Peace, and long life"), and the tradition of gangsters throwing up their "Sign" (the hand gesture representing that gangster's "hood").[citation needed] Specifically, this is a reference to Chamillionaire's hand gesture at the end of the original video.
  • Yankovic claims that he graduated "first in [his] class here at MIT"; however, MIT does not assign class rankings nor does it confer traditional Latin honors upon its graduates

Myspace references

There are two versions of the video, the televised version shows a closeup of Al pointing into a Gap store but on internet versions Al is shown pointing at the Gap sign behind him.

Cameos

  • Seth Green appears in the scene with a wall of action figures. Green has a huge personal collection of action figures (including Star Wars) that are stored in a large storage unit he shares with Hugh Sterbakov [1]. An episode from the second season of Green's show Robot Chicken contains a video created for another Straight Outta Lynwood song, "Weasel Stomping Day".
  • Judy Tenuta appears as the woman who receives a power strip as a Christmas present. Tenuta is also a comedian who emphasizes the concertina (an accordion-like squeeze box) in her act, was a regular on The Weird Al Show, and has also appeared in Yankovic's video for Headline News.

Notes

  1. ^ MTVNews.com story
  2. ^ http://www.myspace.com/chamillionaire
  3. ^ http://www.myspace.com/weirdal
  4. ^ September 5, 2006 blog post
  5. ^ August 16, 2006 blog post
  6. ^ September 18, 2006 blog post
  7. ^ http://www.weirdal.com/home.htm
  8. ^ http://www.whiteandnerdy.com
  9. ^ http://www.musclecarclub.com/musclecars/chevrolet-impala/chevrolet-impala-history-1.shtml
  10. ^ http://www.prius.com
  11. ^ http://www.weirdal.com/foofie/
  12. ^ a b c http://www.myspace.com/whiteandnerdy
  13. ^ The widget for free download, from Apple.com
  14. ^ http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Weird-Al-Yankovic-Biography/76C4EC04635954A34825690E00137782
  15. ^ White & Nerdy's Friends on the MySpace page.

See also

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