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"It's just a comedy site, the fact-checking, etc. doesn't matter"
Comments
And yeah, David Wong is where the vast majority of terrible that I've seen on Cracked comes from.
I just don't click on his articles anymore.
Most of the terrible that I remember on Cracked is from Gladstone.
-looks through Gladstone's articles-
Okay, yeah, he's pretty bad too.
Gladstone and Bucholz were pretty unfunny/bad, and O'Brien started to suck once he stopped writing about his disturbed persona. What I've seen of Wong is pretty bad, though.
A recent article I remember pissing me off (though I don't remember the writer) was a piece 'apologizing' about how they 'ruined' the Occupy Wall Street generation.
It was as bad as it sounds.
Who's "they?" That was by a specific writer, John Cheese, even written from first person perspective.
The non-column articles intended to be factual are written with "we" and "us"
That said, what pissed you off about it? The points he made about American culture over-emphasizing the value of college, making everything easier for the youth, making a distinction of "real" jobs and enabling kids to live off their parents for longer are all pretty objective, I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with any of those things being true unless they live a pretty sheltered existence.
But you said it as if you had JUST noticed from my most recent response, when all my prior posts here made a major point of it as well. I openly defend Cracked as someone who has been paid by them for several articles and knows first hand how the site is run, and by whom.
David Wong may be viewed as the "big boss" but his quality of writing hardly reflects on the site overall. I think he's pretty funny though.
^ But what's the joke? That's he a wannabe doom-sayer or something?
I only just noticed as well.
You know, it's not like everyone reads every single one of your posts, let alone the ones where you defend Cracked, and it's not like everyone will remember it if you do mention it.
Just leave it, man.
^^The joke is people are paying him to write.
Malkavian: Can you make more specific criticisms?
That would require going into the site and the digging up the specific articles I'm talking about and I've had a few and would rather spend my time watching G.I. Joe Renegades on-and-off while speculating with friends on AIM about fifth edition D&D.
When I said "all my prior posts here" made a point of it, I was referring to my posts in this thread, in direct response to malk. I didn't say he was supposed to know from any other time - I directly told him about it several times in this very conversation before he was just suddenly like "AHA! YOUR BIAS FINALLY SHOWS"
My experience writing for them was central to my very first reply to him in this thread.
-checks-
Yes, it looks like I phased those out too.
-checks as well-
I think the reason is the only time you explictly stated it was because my eyes immediately went to THE ALL CAPS and thus I missed the rest of the paragraph.
In any case, I sometimes miss things.
Well my only point is that a whole lot of people work really hard to write things that Cracked will put up. Some of them don't look like they care much about truth and reason, but they can't all be dismissed as just a bunch of know-it-all loudmouths. Sometimes they can even be academic professionals who just want to get silly for a change.
And my point is that their output is subpar.
I like things with boobies where I don't have to focus on any intrusive words.
>Things with boobies
>Things
Malk confirmed for misogynist
I think he means films and the like for "things", Juan. Or are you anthropomorphizing your field of study again?
Hey, it's perfectly reasonable to treat film as if it were a woman!
She's my waifu, even.
I don't know, when I see David Wong articles, I see two things:
* some kind of meta saccharine quality, where all this cynicism is supposed to unveil, or hide, or whatever, something beautiful as its read, but starts to fail accidentally as you reread
*Ultimately shallow teenage IDGAF-ism disguised as poetry and philosophy and humor.
granted, Wong really used to strike a chord with me. Back then, at least.
I do like Wong's anti-suicide article, though. I think he's much better off writing the optimist side of realism.
I don't think he's ever going back to that, so he starts writing stuff that draws in the crowds, like cynical stuff that the entire internet loves.
John Cheese is my favourite (in terms of entertainment), which is odd because normally I find their "life lessons" articles to be horrible.
And yeah, David Wong sucks. I heard his book is good, though.
Hands up on the Scythemantis-is-a-Cracked-writer thing.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19668_6-scientific-discoveries-that-laugh-in-face-physics.html
While I sometimes find their articles funny, I never take anything they say at face value. Because, I've often found myself decrying bullshit at topics that I actually know something about.
I've harped enough on this article in other cracked threads, so much so that it's becoming tired and predictable, but I really hate this article, because it will make some people who know nothing about the subject go away thinking "Yeah, Galileo and Einstein were totally douche-bags who stole their ideas and didn't come up with anything themselves. The uninformed masses may think otherwise, but we know the truth". And no amount of "comedy" is worth that kind of slander.
http://www.cracked.com/article_16072_5-famous-inventors-who-stole-their-big-idea.html
Oh God, that article. I remember using that as the go-to article for a bad Cracked entry before the one I linked to existed.
My favourite part is where Galileo and Alexander Fleming are plagiarists due to things they had (at least from reading the article) no control over.
The titles of Cracked articles are not necessarily intended to reflect the content. It's more like "okay, we have a list of little-known things about famous discoveries, how can we get people to click it in only one sentence?"
The intention is people will click thinking they're going to hear some really scandalous stuff and instead they learn a wider variety of things.
A lot of them probably do come away with the wrong idea, though.
I know (which is another problem altogether). For that article, however, the content itself labels them as plagiarists (Fleming's is specially flowery).
Yeah, there really is no excuse for that article. The text itself accuses them of being plagiarists. I mostly mention Einstein and Galileo because they are the two people with whom I'm familiar, due to having an education in physics. From what research I've done, yeah Edison was an asshole, but that doesn't excuse all the other slander of other people in the article. That's probably why it pisses me off more than just stupid misrepresenting of facts like the "scientific discoveries that laugh in the face of physics" that was linked to. That one is just wrong, this one is malicious in that it's spreading slander and lies about historical people.
EDIT: Ok, just read that linked article more thoroughly. I'm not even sure I understand what he was trying to say about gravity. I mean the other stuff was mostly wrong, but at least it was presenting it as if it's a problem, with gravity he just states that it's weak...and that's it. He just states a simple fact that any high-school student (taking physics classes) should know.