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It has the world's largest print run: a staggering 220 million copies. And yet no literary critics have deemed it worthy of their commentary.
Until now.
German literary critic Hellmuth Karasek lowers himself to reading an Ikea catalog in a clip hosted by the mega-retailer's Swiss channel on YouTube.
Admittedly, it's a bit of a slog getting through the first three minutes, but once you settle into the right headspace, there's actually quite a bit to enjoy here. He references Freud and Goethe, and if he's being ironic, he's playing it so subtly you might be forgiven for taking it as an earnest review.
II heard a marketer say recently, “Publishing numbers in a powerpoint deck does not make them true.”
We have never had greater access to data to make decisions. But it has also never been easier to cherry pick data to support whatever point we’re trying to make.Being data-driven in our decision making increasingly means being data-skeptical....
Although the Oxford English Dictionary editors get the final say, they actually look to us to dictate whether a word should be added. In other words, we have no one but ourselves to blame for all the weird words that make the cut every year.
But we can at least share the blame with technology. None of us would be saying "srsly" if we hadn't felt the urge to shorten words for text messages and emails. We wouldn't be voting anyone off the island if not for the television series Survivor. And, perhaps most importantly, there would be no need for the word "meatspace" without the existence of the virtual world. (One could argue there is still no need.)
Want to see what weird words were added to the OED thanks to internet slang and technology? Read on....
In honor of the Food Issue, this week we're highlighting fabulous kitchen gadgets, including a selfie toaster, a DIY cheese kit, and a cutting board for the obsessive chef.
Move over, Jesus: With the Selfie Toaster from Burnt Impressions, anyone's face can be emblazoned on a slice of toast. After uploading your chosen selfie on the Vermont-based toaster company's website, you'll receive a toaster with a custom insert featuring an image of your glorious visage (or even that of your favorite celebrity—Kanye toast, anyone?). It's the perfect gift for "the person who has everything," or just a total narcissist....
Perhaps you’ve noticed that Homer Simpson has been getting dumber as The Simpsons continues its run as the longest-running animated sitcom ever, but like a wise idiot once told us, stupid is as stupid does.
Dr. Simon Singh wrote a book in 2013 called The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets that included a spotlight on the 1998 episode “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace.” In that episode, Homer becomes obsessed with Thomas Edison and decides to become an inventor. A scene in the script required a glasses-clad Homer to be placed in front of a chalkboard with complex mathematical equations. One of the writers on staff had a physicist friend who was researching the then-theoretical Higgs Boson particle and nabbed a scientifically accurate equation from him:
“That equation predicts the mass of the Higgs boson,” says Dr. Singh. “If you work it out, you get the mass of a Higgs boson that’s only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is. It’s kind of amazing as Homer makes this prediction 14 years before it was discovered.”...
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language that defines how the content on a web page is to be displayed with colors, borders, fonts, backgrounds etc. Inspired by this Reddit thread, today’s post showcases 34 CSS puns that’ll put a smile on every web designer’s face. The interesting bit is that even if you have no clue about the technicalities, you’ll still understand and enjoy these puns....
Above: some young people in a car, yesterday.
No wonder we're the most narcissistic, self-entitled generation ever: people just won't stop talking about #millennials.
Here's the latest new heap of s*** that pokes and prods at the hapless, buried-in-sane #GenY #millennials who are so diverse, yet so easy to speak for—a new study from perpetually hip MTV, now the Voice Of Two Generations, saying that #millennials love driving and cars and "see car ownership as a way to craft their unique adult identity," which was an actual sentence spoken by an actual sentient human being with actual free will who makes more actual money than any #millennial ever will.
"The study said 82 percent of #millennials find buying or leasing a new car 'exciting,'" in the same way they find paying for coffee with a Vine of a Macklemore concert exciting. It goes on. "The study found 87 percent of #millennials said they enjoyed customizing things to make them unique.
The study found 72 percent would rather give up texting for a week than surrender their cars. The study found 72 percent of #millennials enjoy the smell of their own farts. The study found 102 percent of #millennials think Edward Snowden is a slang word for a new type of ecstasy. The study found 369 percent of #millennials would rather give up the use of their testicles than give up the chance to use #hashtags to search for #CocaColaLife coupons on #Ello."...
However, alongside the more serious attempts to improve oneself are the silly new year’s resolutions. Which is what we’re focusing on today in this week’s Weird & Wonderful Web.
These are all utterly bizarre resolutions made on Twitter in the run up to the new year. They’re probably all jokes, but there is always a chance these people are being deadly serious....
This page compiles the 25 urban legends currently circulating most widely, as determined by frequency of access, user searches, reader e-mail, and media coverage....
Joining the ranks of any profession is the same as committing yourself to learning an entirely new language, most of which is frankly gibberish. (TPS reports, anyone?) Design is no exception.
So we asked some of our friends at design firms--including Pentagram, Ammunition, Huge, Ziba, Pensole, Google Ventures, Sagmeister & Walsh, and more--to define their favorite examples of design slang and jargon.
The answers we received range from serious to tongue-in-cheek, but if you've ever been puzzled by a designer telling you he needed to "ideate a more approachable FTUX" or "add more value to that horsey megamenu," this resource should help you translate....
Writer and illustrator Austin Light recently shared a funny series of sketches from his notebook that reimagines movie titles with one letter removed. The idea started on reddit where users were asked to, “Pick a movie, remove one letter, give a brief description“.
As a daily art project, Light took the concept one step further, drawing a scene from the imaginary film. He also penned a brief synopsis for each. You can see the entire album on Imgur. For more from Austin, check him out at the links below....
Ever feel like real-time marketing is all about being first, and not about being good?
You're not alone.
John St., the Toronto agency that regularly produces scathing parody videos about the ad business, just released the hilarious video below about the breakneck pace of marketing today—and how every brand feels the need to react to real-time events within minutes.
As it did with Catvertising™, John St. is now pretending to be running a whole new dedicated unit called Reactvertising™, where it goes to absurd lengths to make sure its clients are clued into current events 24/7 and can react within seconds—indeed, knee-jerk-like—to breaking news....
An Ohio man has become infected with misinformation about the Ebola virus through casual contact with cable news, the Centers for Disease Control has confirmed.
Tracy Klugian, thirty-one, briefly came into contact with alarmist Ebola hearsay during a visit to the Akron-Canton airport, where a CNN report about Ebola was showing on one of the televisions in the airport bar. “Mr. Klugian is believed to have been exposed to cable news for no more than ten minutes, but long enough to become infected,” a spokesman for the C.D.C. said. “Within an hour, he was showing signs of believing that an Ebola outbreak in the United States was inevitable and unstoppable.”
Once Klugian’s condition was apparent, the Ohio man was rushed to a public library and given a seventh-grade biology textbook, at which point he “started to stabilize,” the spokesman said....
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The trouble with being successful is that it’s exhausting.
Not to mention, stressful.
Not to mention, overly complicated.
Not to mention… well, you know. All that...
Just when you think the Bad Lip Reading videos couldn’t get any funnier, along comes this treatment of the recent Republican presidential primary debate.
In this version, the candidates tackle the issues that really matter, as the scurrilous accusations fly.
And they make some crazy pledges to the voters.
While at least one contender’s nerves seem to get the better of him.
In an innovative tweak to the debate format, the candidates get to make their pitches through the medium of song, just as the Founding Fathers surely intended.…while throwing some funky moves....
There are both many privileges and many challenges that go hand-in-hand with living the life of a designer. From dealing with difficult clients to figuring out how to manage your time, the designer life has a slew of common problems -- many of which are illustrated in the hilarious cartoons below.
Read on to learn more (and laugh!) about some familiar designer problems that you most likely share with creative types across the world....
Sales can be a stressful job. Some months are good; others are tough.
When things aren't going your way, you're constantly feeling the weight of quota pressure. Accounts that once looked like a sure thing are getting close to the “gone dark” or “unresponsive” label, in which case they might be passed to a new rep. The same old boring follow up isn’t working. What can you do?
Here's an idea -- how about mixing some humor into your sales process? Sometimes a smile can be enough to elicit a response -- and keep you sane....
Today, however, we’re taking a moment to highlight the entertainers; the people who forego the chance to show off their accomplishments and affinity for craft beer for our utter amusement.
I’ve scoured far and wide and am proud to present to you 38 of the most amusing bios from real people, beloved brands, and fictitious characters that pepper the Twittersphere. Without further ado
Jesus Christ pulled off some pretty impressive brand stunts in his day: turning water into wine; healing the blind; feeding the multitude with the loaves and fishes. But when it came to one of the biggest stunts of His career, He turned to Montreal's 1one Production—at least, according to this "never-before-seen original footage" of Christ and his marketing team from a couple thousand years ago...
This month, Netflix made all 236 episodes of Friends—the sitcom that launched thousands if not millions of Rachel hairdos—available for streaming online, right in time for the show's 20th anniversary.
As a tribute to the beloved show, which ran weekly from 1994 to 2004, Eurydyka Kata and Rafał Szczawiński of Re:Design created a poster illustrating the highlight moments of each episode as circular pictograms. It's not a replacement for binging on all 10 seasons on Netflix, but it's a quicker way to relive your time with Monica, Chandler, Rachel, Joey, Ross, and Phoebe....
Most of us watch the ball drop on TV or attend a local party; this year, try a polar bear dip, a bare-knuckle fight, or shooting carbides to ring in the New Year.
Learn about some unusual New Year's Eve traditions from around the world, here!...
It turns out that if there are current magazines around, people steal them.
Jerks.
Within a month, 41 magazines—almost half—had been taken. To make sure staff didn't take any magazines, they were told that doing so would invoke "the death penalty," for which Arroll would seek retrospective approval from an ethics committee.
Current magazines (less than two months old) were taken more than older magazines. Of the 47 magazines in that category, 60 percent disappeared, while only 29 percent of older magazines disappeared. But it turns out some magazines are stolen even more frequently than current ones. What the researchers termed "gossipy" magazines, which they didn't name but defined as having at least five celebrities on the cover (with 10 celebrities, they earned the term "most gossipy"), were stolen most of all. Patients took 26 of the 27 "gossipy" and "most gossipy" magazines. They also took National Geographic, BBC History, and the Australian Women's Weekly, just less frequently. No one stole any of the four Time magazines or 15 Economist issues.
No, these aren't pictures from inside of a funhouse. These are real-life building disasters that somehow made it from architect to contractor without anyone noticing. (That is, until someone tried to use a set of stairs that led literally nowhere.) Check out all 31 - how did anyone let this happen?!
Some Internet memes rely on added sugar and mysterious ingredients to extend their shelf lives, as we discussed yesterday. Others, such as “Alex from Target,” are like French black truffles — not only are they wild, rare and out of the reach of most of us but they also require highly sensitive snouts to root them out.
Let’s get to the nut graf: “It turns out that Alex from Target is not a marketing ploy and he’s an actual, genuine person and bagger,” who just happened to be “fangirled” for his “super hot” looks while doing his job on the line in Texas, TMZ reported with all due exuberance yesterday.
In fact, according to TMZ’s blurb accompanying its video report, “Little Al's employer tells TMZ the Internet phenomenon is 100% genuine grassroots.”Lest you think this story is strictly for the tabloids, consider this revelation from the New York Times’ Leslie Kaufman: “The Alex phenomenon became the subject of news articles on the websites of Time, the Washington Post and CNN over the last two days. TheDallas Morning News tried furiously to confirm just which Target he worked for.”
And that’s nowhere near the half of it....
Dear LinkedIn Member,
People are looking at your LinkedIn profile, and they’re laughing at what you, in a public forum, have decided to present as your professional identity. Last week, five people (who chose to remain anonymous) scrolled through your hobbies and skills and broke into fits of laughter at each one.
When they looked at your employment history, noting the various part-time jobs and internships you thought it would be a good idea to include, they were almost in tears. I mean, come on—you like playing racquetball and you list “social media” as a skill? What does that even mean? You know what Twitter is and you own those weird-looking goggles?
Somebody give this man a job! Seriously, we hope that you have actually found a job and are not, in fact, starving to death because you are incompetent
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Why slog through Goethe and Proust when you can just read the IKEA catalog? Literature 101 students take note. ;-)