NYC 777 YouTube Meetup

Yesterday was 7/7/07 and there were numerous events scheduled to tie into what many saw as a propitious numerological date. At the very least, 777 certainly is catchy tag. This gathering was the NYC 777 YouTube Meetup in Washington Square Park (click here for more photos). Here was another huge event which I had no knowledge of until I walked into it (I live neighboring the park) yet it apparently had been planned for months. According to the youtube meetup website, the entire event actually spanned 5 days with various parties and meetups in clubs and bars. As of today, I have found no mainstream press coverage - the only media I saw there was filming by MTV. The meetup had a cultish feel, not dissimilar to a Trekkie or SciFi convention. There was a lot of interviewing going on with filming and photography of filming, photography and interviewing. But there also was a lot of connecting of youtube celebs, many meeting in the flesh for the first time with names like happyslip, davidjr, abbegirl, thehill88, foureyedmonsters, ghostwise, brookers, kimeepower, lionsgrrr etc. One of the main attractions was to be a performance by EepyBird, the brainchild of Fritz Grobe (professional juggler and performance artist) and Stephen Voltz (a lawyer). These two have a number of videos on YouTube and their own website (click here), featuring their displays of Mentos and Diet Coke geysers, with an estimated twenty millions views webwide (one of their most viewed is the original Experiment 137 with one hundred jets going off in less than three minutes). Two liter Diet Coke bottles are fitted with nozzles containing Mentos - when combined a chemical reaction takes place, with geysers reaching heights of over 20 feet. Unfortunately, EepyBird's permit only specified assembly and not their geyser display, so they were shut down. They appear to be parlaying their online success with an appearance on Letterman, Coca Cola's use of Experiment 214 for three months on their website, talks with the Discovery Channel and History Channel about a science show, a recent Emmy nomination ...