The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: pmcd9 on November 20, 2013, 01:24:36 am
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This is mostly directed at Upworthy, but for all of the websites who have made a trend of sensationalistic misleading headlines, I give you a resounding FUCK YOU!
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I hate that site. Every time I go there a subscription solicitation pops up and basically says 'if you believe in goodness and want to end all war then give us your email address! If you are a heartless fuckwad then go ahead and just click through to the site, and then die slow fucker.' Or something like that.
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I hate that site. Every time I go there a subscription solicitation pops up
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. EVERY fuck*ng TIME!
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i hadn't heard of that site until this thread. i happened upon this parody (http://www.upworthygenerator.com/) a moment ago, which means parody is now lapping me online. i used to be able to stay ahead of it, but i guess i'm getting old.
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I just saw that too and I don't see why it's supposed to be funny. Maybe the problem is that Upworthy headlines already sound like parodies of themselves.
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I know one easy trick for avoiding such come-ons!
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I know one easy trick for avoiding such come-ons!
Oh I don't click on those links. At least not anymore.
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Try this one WEIRD trick to lose belly fat.
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Oh, man, that copy is so deliciously tacky. Do you think humans write those "headlines", or maybe they outsourced the job to bots?
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Viralnova is another one that has taken up the UpWorthy mantle. I just read this headline on Facebook "A Love Letter was Found on this 500 year old body. Nothing Could Prepare me for What it Said."
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They're getting some serious flair there, yeah.
(http://i.imgur.com/0HUshtj.png)
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This is definitely a subset of Shit my _____ says. Or at least these headlines are designed for that group of people.
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"What This Man Found In A Bag Of Mulch Will Blow Your Mind. What He Did With It Will Melt Your Heart"
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The super-elderly of the future will have no need for their brains. The newly sentient Upworthy-CandyCrush combine will create botnets out of senior's homes, and spread its gradual control over the youth one triple-forwarded email at a time.
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That sounds plausible.
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"Watch a Student Totally Nail Something about Women That I've Been Trying to Articulate for 37 Years"
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"Nelson Mandela Spent 27 Years in Prison - And Had This to Say When He Got Out"
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^ ....is this a real upworthy video? If so, I hope it's 50 hours longs.
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"A Kid Came Up To Her In The Hall And Told Her She Saved His Life. He Wasn’t The Only One In Tears."
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I'm pretty sure I could make millions writing headlines about how cats can help bored women.
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"A Boy Was Born Without a Hand. I Couldn't Have Guessed What His Dad Made for Him. Mind: Blown!"
Was it a hand? I'll bet it's a hand.
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"Think You Know What 'Fat' Means? You Should Listen To This Dude's Definition."
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Also, this seems like a trustworthy scientific endeavour:
(http://i.imgur.com/tq8bFzH.png)
George Senior is: Notorious E.N.R.O.N. Thanks Upworthy!
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What the holy fuck.
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"A Boy Was Born Without a Hand. I Couldn't Have Guessed What His Dad Made for Him. Mind: Blown!"
Was it a hand? I'll bet it's a hand.
Hey Paul, I saw this on Facebook and it is indeed a hand. He made him a hand.
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Hey Paul, I saw this on Facebook and it is indeed a hand. He made him a hand.
clap...clap...clap...
Oh, made him a hand. nm
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The Headline: "A Guy With No Experience Had a Crazy Idea. And the Result is BRILLIANT."
The Sub Head: "He thought he'd give it a shot. He did much more than that."
The Facebook Teaser: "I can barely put put two legos together. So when I saw what this guy did, I was pretty much in awe."
That's a hell of a lot of hype for a dude that built a small camper on a trailer.
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I think part of what we don't like about Upworthy is Smarm. (http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977)
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I think part of what we don't like about Upworthy is Smarm. (http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977)
Thank you for that.
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I think part of what we don't like about Upworthy is Smarm. (http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977)
That essay is fantastic – thanks for pointing it out.
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That essay is fantastic – thanks for pointing it out.
Yeah, I had to go back and give you a second can for that.
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Thank you Cracked (http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-viral-content-stopped-mattering-in-2013/) for articulating this issue for us better than I ever could.
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True to style, he did it as a list of 4 things.
Still, pretty insightful. I understand that there are a lot of things on websites that are there to make you click on them. Particularly the ones where you have to click "next" to see the next item in the list of 37. Couldn't possibly put more than one of those on a page. Especially with all the banner ads, auto-running videos, and ad pages camoflaged as content links.
The whole monetizing web browsing is confusing. With apologies to FARK.com:
Dupe someone into adding a click to your sites click counter
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Profit?
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Unfortunately, in this case I don't think creating a website (http://www.headlinesagainsthumanity.com/) with the sole purpose of lampooning link bait headlines is gonna make much difference.
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Did this thread really hit 3 pages without mentioning Upworthy: Springfield (http://upworthyspringfield.tumblr.com/page/10)?
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Did this thread really hit 3 pages without mentioning Upworthy: Springfield (http://upworthyspringfield.tumblr.com/page/10)?
fuck*ng brilliant.
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Another article Addressing this issue (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/we-broke-the-internet)
I believe the time has come for thinking people to have new news sources so we can better separate ourselves from this Upworthy/ViralNova/BuzzFeed morass.
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Downworthy: A browser plugin to turn hyperbolic viral headlines into what they really mean (http://downworthy.snipe.net/)
"Literally" becomes "Figuratively"
"Will Blow Your Mind" becomes "Might Perhaps Mildly Entertain You For a Moment"
"One Weird Trick" becomes "One Piece of Completely Anecdotal hossshit"
"Go Viral" becomes "Be Overused So Much That You'll Silently Pray for the Sweet Release of Death to Make it Stop"
"Can't Even Handle" becomes "Can Totally Handle Without Any Significant Issue"
"Incredible" becomes "Painfully Ordinary"
"You Won't Believe" becomes "In All Likelihood, You'll Believe"
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That is literally the most amazing link I have clicked on ever.
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Wombat shared an amazing link. You'll never believe what miles did after he read it.
(He chuckled and shared it on facebook. Then gave wombat a can.)
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A friend of mine reports that it's very entertaining on real estate ads. She forgot she had it installed and couldn't figure out why someone would advertise "Moderately Attractive House with Barely Noticeable Ocean View."