if trees could speak
posted by max on November 07, 2006 at 08:01:51 AM
hallo! guten tag!
I know I haven't updated in some time, I've been visiting the fatherland. I'm not back yet but I figured I'd pop in for a little contest.
Some promotional company asked me to do a promotion for the new Borat movie, and while I profit nothing and the prizes are lame, I figured it might cause a spurt of creativity.
More inside.
Some junk the promotional company sent me:
Borat Conan Interview - WMV - part 2
Borat Conan Interview - Quicktime - part 2
Badly resized copy of the soundtrack cover
Use this stuff or find whatever you want. The basic rules:
1. put borat in the keywords
2. make it somewhat relevant
3. contest ends on sunday the 12th.
4. i am the only judge (aka funny police)
lame prizes:
1 "Grand Prize": 1 Borat soundtrack and 1 poster
2 "You fail prizes": 1 Borat poster and sticker
When I have some more time I'll set up an easy listing of Borat sites.
Now, to address something else entirely, ads. I know you guys have been getting raped by all the ads lately, especially the popups. To clear things up, every time YTMND shows a pop-up, I die a little. AdSense revenue has been slipping for months so I've finally dropped it all together for the time being. In the next few weeks you will be seeing a lot of changes to how the site is organized, mainly to benefit the advertising. Pop-ups can't be a long term solution for YTMND's lack of revenue, so I'm working on a few things to try to avoid them. They pay more than any other ads and they lower traffic, so it's sort of a double whammy. If you have a family member or friend in media buying or internet advertising, tell them about YTMND and to drop me a line at max@ytmnd.com.
More (and better) updates soon.
Cheers from Germany
-Max
I know I haven't updated in some time, I've been visiting the fatherland. I'm not back yet but I figured I'd pop in for a little contest.
Some promotional company asked me to do a promotion for the new Borat movie, and while I profit nothing and the prizes are lame, I figured it might cause a spurt of creativity.
More inside.
Some junk the promotional company sent me:
Borat Conan Interview - WMV - part 2
Borat Conan Interview - Quicktime - part 2
Badly resized copy of the soundtrack cover
Use this stuff or find whatever you want. The basic rules:
1. put borat in the keywords
2. make it somewhat relevant
3. contest ends on sunday the 12th.
4. i am the only judge (aka funny police)
lame prizes:
1 "Grand Prize": 1 Borat soundtrack and 1 poster
2 "You fail prizes": 1 Borat poster and sticker
When I have some more time I'll set up an easy listing of Borat sites.
Now, to address something else entirely, ads. I know you guys have been getting raped by all the ads lately, especially the popups. To clear things up, every time YTMND shows a pop-up, I die a little. AdSense revenue has been slipping for months so I've finally dropped it all together for the time being. In the next few weeks you will be seeing a lot of changes to how the site is organized, mainly to benefit the advertising. Pop-ups can't be a long term solution for YTMND's lack of revenue, so I'm working on a few things to try to avoid them. They pay more than any other ads and they lower traffic, so it's sort of a double whammy. If you have a family member or friend in media buying or internet advertising, tell them about YTMND and to drop me a line at max@ytmnd.com.
More (and better) updates soon.
Cheers from Germany
-Max
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^ any skilled craft can be applied to fads. someone could knit an NEDM sweater, bake a 6foot pretty cake, trick out a Cosby lowrider, or program a YTMND fork bomb. just because 99% of users couldn't do it doesn't mean (a) it won't be repeated, or more importantly (b) that it was ever clever to begin with.
Epic still has the occasional worthwhile site, even after all this time. Rare, but they do exist. Stares into your soul is just stupid, even the original. But there are fads worse than Stares into your Soul -- Red Leader, Age 9, United States of Whatever... Current events fads like Katrina, Zidane, Steve Irwin. But if I had to pick my least favorite fad, it's Shoe On Head. Yes, blasphemy, I know.
I think Zidane was not really that bad... yeah, it was overdone, but some people really put skill into it and made some REALLY over the top things. And I'm only talking about the ones that were hardcore edited... 90% of them sucked. United States of Whatever is up there with the worst, and maybe like 1 poland site has made me laugh and enjoy the ear rape... EVER.
If someone takes a picture of someone with eyes or takes a youtube video and does nothing other than attach the appropriate title and music then they are equally bereft of any comedic or creative value. It's the same concept. I see a swastika, I say, "OMG Secret Nazi ______" and I put a flashing Hitler. I mean, technically it's better than incorrectly identifying a tilde as a swastika, but I've never found it to be funny when someone correctly identifies a shape. I thought we got over that in kindergarten.
Current event fads can be good or bad...most of the times they are bad because it's always the craptacular Simple Plan Emo Myspace Bullsh*t or lol this or weakness. The Zidane fad was actually good and had lots of sites with effort. The epic fad...has really got to stop. Seriously, so many potential fads killed...hell, max should just ban the words epic, manuever, and maneuver from titles and Nightwish from sound origin.
Most of the Zidane stuff was stolen from gifdump. There wasn't a lot of good original material in my opinion. But I agree it was one of the better current events fads. No question the worst current event fad was Katrina. That fad actually drove me away from the site for six months or so, I was so disgusted by it. A thousand times more in poor taste than the worst Kramer site.
Im not tooting my own horn, but check it, Wonka breaks it down is a very subversive - dare I say "experimental" - ytmnd site, and it's an alarmingly high rating. If it was someone elses work I'd five it just for those qualities. I'd like to see more experimentation and innovation going into more high rated ytmnds, thats why I supported the HiveMinded project. It's these users that break new ground even if the sites aren't neccessarily funny, there's a dark humor in them.
"Most of the Zidane stuff was stolen from gifdump. " Actually, I think many were taken from Something Awful...I heard they were doing some project based on the headbutt...but others like smoothmedia's take (France Fighter), an SFF from Lord of the Rings, an NEDM shootout styled site...those I would suppose took some effort. Oh yeah, the Katrina fad was just bad...only reedeming sites was a joke site with Zangief and Lousiana, but the amount of racism, poor humor, eh.
Sylvester, maaann, i deleted like 6 sh*tty sites I made in the past. I was thinking of using the beginning scene of Final Destination 2 and put banana peels on the road and the car hits a few and goes rolling. this is what i got so far. honestly, what do you think of it?
http://invasionname.ytmnd.com/
I made it through the wilderness...somehow I made it through...didn't know how lost I was...until I found you. I was beat, incomplete, I'd been had, I was sad and blue; but you made me feel...yeah, you made me feel...shiny and new. Like a virgin...touched for the very first time. Like a virgin...when your heart beats next to mine.
Guys, I'm organizing a get together. Go to whatever local grocery is open tomorrow and pick up a bottle or two of Matthew Fox (or alternative cheap wine). Head on over to your local dollar theater with your Liter or Love hidden under jacket. Join me in spirit as we have a good time watching Jackass 2 completely obliterated.
^ now that I ended that its time That I am recognized for a good 06 user award. Also I wish people wouldn't see that shning example of an embarrassment for a ytmnd called Best use for a Dog. I wanted the sheep one to be the good one. But they were both on up and coming, but the Dog one stayed. for about a day.