Epimemeology, Week #18: The Fall of Edgar

by Pat

In honor of Cinco de Mayo—which is absolutely not Mexico's independence day—Epimemeology presents: La Caida de Edgar (The Fall of Edgar). 

The Meme:

A forty-three second video of eleven-year-old Edgardo Martinez attempting to cross a stream on a log bridge, only to be thrown off by his cousin, Fernando. 

For all my fellow gringos, you can find a rough English translation here. 

Where You Might Have Seen It:

The video was uploaded to YouTube in May 2006, and appears to have gone viral almost instantly. Soon, the sound of poor Edgar yelling "¡Ya, güey!" was finding its way into ringtones, remix videos, and high-effort video game parodies. 

As of 2024, "La Caida de Edgar" has more than 82 million views. It occupies a special place in the hearts of the Mexican people. I remember my junior year Spanish teacher (a younger guy from Mexico) stopped class to show us this chubby kid falling into a dirty creek. 

As for Edgar himself, he seems to have handled his viral fame as well as could be expected. He made television appearances, but also dealt with mockery. Less than a year after the video was posted, Edgar took swift, brutal revenge on Fernando and his Tio Raul. 

At one point, Edgar had a YouTube channel called SOY EDGAR ("I am Edgar"), but he doesn't appear to have posted lately. Last I heard, he was living a quiet life in Monterrey, working at his family's business and part-time as a video editor. 

The Message:

As Freud said, "Sometimes a kid falling into a river is just a kid falling into a river." But for the sake of the blog, let's dig into it. We can all relate to Edgar's unintentional catchphrase "¡Ya, güey!" (translating approximately to "Stop, dude!"). Who among us hasn't been thrown into a metaphorical river by the Fernandos of misfortune, injustice, and our own stupidity? Edgar, like all of us, just wants it to stop. 

Also, this may be lost on American audiences, but apparently Edgar has a super thick norteño accent. So imagine the same video in English, but it's a kid about to fall into the Wissahickon Creek, yelling "Yo, dude! Put that jawn down!" I'm starting to get the appeal. 

The Source:

In order to be covered in Epimemeology, a meme has to be derived from something larger than itself. A movie, a TV show, a song. If the meme stands alone, independent of a bigger source, then I don't have anything to analyze. I've had to turn down some of the greatest memes in history, because—short of a one-on-one interview—there's nothing to write about.

At first, I was worried this was the case with the Fall of Edgar. After all, it looks like it's just some guy's home movies. But much to my surprise, I discovered the video is actually an adaptation. And an adaptation of classic literature, no less. 

See, when I couldn't find any related media during my first round of research, I decided to enlist the help of AI. Yes, AI. That hard-to-define, but impossible-to-avoid technology that will eventually replace all entry-level and creative jobs and will never, ever, ever blow back on us in any way. If it can work for other PoYB features, it can work for me. So instead of wasting my time with fruitless learning, I outsourced the hard work to an unpaid AI chatbot. The results were astounding!

So it turns out that forty-three second video clip (in Spanish) is actually a retelling of an 11,000 word Poe story (in English). I'm embarrassed to admit I missed that during my first viewing. It's one of those subtle adaptations, like how O Brother Where Art Thou? is a retelling of The Odyssey. With this in mind, I set about reading the original Fall of the House of Edgar, so that I could gain a deeper insight into La Caida de Edgar.

The story begins with the unnamed narrator (Edgar?) traveling to the house of his good friend, Roderick Usher. As he comes upon the old and massive house, the narrator finds its presence deeply upsetting, but can't pinpoint why. He explains:  

"It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression..."

In plain English, the narrator thinks that he could spruce the place up with a few cosmetic changes. A coat of paint, new shutters, perhaps even moving a log? Is this our first connection to the video?

Only time will time, dear reader.

The narrator is welcomed into the house by a weird looking valet. On his way upstairs, he passes an even worse looking doctor. But worst of all is the narrator's good friend, Roderick Usher:

"His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision ... to that species of energetic concision ... that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement."

Roderick talks like every drunk guy at a party who feels the need to explain why Christopher Nolan's Batman movies are actually the worst. To add to the matter, Roderick finds all physical sensation tortuous, except, of course, for sick guitar solos: 

"He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror."

Roderick is an eccentric individual. He hasn't left the house in years and has "certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted." Oh, and his twin sister Madeline died of a wasting disease shortly before the narrator's arrival. Like, the night before. If I was a betting man, I'd say that plot point never comes up again. This Poe guy doesn't seem like the type to dwell on the past. 

The narrator decides the best way to cure Roderick's depression / constant pain / irrational fears / dead twin grief is a good old fashioned boys' weekend:

"I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar."

Pictured: Roderick Usher speaking guitars his way out of despair.

 

During this period, the narrator recounts how Roderick played a "certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber." This piece, "Weber's Last Waltz," is actually a fascinating bit of music trivia. As it turns out, it was not written by composer Carl Maria von Weber at all, but by his colleague Carl Reissiger. Reissiger gave Weber the sheet music to look over, only for Weber to die while it was still in his possession. When Weber's body was found, this unknown music was found in his belongings, so it was assumed to be the last piece Weber wrote before he died. This is why I email my column to Joe. That way there's a paper trail. 

The Weber story is all well and spooky, but I'm curious what Poe meant by "certain singular perversion." Did Roderick play it on a big organ? Did he make a scary face while he did it? I'm forced to go with the simplest answer: Roderick played the entire nine-minute piece by hitting the piano keys with his dick. Classic boys' weekend. 

Feeling a little bit better, Roderick opens up to the narrator by telling him about his strangest belief:  "This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things."

Roderick goes even further. It is his deeply held belief that the growth of plants and fungus within the walls have caused the mansion to develop a mind of its own. The house is alive! 

But you know what's not alive? Roderick's twin sister, Madeline! I rewrote this paragraph four times and that was the least terrible transition I came up with. Roderick reveals that he has a paralyzing fear that his sister's corpse will be stolen, so he plans to store Madeline's body in the family tomb in the house's basement. The narrator—an adherent to the bro code if there ever was one—helps Roderick move the body.

Another week passes and the vibe is continuing to deteriorate. Roderick’s neuroses have gotten worse, and the narrator can't sleep. One restless night, the narrator decides to take a walk and finds Roderick stomping through the house in a manic state. As a storm rages outside, Roderick questions him: 

"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence—"you have not then seen it?—but, stay! you shall."

Unnerved by Roderick's sudden enthusiasm for lightning, the narrator decides to read "Mad Trist," a cool story about a dragon, to cheer Roderick up. As the story progresses, the narrator hears "a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound." This sends Roderick over the edge and he cries out:

"Oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!"

Of all the shitty things I did to my sister growing up, I'm proud to say I never buried her alive. The narrator abandons the rad story about dragons and is shocked to see a figure in the threshold:

"But then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher."

Madeline—understandably irked by being stuck in a tomb for a week—tackles Roderick and kills him. The narrator runs out of the house and looks back in time to see it collapse on the twins. Wait, was the valet still in there?! Nevermind, it's too late. The story ends with the line:

"...the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher."

It's a pretty good story, but it's a shame the version I read mistranslated the last line. It should say "House of Edgar."

As far as adaptations go, this was definitely not the most faithful one. It's a long, complex, atmospheric story, and almost impossible to fit into less than a minute. For the sake of time, The Fall of Edgar had cut out a lot of the more memorable elements. I think the biggest one is that there's no house in the video.

That said, The Fall of Edgar's ending adheres to the general tone of the Poe story: hopelessness, madness, and the inevitability of fate. Like Roderick, Edgar is doomed. Both end with the protagonist plummeting into a wet, nasty mess. 

"—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—"

I'd like to thank AI for helping me make this—in hindsight, extremely obvious—connection. Maybe one day, AI can write this column entirely. But until that joyous day, I'll have to settle for inspiration. 

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Next Week: Pat screams at a smug cat about The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.