We Love the Internet 2021/18: The Year that TV saved us edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• The Year That TV Saved Us
• Inside the Bizarre World of Celebrity Impersonators on Cameo
• Myspace Tom got it right
• How to Un-Cast an Actor
• A Microsoft Excel influencer quit her day job and is making 6 figures from her unconventional way of teaching spreadsheet hacks, tips, and tricks
• ‘Best, imperfect solution’: Insider’s metrics for measuring success are good for business, but leave reporters feeling frustrated and unionized
• A ‘beautiful’ female biker was actually a 50-year-old man using FaceApp. After he confessed, his followers liked him even more.
• ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ mod adds uncanny photorealism through AI

Reference points:

• How to read stuff posted online
• What is cheugy? The new term Gen Z are using to describe ‘basic’ millennials
• 50 Movie Posters That Changed Entertainment Marketing

Longer reads:

• What Is an Entertainment Company in 2021 and Why Does the Answer Matter?
• “You may never see those numbers again”
• How Basecamp blew up
• How the Personal Computer Broke the Human Body

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Michael Moschen performs THE TRIANGLE
• They added a roundabout in rural, eastern Kentucky
• Turkish ice cream guy finally Lost
• The Biggest Fraud on Instagram
• Making a LEGO Domino Machine
• Here’s The Frightening Moment A Swimming Pool Collapsed Into A Condominium’s Garage
• How is tiktok free

Things to look at/read:

• It’s Not Just Young White Liberals Who Are Leaving Religion
• How thrifting became problematic
• What Happened To The ‘Going-Out Top’?
• Inside the bloody cartel war for Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry
• How Pfizer Became the Status Vax

Animal corner:

• blows my mind that this guy has massive fangs he could tare me apart with but instead he just looks at me like this
• Ember, my dog, noticed that #GrangeHillSausage was trending and asked me if I fancied accompanying her singing the theme tune.
• That’s not a bark
• Steve couldn’t even finish saying “walkies”
• Bro get out my milk
• Dinky the chipmunk can fit more into his mouth then you

Tweets of the week:

• Me pestering the DJ on June 21st
• like the cicadas
• this means something VERY different in ireland
• I am absolutely losing my mind over this post and therefore I have to inflict it on everyone else
• every time i open instagram all i see is tweets i saw 3 days ago on twitter
• Bugs Bunny won’t accept any files through WeTransfer or Google Drive, the only way to send him something is as a Whatsapp doc
• Why have a first communion dress, when you can have a first communion JUMPSUIT? Proud of our girl for doing her own thing.
• This is called a Nice-osceles triangle

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• ‘F—, let’s go do it’: An oral history of The Fast and the Furious
• “Would you sell me pictures of your feet”
• The End of Kimye’s Wild Ride
• The Secrets of the World’s Greatest Jailbreak Artist

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We Love the Internet 2021/18: The French is easy edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Disney’s Crossover Endgame
• What a Zombie Basketball Player From the 2026 Metaverse Has to Do With NIL and NFTs

Reference points:

• Inside a viral website
• Ideas grab

Longer reads:

• How Pixar Uses Hyper-Colors to Hack Your Brain

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• French is easy
• Each Radiohead album described with Peep Show
• Largest Fandoms on AO3 Over Time
• This 50-Second Video Perfectly Encapsulates How Crazy The Housing Market Is Right Now

Things to look at/read:

• “It’s a fine line between laughter and tears”: Behind the scenes of The Office’s messiest cold open
• The Interior Lives of Hoarders
• She visited every country on Earth. Here’s what she learned.
• Unwanted Corkpull

Animal corner:

• Dog Saves Another Dog From Drowning
• The idea in my head vs the first draft
• Main Title – Banjo-Kazooie
• He’s heavier than he looks

Tweets of the week:

• Is there a more humbling image imaginable.
• ive been thinking about this post for hours
• “What’s England like?”
• “Seeing Bill and Melinda Gates not Excel at their relationship has me like “Word?”
• Eight times. That’s how many times I just watched this in a row.
• The authentic Scottish beer garden experience…
• growing up i had a friend who was convinced the lyrics were “don’t go, jason waterfalls” and i think about it constantly. why would it be that. who is jason
• Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The Call Is Coming From Inside the House — Craft Beer’s Self-Inflicted Existential Crisis
• They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War
• Scar Stories: The Toll of Colon Cancer
• The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea
• John Swartzwelder, sage of “The Simpsons”

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We Love the Internet 2021/17: The King of the geezer teasers edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• NFTs Weren’t Supposed to End Like This
• Mortal Kombat and the end of bad video game films
• How many layers of copyright infringement are in Emily Ratajkowski’s new NFT?
• Scale Was the God That Failed

Reference points:

• Failed #SquadGoals
• Click click click
• TikTok users watch the app for an average of 89 minutes per day

Longer reads:

• The King of the Geezer Teasers
• Inside Netflix’s Quest to End Scrolling
• The slander industry
• I Called Off My Wedding. The Internet Will Never Forget
• The Mysterious Case of the F*cking Good Pizza
• Delinquent Telephone Activity
• Yahoo, the Destroyer

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Zoom green screen morph suit

Things to look at/read:

• The revolution in classic Tetris
• An Interview With the Man Who Keeps Uploading My Feet to WikiFeet
• 15 French volunteers leave cave after 40 days without daylight or clocks

Animal corner:

• Here’s how you bark
• Disrespecting that gate
• I can’t take a damn piss in peace
• Pizza

Tweets of the week:

• Just discovered the best accidental Partridge in history.
• For the last six years I’ve kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I’ve used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all. This week I completed my Magnum Opus! A thread.
• made an absolutely devastating typo in the group chat
• When I first got into Gü puddings, I didn’t fully understand the ramekinifications.
• Celebrate your achievements with the absolute audacity of a Samsung washing machine.
• when you read your old messages and see how you used to talk
• I’m literally so obsessed with this video
• Tony Blair, who led three different teams to Africa Cup of Nations glory between 1988-2010

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael is suddenly in a vicious fight against ALS. ‘This ain’t ever how I envisioned this was going to end,’ the Chicago Bears great says.
• Deconstructing Disney: Queer Coding and Masculinity in Pocahontas
• The unlikely rise of the French Tacos

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We Love the Internet 2021/16: The Case for better watch typography edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• The Case For Better Watch Typography
• On Teen Vogue and the “Cancel Culture” Hell We Can’t Seem to Escape
• We finally know how bad for the environment your Netflix habit is
• How a pop-punk girl group became the most hated band on TikTok
• How TikTok Chooses Which Songs Go Viral
• Atari Bets On Blockchain & NFT Gaming With ZED RUN’s AR Horses
• NBA Top Shot Mints A Unicorn: How An Ethereum Competitor Cashed In On The NFT Craze

Reference points:

• The obscure maths theorem that governs the reliability of Covid testing

Longer reads:

• Disney’s Disembodied Black Characters
• When the Mob Comes

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• My plane is not moving! Glider stationary in wave lift
• The Growth of London: Every Year
• 3-chamber Carbon-only WORM BIN 100-Day TIME-LAPSE
• Pizza Toast & Coffee: Kissa Būgen
• Justice League 2017 vs 2021 Comparison: Superman Fights Justice League

Things to look at/read:

• Ladies and gentlemen … the weekend, brought to you by Daniel Craig and a teen in OC
• Remember Fun? Here’s a Short History of the Best Parties in Recent-ish Memory
• The Pandemic Is Ending, And The Optimized, Ever-Distant Future Is Probably Coming Back

Animal corner:

• How an experienced dog mother teaches her 8 weeks old puppies to be calm.
• This British swan won’t stop knocking on people’s doors for hours on end
• Determined Golden Retriever teaches us to not give up

Tweets of the week:

• has this one been done before
• I can’t stop laughing at this.
• If a picture is worth a thousand words then this one is an entire Philip K. Dick story.
• Jack Black is what you get when you dump all your skill points into Charisma
• BREAKING: Colin, Cuthbert, Clyde, Cecil, Curly and Wiggles have agreed to establish a new Caterpillar ‘Super League’, with 3 more caterpillars expected to join.
• My sister got so drunk last night, she got a lift home with a friends mum & she thought she picked up her clutch bag but instead she’s taken the car logbook

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The Redemption of Justin Bieber
• Mads Mikkelsen Takes Everything and Nothing Seriously
• Seth Rogen and the Secret to Happiness
• House Hunters
• A Bestselling Author Became Obsessed With Freeing a Man From Prison. It Nearly Ruined Her Life.

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We Love the Internet 2021/15: The Non-fungible Taylor Swift edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
• “It’s Not Cancel Culture — It’s A Platform Failure.”
• Why We’re Freaking Out About Substack
• China Has Closed Down 12,000-Plus Internet Cafes Since 2020
• You Probably Don’t Remember the Internet

Reference points:

• How the New York Times A/B tests their headlines
• Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens
• Search movies, actors, directors or key words
• Researching streaming retention

Longer reads:

• What data can’t do
• The soul of Bravo

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Teenager Can ‘Delay’ Her Voice
• Man Born Without Collar Bones Can Clap His Shoulders
• Trucks without brakes

Things to look at/read:

• The rise and fall of Canary Wharf
• 14 Experiments Gone Wrong

Animal corner:

• Two Dogs Play Tetherball
• “I don’t like who I am at work.”
• A dog went missing last night & owner was advised to put item of clothing down where  it became lost (for the scent).

Tweets of the week:

• Mate you could’ve done that at home hahahahaa
• I think I found a perfect place for Spongebob.
• Retweet to scare NFT owners
• A solid start to the new reality of outdoor dining in Cranleigh this morning.
• 2 hr Movie                      10 hr TV series
• My dating profile:
• Tiktok is gold
• Half of the heroes in the MCU seem to have PhDs that they’re not using. The whole franchise is a story about the academic employment crisis.

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The DMX Syllabus
• Slimy, smuggled, and worth top dollar: Can one Maine entrepreneur break into the crime-ridden global market for eel?
• The Identity Hoaxers

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We Love the Internet 2021/14: The Has the internet killed subcultures edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Debranding Is the New Branding
• The internet is splitting apart. The Internet Archive wants to save it all forever.
• A Hacker Got All My Texts for $16

Reference points:

• Teens on a Year That Changed Everything

Longer reads:

• How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation
• Roblox: Cultural Currency

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Rules of Sports … EXPLAINED!
• punk squirrel IPA
• Like a cartoon…
• Glitterbomb Trap Catches Phone Scammer
• Can You Hear the Difference Between One Million Dollar & $5000 Cello?
• 64 synchronized Joe Rogans

Things to look at/read:

• Has The Internet Killed Subcultures?
• Tits on Twitch
• ‘It had to be slightly weird’: how we made GamesMaster
• Private broadcasts are luxury brands’ new secret weapon
• How Did Frasier Afford His Apartment?

Animal corner:

• A dog in Russia grabbed the reporter’s microphone and ran away during a live broadcast
• Husky Einstein puppy howl

Tweets of the week:

• Wish your girlfriend was hot like me
• Found my lost twin bro on FIFA he famous
• When I’m excited         When I’m angry
• Me: I think I’ll open this kitchen drawer Potato masher: The fuck you will
• Happy Easter, my friends.
• I think the only reason the others tolerate Mr Tickle is because he’s the only one who can help them get their hats on.
• I’m so happy for this man
• it’s called vibes

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• How QAnon Is Tearing Families Apart
• Bad Reputation: An Oral History of the Freaks and Geeks Soundtrack
• Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene
• The Wildest Insurance Fraud Scheme Texas Has Ever Seen
• Rupert Grint Is Facing His Fears

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We Love the Internet 2021/13: The Beyond peak tv edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Beyond Peak TV
• Can anyone moderate podcasts?
• He Had an R.V., a Camera and a Plan to Document America. Was That Enough?
• Major League Baseball makes its pitch to Gen Z on TikTok

Reference points:

• The 32 Greatest Character Actors Working Today

Longer reads:

• The Extended Universe: What the Snyder Cut Means for the Future of Fandom
• Sovereign Writers and Substack
• Disney’s Disembodied Black Characters

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Into the crater!
• 90s Music vs Today

Things to look at/read:

• Zoom Court Videos Are Making People’s Darkest Hours Go Viral
• A joyless trudge? No, thanks: why I am utterly sick of ‘going for a walk’

Animal corner:

• Bulldog Obsessed With Bowls Gets A Special Delivery
• The way I’m laughing
• Fatcat
• Ohhh Nelson
• He HATES hair cuts

Tweets of the week:

• Society for disabled people summed up in one picture, just not even thought of
• everyday we gotta make a certain choice
• how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Northman…
• “Were you a CONTAINER ship or were you a CONTAINED ship?”
• Me BEFORE the vaccine: Me AFTER the vaccine:
• Alive.
• rip pavlov you would have loved notifications
• Am I…am I about to fight these bagels?

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• My Month of Doing 100 Wheelies a Day
• This Is Where 150 Years Of Ignoring Anti-Asian Racism Got Us
• The Therapy-App Fantasy

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We Love the Internet 2021/12: The How nothingness became everything we wanted edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Here’s why Substack’s scam worked so well
• The New York Times is so done with its 77,000-member Facebook cooking group. What happens now?
• Fortnite’s experimental story is an attempt to create ‘the entertainment experience of the future’
• Outgrowing software
• Justice League’s Snyder Cut saga reminds us which fans’ voices get heard
• Stars Now Understand That Their Destruction Is Our Entertainment
• The Preteen’s Guide to Getting Rich Off YouTube

Reference points:

• Decoding emojis and defining ‘support’: Facebook’s rules for content revealed

Longer reads:

• Inside the ‘Black Market’ Where Artists Can Pay for Millions of Streams
• The internet is splitting apart. The Internet Archive wants to save it all forever.
• Kevin Mayer talks about his disappointing departures at Disney and TikTok, and the long decline of pay TV

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• The World’s Deepest Canal
• Little Girls Flawlessly Ride Hoverboard in Circles Like Professionals Inside House
• hands down the best scene in television

Things to look at/read:

• There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year
• The Invention of a New Pasta Shape

Animal corner:

• Sleeping German Shepherd wakes up after smell his favorite food
• Smart dog intentionally drops his toys in the pool so he can jump in and save them.
• Dog Howling at flute playing
• Oshie attempts to say mom using his voice, versus pressing the button!
• the crime the criminal

Tweets of the week:

• Well that’s me told
• gentrified is not the word
• Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
• WHY THEY JUST DROP MY CAR BROOO
• This is awesome
• Got a new bumper sticker
• I literally feel like this chair
• Ant McPartlin enjoying a curry:

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The master thief
• How Nothingness Became Everything We Wanted
• OCD Is Not a Joke
• Lessons from a year of Covid

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We Love the Internet 2021/11: The American idle edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Is Apple TV+ for Real Yet?
• 11 Years of Untappd: How One App Gamified the Relentless Pursuit of Novelty

Reference points:

• Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes
• Frequency of letters in English words and where they occur in the word

Longer reads:

• American Idle
• What Really Happened at ‘Reply All’?
• Stream Warriors
• How Google’s grand plans to make its own games fell apart

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Automatic pool stick vs. strangers
• Draw an iceberg and see how it will float.
• Food Theory: Taco Bell Is Killing Amazon!

Things to look at/read:

• Eddie Izzard: ‘I’m just trying to create a space for myself’
• ‘I call it a mutual break-up’: When stars ‘disappear’ on their fandoms
• Middle-aged superheroes
• Why bands are disappearing: ‘Young people aren’t excited by them’

Animal corner:

• Sweet owl sneezes
• Excitable Greyhound Jumps For Joy When Owner Gets Dressed
• American Psycho with Cats
• A sloth playing with water..

Tweets of the week:

• The zagreb manager used his 1 phone call to say “lads, it’s Tottenham”
• unfortunately i must announce that it looks like all 2021 hipsters / indie / DIY young people dress like at least one member of the family from Matilda
• the set up vs. the shot
• Aerial view of Barcelona will never cease to amaze me.
• “I’m actually a plain clothes police officer here to protect you, haha yeah I guess I am one of the good guys”
• If the Catholic Church won’t marry same sex couples then explain this
• Fukuyama declaring the end of chairs. The man’s learned nothing.
• Ok fine, give the people what they want, bread and circuses, here you go happy Ides of March

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Teens on a Year That Changed Everything
• Tom Hanks, The NBA, And COVID’s Day Of Reckoning In The US: An Oral History
• The Fall of Armie Hammer: A Family Saga of Sex, Money, Drugs, and Betrayal
• Vanishing Act
• Trump Hotel Employees Reveal What It Was Really Like Catering to the Right Wing Elite

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We Love the Internet 2021/10: The This is how we lost control of our faces edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• This is how we lost control of our faces
• TikTok’s emo revival emerged from the creative chaos of quarantine
• Where the internet was delivered by a donkey
• Is This Beverly Hills Cop Playing Sublime’s ‘Santeria’ to Avoid Being Live-Streamed?
• How Grown-Up Tumblr Teens Are Bringing Early-‘10s Alternative Back to the Charts
• TikTok’s algorithms knew I was bi before I did. I’m not the only one.
• Tom Cruise deepfake creator says public shouldn’t be worried about ‘one-click fakes’
• Movie Equations: When everything is paramount

Reference points:

• The 10 most innovative social media companies of 2021

Longer reads:

• Adland is an island

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• All WandaVision’s Sitcom References (and Ending), Explained
• Movie Intro Medley (Acapella)
• 30 Minutes of Relaxing Visuals from Studio Ghibli
• Travel from Rotterdam to Amsterdam in 10 minutes by boat
• Debunking Can you make ICE in a microwave?
• Axe Build – shaped like a human Hand
• Guy Surfs on Top of Coolers
• The best cinematography I will ever do…

Things to look at/read:

• ‘I was worried Lindsay, Paris or Britney would die’: why the 00s were so toxic for women
• How a Shadow Army of Ghost Kitchens Took Over America’s Restaurants
• When the Dalai Lama dies, his reincarnation will be a religious crisis. Here’s what could happen
• Giant Attack On Titan Manga Weighs 30 Pounds And Costs $1,400

Animal corner:

• Open your mouth
• Watch til the end!
• Came from work and saw this?
• Goat vs cat
• Who’s watching?
• Singing Storky

Tweets of the week:

• Literally exactly how I imagine myself when I’m coaching an Italian team in Championship Manager
• Incredible drone footage, perfectly sequenced bowling alley, wait till end.
• It’s so f ucked up that plutonium just looks like this . It could be orange flavored and we would never know . it could be delicious
• making a tweet you think is funny vs it bombing
• ONCE AGAIN AMERICA WILL DEFEAT THE BRITISH MONARCHY BY SPILLING TEA
• Obsessed with how much of Roger Federer’s name is just er

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird Are Goals
• Carl Lentz and the Trouble at Hillsong
• How We’d Fix Two Decades of Grammy Atrocities
• How to have better arguments online
• Il Maestro
• The student and the algorithm: how the exam results fiasco threatened one pupil’s future

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