FOTI #26: Red Equal Sign

April 4, 2013 Leave a comment

FOTI_340x340_final

Fortnight on the Internets is hoarding for a crisis!

On this episode, we celebrate Easter with a preacher’s on-the-scene video of a kung fu grandpa in a Food Lion parking lot. We discuss the dire warnings of an ultra-patriot who tells us to hoard now — or else! And in our latest Eight Minute Explanation, we break down the “red equal sign” profile pic trend that swept Facebook this fortnight in support of marriage equality. With music from Slavic Soul Party and tons of great contribs from our Likers!

Four ways to listen:

If you subscribe or become a Liker, you’ll be able to get to new episodes faster than everyone else. You’d also be wise to follow us on our @FOTIpod Twitter account, where we often have fun interactions with the people and sites we talk about on the show…

Subway Sax Battle

Thanks to Liker Doan for discovering this “only in New York” gem. If you appreciated the work of Sax Man #2, aka Sapphire Adizes (and I apologize for most likely mispronouncing his name on the show) as much as I did — then check out his Facebook page for more Great Time.

Report Card

One of our favorite slates in a long time, thanks to our Likers and the wonders of the Internets.

#1. Kung Fu Grandpa in the Food Lion parking lot!

Didn’t take long for the narrator, Reverend Aamon R. Miller, to monetize the bejesus out of this. Buy a T-shirt! I hope the KFG is getting a kickback at least. That said, we loved this video.

#2. Stalking GUTS

This amazing tumblr takes advantage of the fact that the 90s Nickelodeon version of American Gladiators, GUTS, listed the full names of its contestants. They do an outstanding job of curating the photos to match the names that the competitors took on before attempting to scale the Aggro-Crag. It’s a horrible invasion of privacy and we love it.

#3. The Beach Boys Shred “I Get Around”

Watch this while you can, it’s already been taken off Youtube once. And there’s really no way to appreciate the glory of this video without seeing it. Dennis Wilson’s doofus-like clapping, the rancid strumming, and the wacked out voices. Props to Youtube’s Cody Jackson for this gem.

Our Musical Guest: SLAVIC SOUL PARTY

An incredible ensemble that turns traditional Balkan music on its head, infusing it with funky backbeats and Brooklyn attitude. For a great rundown on the band’s backstory, check out this great NPR article.

Here’s a nasty live clip of SSP playing “Jackson,” one of the tracks we excerpted on our show from their recent-ish album New York Underground Tapes:

To hear more of the band that inspired Sufjan Stevens to say, “It’s terrifying, exhausting, and way more aggressive than a lot of the punk music I’ve seen,” check ‘em out on Facebook.

Internet Challenge Surprise

It’s Sold Out After Crisis, the website that asks: are YOU ready for the impending apocalypse? (Obamcalypse?) Proprietor/entrepreneur/patriot Damian Campbell plays on the darkest fears of every head of household with this 25-minute video that’s thoroughly compelling without actually being informative in any way. It’s an incredible video — like the UPS ads meets Cormac McCarthy’s The Road – that came to us thanks to past guest Brett Weiner. You should probably watch this video right now because it’s already been removed from the original site.

Even if this video is over the top, he’s right about the fact that we should all have a stash of non-perishable foods in case of natural or man-made disaster … but unfortunately, he doesn’t tell us WHAT foods to hoard! You’ll have to pay him for that — or just read on, because we don’t leave our Likers hanging…

We can’t say that this is Patriot Campbell’s list, but it’s a solid list of 37 items to hoard we found on the Internet, so it can’t possibly be wrong. Check out Happy Preppers for more deets.

  1. Distilled water.
  2. Canned liquids.
  3. Dehydrated (powdered) milk.
  4. Hard cheeses encased in wax.
  5. Whey Powder or protein concentrate.
  6. Canned & dehydrated meats.
  7. Tea, coffee and bouillon.
  8. Oils.
  9. Whole wheat flour.
  10. Wheat germ and Shredded Wheat.
  11. Potato flour.
  12. Masa Harina.
  13. Corn Grits.
  14. Oats and Oatmeal.
  15. Bread crumbs and stuffings.
  16. Pumpernickel.
  17. Crackers.
  18. Potato Flakes and au gratin potatoes.
  19. Rice.
  20. Pastas.
  21. Raisins and dried fruits.
  22. Fruit strips.
  23. Canned fruits.
  24. Canned veggies.
  25. Beans and legumes.
  26. Nuts, seeds and nut-butters.
  27. Honey.
  28. Iodized salt.
  29. Sugars.
  30. Spices and herbs.
  31. Condiments.
  32. Chocolates.
  33. Vitamins.
  34. Food bars.
  35. Vodka.
  36. Dry yeast.
  37. Baking soda and baking powder.

8ME: Red Equal Sign

In a concise eight-minute segment, we break down the origin of this explosive equal-rights meme, the extent of its spread, our personal experiences with it, our favorite examples, and the question of whether it even mattered at all.

Here are some links we referenced in our chat:

  • A solid overview of the memetic movement and its origins from Time magazine.
  • Huffington Post breakdown of the Facebook data regarding who changed their avatar and when.
  • The meme diversifies: Buzzfeed has some of our favorites.
  • Backlash sets in — did this “slacktivism” even accomplish anything? The Atlantic Wire snarks.
  • Legal analysis for the layman from Scotusblog on the Prop 8 case (gay marriage in CA) and the DOMA case (federal discrimination against gay marriage). We don’t know for sure, but it looks like the Court may keep Prop 8 dead on procedural grounds — meaning CA gets gay marriage — and kill DOMA on principle, meaning that gay couples can enjoy federal benefits if their states sanction their marriages.
  • Next — a LOT more votes, elections, referenda, and battles over gay marriage, state by state! So keep that slacktivism AND activism up.

Shoutout to the Likers

You should obviously be Liking our Facebook page. Thanks to all the listeners and Likers for your support!

So many Likers to celebrate this fortnight, including these heroes and their incredible finds:

And the Liker of the Fortnight is Liker Erinn from Phoenix! We appreciate her efforts to spread the word about FOTI among the impressionable youth of the Valley of the Sun. Thanks for supporting the show!!

Likers, you are our everything! Thanks for listening, we’ll be back in two weeks.

Thanks to Matt Moran and Slavic Soul Party for the great tunes.
Theme song by Snowplows: Check out their songs on Bandcamp!
Cover art by Vicious Rumors.

About these ads

Filed under Podcasts Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

FOTI #25: The Most Popular Girls in School

March 20, 2013 Leave a comment

FOTI_340x340_final

Fortnight on the Internets is watching you, xoxo ;)

On this episode, we’re joined by Carlo Moss, the co-creator of viral Youtube series The Most Popular Girls in School. We debate whether it’s now considered rude to leave a voicemail, and we evaluate a list of Flirty Text Message Ideas from Seventeen magazine and rule them either “acceptably flirty” or “scary and disturbing.” Plus great music from Mean Jeans and a festive new song from Neil & John!

Four ways to listen:

If you subscribe or become a Liker, you’ll be able to get to new episodes faster than everyone else. You’d also be wise to follow us on our @FOTIpod Twitter account, where we often have fun interactions with the people and sites we talk about on the show…

First off, this is our official St. Patrick’s Day and Alison’s Birthday episode, and we celebrate the occasion with the new song from friends of the podcast Neil & John:

If you liked it (and be real, you DID) then click here and give the homeboys a “funny.”

RIP Google Reader

In sad news for internet nerds everywhere, Google announced that it’s officially closing down its Reader app as of July 1st, 2013. Listening back to the episode, I realize that I didn’t properly explain what a “RSS aggregator” is — basically, it pulls content from all the blogs and sites you like to follow into one place for easy reading. Google Reader was the greatest and best RSS aggregator of all time. But NOT ANYMORE because Google is ditching us for good, after gutting the service in 2011 in an attempt to get everyone to move to Google Plus. Lame.

I guess there are other alternatives available, but it’s hard to believe any of them will reach the content-reading-and-sharing glory that was Reader in the late aughts. #ShareBros4Life

Internet Report Card

FOTI was in a feisty mood this episode! We dished out scathing evaluations of this fortnight’s top viral items…

#1. Nick Bilton Hates Human Kindness

This post from the NYTimes Bits Blog set off many an infuriated response, both online and off. Times scribe Nick Bilton takes aim at all kinds of inefficient communication, arguing that in the age of the text message, sending an email to simply say “Thanks” or leaving someone a voicemail should be considered downright rude.

Although we have some sympathy for his underlying argument — that we can utilize new technologies to bring more efficiency to routine communications — passages like this one are too damning to embrace:

Then there is voice mail, another impolite way of trying to connect with someone. Think of how long it takes to access your voice mail and listen to one of those long-winded messages. “Hi, this is so-and-so….” In text messages, you don’t have to declare who you are, or even say hello. E-mail, too, leaves something to be desired, with subject lines and “hi” and “bye,” because the communication could happen faster by text. And then there are the worst offenders of all: those who leave a voice mail message and then e-mail to tell you they left a voice mail message.

My father learned this lesson last year after leaving me a dozen voice mail messages, none of which I listened to. Exasperated, he called my sister to complain that I never returned his calls. “Why are you leaving him voice mails?” my sister asked. “No one listens to voice mail anymore. Just text him.”

My mother realized this long ago. Now we communicate mostly through Twitter.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO son. That’s just wrong.

The most all-encompassing takedown of Bilton’s post came from Freddie DeBoer:

“The anthropologist Margaret Mead once said that in traditional societies, the young learn from the old. But in modern societies, the old can also learn from the young. Here’s hoping that politeness never goes out of fashion, but that time-wasting forms of communication do.”

“Learning” is a powerful word, a misunderstood one. I’m sure Mr. Bilton spends much of his time absorbing little facts, churning through the deracinated information that the internet spreads out endlessly, shorn of context or curriculum, just true enough to be mistaken for knowledge. Perhap this is how it has to be. Maybe Bilton is the wave of the future. For myself, I don’t think that there’s anything to be done; the punishment for people like Mr. Bilton is living the life that they’ve endeavored to live. I’m sure their manic effort to degrade and destroy any genuinely human connection is proceeding on with great efficiency; I have no doubt they will reach that rarefied territory where there is nothing human at all on the other end of that well-loved smartphone. I picture him writing this piece in a dark apartment, face lit up with the sickly blue glow of his laptop, chattering away in the dark alone about all the people who have failed him.

#2. “After Ever After”

Loved the production values. Amazing voice. Not sure what left-wing political talking points really have in common with Disney Princesses, though!

#3. Flirty Text Message Ideas

This list of flirty text message ideas to send your crush comes from Seventeen magazine, no doubt written by well-intentioned staffers. At first they seem fairly benign, until you put yourself in the shoes of the person receiving these texts. Then all you can think is CREEPER!! We review a number of the suggestions and rate them cool or creepy. (Mostly creepy.)

Our Musical Guest: MEAN JEANS

Billy Jeans, Jeans Wilder and Junior Jeans bring the punk fire from Portland straight to your stereo speakers. We’re listening to great tracks from their most recent album Life On Mars. Prepare to get rocked!

If you enjoy what you hear, like them on Facebook. They’re touring cool cities in the South (from Baltimore on down) this April, so if you dwell in those lands, get out and check ‘em!

Internet Challenge Surprise!

These really have to be seen to be believed. This episode’s surprise is comedian Deven Green’s brilliant voiceover parodies of the lifestyle videos produced by former soap superstar Brenda Dickson. Thanks to friend of the podcast Tara T and Liker Andrew W. for tipping us off to their pompous glory!

And I wouldn’t wait to click on them if I were you — these things are getting takedown notices all the time from a vengeful B. Dick, who does NOT find them funny…

Perhaps the best thing associated with these videos is the reference to them in the actual Brenda Dickson wikipedia page. I’m not making this up (although it’s since been edited out, way to go wikipedians!):

She created a hit, runaway internet film she wrote, produced and directed called, ”Welcome to my Home” that was put on by a fan. The film quickly garnered 3 million viewers. Sony Pictures (The Bells) took it down in a false copyright claim. Dickson produced the film into a DVD. This reality film paved the way for all of the recent reality series. It was taken over by a woman who decided to lip-sync over it, in an illegal, fraudulent copyright infringement. This so-called comedian attached onto the goldmine of the film that Dickson produced. It is believed that she has been hired to do these expensive lip-syncs over Dickson’s material to discredit her.

The film was way ahead of its time about fashion, diet and exercise and how to apply makeup properly. Dickson brought people into her home to spend the day with her. She showed her cat and dog and did a fashion show of over the top, couture gowns from the 80s. The industry took note of this film and suddenly a reality show was born. The Kardashians brought you into their home. Other shows did the same. High fashion became a Red Carpet must, and all of the industry was changed. Blue jeans and tee shirts were suddenly replaced by top designers.

There you have it folks — Brenda Dickson, creator of reality TV and trend-setter of high fashion. Ca-caw!

Carlo Moss from MPGiS

 

One of the creators of a webseries we love, The Most Popular Girls in School, joins us to explain how a comedy sketch turned into a viral breakout hit! We mentioned MPGiS on a recent episode, but with Carlo joining the conversation, insights were, how you say? OBTAINED.

Some of the highlights of this conversation include:

  • The origin of the “Deandra” voice and how it developed into a sketch
  • Director/editor/animator Mark Cope’s flash of inspiration and brilliant stop-motion pilot
  • Developing the series into a full-blown show with help from producer Lily Vonnegut
  • Inventing backstories to explain why he is shopping for Barbies for hours at a time
  • The social media strategy of giving the characters their own Twitter and Facebook accounts
  • Blowing up on Tumblr and the experience of receiving fan art and plot suggestions
  • The excitement of getting Kickstarter donations — and the hard work of delivering rewards
  • Dreams and schemes for Season 2 and beyond!

Well worth checking out for anyone who’s been interested in where viral success comes from. Sounds like hard work to me, man! So many thanks to Carlo for joining us — check him out on Twitter.

Shoutout to the Likers!

You should obviously be Liking our Facebook page. Thanks to all the listeners and Likers that helped us shatter the 300 liker barrier for our 1st pod-birthday!

Our Liker of the Fortnight is Liker Jeff H! He brings it every fortnight with good comments and contribs, but went over the top this time around after he told Rebecca Black in person about the FOTI podcast. Putting our name in the ears of the Internet’s top viral sensations? That’ll get you LOTF every time around. Check out the new episodes of Jeff’s webseries, A God Named Pablo,

Likers, we couldn’t do it without you! Thanks for listening, we’ll be back in two weeks.

Thanks to Carlo Moss for joining us, and to Mean Jeans for musical assistance.
Theme song by Snowplows: Check out their songs on Bandcamp!
Cover art by Vicious Rumors.

Filed under Podcasts Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FOTI #24: Goats Yelling Like Humans

March 6, 2013 Leave a comment

FOTI_340x340_final

Fortnight on the Internets is taking a nap on Bradley Cooper’s mom’s pink thing!

On this episode, we talk about Youtube sensation Goats Yelling Like Humans and the hilarious series of Taylor Swift remixes that it sparked. We celebrate a wonderful mashup of Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid and some of the great booty anthems of all time. And we talk about the Oscars — and all the frenzied online debate fueled by the show — with our co-conspirator and correspondent Jeni Sue. With a truly spine-tingling Internet Challenge Surprise and music from Portland band Minden!

Four ways to listen:

If you subscribe or become a Liker, you’ll be able to get to new episodes faster than everyone else. You’d also be wise to follow us on our @FOTIpod Twitter account, where we often have fun interactions with the people and sites we talk about on the show…

Billboard Now Includes Youtube Views!

What better way than with a GIF to commemorate the fact that with Youtube views now part of Billboard’s pop chart calculations, the Internet has cemented its position as the nexus of American culture! On the strength of the thousands of Harlem Shake videos we told you about in Episode 23, Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” is now the #1 song in the country.

Hopefully, this mindbending mashup of “Call Me Maybe” and “Head Like a Hole” is next to climb the charts…

Fingers crossed.

Internet Report Card

This was easily the most fun I’ve ever had editing a report card, thanks to the magic of Goat Week! (Copyright Liker Brad N)

#1. Goats Yelling Like Humans

Who knew goats were so expressive?!

This compilation was the fine work of the New Jersey crew who run bro-blog The Roosevelts. After racking up over 11 million views, it went on to inspire the greatest series of Taylor Swift remixes that the world has ever known.

#2. Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar faux menu

Brilliantly executed — but for the fact that a lot of these jokes were stolen from other peeps on Twitter.

And not like, “I made the joke about Bane at the Super Bowl first!” stolen. There’s no earthly way two people would independently come up with “Deep fried snake with a printed out picture of David Lee Roth on it.”

What Brian Mytko calls “haters,” I call “comedians with a legitimate plagiarism beef.” And that beef is sandblasted with five kinds of Guy’s special spices and viciously drowned in donkey sauce.

For the definitive take on l’affaire faux-Fieri, check out Richard Lawson’s post on The Atlantic Wire.

#3. “Under the Booty”

It’s “Under the Sea” mixed with Bubba Sparxx and the Ying Yang Twins. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out why we loved this.

Our Musical Guest: MINDEN

The residents of Minden Manor serve up top shelf grooves that will enrapture you. That’s all there is to it.

If for some strange reason the photo above isn’t enough to sell you, check out this video — don’t even try to resist the wonder.

The band’s album Exotic Cakes is well worth picking up. We’ve also got a preview of the smooth new track “Agent of Corruption” from frontman Casey Burge’s forthcoming solo record. Check out more Minden at Bandcamp, Facebook, and their own website.

Internet Challenge Surprise!

Ready for some scalp tingles? There’s no way to truly explain this without showing it to you, so let’s just serve up a video of Youtube user ASMRrequests performing “Space Travel Agent.”

So, what is Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR? Vice explains:

ASMR is a tricky feeling to describe, and I can only talk about it secondhand. From what I understand from conversations with ASMRers, it’s a tingle in your brain, a kind of pleasurable headache that can creep down your spine. It’s a shortcut to a blissed-out meditative state that allows you to watch long videos that for someone who doesn’t have ASMR are mind-meltingly dull. Not everyone gets this feeling, and though some people can get the tingles through sheer force of will, most depend on external “triggers” to set them off. Triggers can include getting a massage or a haircut or a manicure, or hearing someone talk in a soothing tone of voice (Bob Ross, the “let’s put a happy tree right here” painter from PBS, is a common trigger), or even just watching someone pay extremely close attention to a task, like assembling a model. It’s not usually sexual—everyone who talked to me about ASMR mentioned that right off the bat—but like sexual turn-ons, different people have different things that set them off: the sound of lips smacking together, a cashier’s fake nails tapping on the register, your friend drawing on your hand with a marker.

If this works for you — more power to you, my friend. I’m sorry to say that it didn’t work for us but maybe we need to develop our ASMR skills further…

ASMR hasn’t yet been proven to exist, but neurologists are keeping an open mind. The human brain is a very strange thing indeed.

Jeni Sue Hits the Red Carpet!

Jennifer-Lawrence-022613-600x450

Our beloved collaborator Jeni Sue joins us to talk about her experiences covering the Oscars for FOTI.

Topics include:

  • Jeni’s red carpet adventures
  • Host Seth MacFarlane — was his schtick sexist?
  • Anne Hathaway and her haters
  • Ben Affleck’s hard-working marriage
  • The Jaws music cutting off visual effects Oscar winners
  • The Onion’s controversial tweet
  • J-Law’s stumble
  • The incredible swag at the afterparties

Also, we had to cut this for time, but you really should see this audition by “Lena Dunham” for Zero Dark Thirty.

Shoutout to the Likers!

This episode’s Liker of the Fortnight is liker Nic S., who made an audacious debut by explaining a question we asked way-back-when about single serving sites. Then he sent along this great video of MC Propane rapping along to “Harlem Shake.”

Other Likers who made a splash this fortnight:

LIKERS!! Thank you for all your support. We truly appreciate it. Spread the word to your friends and see if you can help us get to 300 Likers at our one-year mark of podcasting!

Thanks for listening, we’ll be back in two weeks.

Thanks to Minden and Casey Burge for musical assistance.
Theme song by Snowplows: Check out their songs on Bandcamp!
Cover art by Vicious Rumors.

Filed under Podcasts Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

%d bloggers like this: