Joy Division Make the Teletubbies Look Like an Existential Nightmare

The debate raging in the office is this: Do Joy Division make the Teletubbies depressing or do the Teletubbies make Joy Division more uplifting? It's hard to tell, but either way, the combination is unsettling.

YouTuber Christopher G. Brown stripped the lovably disturbing children's show characters of their bright colors, presenting them in deeply contrasting shades of white and black. This set the stage for him to add the Joy Division song "Atmosphere" from the compilation album, Substance.

In the comments, Brown said he was inspired by a black and white image of the Teletubbies making the rounds on the Internet. A handful of people then noted that they thought the video should be slowed down to match the pace of the song.

But the childishly clumsy pratfalls and rolling down hills playing at normal speed only (pardon me while I grab my art critic's dictionary) sharpen the juxtaposition of the song's funereal quality and the (critic's dictionary again) banality of the Teletubbies.

OK, I'm done pretending to be smart.

All of this sources back to the song's official video, which the remaining members of Joy Division had Aton Corbijn make eight years after singer Ian Curtis' death. The theme is pretty much the same as the Teletubbies mashup version, albeit a little more obvious. Check it out below: