history of the entire world, i guess is a movie that was released on May 10, 2017 by bill wurtz on youtube. It tells the story of the last 13.8 billion years in the span of 19 minutes and 25 seconds. So obviously it’s fast paced the entire way through. EXCEPT right at the beginning.
So we start of with bill trying to comprehend the incomprehensible idea of the non-existence of time and space. The non-existence of existence is just something that’s so crazy and hard to think about. Even talking about it is hard because you’re trying to say before time and space, but that word before is explaining it through the lens of time itself. You can’t even have “before” if there’s no time. It’s fucking crazy, man. bill explains this idea by saying that there isn’t everywhere, you don’t need a where [space], you don’t even need a when [time]. Then there’s a big pause, the only pause in the movie. Then bill says “forget this” and we launch into the beginning of the universe.
And it’s so funny to me, like nonexistence saying “forget this,” and then existence happens. Like nonexistence is just like “man, this sucks, let’s do something else,” and that’s why the universe exists. That’s such a funny concept.
Everything is anthropomorphized, which gives the movie so much of its charm. Even tiny plant cells, he treats them like people you can communicate with. He sings “now you can eat sunlight!” to the plants. And even later he tells an ocean animal “learn to use an egg,” to which the animal responds, “I was already doing that.” And that adds so much charm. Like it seems like early life was just unintelligent creatures making random choices and evolution took its course, whatever. But they’re important characters in the story of the world, and bill treats them as important characters, shaping the story.
I’m a mammal, so once it became “mammal time,” I was pretty excited. My friends are all mammals too, and to see our development from having breasts, to grabbing things, to walking, to banging rocks together, to setting things on fire, to talking, was incredible to see. We’ve come a long way. And that’s just the period from mammals to the first humans. Obviously we’ve come a long way since 200,000 B.C., as we’ll see shortly.
So there’s an ice age, and people walk to the Americas, which is just insane. Like, I can’t imagine being a person back then and just like “Well, I guess we’ll walk this way.” That’s incredible. Imagine if they didn’t do that, or if they didn’t make it. That would have a colossal impact on the course of history. Of course they weren’t thinking about, you know, the eventual arrival of Columbus or anything, they were just moving. But I like to think about the environmental impact on history. It’s easy to think of history as just people doing stuff because of complex, human things. But obviously they’re doing stuff in relation to the environment that’s around them. It’s no coincidence that these early civilizations developed around rivers, as bill points out.
The movie is very fast-paced. It has to be, given the premise. There’s a lot of brightness and a lot of movement of pictures and quick displaying fo maps and words. It’s a style that is unique to bill and it works so well in this film.
It’s about time to talk about the jingles. These jingles are brief, musical.. things. Basically he’s talking, telling the story of the world then he breaks out into singing! But very briefly. And these jingles are extremely catchy. I find myself just thinking, “It’s the golden age of Indiaaaaaa” randomly in my life.
I think it’d be funny if I ran into some mind readers from time to time. Like a waiter can read my mind, let’s say, for the sake of this bit of fun. So the waiter is about to ask if I have any room for dessert and he hears my brain singing “It’s the golden age of Indiaaaaaa,” and he’s like, in his mind, “Why the fuck is this guy thinking about the Golden Age of India right now?!” Although, come to think of it, if he was a mind reader, he probably has heard some way weirder shit than that. But still, it’s funny to think about.
Another one I like is “Now the Phoenicians can get down to business!” It sounds very cool and it’s fun to sing.
The jingle that I love a lot but don’t really know why it’s in there is “The Sultan of Oman lives in Zanzibar now..” and that’s it! He just moves on immediately. And there’s no buildup to it. It’s like, he’s talking about “The Great Game” between Britain and Russia, and then he quickly tells us where the Sultan of Oman lives now, and then moves on to an Indian revolt and the continued occupation by Britain. It’s like, why the fuck do I care where the Sultan of Oman lives?? No explanation, I love it.
Now I’m not a historian. I like learning about the Cold War and other periods of American history and sometimes British history, but I definitely don’t know much about Asian, African, or South American history. All that to say that there’s probably some significance [of which I am unaware] to the Sultan of Oman living in Zanzibar. But it’s still funny cause it seems like the only jingle whose importance goes unexplained. Here’s the thing: if I learned the significance of the Sultan of Oman living in Zanzibar, I might not enjoy the jingle as much, because part of my enjoyment comes from not understanding.
ANYWAY, in addition to being fun and entertaining, the film’s goal is to tell the story of the world. And it achieves this goal pretty well, given the time restraint. I actually learned a lot watching this. You probably will too. Also you’ll probably find something in there that seems interesting so you’ll go read about it more.
It’s also funny how bill spends more or less time on certain events. For example, he takes a lot longer to explain the Spanish-American War than he does to explain the Black Death. He just says “Whoops, half of Europe just died,” and then moves on. I actually missed it the first time watching. The movie has jingles, charm, jokes, and a kind of dry humor at points. But, you know, it’s talking about real events and a lot of them are pretty brutal, as history is. It’s a strange dynamic, and it makes me think about how the rest of this century will go. I don’t know any exact details, but I imagine it will be quite brutal. Wars, droughts, floods, poverty, starvation, etc. I will be alive during much of it. And I hope to do my own small part to make it not as bad as maybe it could be. I want to do some good, is what I’m trying to say.
As of the writing of this review, the video has 117 million views. If you haven’t seen it, I HIGHly recommend it. It’s one of the best videos on youtube.
Lefty Forrester 