Be sure to get our good side! (Simon Wedege Petersen/Wikimedia Commons)
Earlier this month and to great fanfare, “The Portal”—a 24-hour webcam connection between New York City and Dublin, Ireland, displayed inside twelve-foot-diameter steel rings—opened its lenses, one next to the iconic Flatiron Building and the other in Dublin’s bustling O’Connell Street.
What in the Marvel Universe is going on here? (SaraMartnezW/Wikimedia Commons)
This is the second project for the Portal’s creator, Benediktas Gylys, a Lithuanian “artist, author, and entrepreneur” (source: his own website—he seems to have no Wikipedia nor even a LinkedIn page; we feel confident in speculating that his projects might be parentally financed??), after the first Portal linked his hometown of Vilnius, Lithuania with Lubin, Poland during the coronavirus pandemic. Gylys says he was inspired by “a mystical experience.”
– Benediktas Gylys, Founder @ portals.org
We also enjoy our fair share of psychedelics! (And we take it back about his parents—after reading this manifesto, we think it’s more likely that he is a hologram run by an AI chatbot, but with a heart of gold.)
In a statement about the opening of the New York Portal, Gylys said, “The livestream provides a window between distant locations, allowing people to meet outside of their social circles and cultures, transcend geographical boundaries, and embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness.” And, of course, to flash strangers an ocean away.
Come to papa. (Ron Mader/Flickr)
Yes, days after its debut, the Portal had to be temporarily shut down due to “inappropriate” (read: absolutely, 1000% expected—and that’s not a typo, we 100% mean one thousand percent) behavior by visitors on both ends of the long wire that must connect the cameras.
One Irish lad on the Dublin side held up his phone showing footage of the 9/11 attacks (we’re told he’s blond and was wearing an Armani sweater, and if we see him, it’s on sight. Save your bad manners for our common enemy, the Brits). But don’t worry, Americans, our fellow countrymen/women/peeps are also out there working hard to promote the United States brand (by which, yes, we mean an OnlyFans model previously featured on an episode of Dr. Phil flashed the portal).
We’re nothing if not authentic!
Before the Portal went on its unscheduled hiatus, New York’s Hell Gate news reporter found out from a security guard that on Day 1, someone from the Dublin Portal mooned the New York Portal (it’s 5 hours later in Dublin, so naturally, hijinks set in there while the sun is still up Stateside). After she finished, the New York visitors watched live as the offender got arrested. Don’t you just love dystopia this time of year?
Content creators also came out in droves, thinking that showing their handles to a webcam that’s always on might be the key to getting 1 million followers. Though their efforts were greeted mainly by eye-rolls, we will personally be quite surprised if the Portal doesn’t make an appearance on a future episode of 90-Day Fiancé.
At publication time, the Portal is still dark while both cities work to implement vague “solutions,” but we’re confident the ingenious citizens of New York and Dublin will find a way to make their butts shine from one coast to the other.
