Today in Lesser-Known Gyllenhaals: Meet Cousin Sam!

Did you know that Jake and Maggie have a secret younger brother?!  Well, they don't; although The Guardian seems to think so, as that is precisely how they introduced the world to Sam.

Sam is actually Jake and Maggie's cousin, and we are talking about him today because every once in a while, it's good to take a step back, reflect, and realize that there are other Gyllenhaals besides Jake who are worthy of our good-natured ridicule.

Sam takes himself painfully seriously, combines words in ways that are baffling to people who speak English, and boasts a full head of robust, dark-brown hair.  In other words, there is no question:  He is a Gyllenhaal.

There is also no question that Sam wouldn't be getting any attention whatsoever were it not for his last name, for he also exhibits that final piece of the Gyllenhaal puzzle:  unyielding mediocrity.

The following video was on YouTube for months with roughly zero hits (I can attest, as I ran across Sam's channel when creating the ISJ! YouTube channel and quickly dismissed this kid) until yesterday, when Yahoo! went nuts with it.  Now it is rapidly approaching its 70,000th (!) view:

"I want to be a falling raindrop in the current of the river of your soul"?  Oh, to be twenty and to be a Gyllenhaal...

(On a more serious level, I have a lot of respect for anyone who follows their creative ambitions and put themselves out there.  I wish Sam the best of luck...and not for the first time in my life, I wish that I, too, possessed the golden ticket of famous relatives to get me international coverage that I'm probably not worthy of.)

MEANWHILE, Sam's somewhat-famous older cousin Jake was seen around town closing a drug deal or something:

And that one picture will undoubtedly interest you more than all of Sam's YouTube videos combined, which is why Jake is the famous one, the end.

Huge thank you to Kathryn for alerting me to Sam's newfound fame! :)