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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 8, 2017 12:55:40 GMT -5
There was already a shitstorm when they put the abilility to vote on comments behind a paywall, and now I just found out that most of their staff, including some of their biggest names like Daniel O’Brien, Cody Johnston, Michael Swaim, John Cheese, Josh Sargent and Carmen Angelica have been laid off (although Swaim apparently quit voluntarily). Add to this that they've started inserting random links to Amazon with the most awkward segways to pretend said links are relevant and not cynical product placement and I have to ask... what the f*** is going on? It really seems they've been slowly losing their mind since being bought out by E. W. Scripps Company
And look, I know some people will say the site stopped being funny long ago and got overly partisan, and I agree they get very obnoxious when lecturing people on social justice issues, especially considering how utterly ignorant of said issues they can be (a big part of the reason why the personal experience articles on social issues are by far the best ones, since by design they are from the point of view of people who actually have to deal with this shit every day of their lives), but I still think they frequently put out quality content, with fascinating trivia and analysis of pop culture, history and society, so I am stunned by what's been going on in that site lately, and especially this mass lay-off.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 13:03:34 GMT -5
If Dan's gone, that means no more After Hours? Damn
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Post by Cela on Dec 8, 2017 13:20:34 GMT -5
It's been going pretty downhill recently. When IT ccame out, they had not one, not two, but three articles on that one scene that was in the books. Plus the increasing frequency of articles with titles like "8 Reasons Men Can't Appreciate the Horrors Women Experience Daily" have made the comedy site status a little confusing.
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Post by 2coldMack is even more baffled on Dec 8, 2017 13:42:10 GMT -5
Yea, if After Hours is gone, so is my interest in Cracked, pretty much. Though, honestly, if they'd kept Cheese's whiny, maudlin ass, that would have made cutting the cord a lot easier.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 15:02:59 GMT -5
i lost interest in cracked a year ago, but wow if all of them are gone, then there goes any chance of me reading them again. Also, comment voting behind paywalls? What f***ery is that
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Post by Fade is a CodyCryBaby on Dec 8, 2017 15:05:41 GMT -5
"And look, I know some people will say the site stopped being funny long ago and got overly partisan, and I agree they get very obnoxious when lecturing people on social justice issues, especially considering how utterly ignorant of said issues they can be (a big part of the reason why the personal experience articles on social issues are by far the best ones, since by design they are from the point of view of people who actually have to deal with this shit every day of their lives), "
Yup.
But man I used to love reading their articles ten years ago when I was in college... lost interest years ago. They just started sucking.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 15:14:19 GMT -5
Another big problem has been the overuse of the photoplasty content leading to it's quality dropping.
Gifs and interesting factoids? Yeah, I'll skim over that. An excuse for your readers to air their opinions on things or share their wacky adventures? Nah, I'm good.
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Dec 8, 2017 15:57:44 GMT -5
Another big problem has been the overuse of the photoplasty content leading to it's quality dropping. Gifs and interesting factoids? Yeah, I'll skim over that. An excuse for your readers to air their opinions on things or share their wacky adventures? Nah, I'm good. And the time-honoured tradition of taking past Photoplasties, remaking them and republishing then in an AuntieMeme article.
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Post by DiBiase is Good on Dec 8, 2017 16:37:24 GMT -5
The inaccuracy of the articles going back a few years made me go there less. For example, they said nobody outside of the family of cast members of the film Love Actually watched the film. The same film that made a quarter of a billion at the box office. Then it started being less funny and more about photoplasties. The photoplasty thing was ok, until they started having someone called Auntie Meme just photoshop facts that everyone already knew. And that’s also the main reason I stopped going there, it became clickbait. Anywhere that uses hyperbole like “22 things you never knew about......” and then lists facts that are common knowledge, are not worthy of my time.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 16:41:09 GMT -5
I miss the more travel oriented articles and weird history ones.
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Post by Limity (BLM) on Dec 8, 2017 16:45:27 GMT -5
I too love Cracked, and am glad we've still got the archives. When Cracked is good, they're great. Many times I've died laughing at their one line picture captions.
I do remember a few years ago reading an article where a writer tore Dredd apart. It was so blatantly anti cop that it was uninetionally hilarious.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Dec 8, 2017 16:48:35 GMT -5
The inaccuracy of the articles going back a few years made me go there less. For example, they said nobody outside of the family of cast members of the film Love Actually watched the film. The same film that made a quarter of a billion at the box office. Then it started being less funny and more about photoplasties. The photoplasty thing was ok, until they started having someone called Auntie Meme just photoshop facts that everyone already knew. And that’s also the main reason I stopped going there, it became clickbait. Anywhere that uses hyperbole like “22 things you never knew about......” and then lists facts that are common knowledge, are not worthy of my time. and auntiememe was pretty blatantly someone at cracked as they were all from earlier articles. If Dan's gone, that means no more After Hours? Damn the latest one had a completely new group of people at the table... it wasn't very good. As for what's going on probably realized they weren't making any money off of the ads anymore... and are trying desperately to hold on to it.
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Post by Cyno on Dec 8, 2017 17:23:50 GMT -5
Cracked since the .com took off always came off as clickbait but it used to be good clickbait. Now it just comes off like the bland bastard lovechild of Something Awful and Buzzfeed that is neither funny nor insightful as it used to be.
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Post by G✇JI☈A on Dec 8, 2017 17:56:54 GMT -5
The Aunt Meme photoshops that criticised movies, tv and games were awful cause not only were they not funny... it was obvious that in many cases that Aunt Meme had not seen/played the things she was criticising.
As for Cracked in general.. since they decided to focus more on podcasts and videos the website has become a mess. Seriously have you tried accessing the site just through a browser.. just so much ads, links to off site clickbait articles.
Plus they have become the Fun Police. I have lost count of the amount “why that thing you all like actually sucks” columns, articles, photothingys.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 8, 2017 18:01:02 GMT -5
I honestly mostly just went there for Seanbaby articles.
All clowns are the minotaur. All clowns are the minotaur. It will never be your birthday again.
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Post by Surfer Sandman on Dec 8, 2017 18:14:57 GMT -5
It just sucks now. I still go out of habit. I actually remember the magazine. Wish they didn't stop making it.
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Cranjis McBasketball
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Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Dec 8, 2017 18:36:22 GMT -5
I can’t even use it on iPhone anymore. The poor thing can’t handle the barrage of ads, pop up ads and them begging for money. And I don’t give a single f*** about comic book or Star Wars movies and that covers 95% of their articles. The other 5% is letting any f***ing yahoo make a Photoplasty on whatever whiny ass topic of the day is.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 18:36:30 GMT -5
Since some people seem to be confused: Auntiememe was an employee that worked there (I've no idea if she still does as I've stopped reading them except very rarely). Her job was to make a photoplasty based on a topic, usually one that had already been covered in article form and just add a few more entries. For some reason, they were INSANELY lazy about posting her lists, since they used the code for their photoplasty contests to do it for YEARS without removing the comments about the winner getting money and such. It was f***ing incredible. It caused huge amounts of backlash and outrage because people didn't seem to realize that the way her stuff was posted was the site admin's fault for not fixing it and not hers and that her subjects were assigned to her rather than pitched by her like the article staff. She wasn't stealing content, she was being told to repost it, but she always caught all the shit for it.
As for the social justice thing, I don't mind their views, but I do mind a comedy website now just being an opinion site. It used to have hilarious shit like The Top 10 Most Badass War Heroes They Never Made Movies About or Top 8 WTF Propaganda Posters. I remember having trouble reading articles in class because I would be tempted to legit bust out laughing if I did. Seanbaby used to bring the weirdest, most obscure and mundane shit and turn it into gold, like all of those self-help and couples books he would review.
I really feel like the site's decline though can be directly traced to David Wong becoming a successful author which caused more and more of the staff to try the same (I can't remember who it was, but one of them wrote this abysmally garbage book about a world where the internet disappears. Then he posted like 8 articles that were just excerpts from the unfunny piece of shit, and featured a character that was a straight-up stand in for himself getting it on with a super hot goth chick, because of course it did). They stopped having a hard focus on comedy and began pandering to whatever would keep their dwindling traffic up, so they switched to a more political focus. For a while they still tried to write these materials in a Political Comedy style like a Lewis Black type of hyperbolic anger, or fact-based mocking like John Stewart, but as it's gone on, they just kind of present their material with a dry lack of wit or humor, sometimes straight up unfunny rants and depressing analyses of issues. It's just awful.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Dec 8, 2017 18:43:59 GMT -5
I really feel like the site's decline though can be directly traced to David Wong becoming a successful author which caused more and more of the staff to try the same (I can't remember who it was, but one of them wrote this abysmally garbage book about a world where the internet disappears. Then he posted like 8 articles that were just excerpts from the unfunny piece of shit, and featured a character that was a straight-up stand in for himself getting it on with a super hot goth chick, because of course it did). That was Gladstone.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 18:47:26 GMT -5
I sometimes check in when I can’t be bothered to do anything else and a couple of days ago seen a photoplasty one called 18 things people love, that you can’t stand and I always love ones (though not in the way cracked intended) like this because they come across as trying too hard and damn near fell off my seat when someone said they hated friends (I mean I love it but understand people have different tastes).....but it was because they claimed it was a ripoff of a UK show called Coupling.....I mean f*** me I don’t know who the bigger dumbass is, the person who claimed a show that started 6 years after friends and pretty much marketed as “Its a UK version of friends” or the lazy ass who didn’t bother doing a simple google search
I mean stuff like that is just symbolic of how things are run now
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