Does Barry Diller Watch "The Office"?

Barry Diller, a very smart guy and CEO of IAC/Interactive Corp, once famously dissed "user-generated content" (a progressively meaningless phrase) by suggesting that there's a limited audience for videos of "... a cat throwing up on your grandmother."

A few minutes ago, I finished watching NBC's one-hour episode of "The Office" featuring Pam and Jim's wedding, now, no longer, again available at www.hulu.com. It was, as always, charming and brilliantly executed. But most notable was the closing five minute sequence which was a lovely homage (fair use?) to "Jill and Kevin's Big Day" on YouTube, which features Chris Brown's song, "Forever".

Here's "The Office" version.

Art and reality reflect each other in infinite recursion. And tonight's episode of "The Office" may cause Mr. Diller to re-think his cat vomit thesis. Somewhere out there in UGC-land, Jill and Kevin had an inspired idea, arguably violated Sony BMG's copyright, choreographed five very special minutes of their lives, posted it on the internet, and created a sensation (28 million views!) Now that NBC has picked up the theme (in a show that ironically poses as documentary) it will probably drive another 50,000 iTune downloads for a guy currently serving six months of community service in Virginia.

Is this a great country, or what?

P.S. Even if you don't usually watch the show, check out the opening 1:45 below. For a more ham-fisted use of the vomit theme, check out Microsoft's online ad (since pulled) for Internet Explorer 8.