Just because I'm introspective and I walk among the shadows, it doesn't mean that I can't hear you. -- Hope

Crista Flanagan, a writer and performer on MadTV, has teamed up with the fellas behind AskANinja.com for a new Web series called "Hope is Emo" that features Flanagan as Hope, a brooding high school emo chick with plenty of angst and depression to spare, and I'm guessing more than a few albums by The Cure. In the first episode, which you can view after the jump, she tearfully pleads to her listeners to stop destroying words by erasing or deleting them. She's so serious about this, in fact, that she made an urn to hold the chalky remains of words that have been callously wiped from the chalkboards at her school. Well, it's not so much an urn as it is a fondue pot, but you get the idea. Also, and perhaps even more importantly, freshmen and sophomores can't go to prom, and it's a rule people really need to learn to obey. I found it quite humorous, and I'm looking forward to more.