GUY RAZ, host:
Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
To most of us, this sound is the sound of irrelevance.
(Soundbite of clicking)
RAZ: That's a VHS tape going into a VCR. But to Dmitri Simakis, it's the sound of angels dancing in heaven. Okay, maybe not angels, but it's a sound he's very familiar with.
Every weekend or free afternoon he gets, Simakis and his buddies troll through bargain bins at charity shops and hang out at yard sales looking for old VHS tapes. But more specifically, they're looking for video gold: moments recorded on VHS - maybe a local newscast or a high school play or a commercial. Clips that they then snip together and post online. They call their project "Everything is Terrible." And Dmitri Simakis joins me from our studios at NPR West.
Welcome to the program.
Mr. DMITRI SIMAKIS: Thank you for having me.
RAZ: With some of these videos that you posted onto your Web site, you've sort of turned some of these people into celebrities. I'm thinking particularly of this woman in the video called, "So Your Cat Wants a Massage."
Mr. SIMAKIS: Yes. Yes.
RAZ: And this is literally a three-minute video of a woman explaining how you can give your cat a massage.
(Soundbite of video)
Ms. MARYJEAN BALLMER: If we understood fluently, our cats would tell us that petting is passe because your cat wants a massage. No oils or lotions are needed.
RAZ: This has three-quarters of a million hits. The woman has gone onto Letterman. How did you find this video?
Mr. SIMAKIS: This one was found in Chicago, Illinois by actually our intern, Lur(ph). And immediately when you watch it, of course, it's so wonderful.
RAZ: And he found it at, like, a thrift shop and he just popped it in the VHS?
Mr. SIMAKIS: I believe so. Yeah. We've actually spoken to Maryjean. She's a wonderful woman. She...
RAZ: Oh, her name is Maryjean?
Mr. SIMAKIS: Yeah, Maryjean Ballmer, I believe. And just her seeing it and getting it, what we were doing was wonderful. You know, some people, I think, take it the wrong way, especially, you know, YouTube can be a very negative place. But she really understood - no, this is funny. I haven't seen this in probably 15 years. Thank you for bringing this back.
RAZ: Okay. So, how did this whole project, Everything is Terrible, how did it get started?
Mr. SIMAKIS: Everyone in the group actually is from Ohio. And over the years we sort of just, you know, as video stores would be closing and as, you know, it got very cold in Athens, Ohio - the winters were not kind to us - and so we'd spend a lot of time just indoors sitting around trying to kind of outdo each other with the worst VHS tape or the most ridiculous movie or whatever, and just finding the most inspiring VHS tapes we can find.
RAZ: Inspiring tapes that what, sort of tell us about who we are, who we were, you know, at this certain period in our history?
Mr. SIMAKIS: I think that's a big part of it. I think it's the excess that we had, it's the instance that we had at that time. But really you just have this amazing little time capsule where it's like, this happened and no one's ever going to see it again. We have to bring it back. It's this obsession with us at this point. It's an addiction, really.
RAZ: There's another clip that we're going to play - it's got to be in the early or mid-'90s. It's like, three women meeting for lunch and they're talking about this new, crazy thing.
(Soundbite of video)
Unidentified Woman #1: Are you on the Internet?
Unidentified Woman #2: Internet for techno geeks with spreadsheets?
Unidentified Woman #3: Oh no, you need the power.
Unidentified Woman #1: We're Moms on the Net. We became Moms on the Net because there are so many resources available on the Internet for moms and their families.
Mr. SIMAKIS: This was a tape called "What the Heck's the 'Net?" And how did they do it, what was the point, who bought it, who sold it? It's just such a mystery, and we love that tape. I mean, that tape is just a gold mine of just a lost era. You know, I mean, the tape is also only a little over 10 years old. I believe it's from, like, 1996, maybe? It's not that long ago. And it shows, like, how fast things have progressed. They're talking about w-w-dot-this and w-w-dot-that. And it's just so hilarious looking back on it and it's not even that old.
RAZ: Dmitri Simakis, recently you asked people who followed your Web site to send in their copies of the film "Jerry Maguire."
Mr. SIMAKIS: Yes.
RAZ: And I guess you've already received hundreds of them. Why do you want VHS copies of "Jerry Maguire?"
Mr. SIMAKIS: We always have noticed since the beginning that there seems to be nothing but just "Jerry Maguire" tapes filling our nation's thrift stores and...
RAZ: Is that right?
Mr. SIMAKIS: ...these stores.
RAZ: "Jerry Maguire" tapes all over the place?
Mr. SIMAKIS: It is insane. And it's a big bright red VHS tape. So you look at it right from the side, your eyes immediately focus on it. And I'm telling you, we could go to a thrift store in D.C., one out here in Los Angeles, one in Jacksonville, Florida, I guarantee you there will be more "Jerry Maguire" than anything else. I have no idea why. It was a very popular movie, I understand that, but so was, you don't see "Titanic." You don't see, you know, "Laurence of Arabia." You just see "Jerry Maguire."
RAZ: "Jerry Maguire" on VHS tape.
Mr. SIMAKIS: All the time. All the time. And so our goal is to have the world's largest collection since their departure at the factory.
RAZ: You know, some people want to, you know, cure diseases and others want to collect all the "Jerry Maguires."
Mr. SIMAKIS: Exactly.
RAZ: That's Dmitri Simakis. He is with the group Everything is Terrible, and he joined me from our studios at NPR West in California.
Dmitri Simakis, thanks so much.
Mr. SIMAKIS: Thanks for having me.
RAZ: And the Everything is Terrible folks also do live shows of their favorite clips. The next one is February 1 in Chicago. And for any of you who want to brush up on your cat massage techniques, you can find a link to that video at our Web site, npr.org.