Welcome To The Wonderful World Of Beyoncé YouTube Deep Cuts

There's a reason Beyoncé has 16 Grammys to her name, a Billboard Millennium Award, and has Jay-Z wrapped around her little finger: she's perfect. And even though Jay-Z's proclamation that his wife is "The Second Coming of Michael Jackson" may be biased, the fact of the matter is that it's kinda-sorta true. Everything that a performer is supposed to do well—dance, sing, be an endearing and charismatic person during public appearances—Beyoncé does to the utmost degree. In fact, I've spent many a sleepless night tossing and turning over whether I'd rather have the ability to sing or dance like her (I usually end up picking dance because it seems like a more accessible and break-out-at-random type of talent and therefore would yield more recognition and attention).

That said, she's pretty easy to obsess over. Even more, despite being the most famous person ever, she maintains this veil of mystery when it comes to her personal life, which makes her all the more obsession-worthy. I for one wouldn't feel right about myself if I didn't note that I was writing this in a room with two Beyoncé DVDs on the desk, a Beyoncé poster rolled up under the bed, a Beyoncé t-shirt hanging in the closet, and the Beyoncé endorsed shade of L'Oréal lipstick poking out of my purse. Quite obviously, I can neither be nor be with Beyoncé, so as a consolation I usually settle for a good ol'-fashioned YouTube K-hole. This basically involves me going to YouTube with the intention of watching "that performance of Beyoncé where she's wearing that yellow crochet dress thing" and ends up with me realizing that it's 8pm and I'm still in pajamas.
Having slipped and fallen into myriad a mythical Internet journey, I've got a few go-to performance and interview videos up my sleeve. But everyone's seen and cried to her a cappella performance of "Halo" in front of all those kids. And everyone's seen her pregnant stomach fold in on itself during that Australian interview both in real time AND slow motion. But have you seen that clip of her very first movie performance? Or her and Jay-Z being interviewed together when they were "not dating" but clearly totally dating? No? Well you're in for a real treat of Beyoncé YouTube obscurity. That is, if you're as obsessive a Beyoncé fan as me (which, given her superhuman qualities, you probably are).

Walk with me.

This is beautiful. Never in all my YouTube spirals into oblivion have I seen Jigga or Beyoncé act so incredibly, amazingly awkward. Stars, they're just like us! Stars, they're secretly-really-into-each-other-and-don't-want-anyone-to-know-so-they-act-like-they-don't-like-each-other-which-ends-up-coming-across-as-even-more-unnatural, just like us!

As much as we like to think Beyoncé is a flawless angel princess, she's not. She even pulls out the ol' banana peel heel slip once in a blue moon. This video is great because it reveals that (A), Bey is not immune to physical blunders and (B), judging from how fast that guy rushes to caress her ankle, those feet are probably worth more money than you'll ever see in your entire life.

I know, I know, another "fall" video, but this one is IN FRONT of people. Here is a perfect example of exactly why Beyonce is an impeccable performer: she passes off this slip like it's part of the routine, and no one is the wiser.

This performance from the 2003 Billboard Awards rules for a number of reasons (Beyoncé with bangs, criss-cross halter top, not to mention that "Me, Myself, And I" is a fairly underrated Beyoncé song), but most of all is the fact that she manages to make Big Boi and André 3000 look PRETTY awkward when she strolls through the aisle at 1:32. Like, did they know she was going to do that? Was it completely improvised? Halp.

Moving on a few years later, here is Bey's performance of "Ring the Alarm" from the 2006 VMA's. There's actually a behind-the-scenes documentary that follows the process of the production, but it's definitely not as entertaining as the performance itself. This performance is especially salient because even though she's in full dolo mode, it's still pretty early on so you can tell she's still steadying her sea legs on the USS Ultimate Badass. For instance, when she throws like 6 bills into the audience upon her utterance of "dough". The Bey of now would have made that shit rain. But even still, this easily features one of her best dance breakdowns of all time (3:26!!!!!!!!!!).

WHAT? WHAT! WHAT. Beverly Hood is a movie I had never heard of until falling deep, deep, deep into the bowels of the Beyoncénternet. According to its IMDB, it's about a family that wins the lottery and then moves to Hollywood for a taste of the "good life." And Destiny's Child makes an appearance because yeah okay? I'll let the trailer and the review on its IMDB speak for itself as to why the film never broke anyone's threshold of awareness. This just goes to show that we've all got skeletons. Even the incarnation of perfection herself.

Alysa Lechner has had a beer, like, before. She is on Twitter - @hialysa