The best things on the internet in 2018
Image: Photo: Absolute unit sheepScreenshot: The raccoon that climed the buildingScreenshot: Zendaya is MeecheeScreenshot: Demi playing keyboards Photo: GrittyGraphic: Natalie Peeples Aux Features Best Of 2018
We often speak of the internet as if it’s an independent entity, with a mind and a will of its own. But thankfully, that’s not quite the case—yet. For the time being, the internet is ultimately run by human beings, and is filled with the by-products of human thought and imagination. Sometimes, as we detailed yesterday, those by-products are more toxic than antifreeze mixed with the runoff from a copper mine, because they come from toxic people.
But the internet also has the potential for sparkling clear waters and blue, cloudless skies, for innocence and silliness and solidarity and communal bonding and simple enjoyment of the moment. Okay, so sometimes that enjoyment is of the schadenfreude variety. So what? You’ve got to take joy where you can get it these days. And it’s probably not a coincidence that a significant portion of the things that delighted us online in 2018 were related to animals, which are, by their very nature, pure. But, in a year that may ultimately be defined by how endless it felt, there were moments of lightness, and, dare we say it, maybe even hope.
10. Celebrities who use social media for good
Social media is, by and large, a poison; any quantity is probably too much. And yet there are, dappled among the many celebrities who refuse to log off, a small number who shine like a beacon in the darkness. There is the transparent goodness of possible golden retriever Chris Evans, who only calls Trump “Biff”; the churlish wit of Vince Staples; and Big Boi’s wonderfully dadlike punning. Ariana Grande, a person who is so good at being famous that she turned a break-up into one of the year’s best singles, refuses to stop owning Piers Morgan. Every Sunday we get to bear witness to The Rock’s comically over-sized “cheat meal”; Tom Hanks still signs all his tweets “Hanx”; Patti Smith joined Instagram and is extremely, unshakably Patti Smith. Chrissy Teigen will not log off and will not stop dunking on her husband. Jameela Jamil seems uniquely well-positioned to call out the bullshit of the celebrity apparatus. And, lastly, no one found the Henry Cavill mustache fiasco funnier than Henry Cavill himself, who created a memorial video for it after shaving. How long any of these good famous people can remain good on the internet remains to be seen; for now, though, they have withstood its polarizing winds, reminding us, in the process, why we liked them in the first place. [Clayton Purdom]
9. Long Furby
In our post-Five Nights At Freddy’s world, it’s only natural to fear the cute and cuddly. After all, we’re living in a time that’s revised, mangled, and “made cool” the characters we grew up loving, thus rendering our own nostalgia untrustworthy. Enter Long Furby, a serpentine reinterpretation of the stout, rotund Furbys of yore—one that, by virtue of those dead eyes and that uncanny rope of fur unfurling beneath it, seeded terror into the hearts of all who saw it. It didn’t help that the maniacs who brought them into this world cursed the creatures with Lovecraftian names like Cygnus, Yaldabaoth, and Jörmungandr.
Still, once the initial shock wears off, there’s something beautifully broken about the Long Furby, which may as well be a failed experiment, hollowed and cast aside. It doesn’t move, blink, or trill, having been stripped of its mechanics; it simply sits, trying to blend in like the rest of us emotionally maimed weirdos, snacking on chili dogs or watching the fireworks. The Long Furby is innocent and strange, a victim of times that thrive on the endless reshaping of that which came before. We can all relate. [Randall Colburn]
8. The war for Gritty’s soul
Gritty is Antifa. As far as we’re concerned, this is canon. It’s hard to believe that the wild-eyed Philadelphia Flyers mascot with a passion for blasting capitalists with a T-shirt cannon has only been a part of our lives since September 24, when his arrival online was greeted with cries of, “What the fuck is that thing?” What isn’t hard to believe is that it only took two days for Gritty to become politicized, after socialist magazine Jacobin tweeted, simply, “Gritty is a worker,” on September 26. The good people of Philadelphia, always ready to pound some faces into the pavement (all the better if they belong to fascists), took up the cause, and Gritty appeared on hand-drawn signs and banners protesting President Trump’s visit to the city in early October. It was a real-world analog to the leftist shitposters who had immediately, enthusiastically adopted Gritty as one of their own in the wake of Jacobin’s tweet:
There are precedents for Antifa Gritty in the significant overlap between leftist Twitter and Weird Twitter, namely the Babadook’s unofficial canonization as a LGBTQ icon in 2017. But perhaps because of the higher profile of a corporate sports mascot as opposed to an independent horror film, homophobes did not try to hijack the Babadook as fascists have Gritty. Luckily, fascists suck at meme-making, and sloppy, hateful attempts by the likes of The Daily Stormer have all failed to override the pre-existing “Gritty is Antifa” narrative. They’re just jealous because the 7-foot-tall son of Chewbacca and Zoe from Sesame Street could kick Pepe the Frog’s ass any day of the week—not to mention that the Flyers have yet to disown Antifa Gritty the way Pepe creator Matt Furie has disowned the “alt-right.” [Katie Rife]
7. Dean Norris tweeting, “Sex gifs”
Watching old people fail at social media has become quite the pastime for the Extremely Online, even if the trend peaked with the now-dormant Old People Writing On A Restaurant’s Facebook Page Tumblr. Still, it was impossible not to delightedly clutch your pearls when, on May 22, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris popped into our timelines with two short, contextless words: “Sex gifs.” Was this a request? An observation? Did he confuse the search bar for the status bar? If so, why is he searching for sex gifs on Twitter, rather than Google or Tumblr (in those halcyon days when sex gifs still ruled Tumblr)? We’ll never know, because Norris subsequently disappeared from the platform, returning after three days to amiably crack jokes about the post with Patton Oswalt and Betsy Brandt, never once acknowledging its online ubiquity. It remains there to this day, taunting us with its impenetrability. [Randall Colburn]
6. Dunking on Jacob Wohl
As much fun as it’s been mocking the foibles of people like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos and the Prison Planet guy who ate books, there’s always been an underlying twinge of guilt to the idea that you were giving oxygen to people with real followers and truly nasty ideas. Thankfully, 2018 allowed us to have our cake and eat it too, thanks to a man who was both an honest-to-god public figure and yet somehow too stupid and incompetent for even the MAGA set to get on board with: the world’s dumbest child prodigy, Jacob Wohl.
Wohl is the son of a Fox News contributor, and before this year he was mostly known for being a teen hedge-fund manager who was banned from the National Futures Association for allegedly cheating clients. In search of a new hustle, Wohl became a Trump Tweet Reply Guy, spending his time online praising the president while posting countless variations of the same very obvious lie about overhearing liberals speaking positively about Trump in a “hipster coffee shop” later revealed to be that most hipster of shops: Coffee Bean.
But his coup de grâce was still to come: a failed October plot too intricately inept to fully describe here in which Wohl attempted to pay a woman (whose name he could not spell correctly) to accuse special investigator Robert Mueller of sexual assault, and shop those allegations to the press via an extremely made-up private intelligence firm called Surefire Intelligence, whose website included a photo of actor Christoph Waltz as an ostensible employee and was registered to a phone number that directed back to Wohl’s mom’s voicemail.
All of this led to a disastrous press conference in which a MAGA conspiracy guy with his fly open claimed Wohl had accomplished more than Mozart, followed by Wohl losing his job with conservative rag Gateway Pundit, Wohl being mocked across the political spectrum, and the whole thing being referred by Mueller to the FBI for being, you know, very possibly a major crime. [Gabe Worgaftik]
5. The “This Cat Is Chonky” Facebook group
Private groups have been the only worthwhile thing on Facebook for a while now. But this year a group devoted to the best thing on the internet in general—cats, obviously—became an unlikely hub for a refreshingly grassroots body-positivity movement.
At first, “This Cat Is Chonky” was just for pictures of chonky (i.e., rotund, chubby, thicc, overweight—pick an adjective) cats, the cutest cats simply by virtue of the fact that there’s more of them to love. Then, like doggo culture before it, “This Cat Is Chonky” developed its own private in-jokes and linguistic conventions—“beans” are the little pads on cat toes, and “floofers” are chonks whose heft is mostly fur—many of them based on a Photoshopped veterinary chart rating cats from “a fine boi” to “O H L A W D H E C O M I N,” first posted in the group on August 2.
Then the humans started joining in. “I wish c h o n k y humans got this much love,” one user posted in October. That prompted a thread with more than 200 overwhelmingly affirmative comments, many of them selfies from self-proclaimed chonky people followed by effusive compliments indistinguishable from those you’d get on a photo of, say, a hefty tabby sitting up like he’s a person. That same day, another “human chonk appreciation thread” got more than 700 comments. In these threads, the self-consciously ironic slang of a cat group became a liberating vocabulary for members to discuss their bodies without using loaded medical terminology as users compared notes and lifted each other up in an online space already well-established as safe, supportive, and completely asexual. And no one tried to sell them deodorant in the process. [Katie Rife]
4. Demi Adejuyigbe’s pop culture songs
“Weird” Al Yankovic remains the master of the form overall, but there’s some serious competition for the title of Best Silly Song Composer online. Paul F. Tompkins and Tim Heidecker continue to be strong contenders, and comedian Gabriel Gundacker swooped in in September with “Zendaya Is Meechee” and nearly took the crown. But The A.V. Club’s champion for 2018 is Demi Adejuyigbe. This year, Adejuyigbe brought us not only a delightful new installment in his “21st night of September” dance series, but also wrote hilarious unofficial theme songs for Ready Player One, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Avengers: Infinity War, and departed members of the Trump administration. Not to be outdone, he also laid out the plot of mother! through the medium of David Byrne songs, and listed all the ghosts that scare him in 14 seconds flat. All of Adejuyigbe’s comedy songs overflow with the joy of creation—and rapid-fire pop culture references—but if we had to pick a favorite, we’d go with “Future’s End Credits Rap From Avengers: Infinity War,” both for the accuracy with which it recreates the Superfly composer’s flow and for the increasing absurdity of the Hemsworths in the fake credits that accompany the song, including “Keenan Ivory Hemsworth” and “Harpo Hemsworth IV.” [Katie Rife]
3. The day the raccoon climbed the building and everyone stopped working for a while
During a week like any other in mid-June, the internet came together to witness a raccoon climbing up a very tall office building in St. Paul, Minnesota, squishing its furry raccoon body against windows as it gained the summit. A nonpartisan delight, the raccoon thrilled everyone who saw it. We set aside our differences and came together, briefly, as one people. Even those who wanted to ruin the fun by wringing their hands about the Babel-bound furball’s safety were shut down almost immediately: The raccoon was brought back down to earth in good health and enjoyed some delicious cat food alongside his newfound stardom. All was right. Like the 2017 eclipse—like 2015’s escaped llama chase—the climbing raccoon was a brief realization of the old tech utopian’s vision of the internet: a place where all human differences can be set aside in favor of what unites us. For a time, we achieved this dream in the form of a daring raccoon’s adventure. Let’s cherish that memory. [Reid McCarter]
2. Deplatforming and the ratio
The ratio will save democracy. Not on its own, obviously. But one thing the ratio—a term for when the replies to a tweet outnumber the likes and retweets—does do is establish a baseline reality, drawing a line between what’s acceptable and what isn’t to the majority of Americans (at least, the extremely online ones) in a mainstream media culture that still insists on “hearing both sides,” even when one side is saying that it’s acceptable to murder your political opponents by pushing them out of helicopters. It’s a collective cry of “this ain’t it” for takes that, were they to go unchallenged, would further erode the already-endangered concepts of collective decency and truth, a grassroots countermeasure to Orwellian lies.
This explains why the most potent ratios are political in nature. Who can forget when, on November 15, more than 20,000 people—13 times more people than those who “liked” the tweet—came together to tell Washington Examiner writer Eddie Scarry to go fuck himself for posting a creep shot of incoming New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, implying that she couldn’t be working-class because she owns a blazer:
The ratioing continued for days across multiple tweets, Scarry was alerted to the existence of TJ Maxx hundreds of times over, a new meme was born, and just for a moment, compassion prevailed over spite and spin. Even the dictionary dunked on Scarry, as the dictionary has been known to do. Of course, even better than ratioing terrible takes into oblivion is removing the means by which those takes are created in the first place, known as “deplatforming” when the means in question is social media. Twitter is notoriously reluctant to engage in the practice, but in the few cases they’ve done it, the results speak for themselves. Milo Yiannopoulos fell from the golden boy of the “alt-right” to bitching about how broke he is on Facebook within two years of having his Twitter account suspended; more recently, Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter headquarters with a Star of David pinned to her coat after she was banned from the platform, causing even other right-wing pundits to turn on her.
And Facebook’s ban of all things Proud Boys-related in October was followed by founder Gavin McInnes quitting the group, claiming that his withdrawal would help the legal cases of Proud Boys members charged with assault after beating a man while yelling homophobic slurs during an anti-racism demonstration in New York City. (The real reason may have more to do with McInnes’ recent complaints that his wealthy Connecticut neighbors don’t like him because of his association with the far-right “Western chauvinist” organization, recently labeled an extremist group by the FBI.) McInnes has now been banned from YouTube as well. That ouster was carried out under the pretense of “copyright infringement”—a notable departure from Alex Jones, whose own deplatforming for violating YouTube’s “community standards” (i.e., harassing the parents of Sandy Hook victims) took place in August. [Katie Rife]
1. Big-ass animals
Ultimately, the single unassailable force of good on the internet could only be one thing: animals! Big, round, fuzzy, wonderful, goofy, freakishly large animals! 2018, as a discrete chunk of time, seemed uniquely predisposed to creating and freaking out over large animals, whether it was a Twitter account celebrating “round boys,” a rash of unusually horny bears wandering into residential areas and doing all sorts of hilarious bear shit, or the emergence, in recent weeks, of an enormous cow in Australia that dwarfs all other cows in its presence.
No unit captured the internet’s attention quite so absolutely as the one tweeted out in April by the Museum Of English Rural Life: an archival image of a beatific sheep the size of a dumpster, an image so perfectly, spiritually round that it immediately rendered the museum’s Twitter account wonderfully, joyfully insane. What dark magick do the round boys hold? After years of cats dominating the internet, followed by several years of pro-dog discourse, 2018 rounded a corner and introduced a species-agnostic form of animal fandom. It’s a reminder that, no matter how bad things might get, we’re not all so dissimilar after all. Everyone, everywhere, can drop what they’re doing to appreciate a big-ass sheep. [Clayton Purdom]
171 Comments
Hate to be a Debbie Downer but re: #5: NO. Don’t overfeed your pets. That’s some animal abuse shit.
It’s crazy to me how that ends up happening. You own the pet. Stop giving into its whims and grow a backbone. There’s a lady where I work who feeds her dog fucking steaks
She feeds her dog steaks?You know what someone needs to feed her?
I have a friend whose wife also feeds their dog fillet steak. And, when they were thinking of where to go on holiday, they considered visiting Shetland, because that’s where their dog’s breed originated from (they were taking the dog with them). It’s great to love animals, but part of loving them is loving how they taste with chips.
Yeah, my grandfather used to feed his dogs steaks, burgers and eggs in the morning. Often they would get ice cream after dinner. The dogs ended up severely obese and diabetic. They literally loved thier dogs to death.
I’m not usually into memes, but these two still make me giggle like a six-year-old.https://share.icloud.com/photos/0WzZTTrGq7q_Jo2-IKhv4Rh_g
This, this sooooo much. I get home about 2 hours before my husband. I don’t always feed the cat when I get home, she’s old and sometimes napping. However, I feed her 2-3 times a week. Invariably, whenever she hears his garage door opening, she is at the stair case yeowling like I ate her food in front of her with her eyes pried open “Clockwork Orange” style. I always yell, “She’s already been fed.” He yells back, “She says otherwise.” Sometimes, there’s still food in the dish. She’s not overweight, though so he just gives her a tiny bit more so she can relax.
the best chonkers are floofs; however, there are certain round bois with medical conditions or whose unitness can be explained through feline subterfuge (e.g., “we all thought we were the only one feeding Mayor McFuzz”)…also most of the chonks are fat within reason, it’s not like you can get one of those suckers on a treadmill and if you let ‘em outside to get exercise they kill everything
My dog started getting fat and we coudln’t figure out what was going on. It turned out that a couple of times a week our neighbors made a roast with biscuits and gravy, and loved our dog (because he was a good boy, yes he was) and so dumped all the leftovers over the fence for him enjoy. We asked them to cut it down to maybe once every couple of weeks so he’d slim out a bit.
a few times a week? I’m assuming yr neighbors were round bois as well
They were a sweet retired couple who cooked feasts on Sunday and had their kids and grandkids over. I think it speaks to the volume of food they prepared that there was enough left to make a 75 pound golden retriever gain weight.
portion control
When Mrs. Cookie was little, she had dog that was overweight. Vet said dog needed exercise, and suggested swimming — dogs are natural swimmers, swimming good exercise, etc. So they took dog to beach and dropped her in water. She refused to move muscle and sank like stone. Dog must have known that if she put in zero effort, someone larger and less furry would come along and rescue her, and she was right.
Wow, that fat lazy bitch needed some tough love!(ETA: I know out of context that may sound like “Things a wife beater might say” but in this case I’m taking about an actual bitch … that was fat … and lazy … and needed tough love!)
Hopefully, that larger, less furry thing wasn’t a shark.
I’ve had cats that just somehow get fat. They were outdoor cats that didn’t get fed by other people and only ate twice a day. Some animals are just chunky
Best statement my wife received from a vet about her recently adopted pug that was starting to look like a furry barrel with legs: “Food doesn’t equal love!”
Years later its still the mantra when the pugs are kitchen begging.
My brother has 4 cats. 3 are slim and healthy while one looks like a basketball with legs.
Counterpoint: You’re the human that has chosen to make pets your slave over whom you have total control. Dogs and cats have evolved over millennia to be friendly to humans, but they love to be outside, in nature, in the wild. Your cuddling and walks don’t fully make up for what their natures want. Do you let your pets fuck? Probably not, so you’re depriving them of that primal thing too, as you coop them up in your small flat or house. Food is literally the only pleasure they have. The only pleasure we give them. So, if your middle-aged dog or cat gets a bit fat, because we like to indulge them in the only pleasure we allow our pets, maybe that’s okay. It’s your fault. They didn’t ask to live with you. Some “animal abuse” to me would be more like starving your pets. Hey, tell us all about your strict dietary regiments you inflict on your unfortuntate pets, “cgo2470″? Nice random ass screen name, by the way. You have them on a diet? And you think they love you? Ha. I feel sorry for your pets , and wonder why the authorities allow you to have them. What a weird brag to have. “I keep my pets model-thin and I’m proud of it.” Now playing, “I Want A Dog” by Pet Shop Boys. “Don’t want a cat/ Scratching its claws all over my habitat/ And getting fat. “
This article made me laugh and feel good for the first time in a while.
Minor correction – McInnes lives in Westchester, NY. I only noticed because I thought -ha! he moved to CT, that’s funny. Although Larchmont and Greenwich are similar and practically walking distance it’s NY.
Gavin McInnes became a far-right hack because he’s jealous of Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi turning Vice into a media empire moments after he left.I’m pretty sure Gavin puts a dildo up his ass (literally!) because Shane got to have a chat with Barack Obama
I’m also pretty sure that he belongs in prison and the fact that New York DA hasn’t charged him with anything is disturbing.
He belongs in Rikers at the very least.
He peaked with Dos and Don’ts.
Best thing on the internet? I’m going to be boring and say Netflix for two very specific reasons:- I can wake up Friday mornings (I live in London) and watch a brand new episode of The Good Place before even getting out of bed, and- I can wake up Saturday mornings and watch a brand new episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend before even getting out of bed(Second best thing on the internet is the AV Club comments section for these two shows!)
The math checks out.
There are The Good Place reviews with three- and four-hundred comments! That’s like if-Kinja-never-happened numbers.
How about short films in general?If you’re into SF, for example, there’s DUST:
Man, Netflix here in the US can’t do that. You need both Hulu and the CW app to fulfill those purposes. 🙁
Yeah, I’m worried because The Good Place is going to start airing on terrestrial television in the UK in January, and apparently once that happens Netflix will no longer be making new eps available right after they air on US TV. That’s bullshirt!
Having TBP and CXG available on Netflix is honestly one of the greatest things I’ve experienced since moving to England.
Hm see I’d call it one of the worst things on the Internet for your second point alone
The Good Place and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend forums here are something of an echo of the site’s past glory
Australia also has the new episodes of The Good Place on Netflix. (There’s also Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but not new eps; it’s a season behind.)
And to those “Freeze Peach” dickwads who think that being deplatformed is a violation of free speech:
Free speech is not and has never been restricted to the First Amendment. There is a broader right to free speech that absolutely can be violated by private interests.
pls add mouseover text
also another reply to note the people who say “innocent until proven guilty!” as if it means you’re not ALLOWED to exercise your own judgment…it’s a legal presumption with no application to when anyone wants to draw a conclusion, supposition, be completely wrong, whatever they want
Any time I see them cry “Innocent till proven guilty!” my first thought is “If I go into your social media, how many counts of LOCK HER UP!/Hillary For Prison am I gonna find?”Cause I suspect that Venn Diagram has a LOT of overlap
So that wildly over-used cartoon (that doesn’t even define freedom of speech correctly) would be your response to Chelsea Manning being deplatformed or Reverend James Martin? Or any number of BDS/Pro-Palestine activists? The firing of Marc Lamont Hill from CNN? Ok. Sounds well thought out.
Fine. *If* people are consistent with that across the board. But they often aren’t — if people *they* like get deplatformed, they’ll be the first to claim censorship. That’s why I like the ACLU. Yes, they’ll sometimes do wacky stuff like defend the rights of horrible people to march and be heard, but they do that not to support the views but because they get what goes around comes around.
There was also the #ChangeTheChannel Movement in which former contributors of Channel Awesome called out their exploitative business practices and toxic work environment, resulting in a mass exodus of Channel Awesome contributors.
I cannot get enough of that Jacob Wohl story. It’s replaced the Mooch’s tenure as Press Secretary as my favorite piece of schadenfreude ever. How their story never even had a chance; within seconds of being made public it was meticulously picked apart and exposed. And yet they persisted! And to top off all the humiliation, there is still a good shot at prosecution waiting for them. JUST HOOK IT INTO MY VEEEIIIINNS
The ineptitude on that one really is something to behold. Just pure incompetence and poor judgment at every level.
. . and when the phone turned out to be him mom’s? *kisses fingertips* Delicious.
Shattered Glass II: The Revenge of Jukt Micronics
I didn’t know what you were referring and Googled. Holy shit, that’s a crazy story!
One of the “victims” they claimed they had about Mueller was Wohl’s girlfriend for fuck’s sakes!
The guy’s fly being down broke me. I was laughing for about 10 minutes.
For me, the best part wasn’t even the Christoph Waltz headshot, but the fact that Surefire Intelligence’s ‘Tel Aviv Station Chief’ was an Israeli supermodel. Was this really a political smear job, or a backdoor pilot for a reboot of late ‘90s Pamela Anderson show VIP? And which would be more monstrous?
In the long shot chance there’s ever a documentary about the sad cock-up that is the political career of Jacob Wohl, I really hope they get Christoph Waltz to narrate it. JUST to twist the knife a little deeper.
It was this year’s Fyre Festival. After watching some of the worst people alive run the world for most of the year, we got that one fleeting ray of sunshine in which a thoroughly deserving twit was dealt the most hilarious karmic comeuppance imaginable.
1/18!
And after it had been blown up they STILL went ahead with the fucking press conference.
If he term “double-down” better make everybody’s “Buzzwords of 2018″ list I just don’t know…Seems to be a “most common denominator” in today’s wretched political and social landscape.Mostly in the fact that anybody whos anybody with a shit opinion and a platform MUST NOT CAPITULATE TO REASON OR DECENCY, even in the face of overwhelming factual opposition, and take part in the age old practice of the digging in of heels.
I wonder if it’s painful to be as incredibly stupid as Jacob Wohl, or if it’s strangely liberating.
I don’t think he even entertains the possibility that he’s a complete piece of shit, so I’d say liberating.
Popular media convinced me as a child that the forces of corruption and evil in the world would be supremely intelligent. This has not been borne out by current events.(And though these guys imploded more spectacularly than the Mooch, nothing can replace him in my heart when it comes to enjoying the richly deserved misery of right-wing stooges.)
I actually laughed out loud when it got to the voice mail that went to his mom’s phone.
Can he get work release at a hipster coffee shop?
My son is about the same age and is also a Jacob. I am continually stunned by the contrast between my normal human son and this guy. What happened?
No one can say Henry Cavill isn’t a good sport. His farewell video to “Kingstache” was hilarious.
but what did the dogs danube video meannnnnnnn
We still don’t know. Still hoping the ride ain’t over yet. Either way, he hopefully has great things ahead with Witcher.
maybe I’ll watch more of his videos, he seems kind of funny in them and my main problem with him like Aaron Taylor-Johnson is that he doesn’t seem to have a personality
I’d recommend it. He’s a good follow on Instagram! His dog Kal is humongous and hilarious!
I’d never heard his native accent before. It’s a lot more pleasant to listen to than his American voice.
For those who don’t lead lives so boring that they know what the National Futures Association does, their ban means that Wohl is banned from futures trading, which is kind of necessary for most kinds of hedge funds or big-league money management jobs. Also, the practical effect that hardly anyone will hire you for a white collar job that requires a background check ever again if you got an NFA ban because you seem like a crook now.
The National Futures Association sounds like a group featured in an upcoming sci-fi Terry Gilliam film.
so, chief of staff?
Did you see the story about him walking into a bank and demanding money and saying the ban wasn’t a big deal and just was going to be reversed?
Demi will always be #1 in my heart
The entry needed a plug for Punch Up The Jam.
Or his latest Do You Remember video.
And it should have also pointed out that Gabriel Gundacker (of “Zendaya is Meechee”) is HIS ROOMMATE. How cool that they both made the list and made the photo accompanying the article.
There’s so much great about the internet which isn’t twitter or facebook, the AV Club needs to get out more!
[Citations missing]
I was wary of Gritty at first. They should have just thrown a Flyers jersey on the Phanatic and called it a day. But I’ve come around and glad he’s on the list. He is the only good thing about the Flyers this year.
The only good thing about the Flyers ever, in fact.
I hope your Flyers will turn around next year. Lot a guys I like on that team and if all goes well and Karma isn’t a bitch, next year you could have :- Quennville behind the bench-Hart destroying the league in nets-Nolan Patrick hitting his prime (?)-A re-signed Wayne Simmonds on a hometown discount (?)-A decent 1st Round Prospect in the systemAs a Habs fan I can tell you that after a absolute garbage season every little positive is a ray of joy in the following one. I’m about to start a friggin’ cult for Max Domi. (And we’re barely playing for .500 hahaha)
Unfortunately “next year should be great” has been the Flyers’ motto for about 6 years now.
Fair enough. Sucks because you guys were so close to getting it all when you beat us in the conference finals in 2010.I think if Hart becomes a true elite goalie a lot of stuff becomes instantly better for you guys. There hasn’t been stability at that position in Philly since Lindbergh. That and not playing MacDonald 20mins a night would be pretty good.
Ditto
Gritty is the most Philadelphia thing ever coming from someone who lived in that city for 25 years.It was a HORRENDOUS design at first and we all mocked it. But then he just grew on us and…well fuck we just love him now. He’s fantastic! Really helps that the Flyers organization went all out keeping him insane with great, social media presence (and also embracing others memes).
“Celebrities who used social media for good” aka “celebrities who pushed a political agenda we agree with”
Celebrating “the ratio” is why leftists lose. MAKING FUN OF PEOPLE DOESN’T CREATE CHANGE, and obsessing about “owning” people instead of organizing is why in terms of actual real-world power the left remains incredibly weak.
Your “worst” list was pedestrian pablum compared to Buzzfeed’s.
I’d been coming across the term “ratio” as some sort of internet thing, but didn’t know what it actually referred to until now. I guess now is the point where I can say I’ve spent too much time on the internet.
I still don’t know what “big moods” and “hot takes” are.
I know what hot takes are (see that “Priyanka Chopra is a scam artist” article for an example of that) but “moods”, “big moods”, and “mood boards” escape me completely.
indigo
Virtually every picture of Rihanna is a “big mood.”
The best is comparing ratios to baseball slash lines. It makes me giggle to no end.
I’m too ignorant about baseball to know about that.
Though Elf on a Shelf is four years old or more, he still continues to put out at least one good meme per holiday season, like a recording artist who peaked on his first, excellent album, but now can only put out a quality holiday single once per year. Kinda like Harry Connick Jr.
There’s nothing purer and more decent on the Internet than @IvePetThatDog. Just a little kid who wants to pet lots of dogs and help dogs get adopted. It’s a very nice thing in a mean world and that’s no small feat nowadays.
The kid has Marfan Syndrome?
I love the write ups ‘Snookums doesn’t like other dogs, but loves to steal his caregiver’s glasses’ sort of thing. His tweets bring light to the darkest of my moods.
immediately go look at Gritty Memes for Philly Teens, it is just full of so much absurd and incredibly clever stuff (I loved the awards stand from Nickelodeon’s Guts with Gritty on Gold, Silver to the wikipedia page for Capitalism, and Bronze to a very sad Pepe) and it’s actually kind of liberating how violent it is, I agree it’s okay to punch Nazis but I’m not down with burning storefronts (even rite aid), yet the violent insurrectional fantasies of Gritty bashing the fash never cease to tickle me. That, the c h o n k y page and the page of Torties (tortoiseshell cats) successfully make me smile a lot.Also, beans and floof have been around a while they are just now distilled to maximum essence. For example: a pupper or doggo may be a floofy boofer who borks.
Yeah, I’ve been calling those toe-pads beans for years now, and I know I’m not the only one. Because they look a little like beans, you see.
My great internet discovery of the year was the Bon Appetit magazine YouTube feed. There’s something strangely relaxing about seeing Claire Saffitz have a mild anxiety attack on camera because she can’t fill her gourmet Twinkies just so.
And the two episodes with Miz Cracker cooking in drag are wonderful too:
I discovered that channel too and promptly got hooked. Largely because I am absolutely smitten by Claire Saffitz now, but it’s also got some good, often funny, stuff on there.
My moment of conversion was when she announced that one of the criteria for a KitKat bar is the snap it makes when you break it along the line.
I thought that Gritty took off on the left because it looks exactly like Matt Christman from Chapo Trap House.
#10 – James Woods?
I’m an oldster so I really don’t understand the majority of this article except for Gritty, because I am a big NHL fan and a left winger (not the hockey position, but the political belief). Thank you Series of Tubes!
Me as surprised as anyone by Gritty blowing up, but me always happy to see America embracing fellow Monster-American.
“YOUR RACISTS!”—Someone on Twitter, probably
Everyone’s a little bit racist, Kate Monster
Who’s Kate?
A monster, clearly
google “everyone’s a little bit racist” and you’re welcome 😀
Please also note that the internet is for porn.
Tell that to Tumblr!
Someone who ISN’T related to Trekkie Monster
I do love a good heckin chonker. Big ol floofy boy. Ok I’ll leave now
I’m gonna laugh at OH LAWD HE COMIN for days.
No fat bear contest? C’mon.
I thought I was the best thing on the Internet. I mean, look at me.
Look but don’t sniff
If you love the story of Gritty, this is a must-listen.https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/131-surefire-investigations
“Weird Al” Yankovic, not “Weird” Al Yankovic.(God I need more friends.)
Weird Al Yan“kov”ic.
In our post-Five Nights At Freddy’s world, tfw you’ve been online for 19 minutes and part of pop culture for 23
No Bowsette? Aww…
The only one of these things that you didn’t introduce me to right now is the raccoon climbing the building. So I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.
“Best of the Worst” is still great. And the similar “Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews” is good for a giggle. All my progressive peeps rock my world: Jimmy Dore, Mike Figueredo, David Doel, and Kyle Kulinski. And “Dark Matter 2525″ makes me proud to be an atheist.
This list should have Johny and Papa videos.
YES, the MPR Raccoon made the list! Sorta wish Minnesota Public Radio reporter, Tim Nelson, had been mentioned (tweet embedded?) as he’s the dude responsible for the #MPRraccoon hashtag and all the up-to-date reports (pulling all nighters just to satiate the public’s desire for updates!). https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/06/13/he-did-it-mprraccoon-reaches-roof
I was so afraid to check twitter the next morning – I wasn’t sure my psyche could’ve taken it if that little critter hadn’t made it to the top. What a crazy world and time we live in.
I’m gonna say the only good things to come off the internet this year were the tiny handful of Lindsey Ellis videos & Monster Factory episodes we got.
I’ll be honest, I never understood the ridiculous wave of popularity of “Zendaya is Meechee”. Like I saw the video and went “heh” and then the internet just went FUCKING NUTS for it.
There must have been a very low bar this year
this is the best thing the internet produced all year:https://twitter.com/husbandsrevenge/status/1042573051219595269?s=21
I can’t decide which makes me more depressed about the state of the Internet, yesterday’s “worst of” article or this “best of” article.
Can we please just nuke the shit out of Twitter? That shit is absolute poison.
This list – being the *best* things on the internet – is a far more damning indictment of the internet than anything on yesterday’s “10 worst” list.
Finally a place where my cat can feel at home!
Your cat is beautiful and I wish only good things for him/her.
Thank you! He’s a real sweetheart, and not really as fat as that second picture makes it seem.
I swear cats have figured out that we love them more the chubbier they are, and pose in such a way as to maximise how fat they seem.
“beans” are the little pads on cat toesThat’s not new to Chonky, it’s been around for years
the Superfly composer’s flow
Curtis Mayfield?
I was pleased to notice that I don’t know more than half of these. I’m immune to the stupid internet.
Other than the celebrity posts and the big ass cow, I never knew these other things existed. Which may be same of 90 percent of all internet users.
My favorite thing on the internet this year. Ducktales Pupper. No matter how many times I’ve seen it, it’s an instant mood enhancer.
How can you put “Zendaya is Meechee” in the header and then not list it?! Best song of 2018
It was mentioned in the ‘music parody’ section.
Dang. I’ve become what I’ve always hated – the person who doesn’t read the article properly and then comments in indignation. I’ll see myself out!
Long Furby is pure. But the Forb is even more pure. https://operation-forb.tumblr.com/tagged/fORB
Chris Evans is a goddamn national treasure. I will now follow his lead, and evermore refer to Trump as Biff.And damn am I glad the ratio bit included an explanation…as someone who doesn’t use Twitter, I was clueless. So thanks for that, guys. Now the lulz grow.
I live directly across the street from the building the MPR Raccoon climbed, and to my dying day, I will regret not being able to stand on my balcony and watch that rapscallion
“The Best Things on the Internet”? Really, AVClub? A bunch of hipster memes, some random takedowns and inside jokes can’t possibly be the best you could come up with. I seem to recall some great writing and web-only journalism, amazing short films, some inventive, ground-breaking games and diversions. And a whole parade of awful noise that would comfortably include most of the above examples.
I had not seen that long Furby before now. It was a happier time in my life.
The best thing on the internet is that Alex Jones isn’t on it (as much) anymore.
All this talk about chonkers and nobody thought to check in with Bruno the Extra Cat? He’s doing great, by the way:
https://www.instagram.com/theebrunobartlett/
I tried to come here to understand the internet a little more. The only thing I could understand where the larger animals.
Except for Demi’s videos, I hate all this.
Two genuine ‘best things on internet’ of 2018 for me:
– First *was* ‘Drama Fever’, the excellent Asian TV streaming site that unfortunately got murdered by AT&T recently. – Second *is* ‘Rakuten VIKI (‘VIKI’ is shorthand for ‘video wiki’), the surviving excellent Asian TV streaming site. Korean, Taiwanese. Japanese, Chinese and more with an immense catalog of series stretching back years. Comedy, Drama, crime, adventure, fantasy, variety, etc etc.Favorite picks? Let’s start with the 2016 series “My Wife Is Having an Affair This Week” just to get you started. Or perhaps “Chicago Typewriter” from 2017.
So….virtue signaling social justice weenies and cute animals. What..no pictures of food ?
That ambush meeting in the elevator during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing is #1 for me.
The rock I live under is large and soundproof, apparently, for I’ve heard of none of these things except Gritty. Either that, or I am Very Old Indeed.
I feel stupider after reading this, thanks. Gritty still sucks and is not happening, much like Rita Ora. People are trying to make them happen, yet they are just not happening. Because people still retain some self-esteem that they themselves are not idiots, and trying to make Gritty happen is insulting to anyone’s intelligence and just the stupidest shit on Earth. No, Gritty is not happening, Gritty is fucking stupid, why do you act like we’re dumb children trying to make Gritty happen and beloved? No. Just fucking stop it. You look so foolish trying to make Gritty happen.
It’s nearly negligent to mention Demi Adejuyigbe and not mention that his podcast “Punch Up the Jam” is also one of the best of 2018. So many weeks of this, as you aptly put it, interminable year, I worked to make it to Thursday when I knew a new episode would be waiting. The Jams are all great, but they’d be worth mentioning for Demi’s hip hop reworking of the Star Spangled Banner, not the national anthem we deserve, but the one we need.
Any
list of weird Internet shit from 2018 should give a special mention to
Lemgthbook, a community of bizarre Facebook groups which began (as far
as I can tell) as a meme which lampooned the resurgent flat-earth
movement by claiming that the planet is neither spherical nor disc-like
but “lengthy”, or sausage-shaped.
As with all the best Internet jokes, this was immediately taken too far. The
many, many groups that grew from this meme venerate long things, to the
extent that the letter N is banned from group discussions for being
“imsufficiently lomg” – they refer to it as the half-M, or ‘forbiddem
glyph’, and replace it with an M or an asterisk in all circumstances. The
joke might have remained even more obscure were it not for “Famtastic Lomgbois amd Where to Fimd Them”,
a group for sharing pictures of long animals, which inevitably spawned dozens of other animal-posting groups that use Lemgthbook’s
orthography and injokes even as they post about unlengthy things, like
noisy animals in “fumktastic loudbois amd where to hear them” and stealthy animals in “famtastic SMEAKYbois whomst cammot be foumd”.
There are now over two hundred of these inexplicable groups on Facebook, offering everything from lengthy communist memes and presumably tongue-in-cheek dating to parodies of more well-known meme groups and, apparently, discussions of the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker. I can offer no further explanation of this phenomemon other than that we live in a deeply strange age.
tl;dr – people on Facebook like long things slightly too much for no reason and it’s weird.
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Did anyone tell you yet the climbing raccoon was female? Strangely, misgendering can get one deplatformed from Twitter, a thing you claim to love.
2019:
Less Proud Boys,
More Round Boys.
I always present a good idea with a cup of coffee, like cara seduh chemex