Tag: Web Culture

Tumblr Thinks Everything Is Porn

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Welcome to Tumblr

The problem is it seems to be flagging pretty much everything. Gita Jackson of Kotaku profiled some of the stranger subjects deemed inappropriate by Tumblr. They included:

  • Garfield
  • A vase and some plant pots
  • Dinosaurs
  • Some fruit with teeth
  • Mario
  • A roast chicken in a wall
  • A VR prototype

Maybe there needs to be another sub-section for Rule 34. Or it needs to be rewritten altogether.

Check out some of the wildest ones below. Lemme go see what they’ve flagged on my Tumblr account…

(via Kotaku)

My All-Time Favourite Chili Pepper Challenge by AyyOnline

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AyyOnline's Chili Pepper Challenge.

The other is the one with the two white girls which I’ll post tomorrow, but back to my all-time fave. AyyOnline was a popular black British Youtuber until he left (and recently came back) and during the chili pepper challenge’s heyday, Ayy joined in. The hottest pepper at the time was the Naga Viper pepper or “Ghost pepper” as it was also known. It was the “World’s Hottest Chili” in 2011 with a rating of 1,382,118 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Pepper X is the unofficial champion now (used in the Hot Ones’ sauce) but the Naga Viper was the king for quite some time.

The featured image for this post is the precise moment before he took the “deadly” bite; the record scratch “you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation” moment. What follows is hilarious. Cue removal of clothing, ice, yoghurt, and some vomiting. The initial reaction was classic. The instant realisation that you’ve made a bad decision and there’s no way out. Well, not a comfortable one anyway. But like he said, he did it for laughs and he got plenty from me over the years. I’m glad he didn’t live up to the ghost pepper’s name and came back.

Fun facts about chili peppers (courtesy of Wikipedia):

  • Chilis were part of the Aztecs’ staple diet and originated in Mexico.
  • The substance that gives chilis their intense heat is called capsaicin.
  • 32.3 million tonnes of green chili peppers and 3.8 million tonnes of dried chili peppers were produced in 2014 worldwide.
  • China is the world’s largest producer of green chillies, providing 50% of the global total.

Standards Manual’s new book dedicated to late 90s Japanese emojis

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Hamish Smyth and Jesse Reed’s publishing imprint’s release a new book celebrating the emojis designed by Shigetaka Kurita for Japanese telecoms company Docomo. 176 symbols were originally created and according to their research, Docomo came up with the idea during a time when small amounts of data could be transferred between devices. The emojis are pretty archaic in comparison to the ones we use now but they’re wondrous to look at.

Steamed Hams but there's a different animator every 13 seconds

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Steamed Hams but there's a different animator every 13 seconds

And to honour that, YouTube uploader TmsT created this video in collaboration with 13 animators (including himself). To call each animation surreal would be an understatement but so would saying each one was “good”. It’s all very trippy and pushes Steamed Hams past its boundaries, like many of the homages and “remixes” on YouTube.

Steam the video below and make sure to check out the animators underneath.

Steamed Hams but There's a Different Animator Every 13 Seconds

Animators, in order of segment:

Steamed Hams but it's edited like Dragon Ball Z

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Steamed Hams, edited like the original series of Dragon Ball Z

I can’t get enough of these things. You might have seen the Steamed Hams video with multiple animators or the one in the style of Seinfeld. But how about a DBZ mashup?

That’s exactly what we have here and it works so well. Everything starts normally until Seymour realises his “roast is ruined” and the DBZ music kicks in. It’s cleverly done and I’d love to see more Simpsons/DBZ mashup episodes. They’ve got to be better than the awfulness of the newer Simpsons episodes, right?

Stream it below.

Steamed Hams but it's edited like Dragon Ball Z

Steamed Hams but in the style of Seinfeld

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The "Steamed Hams" Simpsons episode in the style of Seinfeld

As Simpsons memes go, Steamed Hams is the most popular. It never seems to lose traction and I’ve recently discovered a host of them on YouTube. My favourite is this rendition, stylised as a Seinfeld episode complete with canned laughter. They even changed the mention of Krusty Burgers to “Skinner Burgers” for added authenticity. I want more of these episodes, to be honest.

I cannot get enough of these. Who knew something so simple could produce so many hilarious memes?

Steamed Hams but it's Seinfeld

18 Minutes of Batman Forever Mistakes on YouTube

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The Riddler and Two-Face in Batman Forever

I remember going to see it at the cinema back in 1995. I even collected the sticker book that came with it. But Batman Forever has not aged well. In my twentysomething wisdom, I started spotting inaccuracies and considered writing them down… until I found someone on YouTube who’d got there first.

Jeremy Scott is a writer and entertainer from Nashville and his CinemaSins series on YouTube is hilarious. For this episode, he flicked through a host of plot holes in Batman Forever in “18 minutes or less”. There’s also a mistake from Jeremy amongst his own corrections but you’ll have to watch to find out what it was.

In defence of Batman Forever, there were some good elements. Val Kilmer was actually a decent Batman/Bruce Wayne. Not as dark and monosyllabic as the GOAT Michael Keaton in Batman and Batman Returns, but not as George Clooney-y as George Clooney in Batman and Robin. Jim Carrey as Edward Nygma/The Riddler was pretty good too. As camp as you’d expect from a Joel Schumacher movie and a stylistic nod to the 60s TV series (which I also loved as a kid).

Stream Everything Wrong With Batman Forever via the YouTube player below.

Everything Wrong With Batman Forever In 18 Minutes Or Less

Gabrielle Union eats hot wings, discusses Twitter fools & DMX

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Gabrielle Union Impersonates DMX While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones

Gabrielle Union is a treasure. When she’s not being a brilliant actress, absolute beauty, or a best-selling author, she enjoys a wing or two. First We Feast’s Hot Ones series has guests talk about their lives while eating the spiciest wings available. During Gabrielle’s wing stop, she discussed her husband Dwyane Wade’s friendship with LeBron James, the time she took Michael Jordan to a lesbian white party (that one passed me by) and when she drank beer and watched Golden Girls with DMX. Yep, that last one happened too. And she also drooled and snotted because the Scoville scale was too damn high.

Have a glass of milk nearby.

The Best of Bad Acting with Tommy Wiseau

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The Best of Bad Acting

Ever watched Sunset Beach? I used to watch it with my mum and sister in the late 90s. It was “so bad it was good” and now any show that lives up to that accolade gets called “a bit Sunset Beach”. But sometimes bad acting is just atrocious. Like Birdemic, an indie romantic horror about a couple in a small town attacked by birds. Wait, that sounds familiar.

In The Best of Bad Acting, we see a host of terrible performances and we can only assume some are bad on purpose. You can tell some of them have low budgets (like Birdemic, with a budget of around $10k) but movies like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation cost $30m to make.

Some of my favourite quotes:

They’re eating her. And then they’re going to eat me. Oh my goooooooood!

Troll 2

YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA!

The Room

GARBAGE DAY!

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2

Great for film-related memes, not for tips on how to act.

The History of Japan By Bill Wurtz

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If you’re gonna showcase your unique delivery, why not do it with a video about the history of Japan? Content creator and musician Bill Wurtz achieved “Internet notoriety”, according to Wikipedia, with his “history of japan” video back in 2016. It featured his quirky style, non-sequitur imagery, and shot his subscriber count out of the stratosphere.

It went viral and currently has over 45 million views. It helped to spawn a wider “sequel” entitled “history of the entire world, i guess” which garnered even larger popularity.

Internet Archaeology: a gallery of early internet images

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The World Wide Web is relatively young.

But the concept of the internet – the “global system of interconnected computer networks” – dates back to the 1960s. The US government aimed to build better communication via computer networks but due to size and cost, computing was restricted to academia, the government and private corporations. When the World Wide Web was introduced in 1989, consumer-level computing exploded and technological advancement flourished.

Interest in pop culture from the 1990s is as strong as ever. Preserving digital artefacts is important in learning how we arrived here and Internet Archaeology plan to do that. The site’s creators say their main goal is to acknowledge the importance of these aforementioned artefacts and understand “the beginnings and birth of an Internet Culture”. Their focus lies solely on graphics – both JPEG and GIF – with the belief they are “most culturally revealing and immediate”.

The site hasn’t been updated for a while; collecting dust on already dated content. But it’s remarkable how far web culture has come since those halcyon days of dial-up and online pizza deliveries. Geocities is no longer with us but opened up a new world to children and adults alike to express themselves and their interests. Most of the images on the site are gawky now but serve a clear purpose. You’ll no doubt relive some memories with what’s on offer and maybe gain some inspiration.

You can find further reading on the subject in the list below the video. And visit Internet Archaeology here.

The Stupidest Rap - Don't Copy That Floppy

Further reading

Observe The Rugged Side Of The Internet With "Brutalist Websites"

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The idea of brutalism is normally reserved for architecture as Wikipedia defines:

Brutalist architecture is a movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, descending from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century. The term originates from the French word for “raw” in the term used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material béton brut (raw concrete). British architectural critic Reyner Banham adapted the term into “brutalism” (originally “New Brutalism”) to identify the emerging style.

But the ethos has transferred to web design lately, creating a “ruggedness and lack of concern to look comfortable or easy”. This according to Brutalist Websites, a compendium of sites with nothing but the basics at hand. You won’t see any fancy fonts or CSS3 on these web pages. Some look archaic but on the whole, they bring web design and the internet back to the bare bones and it’s quite refreshing.

Brutalist Websites before it died

UPDATE: *sigh* once again, another site has been taken down or otherwise defunct. Not sure why but the site is covered with a Brutalist Websites Are Dead logo. If you’re good with Dev Tools, you can get rid of it and still navigate the site but it’s a shame. Then again, a lot of the websites on there were questionable from a brutalist design perspective.

UPDATE 2: The watermark is gone but the webmaster told me the site isn’t active and remains as an archive.

PokéDad: A Webcomic About A Dad's Journey Through The Pokémon World

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With over 200 million copies of their merchandise sold and over $35bn earned, the Pokémon franchise is only behind the Mario as the highest-grossing video-game based franchise.

But one of the best aspects of the series is the market of fan-made projects. One such project comes from LA-based illustrator Liz Rodriguez, entitled “PokéDad”. The webcomic tells the story of a dad in search of his son who has already completed his journey.

Players of Pokémon Red/Blue for the Gameboy will recognise the characters and tropes but the titular dad knows nothing of the Pokémon world and his logical viewpoint leaves him confused and frustrated throughout, much to the reader’s enjoyment. It’s a fantastic take on a well-known storyline and one you should check out. The comic updates every Friday.

Read PokéDad on Tumblr

Update: You can now follow PokéDad’s story on Instagram.

Mangle - The Random LiveJournal Image Generator

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But why does LJ have such a strong Russian following? Well, the company was sold to Russian media group SUP Media in 2007 and around half of LiveJournal’s audience are from or around Russia. In fact, Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin had a blog there until recently. It seemed the potential for the platform was squandered as Steven T. Wright surmised for Ars Technica:

But, as many of its former employees attest, LJ ultimately had the opportunity to become one of these “second-generation” social behemoths. Instead, a stubborn userbase and questionable business decisions harried those ambitions.

Mangle’s random image generation captures the essence of Russian life. From memes to old Soviet architecture to NSFW photos, it offers a look into a private country with a rich history. And like we said, there may be some NSFW images so discretion is advised.

Try it for yourself.

A Thesis Discussing Hip Hop, Skate Culture & Web Culture In Tyler The Creator's Music

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Thesis Discussing Hip Hop, Skate Culture & Web Culture In Tyler, The Creator's Music

This one piqued my interest. It relates to the multicultural facets of controversial rapper Tyler, The Creator. The thesis, written by Brazilian producer and musicologist Gustavo Souza Marques, discusses the ways Tyler, the Creator “shifts, but also maintains, some frames of gangsta rap discourse in his use of ‘hip hop mentality, skate culture, nihilism and Web 2.0 platforms to promote his art has made him one of the most prominent hip-hop artists from 21st century'”. That’s a lot. But also very insightful.

Check out the abstract below.

This article came from the homonymous PhD proposal submitted and accepted by Music School of University College Cork (UCC, Ireland) to be started in September 2015 under the guidance of Dr. J.Griffith Rollefson. It aims to point out and discuss the articulations made by rapper, producer, actor and video director Tyler Okonma, known by the stage name Tyler, the Creator, to shift, but also maintain, some frames of gangsta rap discourse. Noticed by his rape fantasies lyrics and ultraviolent shouts, most present in his two first albums, Tyler has been acclaimed for his notable musical talent but criticized for its misogynist themes. Despite this outrageous aspect of its music, his confessional and often self-deprecating lyrics have been a novelty for constant self-pride and powerful hip-hop lyrics. Moreover, it works as a compensation for his aggressiveness since it could be seen as a demonstration of fragility rather than sexual domination. The way he uses hip-hop mentality, skate culture nihilism and Web 2.0 platforms to promote his art has made him one of the most prominent hip-hop artists from the 21st century. Based on related authors on hip-hop topics like gangsta, misogyny, media and racial stereotypes this article discusses the ways in which Tyler, the creator reflects but also denies the most known and commented frames of rap music.

The abstract from Beyond Gangsta: Hip-Hop, Skate Culture and Web Culture in the Music of Tyler, The Creator

Academically related: The man who submitted a 52,438-word essay without punctuation and passed and Madison Moore’s lectures on “How to be Beyoncé”.