GeekSugar

Geek Crush and Must-See TV: Chris Hardwick's Web Soup

GeekSugar — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:33:15 -0700

As a huge fan of E!'s The Soup and its amazing host Joel McHale, I couldn't avoid the promos and initial episodes of Web Soup, a new show on G4 with a similar format. Except instead of showing clips from that week's TV, its clips are from that week's viral videos on the Internet.

Web Soup's equally crush-worthy host is Chris Hardwick, whom I always liked when he was on G4's Attack of the Show. Even though there are a lot of places to catch up with recent viral videos (such as yesterday's website of the day, Viral Video Chart), it's just easy to catch up on the latest cat or fail video when you can catch it on TV.

Though Hardwick hasn't quite guaranteed his place in my heart as much as McHale does, the easygoing and easy-on-the-eyes video jockey has guaranteed himself a place in my TiVo lineup. Have you caught Web Soup yet?

Website of the Day: Viral Video Chart

GeekSugar — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:30:22 -0700

Not too long ago I told you about a site called Top of the Tubes that pulled the most popular videos across the web and pooled them into one spot.

Well if you love viral videos as much as me, then you'll appreciate another site called Viral Video Chart, which shows you the top 20 most-watched videos floating around the Internet.

It even organizes the videos into various categories, so if you just want to watch popular videos about animals or celebrities, you can do that, too.

To learn how to post your favorite websites to our Website of the Day group, read more.

I know that this long list looks scary, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it'll be a snap the second time around.

First of all, join the Website of the Day group.
Click the pink "Share" menu on the top left side of the page.
Choose "Blog" and "Regular Post."
Give your story a "Title."
Fill in the "Body" with a link to your favorite website and the reasons why you love it.
Click "Next."
Choose the audience for your story to "Website of the Day" in the dropdown menu.
Add keyword(s) (for example mine for this photo was "Website of the Day").
Change channel to "Technology and Gadgets."
Fill in tag field with relevant tags.
Click "I’m done" to submit content.

So join the Website of the Day group and share information about all your favorite sites! Yours just might end up on the geeksugar homepage!

Have You Done Facebook's 25 Random Things Meme Yet?

GeekSugar — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:32:01 -0800

Are you on Facebook? Then there is no way you haven't heard of the 25 Random Things About Me meme. It's a note that works like a chain letter, where you fill out 25 random facts about yourself. Once you're done, you're supposed to tag other friends, so they have to fill it out, and so on and so forth. While I gave up chain letters long ago (and chain emails, ugh), somehow I got sucked into doing this one. My defense? Everybody's doing it!

Everybody's doing it so much that the New York Times took notice of the phenomena and investigated it, calling it a "creative way to indulge in social networking without coming off as needy or shamelessly self-absorbed."

Self-absorbed is a little how I felt when I wrote my 25 Things, but darned if it wasn't fun. I've noticed that the people on my friends list resisted the meme at first, but have since fallen one by one like dominoes, succumbing to think of fun facts about themselves. Fear of missing out, maybe.

In any case, tell me, Facebook users; have you done the 25 Random Things About Me note?

What "All Your Base Belong to Us" Means

GeekSugar — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:30:13 -0700

Were you confused when you saw this All Your Milk Baby Onesie? Do your friends frequently laugh about "Engrish" translations, while you laugh with them, but are secretly confused inside? If so, watch this video, which outlines the "All Your Base are Belong to Us" meme from its foundation to its present.

Know Your Meme: All Your Base from Rocketboom on Vimeo.

Internet People, We Love You!

GeekSugar — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:31:59 -0700

If Weezer's Pork and Beans Internet meme-athon video was not enough for you, then Dan Meth's Internet People just about gets every single Internet phenomena into his animated music video, with a super appropriate title.

I might even like this a little more than P&B, for its sheer vastness of variety.

Forewarning: you will NOT, I repeat NOT, be able to get that song out of your head for hours.

That Viral Weezer Video, Deconstructed

GeekSugar — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:00:32 -0700

OK, geek confession: I've spent way too much time watching the new Weezer video for "Pork and Beans" and trying to catch all the allusions to viral videos. I'm familiar with most of them, but some I had never seen and had to look up, and some were old favorites - in fact, I think alienated few friends this weekend with bar after bar of "Peanut Butter Jell-ay, Peanut Butter Jell-ay".

Thankfully, video kid Nick McGlynn edited together all of the viral clips that Weezer alludes to, so you don't have to look them all up on YouTube yourself. Nostalgia 2.0!

To see the original Weezer video, just read more.

Internet Famous Class: A Real Class, Not Just the Name of a New Viral Video

GeekSugar — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:10:25 -0800

You don't have to cut off a body part to become "Internet Famous," but if you're desperately training your camera on your kid, pet, or friends in hope that they'll do something so compelling as to end up in the category that is viral, well, you can go to school for that. Internet Famous at Parsons New School for Design is a graduate-level class for students and declares itself the first class ever "where software will award each student a grade based on a quantitative measurement of their web fame."

To learn more about this cool class and site, read more

Sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, and Google will help measure each student's popularity, and grades are algorithmically determined - and they get an A through F grade, depending on their Internet popularity. People watching, commenting, and making reaction videos/responses to the class's projects add to the grade, as do people befriending them on MySpace and linking to them.

How postmodern. Although I'm guilty of enjoying and forwarding new and hilarious viral videos and posts to my friends, I can't help but think that for every Dramatic Chipmunk, there are 8,000 epic fails. And even though I still ask my boyfriend to not tase me, bro, the fame the Internet brings is more ephemeral and fleeting than the 15-minutes of fame cliche that used to exist in traditional media. Remember Tay Zonday? Me neither.

Celebrity Viral Videos Are Good For the Image

GeekSugar — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:03:14 -0800

Trendhunter recently wrote that actors were starting to get hip to the idea of viral videos as a way to boost their image (in response to the Matt Damon/Sarah Silverman instant classic), and I could not agree more. Once I see a celebrity in a viral video parodying themselves, I think they have a fantastic sense of humor and don't take themselves too seriously - that latter quality being something that is normally antithetical to the image of actors, who are generally perceived as egotistical bigheads with a deep need to be taken seriously. Will Ferrell's FunnyOrDie (their original post being the amazing "The Landlord") has helped in this phenomena, and before sites and actors cropped up trying to create virals, YouTube really boosted the idea - would you have seen Justin Timberlake's "D*** in a Box" video if it had only aired on SNL? Probably not.

The point is, seeing Jerry O'Connell make fun of Tom Cruise's Scientology video or Fergie spelling her infamous hit or James Franco doing JustinBobby makes a whole generation of tastemakers who live and breathe the Internet (not so coincidentally, this is the same group who spends the most money on movie tickets) sit up and appreciate that down-to-earth star.

Will these videos enable stars to make their movies and TV shows hits? Maybe. They make me snort coffee onto my keyboard, and for that they should be proud.

The Dark Knight's Viral Websites Featuring Heath Ledger as the Joker Still Up

GeekSugar — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:01:21 -0800

Before Heath Ledger's death last week, I was very much looking forward to this summer's The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, which I loved. But now, the teaser trailers for the film just make me feel sad and wistful. The images of Ledger in his perfectly-cast glory as the iconic villain the Joker, no doubt a talent-filled effort, are heartbreaking. That's why Valleywag's report that the viral websites to promote The Joker's role in the film will remain active confounds me.

I can't say I'm outraged, because this isn't the first time a film has faced losing a star prior to its release, but this may be the first time a marketing campaign such as this - viral websites surrounding the deceased actor - has been launched. The Joker-centric sites - among them whysoserious.com (which has been sporting a black ribbon in Ledger's honor since the news broke), TheGothamTimes.com, and TheHaHaHaTimes.com, don't seem to currently display any actual images of Ledger, but it still seems to be in poor taste that they remain up.

With new technology, we face new decisions each day that we never had reasons for before, and sensitivities must be bred to respond to our new world. What do you make of Warner Bros.' decision to leave the sites up? Is it an expected move, since the proverbial show must go on, or do you think their response should be different?
Source

Another Web Clip Show to Love: Tosh.0

GeekSugar — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:04:27 -0700

TV land has gotten the message that the new cultural currency is viral videos, and it's responding by taking them from the Internet and building TV shows around them.

Chris Hardwick got his show this Summer, Web Soup, and Comedy Central also debuted its new web clip show last month, my new addiction, Tosh.0.

Hosted by Daniel Tosh, Tosh.0 is pretty much the same format of Web Soup (themselves both borrowing from The Soup's format), but its comedian host is as hilarious as the clips he's showing. Plus, the web redemption feature (where viral "stars" like Miss Teen South Carolina get to right their wrongs on camera) keeps things more interesting than just introducing videos.

Are you watching any web clips shows, or is seeing them online good enough?

Photo courtesy of Comedy Central