Everyone judges books by their covers. It's impossible not to. But I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I don't think we need to strive, as so many teachers teach, to not judge a book by its cover. If we didn't have a preconceived notion of what a turnout's going to look like, we wouldn't enjoy the surprise as much when the unexpected happens.
The obvious most recent rewarding example of a judged-book surprise is Susan Boyle, the hobgoblin that dropped the jaws of Britain's Got Talent judges and soon thereafter exploded the internet via YouTube. The judges were prejudging, as was the world, and everyone got shocked and awed. When I was forwarded me the link (thanks Joey for being on top of that) I was convinced that this would be the new William Hong (American Idol). Prejudged, Susan Boyle would be a reinventing of Hong, likely an even more hilarious audition, a catastrophic car wreck of a performance for my amusement. But when the opposite hit, and the surprise was induced, it was so much more. More enjoyable, more rewarding and more memorable than any right assumption of the book's cover could have been.
I can't stop watching this new surprise. At first glance, in the opening seconds, I prepped myself for a drug corner police take down, a turf war shootout. A real life scene from The Wire is what I had hopes for. "Y'all Gon Get Ur Minds Blown the #### Outta This World" is the title given to the video by its uploader, a friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook.
There's not much out there that's immune to over hype. But some things are. This is. Enjoy.