Coachella from your couch
A few weeks ago, the massive Coachella music festival in California wowed thousands of attendees. Performers included Bon Iver, The Shins, Andrew Bird, Snoop Dogg and even a holographic Tupac. In any other year, if you missed out on tickets, you’d be shit-out-of-luck, left to hearing about the amazing acts and horrific Porta-Potty stories. Trending topics would be the only way to LIVE THE EXPERIENCE… from the comfort of your sad, unmade bed. But not this year. This year you could actually WATCH Coachella from the comfort of your less sad, unmade bed.
The blessing came from YouTube, who streamed every set on its site. Multiple camera angles, fan cams, beautiful sound output, the works. Basically like one of those penguin cams, except DELUXE and with a lot more intoxicants. All you had to do was hit up their site, click on one of three streams and you were in business.
One lonely Saturday night, I watched Bon Iver and Andrew Bird, switching between the falsetto maestros while chowing on some Ritz crackers (The official cracker of Internet College) and downing water. It was the best. Besides mosh pits, chilling in your bed can sometimes beat concert set-ups, but only if those set-ups cost $250 a ticket.
The streams were a hit and even convinced Youtube to fight VEVO for the rights to stream Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and something called Jazzfest. So if you missed out on the portable Coachella, there’s a new batch of concerts on the way. With Radiohead, the Beach Boys and Aziz Ansari taking the stage at Bonnaroo, I know where I’ll be: in my grooving unmade bed.
THANKS INTERNET!
A new online music app approaches!
For better or for worse, music has changed in the 21st century. Your answer to that first part probably depends on your world view, but we won’t get into that. (Especially because I kind of already did that a few weeks ago.) When Napster debuted, it was as if every layman with a CPU became a black-and-white striped robber, sneaking into the music industry and taking back what was ours, damn it! After those glorious few months, we learned about the dangers of music piracy (more insidious than murder) and plotted to return to those heights. Limewire, torrents and all that stuff were invented as a result of Napster’s original heist and they more or less live on today.
But when all you really want to do is listen to Genesis’ That’s All, how do you go about that? If you’re like me, and you don’t have it in your library, there’s really one option: Youtube. The video mega-site has ironically become a one-stop shop for streaming songs. Just searching That’s All brings up like 6 different videos of the song: lyrics, montages, music video. Sure you could start up Spotify (a free streaming app) but that’s clunky and will probably slow down your computer. Youtube gives you options, speed and a familiarity that only comes from being one of the web’s most-used sites.
But what if you wanted to feel like a pirate without actually breaking any laws? There’s only one program for that: the newly minted Anontune. Anontune, a site created by the ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous, will work to pull streams of any song ever from Youtube, Pandora, Soundcloud and other music hubs to their site, creating an online ready-to-play library of ALL THE SONGS. No downloads, just on demand music without all that ‘search and choose between a bunch of sites’ mumbo-jumbo.
Don’t think this will escape the music industry’s wrath just because it’s seemingly perfectly legal. That butthurt business will crush single moms for downloading 6 Nickelback songs. NICKELBACK! But with the masked power of Anonymous, Anontune should stay up and possibly carve a niche as the web’s best-kept secret, only shared between the most web-savvy redditors or 4channers or Gawker readers. Which should give it a healthy client base.
I for one can’t wait to try out Anontune. Even with my 45 GB of iTunes music, there are holes. Somehow I only have one Jay-Z song. ONE! But with Anontune, I’ll have all the bronx raps I want! You might disagree with Anonymous’ hack jobs and vigilante justice, but can you really turn down free(ish) music?
Twitter Novelty Accounts: The Good, The Better and the Epic Sagas
If Twitter was just for spreading news at the click of a button and the random musings of dumber-than-we-realize celebrities, I’m sure people would still use it. If it was regulated so that every account would have to choose an allegiance between Justin Bieber, One Direction and something called Big Time Rush, I think Twitter’d hold on to 70% of its accounts. (Seriously, have you ever clicked on a Bieber-related trending topic? It’s nauseating. But that’s a post for another time.) BUT THANK GOODNESS, Twitter accepts all kinds. Between friends I’m forced to follow even if they just post which popsicle they’re eating and crAaAaAazy fact bots, there are few kick-ass accounts out there that I’ll read just THEIR timeline, which is a huge honor. No “all” timeline for you, @horse_ebooks! I follow something like 578, holy crap i follow 578 people what am i doing with my life, people on Twitter, but I pared that number down to 5. The 5 greatest NOVELTY Twitter accounts. Novelty as in, not a real person, probably someone posing as someone else, or just plain zany. None of these have identified owners, which just adds to the mystique! Anyway, enjoy.
You might be thinking, WTF is that twitter handle about? Well hold your horses HAH, we’ll get there. Right now actually. This spam-as-art account started as a pure spambot, hawking all kinds of wares, including ebooks related to horses. However, the Twitter police shut it down after it failed the site’s spam algorithm, which I can only imagine is like that guy on the bridge from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ANYWAY, in order to keep @horse_ebooks afloat, its shady Russian creator programmed it to spout out nonsense phrases and words every few hours, in order to seem like a real live human. The plan either worked, or someone at Twitter has a soft spot in their heart for distended poetry because @horse_ebooks is now thriving with 63k followers. Why is it so popular? It’s hard to explain. You know how if you lock 200 monkeys in a room, you’ll get a mound of monkey shit and a very smelling Shakespeare’s manuscript? It’s like that. @horse_ebooks’s script tweets random words that sometimes hook up in a cosmic sentence of unspeakable and mangled beauty. Example: “Is Our Spirit In Our Work?” or the mind-blowingly deep “When young folks, and older folks, too, for that matter, meet for a pleasant evening, it is rather depressing to have them sit.” Seriously! I’ll never say something HALF that incredible and I’ve taken a philosophy class! But then there’s the aforementioned mound of shit: @horse_ebooks still tweets ads, like a businessman who discovers the opera but sticks to his sales calls. However, the sponsors are a small price to pay for one of Twitter’s deepest tweeters.
Ah, the classic parody account. Usually starting with @Notblahblahblah or @thefake etc, parody accounts normally just tweet dumb one-liners or tepid satire of whomever they’re lampooning. @NotBillWalton, or The Bill Walton Trip, take it a step further. Background: Bill Walton is a former UCLA and NBA basketball star who won almost every award possible. NBA champ (twice), MVP, Finals MVP, Sixth Man of the year and an incredible THREE-TIME Naismith College player of the year (’72-’74). Walton now hosts a radio show and sometimes announces game for the Boston Celtics, his former team. His alter ego, however, sticks to spoofing any and all sporting events, including the ESPN network. Setting himself apart from other sports-spoofing accounts like @SportsPickle, NBW live tweets almost every NBA game, with jokes, disses and retweets flying through the cyber… air. It’s hard to satirize sports without repeating tired maxims about Lebron’s mom and Chris Bosh looking like a dinosaur, but NBW does a better job than most. The account even won the ‘Best Fake Feed’ award from National Lampoon. If you like sports, give it a follow.
Where do I even begin with this one? You know how making fun of frat guys is funny and then it gets to a new level and it’s not funny but then you take it to the extreme and wear sperrys with a salmon Vineyard Vines polo with khaki shorts and you run around campus shouting about goddamn GDIs and your favorite slampiece and then it’s HILARIOUS? FFHS is kind of like that. It’s an account mocking all those dumb dumb dumb girls out there who use too many exclamation points and think tanning is good for them. Almost every tweet begins in capital letters, as if you’re watching some stinking drunk girl yelling at her friends in the bar about some guy who probably didn’t actually just wink at her. Multiple exclamation points are used, words are misspelled (hello Generation Text) and lyrics are misappropriated. It tries so hard to mock those annoying bitches you knew in high school that it breaks through the glass ceiling and succeeds beyond all measures. A personal favorite of mine: “NOOOO da olive gardan got shut down 4 helth code violationz!!!!! UGH THANX OBAMA……” There’s a lot more from whence that came!
Are you reading this on the john? How appropriate! Number 2 (heh) on our list is the mysterious and invaluable @MizzouPooper. MP goes around campus and does his business in as many toilets as possible, giving each one a rating out of ten brown stars. The rating is based on factors like: Stall quality, smell, tile, accessibility, and the most important one to consider, traffic. Sprinkled between reviews are bathroom-related advice like “Started an online quiz when I knew a poop was coming #brave#mizzou” and “Free chili in Cornell basement today. Avoid bathrooms at all cost! #mizzou“. A few weeks ago, MP went on a crusade to find the top five bathrooms on campus. He (i’m assuming) pooped in every building on campus and decided on fifth floor Cornell as the winner, which gives me an excuse to visit the business school. And if you think this account is limited because EW POOP, do not fear! All kinds tweet at MP, including girls! Who knew girls also pooped? Crazy. My favorite advice from MP is that the only place you can find a 10/10 brown star rating is your home bathroom, which I could not agree with more!
1. @DadBoner 
The account of @DadBoner is number one on this list because it uses Twitter is such a way that few can. Instead of tweeting random bits of advice or jokes or observations, DB tweets entire stories, Twitter epics, if you will. And not just nursery rhyme or one time at band camp stories, but actual accounts of things that NEVER happened. Let me explain. DB’s “name” is Karl Welzein, a middle-aged dude from Grand Blanc, Michigan. He’s divorced, has joint custody of a kid, and loves hanging out with his friends, Dave, Ken and Crazy Cooter. Why is this the best Twitter novelty account? Well, besides the fact that this person ACTUALLY doesn’t EXIST, DB has the most mundanely interesting and hilarious life. His love of beer, Bob Seger, the Tigers and AMERICA lead to convuluted but fascinating stories, like that one time Crazy Cooter accidentally hit DB’s neighbor’s kid in the face with a roast beef sandwich at a neighborhood St. Patty’s day party. Let’s watch it all play out:
@DadBoner: Saw that neighbor guy whose kid got pelted in the face with the corned beef sammy. Hope he’s not steamed. Might have to have a guy to guy.
@DadBoner: When you crush a little kid off a big wheel with a sammy in the face, best to make it right by givin his old man a few cold ones.
@DadBoner: Might give Crazy Cooter a ring. Think it’d be best if me, him & Dave all went over to make amends with the sammy face dad. It’s a gesture.
@DadBoner: Crazy Cooter said he’ll be by later for the big apology as long as I supply the cold ones. It’s a real load off my mind. Been worried.
@DadBoner: Did some thinkin. Guess you could technically get into some big trouble for hittin a child in the face with a sammy. Gotta play it smart.
@DadBoner: Gotta bring over a PREMIUM sixer too. Somethin nice like Sam Adams. Show a little class. Real high end micro brew.
@DadBoner: A sixer of domestics says, “I’m KINDA sorry for biffin your kid in the face.” But a PREMIUM sixer says, “Please. Don’t call the cops.”
—-
It’s beautiful. I could read these tweets all day. There’s just something about the language, timing, phrases that gets me. Plus, these 10-20 tweet bursts are enough to fill your DB daily need but not enough to beg an unfollow with copious garbage.
Part of the allure is the special dialect that DB paints his tweets with before he sends them out. Phrases like ‘bold flavors’, ‘power moves’, ‘hitting the bricks’ and ending every sentence with ‘you guys’ (Feel like I could drink a thousand beers, you guys.) give DB that down-to-earth geniality, as if he was your crazy and gregarious next door neighbor. What does ‘bold flavors’ and ‘power moves’ mean? They don’t mean much on their own, but surrounded by DB’s tweets, they represent the man at his core. All about enjoying life, not taking things too seriously, and being confident.
Also, almost every word is shortened or given its own flavor. Here’s a short glossary:
‘reets: Margaritas
bm: bowel movement
BL ‘Nums: Bud Light Platinums (lots of drinking, not much to do in Michigan)
celebraish, tradish: self explanatory
D’reets: Doritos
‘Rrhea = you get it
My love for @Dadboner goes beyond the silly-named twitter account and love letter to the life of a middle-aged dude. My absolute favorite twitter accounts are the ones that tell stories of their lives, lives that aren’t real but are happening real-time with people like you and me. The king of this category is the now defunct @MayorEmanuel, the rip-roaring, swearing, balls-to-the-wall fake twitter account that chronicled Rahm Emanuel’s run for governor of Chicago in late 2010 to early 2011. ME basically tweeted what was happening to Emanuel all the time, except it was completely fake. While REAL Emanuel was shaking hands at a homeless shelter, ME was walking through the frigid streets of Chiago during a blizzard, warmth be damned!, with his duck Quaxlerod and Carl The Intern. @MayorEmanuel went on adventures and ran for mayor at the same time! He basically wrote a mini-novel about the campaign, reacting to real news even in his nonexistence! The rich story-telling, exploitation of Emanuel’s true-to-life penchant for swearing and masked creator (@DadBoner is also a mystery) made for a Twitter account that I would literally read from a book if I could. He made art from 140 characters of life updates and far-fetched tales. He was alone on the twitter pantheon.
Until @DadBoner came along. Now DB is still second on my pantheon, but he has a great shot of dethroning @MayorEmanuel as the best Twitter epic. He’ll need all the bold flavors and power moves possible, but I think he can do it, you guys.
DON’T DO THIS: A guide to free music online
The last time I actually bought a CD album LP etc was right before Thanksgiving break. And I bought two of them, I’ll have you know. And now since you’re interested (or at least feigning it), they were Drake’s Take Care and Childish Gambino’s Camp. Why am I boring you with this? Well, I will gaurantee that if you ask ten people my age how many album’s they’ve bough in the last six months, the answer with be less than two. But if you ask them how many songs they’ve added to their iTunes library, it’ll be in the thousands. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??? you ask. Elementary, my dear reader, the internet!
A lot of people thought that once Napster was killed in the early 2000s, it would be next to impossible to download music online. They could not be more wrong. Thanks to file sharing and the general largeness of the web, there is a copy of every song ever online, I’m pretty sure. You just have to know how to find them.
The easiest and most popular way to get music/movies/whatever is from torrents. Torrents are mostly illegal file types that can only be downloaded from specific torrent-hosting sites, like The Pirate Bay. Once you’ve downloaded the torrent file, you have to use a torrent client program on your computer, like uTorrent or Vuze, to “unwrap” the file. Once you’ve done that, you have a brand new Teenage Dream by Katy Perry!
However, on campus, Mizzou Wireless blocks all torrent files from downloading, as it should because torrenting is ILLEGAL… Therefore, wannabe thieves have to jump through a few more hoops to get the newest rap by Kanye West. One way (the crappiest way) is to find the song on Youtube and download the video as an mp3 via Video2Mp3. The quality isn’t the best, but it’ll do in a pinch. You can also google search ‘house of the rising sun mp3’ and find two or three sites pawning the classic. You’d do best to choose BeeMp3, though. Finally, if you search ‘st. elsewhere gnarls barkeley mediafire’, you’re likely to find the whole album on Mediafire, a file sharing site. Now, Mediafire isn’t as loosely regulated as it once was, but there’s still a good chance of finding whatever you need.
All of these easy peesy internet-y ways to get music presents an obvious ethical dilemma, shouldn’t you buy music from the artist and support them? I think the answer is yes, BUT on such a limited college budget, sometimes you need to get in touch with your dark side. I still buy albums from my favorite and most respected artists but everything else is really fair game. And I know this makes me sound like an asshole, but go ask thirty kids on campus how they get music? They’ll all be assholes too.
Hashtags: The Dark Side of Twitter
#ICantLiveWithout
#ForgottenArtists
#HoesOutHereShakingThatAss
If you ever want to feel depressed about humanity, take a trip down the Twitter trending topics. It’s a land of narcissism, first world problems, ardent boy band supporters and where punctuation has no authority. Apparently, a majority of Tweeters #cantlivewithout Justin Bieber, music, their phones or oxygen and the only thing that will make you facepalm more than reading those is reading the usernames of those tweets: @BoogleBieber, @SoVeryEpic, @MrWizKhalifa (not the real one) and @SpiffTeddy, respectively. These are clearly strong, independent people.
Trending topics were created to guide users on the issues being talked about at the moment, usually important things like Osama Bin Laden’s death or the upcoming Anchorman 2 movie. But somewhere along the way, users decided to use the pound sign to categorize their tweets in some sort of worldwide game of Scattergories. You know, if scattergories focused on things you’d tell your unborn son or #UnfollowMeReasons. A boon for Twitter, these hashtag games keep people on Twitter, entertained and always thinking. Oh look, #ReplaceMovieTitlesWithFart is trending! Time to list EVERY POSSIBLE FART MOVIE I CAN THINK OF! And they’re off, tweeting 50 times in 30 minutes about Fart Wars and Mrs. Doubtfart and Gone With The Fart (I would see that). So what’s wrong with all of this? It’s idiocy! Twitter should be about information sharing and picture sharing and funny jokes. I don’t think anyone is clicking on #StaplerPetNames because they’re bored. Hashtags are best used to categorize sports tweets with a #mizzou or #kansassucks in there every now and then, not leading a parade of dumb jokes that clog my feed. RETWEET IF YOU AGREE!!!!!
But the worst thing about hashtags is the fact that they are killing the english language. People have started hashtagging whole sentences. “@lameperson Man, I had a really bad sandwich today. #Idrathereattwelvepickles.” Oh really? Then why didn’t you just say that? Why’d you have to make it a jumbled mess of letters? Of course, hashtags are searchable but WHO ELSE IS TWEETING ABOUT TWELVE PICKLES? Literally no one. Just say what you mean to say.
Not even on Facebook are we safe from these confusing mashes of words. People have started using hashtags on the good ol’ FB… why? They aren’t searchable. Do people want their friends to know they’re hip and with it in the social media sphere? Because if that’s the case, that really doesn’t matter when everyone and their grandma has a Twitter account. Instead of people writing ‘I love you’, they just write ‘#loveyou’, as if it somehow makes that venerable phrase any more powerful.
If you aren’t using them right, hashtags can be immature and annoying and definitely devalue whatever you’re trying to say, so please… just avoid them all together.
Giving up the catz UPDATE
For you loyal readers, you know all about my quest for productivity this Lenten season. I’m giving up reddit for every day of the week (besides Fridays). That quest failed me today. Here’s what happened.
For spring break, I rewarded myself with unlimited access to reddit for the week. It’s spring break! No homework! Sleep in! Do whatever you want! And so I delved into what I had missed during the week yesterday and today. Aaaaaand promptly forgot about this blog post… Caught up in the Florida-Louisville NCAA game on the couch, I had a mini heart attack when I realized that I’d forgotten to post by 5 PM.
They say denial is a river in Africa, but it is also my mindset right now that i realize my FIVE PERCENT grad boost might be at risk because of this. I hope it’s not but the consequences could be severe… Reddit, you have cursed me and you will be banished for the rest of the week!
Readers, learn from me…
The Social Reality Game
If you’re like me, you have Twitter on your phone and you follow only the best and awesomest people, you’re unlocking and read that feed pretty often. When I’m walking to class, when I’m waiting outside a class, when I’m IN class (jk not 4804) — you get the idea. The worst is at the dinner table. At home, my parents had a “no phone” policy at supper so that we could have actual conversations and talk about how the casserole tastes a bit cold. At college, you can guess, there is no such supervisor in Plaza 900 or Baja. Often I’ll go eat with my friends Will and Brian, only to see Brian and whip out of phones and peruse Facebook or Twitter while eating. Since Will is a caveman and still owns a flip phone, conversation was scarce. These were the bad times.
Let me be the 251,765th person to say that it’s funny how ‘social media’ actually makes us more anti-social in real life. Why should I mee my floormates when I can tweet at my best friend in Minnesota? Anyway, away from keyboard, Twitter on my droid was kind of killing the conversation and something had to be done, you know?
A few weeks ago, Brian and I created what we call “The Be Social Game”. At dinner, each of us put our phones in the middle of the table, face down, for the entirety of the meal. If either of us picks up our phone to answer something, that person gets slapped. Hard. It’s the price you pay for constant connection to your phone! So far, no one has been slapped.
Since the creation of our revolutionary game, our dinner conversations are the highlight of dinner! Especially with Plaza kicking out anti-classics like ‘hot beef sandwich’ and something called ‘I’m da Mac’. So far, I’ve learned that Will doesn’t like chocolate milk and that Brian is a connoisseur of jorts (jean shorts). The conversations aren’t all good but it’s better than being plugged into the internet for the next @robdelaney gem while you wolf down scalloped potatoes.
And you, dear reader, are invited to play the “Be-Social Game” as well! Just make sure you forward any royalties to me and call it the “Be-Social Game trademark Kristian Mundahl, all rights reserved”. Clear? Cool.
What happens when Facebook’s inaugural class gets married?
I’ve decided to forgo the usual “30 minutes before 5 pm on Saturday” post theme since I’m seeing Radiohead on Friday night and who knows what my wi-fi/usefulness situation will be the next day. And so, you get a 600 word mega post on Facebook! WOOOOO! You’re welcome. The look on your face is priceless/below this sentence.
He just realized that people will see any movie starring him, even ones about cocky, beanie-wearing superheroes.
For as long as it was possible, I’ve been plugged in to social media and communications on the Internet. I remember days in fifth grade when my group of friends would schedule specific times for MSN Messenger group chats, dial-up be damned. It wasn’t because we missed each other or needed to collaborate on some sort of project. No, these planned chats existed because online chatting was new and possible and damn it, we wanted in. Soon, I was emailing regularly with friends and girlfriends (I was the smoothest email-er out there) daily and adding AIM to the chatlog arsenal. AIM away messages were poured over and analyzed more than the About Me section on Facebook is today, and AOL Buddy icons were as important as which cartoon you were going to watch after school. “Muffin massacre” was always my favorite.
Because of the comparably quick rise of technology, these decisions and activities are unique to our generation. Unlike previous gen Xers (Yers), Gen Me has grown up with a society and culture-altering tool in the Internet. For half a decade, kids played outside, watched Captain Kangaroo and listened to the unorganized radio banter before bed every night. Now it’s all changed. Social connectivity is the norm and we can barely remember a time where our best friend wasn’t a click away.
Facebook is particularly ingrained in our society and has completely transformed the way we make friends and display ourselves. Photos, constant status updates and public feedback on others’ hobbies create a web of relationships that our generation craves. We like the easy access to anyone and everyone, allowing us to always be up to date. It seems we’ll never give up Facebook, even with Google Plus making a run and Myspace’s bloated corpse being furiously resuscitated and/or humped by Justin Timberlake.
However, will Facebook survive its first colonists’ gradual slide into middle age? The site is made for young people with games, relentless poke wars and simple chat to keep us glued to the site. Will adulthood, marriage and children finally force us to kick the habit?
Older generations have been touted as Facebook’s fastest growing demographic for awhile now. According to a 2011 study by insidefacebook.com, 53.6% of users are above the age of 26, an age dangerously close to one actually having responsibilities. Think of it this way, how many whippersnapper kids have you seen perusing their own profile, blissfully unaware of their youth slipping by? Statistically, there are 14.4 million users between 13 and 17 years of age. Compare this to 45-64 year olds on the site, a population of 28 million, according to Facebook itself. What’s more bizarre, fourth-graders on Farmville or sexagenarian wall posts? The fact remains that the oldest members signed on for two reasons.
- They think Facebook will keep them on the cusp of what’s happening in technology and allow them to shed the label of geezer. “How can I be a geezer when I have over 40 friends on the Facebooks?”
- They joined to catch up with old friends and classmates. Apparently Classmates.com, or as it’s now known, Memory Lane, wasn’t cheap enough for them. Facebook counters with a better price, free, because, consarn it, if they’re going to put themselves online, it better be at a bargain.
So what happens when Facebook’s prime demographic, young people, starts regularly using the word “stock portfolio” and rising well before 10 am… on a Saturday? Are you going to keep visiting the purple people projector, or will you discard Zuckerburg for Samsonite?
Giving up the catz
A scant five years ago, I was a normal teen internet user (or what was at the time, without all these newfangled tweeter things). I played games on nick.com, scanned the Yahoo! (Is the exclamation point still necessary/cared about?) homepage for sports scores and bizarre news and engineered my AOL instant messenger for maximum funnyness. Those were the good times. I thought I was happy with my plot of cyberspace… little did I know what awaited me on that Tron-colored highway. In ninth grade, I stumbled upon (no affiliation and yet… we’ll get there) a site called Digg. Digg is a news aggregator, one of the first on the web, that goes past simple news stories and posts links to pictures and videos too. After a disastrous redesign in 2009, I moved to Reddit.com, Digg’s chief rival. Reddit works the same, but its variety was astounding! Thousands of subcategories, customizable features and an AskReddit section where users can ask questions (e.g. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?) and get hundreds of hilarious comments.
A rare screenshot of a profanity-free Reddit front page
As the years have gone by, Reddit became my main internet time-waster. I got uncomfortably into cat pictures, I found the world’s greatest gif, and I mined that site for more Facebook likes than I thought possible. Seriously, each day, I’d bet upwards of 300 gold links and pictures get posted. If I post even two of them to Facebook, I turn into the great INTERNET GURU with my awesome shares on Facebook. I once got ~30 likes on a status pointing out the Google Doodle of the day. Did I go to google.com and find it myself? OF COURSE NOT, I saw it on reddit! (Seriously though, who goes to google.com at all anymore? That’s what the browser’s search bar is for!) Those were also the good times.
You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. Well, CALM DOWN I’M GETTING THERE. Eventually, I found my self becoming more and more ensconced (what an amazing word) in Reddit, submitting links and commenting on a daily basis. My free time was dominated by a screen with words and pictures and upvotes. A change was needed. So, last year, I decided to give up Reddit for Lent. Now, I’m not very religious, but I consider myself a Lutheran and I go to church every now and then. But this sacrifice was more about self control and purging than it was religion. Those forty days (?) were difficult. I missed my daily bevy of memes and the comfort of thousands of redditors arguing with each other about how Carl Sagan was the greatest man ever. Somehow, I made it through, a stronger man!
And this year, I’m doing it all over again.
A brief history of the Rage Comic
While most of the web is text-based, there are some burrows and sites that prize images above all else. Imageboards (like forums, but for silly pictures) are incredibly popular with the younger web demographic and Imgur, a frighteningly simple image uploading site, gets traffic in the millions each month. Thus, it’s not surprising that users would create ways to tell stories with images. 4chan, an imageboard that is really the cesspool of the Internet, has spawned thousands of memes (which we’ll cover later) and there might not be one more important that rage comics.
Rage comics are like cave drawings for the socially inept/technologically trained/lives in Mom’s basement classic board users out there. These easy to read and user-created comics tell stories that can be long, short, stupid, hilarious or even touching.
Simple, hilarious and relatable.
Ever since they were birthed on 4chan, rage comics have found homes on every meta-web site. There’s an entry at Know Your Meme (a meme encyclopedia), Wikipedia (a regular encyclopedia) and a hugely popular community at Reddit (not an encyclopedia). Why are rage comics so popular? It’s simple. They’re simple! Each comic is four panels (give or take the newest batch which tells loooooong stories), which caters to the microsecond-long attention span of KIDS THESE DAYS. In addition, all rage comics are essentially relegated to using one of 40 faces. The FFFUUUUUUU face in the above comic was the original “rage” face and, of course, users have broadened the horizons and created more!
This is like 20% of the acceptable faces.
With so many customizable parts and an unending stream of weird stories, rage comics have become an easy and accepted way to recount stories on this vast sea of a web. And thank god for that. How else would we know what REALLY HAPPENED at the moon landing?
Neil is such a trickster.
The recesses of the Internet ... and YOU! 