Because, yeah, that worked so well for the last guy. As usual with email exchanges printed here, I’m in blue.

-

From [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

Hello Karl,

I recently read your piece on freedom of speech and religion and despite some minor spelling and grammer mistakes found it to be an enjoyable read, however I felt it necessary to message you to ask you to clarify your statment about “aggressively liberal atheists” being the most elitist people in the world.

What exactly did you mean by that? Because I’m assuming it was a joke, since you can’t possibly be stupid enough to think atheists are worse than religious fundementalists.

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To [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

Hi, thanks for reading and taking the time to shoot me a message, it certainly is humbling to have a professor of “grammer” and spelling take time to critique my work. For the sake of your own sanity, I’d ask you to never look at the comment section of a YouTube video, your head would probably explode and considering the amount of knowledge about the English language and politeness stored in it I’d fear that your next of kin would have to use two paper towels to clean up the mess and I couldn’t live knowing the environment was being damaged.

To clarify my statement, yes, aggressively liberal atheists, you know, like the ones who message random internet bloggers trying to pick a fight to screen cap it on Reddit, are the most arrogant people I know, if only because the people I know with a direct line to an omnipotent deity in the sky who specifically tells them to not be a dick on pain of burning in agony forever, rarely take time out of their day to try and insult me.

I hope this answers your question, cheers!

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From [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

Karl, I pity you and the bubble you seem to live in, are you unaware of the millions of people affected by religion every day, the people forced to suffer genital mutilation, the people who are killed for believing in the wrong “god”, the people who are belittled and threatened for choosing not to believe or do you choose to ignore these facts?

Wake up Karl, we’re not the problem, they are and as a writer with an audience you need to be on the side that’s right.

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To [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

I’m fully aware of those issues, what I don’t understand is how people can be so arrogant as to believe they can make someone completely lose faith in deity they’re willing to cut a part of their babies dick off for, with an image macro.

Believing in God is fine, as is not believing in him. What isn’t fine is people doing so aggressively, if you actually read my article, you’d realise that I personally believe atheists to be worse simply because they automatically assume they are right since they have “science” on their side. Which makes them hugely more intolerable.

When a religious person is a dick, I understand that they’re doing so because they truly believe in their heart that in doing so, they’re securing themselves a place in heaven, where beds are made from blowjobs. When I see an atheist being a dick, all I see is someone who believes we only have 1 lifetime to make a difference to the world and they’re spending it trying to make other people feel worse or take away the comfort someone has in believing that their children will get to live forever in ghost form if cancer eats their brain. Fuck those kind of people.

Also, how do you know that you’re right? That’s a bold claim.

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From [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

Karl, I’m not going to dignify that last part with a response and will instead answer it with a question of my own, where is any proof of a so called “god”?

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To [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

I also see that you’re not going to address any of my other points with a response either, cherry picking my answer then dodging my question is a great way to show that you’re different from the religious people you make fun of for being unable to defend their beliefs, way to go.

To answer you question, God, or “Mega Jesus” as he likes to be called is all around us my friend, in the smile of an innocent child, in the crisp breeze of an autumn morning and if what my ex-girlfriend used to shout during sex is correct, in between my legs.

If the main crux of your argument to convince people God doesn’t exist is asking them to provide you with evidence of his existence, as opposed to showing direct, physical proof that he categorically does not exist, you’re really shitty at arguments.

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From [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

You really cannot be stupid enough to say god exists just because no one can prove he doesn’t, have you never heard of the cosmic teapot fallacy?  Its like if I were to say there is a giant teapot floating around in space and then insisted it was true because you couldn’t prove otherwise.

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To [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

It’s nothing like that, teapots don’t have beards, or sex with virgins. They’re nowhere near metal enough for that shit. Also, kudos on your original argument, again, quoting things you read word for word to prove your argument is a great way to differentiate yourself from all those religious wackos quoting their bibles instead of actually answering questions.

So let me just get this straight, you’re saying, that categorically, despite the infinite expanses of the universe that there is no chance, regardless of how infinitesimally small, that God, doesn’t exist? Even though such a statement would require you to be omniscient, a power that you’re specifically trying to say can’t possibly exist?

And you mock religion for not making sense?

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From [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

Fuck off.

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To [redacted]

Subject: Atheist quote …

I thought so.

You may look at the title of this piece and wonder why I’m writing an article about a game that was released several months ago, why I’m just now singing its praise. Well, it’s because this piece isn’t a review, since a review would suggest I’m able to pick fault with the game and I found it  impossible to criticise what I’m positive is the cure for eye cancer in video game form. I’m writing this article to explain, objectively why Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is the game of the 2013 and I wanted to make my case while the entire internet has a collective hard on for BioShock Infinite.

Because the sheer size of the internet’s happiness boner has eclipsed one of the finest gaming experiences of recent times, but you don’t need to take my word for it, here are 4 objective reasons why. Obviously, this article contains spoilers.

4. The soundtrack actually works

The Metal Gear Rising soundtrack is like having someone fuck your ears with a dick made out of kick ass guitar riffs. It’s so beyond perfect dubbing it over an episode of Dragonball Z changes Frieza’s dialogue. But it’s not just the soundtrack, it’s how it’s used, for example the Final Fantasy games have had praised thrown at them for decades because of how good the music is, however, never, in any game have I ever seen music used to enhance gameplay like I have in Metal Gear Rising.

For example, one boss fight involves you fighting a giant mobile gundam spider robot (more on that later) during the fight scene there is recurring orchestral riff in the background of the fight, as you lop off the giant spider robots legs, that’s when the power vocals kick in. This happens in every end of level fight, just as you’re about to do something boss, the vocals erupt in the background to tell you that whatever you’re fighting is about to have it’s face cut to shit.

You’d think this would get old, but no, it never does because it’s physically impossible to hate being told that you’re a fucking cyborg badass. It is never not satisfying to cut cyborg ninja into steel wool as a guitar solo snakes it way out of your screen seconds after you just ran up a fucking statue to flying kick that motherfucker into the side of a building.

Seriously, if you take one thing away from this article let it be the song, Stains of Time, I can personally guarantee that it will be 4 minutes well spent. But the real meat of Metal Gear Rising comes from …

3. Boss battles that don’t treat you like an idiot

The level boss has taken a hit in recent video game releases, they’re either nonexistent or just a souped up version of a normal enemy and more often than not they’re never really challenging, even on the harder difficulties all that usually happens is that the game will up their health and make them do more damage to you. This sucks for two reasons, one it completely ruins the how awesome the playable character is, why is Master Chief considered such a badass when a single grunt on legendary mode can soak up more damage than he can? And two, you’re never  given a chance to do anything cool, instead you’re forced to simply hack away until they drop dead from blood loss, which again ruins how awesome the playable character is supposed to be. That right there is shitty games design.

Son of Sparda, I hope you’re ready to hammer the square button like it’s your girlfriends clitoris.

Straight off the bat, there is no level boss in the Metal Gear Rising you can’t kill within a few minutes, even on the hardest difficulty, as long as you’re a boss with the parry function. Which makes sense, if you’re giving the player control of a cyborg ninja who within the first 10 minutes of gameplay arm-bars a Metal Gear Ray (you actually do that), you don’t expect to see that guy spend 30 minutes hacking away at a human sized opponent, regardless of how tough they are, you the player are supposed to be tougher, or at the very least, more skilled.

You can say that this makes the game shorter, but then again, if your idea of a good game is one where you hit the same enemy over and over again with attacks that seemingly have no effect until the die, go play Final Fantasy. There aren’t words to describe how refreshing it is to have a game that instead of making it so the enemy simply sponges the damage you dish out, has them fight better, forcing you as a player to get better at blocking, dodging and parrying as opposed to simply rinsing and repeating the same 3 moves until their health drops to zero.

But games are all about story, right? Well Metal Gear Rising …

2. Has a story you don’t have to give a shit about

The story of a game is supposed to draw you in, keep you hooked and make you want to see the game through to the end. Metal Gear Rising doesn’t, your antagonists are people with huge shit eating grins who within 30 seconds of being on-screen make you want to rage punch them so hard you could shit bone fragments.

He looks like someone carved a Simon Cowell mask out of dicks.

Then do you know what the game does? It lets you do exactly that, every time an enemy mocks you for being a pussy or taunts you with their insultingly not cut to shit face, you fight them and are given the option to smack them down so hard they the Rock follows you on Twitter.

That’s not to say the game doesn’t have story or character development, wanna know what you motivation is? Your entire mission, nay your only goal in the entire game is to rescue a bunch of stolen orphan brains that are being used for evil and cut the fuck out of anyone that gets in your way. That’s like someone threw the script to every single 80′s action movie ever written into the Wu Tang name generator and gave it a katana. If you want to, if you really want to, there’s a wealth of information about the world you’re cutting into pieces, there’s back story for every character, but you’re never once forced to do any of this, if you want to just slap Sundowner (the guy pictured) right in his melon, you can do that and be rewarded for it, because as long as you rescue those brains, no one gives a shit.

But the main reason this should be everyone’s game of 2013 is simple.

1. It’s pure escapism

At their core, all video games are a form of escapism, Halo lets you step into the shoes of a Space Marine, Tekken lets you beat the shit out of a bear and Tomb Raider lets you feel what it’s like to actually be inside of a woman.

Raiden, the protagonist of Metal Gear Rising, was originally featured in Metal Gear Solid 2, the whole reason for this was so, we as a player could see the badass that was Solid Snake from a third person perspective. In effect, Raiden was you, the player, an inexperienced character whose only real training came from virtual reality training trying to step into the shoes of an impossibly badass archetype. Which Raiden accomplishes in spades by becoming a fucking cyborg ninja.

First 10 minutes of gameplay.

He’s the embodiment of us, as players wanting to be ridiculously over the top awesome in every way regardless of whether or not it makes sense. Metal Gear Rising lets you fist fight a US Senator on top of a giant spider robot that you seconds earlier literally just suplexed and beat to death with its own arm.

I remember pitching that as a cure for erectile dysfunction and they told me it couldn’t be done purely because of the immediate and present danger it presented to every single vagina on Earth if such an image was allowed to be shown and they show that shit in Metal Gear Rising in HD. You fight a robot wolf with a chainsaw for a tail, you have a cyborg samurai fight to the death in the desert, you stop missiles by cutting them in half, you deflect a direct hit from a 700 ton war machine with a katana then cut its face off. Those aren’t video game set pieces, they’re things 10 year olds dream up when they watch anime for the first time and someone out there has put them into a video game that you can play and the main character is a guy who was literally designed to embody the people playing games, someone who wants to be fucking awesome. So they let him be just that and let you come along for the ride.

I will never say that BioShock Infinite isn’t a great game, but only one game released this year has let me dick punch a US senator while lightning exploded from my hands and when I pick up a game, that’s all I really want. To do something awesome I could never do in real life.

To explain, a couple of weeks ago I made the following status update on Facebook. For those of you wondering if it’s something you can actually do in the game, no it isn’t. It’s a joke I used to tell when I used to do standup comedy and that day a friend and I were discussing the game and it reminded me about it. Since I was sure I’d never use it on stage again, I shared it on Facebook.

A number of people seemed to think it was pretty funny, so I decided to screenshot that shit and post it on Twitter too. I then promptly thought nothing more of it because I’m a comedian and I make a lot of jokes. However, a few days later someone posted on my wall letting me know my image was making rounds on Reddit, by which he meant it had gotten half a million views. None of which I benefited from because they blurred my face. My handsome (according to my mother) face.

Now from my comments up there, you could argue that it only got this many views because it was on Reddit, which gets millions of views per day. However, when someone posted the same image, directly to Imgur, it went viral again and got another 400 thousand views, there are STD’s that have a lower risk of going viral than that. So yeah it’s safe to say that if it had been posted straight to Imgur without my name blurred, a couple hundred thousand people would have seen my name attached to it and perhaps, you know, checked out some of my other work on which I get paid extra for page views.

But I’m nowhere near done yet, because after it made rounds on Imgur and Reddit, people started posting it to Twitter. You know, the same place I posted it first time, where it got hundreds of retweets via the various people posting it. But then, then, it hit critical mass, because after that it got posted on Facebook. Just for a second imagine seeing your own Facebook status, posted, on Facebook, by one of the people on your friends list. Because that’s what fucking happened. Then when I tried to comment on the photo, to say it was me, the person running the page got pissed about me promoting myself on it. You know, the same page that was using my Facebook status to promote itself, ON FACEBOOK! To be fair to the guy running that page, when I messaged him he did link my status at the top of the page. When 4Chan’s page shared in on the other hand, they weren’t so kind. Again, imagine seeing your Facebook status on Facebook, being shared by 4Chan and then having to explain that it’s you, by posting a link to Twitter. But that still isn’t the stupidest part.

Because it’s still going viral, right the fuck now, on Tumblr, and someone informed me, via Facebook, because at this point in time, all social media is just a blur. (For the record it’s also been on 9GAG, Pintrest and fucking anywhere else where original content goes to be flogged to death)

The most amazing part of this is that it shows that I have friends.

I’ve seen this image posted hundreds of times now, people are adding watermarks to it to stop other people from stealing it from their site. Hell the second time it went viral on Imgur some fucker in the comment section had a go at the poster because it was a repost, and as such, he was robbing the original poster, who you’ll note absolutely wasn’t fucking me, of views. II tried to explain this to my dad via text and now my phone needs to be repaired because cramming that much stupid into a single message caused it to commit suicide.

I’ve added up all the views and I’ve conservatively estimated that this status has been seen well over 2 million times, that’s more times than virtually anything I’ve written for Cracked (the biggest comedy website on the entire web) and by extension anything I’ve ever written for any other site.

So why am I telling people this, is it because I’m pissed that no one knows it’s me? Well, yeah, duh. But also because cutting out my name people missed out on the best bit. How I play SimCity. And that’s the real shame here.

So just for future reference for anyone reading this, if you ever see anything posted by me and you feel like posting it elsewhere, you don’t need to blur my face or hide my identity, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ve always felt that if someone wishes to say something, they should be willing to put their name and face next to it.

I’m never going to live that one down.

Now reader’s of this blog will know that’s it takes an exceptional circumstance for me to physically name and shame someone on my site, so I’ll be blocking out all names with the exception of my own and Meagan’s (Since she’s put her information out there for the public to see I see no problem in using her name here) from here on out. But yeah, in a nutshell the person linking that article on my wall wanted me to write or consider writing an article about, in his own words the “very one-sided and very White-Knightish” articles from women who are overly sensitive to sexism in gaming. Like the one he linked on my wall. But first things first, to show I’m not picking on anybody unfairly, here’s an embarrassing picture of me looking like a dick at my graduation.

For those of you who can’t be bothered to click that link above. Basically the lady in question was at PAX and was in charge of a bunch of ladies dressed as Lara Croft, in other words she was living out my dream. When she noticed that a guy asked some of the women cosplaying Lara a really awkward probing question about what it felt like to know not a single guy could pork them just right. She, for some reason, took offense, asked him to explain himself, he refused and walked away. When she tried to confront him he became loud, aggressive and yelled in her face before legging it, in return she got him banned from the event. Fucking booyah! Another sexist douche backhanded by the sweet tender hand of lady justice. But wait, that’s not actually what happened, how does little old me know you ask? Well the guy in question happened to comment to fill me in on what really happened that day.

See, his awkward question about these women’s sex life was a joke on the dozens of guys currently eye fucking them, if anything, it was a compliment, right ladies? I mean, who doesn’t like strange guys they don’t know from Adam referring to them as a sex object, especially when they’re roleplaying a character specifically redesigned to make into a more relatable symbol of female empowerment. This guy was just trying to lighten the mood with some friendly sex based banter and Meagan up there came barging in like a rhino made of dicks, took everything the wrong way and got him banned from the event for life. Anyway you look at it, that’s at least a little bit of an overreaction. Was my reaction until he followed up with this comment.

For a guy getting worked up about a woman over reacting he sure used a lot of periods, huh?

Yeah, how dare this lady take offense to me asking a bunch of women she’s in charge of making sure aren’t harassed then get pissy when I yelled in her face and stormed off. But whatever, this guy was still hurting, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I really, really did. Even though he’d basically just crammed every single piece of self-entitled MRA infused bullshit he could think of into a single sentence so retarded his shift key stopped working.

And hey, I guess I was right to give him that benefit because as it turned out, according to him, he totally informed those ladies that he was going to ask them the question that Meagan up there got so annoyed about. So him being banned was completely unfair, well, except for the part where he was loud and dismissive to one of the people helping run the entire fucking event, a fact he seemed blissfully unaware of.

However, that’s when it hit me. They were both basically crucifying this lady for daring to overreact to something trivial and then complaining about it online, by bitching about it, online. Seriously, this is an excerpt of the conversation. Look at it, they’re not pissed about sexism or gaming, they’re just using that as a reason to be pissed that this lady didn’t get their awesome and original joke about people eye porking booth babes and told them to fuck off.

You see, it’s THE INDUSTRIES fault that this lady got offended by my joke, not mine.

See that last line, they’re annoyed that Meagan was using the whole thing to push her modelling career by playing the victim and running to her friends and followers to rally around and support her. Now I have no opinion about that, but here’s a tip for everyone reading. If you want to take a pot shot at somebody for playing the victim and getting their friends to big them up and make fun of someone they felt slighted them and want me to write an article about it. Don’t do the exact same fucking thing on your own Facebook wall. Because, you know what, I’ll see that shit and screencap a cap in its ass.

I almost got lead poisoning from the amount of irony present.

I read through that entire thread before unfriending the person who posted it, basically it was just 70 comments of ripping into this woman for being a thin-skinned shithead for feeling the need to run to her internet friends to make fun of a person she didn’t like. Because yeah, what kind of a dick would do something like that?

It’s the 4th to last comment that inspired me to write this blog post. Believe it or not, that comment using rape as way of scoring cheap laughs was the same guy who originally posted Meagan’s article on my wall. The same guy who wanted me to write an article lambasting women for being overly sensitive about people making sexist remarks from guys who don’t really mean them. All while he was making light of rape and sexism in private with the guy he assured me wasn’t being a sexist dick at PAX. Newsflash shit for brains, if you’re inclined to make remarks like that in private, you’re probably a teensie bit sexist, or, at the very least, a douche. Either way, if you’re banned from a place for someone accusing you of being sexist, making light of rape probably isn’t the best way to convince people outside of your friend group that you’re not.

Now this may seem like an odd position, but, you know what, fuck making light of rape and fuck the people who do. There are things you just don’t make into jokes, not because of some white knight bullshit, but because it’s common human decency to not make light of something so horrible.When I pointed out that I’d noticed this comment and was in fact planning on writing this very post, this was the guy’s response.

If you’re wondering who liked his comment. He did. He liked his own comment about rape. Also, he’s 30 years old.

Yeah, I should totally be objective and lighten up, it’s not like he made fun of a rape victim, he just used rape as comedy fodder, because that’s something people apparently do on Facebook. LOL!

But hey, let’s get serious here. The reason I posted this article is twofold. One, if you’re going to criticise someone online or scrutinise their position or words, expect the same to be done to you. And two, if you want to convince people that you’re not a sexist dick, don’t be a sexist dick when you think no one is looking. Because this is the internet, someone is always going to be looking.

For those of you just reading this. A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to fix the entire fucking world, and that the best way to do such a thing was to offer people money. My first challenge asking people to buy cookies for a stranger went down faster than you mother/sister/girlfriend (delete as appropriate). By which I mean, no one, not a single person entered. However, I’m persistent and soldiered on and issued a new challenge. To promote the work of someone you felt deserved it and send them a nice message, that was it.

The idea being that those kind words and extra views would make that person feel better. I’m pleased to say that quite a number of people did that. Like  Mr Andy Byrd who shared the work of one Mr Tom O’Brien. A man who once a week releases a unique piano composition video, you can find these videos, right the fuck here!

Or like this entry from Mr Chris Rio who wanted to support his friend’s fund raising campaign.

If you’re looking at this thinking, wait, all they’re doing is sending out a tweet, yes it really was that easy to enter. Of course people were free to do more, like Chris May who dedicated an entire Tumblr post to people he felt deserved more recognition.

You heard the man, click this shit!

Hell, people were even free to simply link to things their friend’s have done, like Stewart here who linked and promoted his friend’s awesomely named blog, 28 dates later. In which he tried to discover if all women everywhere are zombies.

Even lack of printscreen was no barrier to entering.

However, there could only be one winner and the winner astounded me when I informed them about their win. Why, well, just read the reply I got when I informed them that they’d won.

I’m anything but a man of my word, so I’ve blocked out their name as per their request. As for their entries, they too astounded me by proving exactly what I set out to do. Now our mystery man up there plugged and sent nice messages to 4 different people. An artist who makes awesomely realistic drawings. A video game reviewer. A rapper. And an author. Now I was sent proof of all of these, but I’d like to share two images, because hopefully this will show exactly what I set out to do. Now our mystery man, in addition to plugging the work of these people also sent each of them a nice message, these were some of his responses.

That, that is what I was going for. Those few seconds taken out of your day, those few seconds that make no impact on your life whatsoever if wasted, can be used to greatly improve the day of another human being with minimal effort.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is how we’re going to fix the world. Tune in next month for another challenge!

For the cynical among you, here’s the receipt of me sending our winner their prize no less than an hour ago.

A few months ago I made a post bluntly titled “Why Freedom of Speech can go Fuck Itself” in which I basically expressed my opinion that if you have an opinion you feel strongly about, you should be willing to put your name and face next to that opinion.

It’s why every, single, thing you’ll ever see written by me will have my name, face and contact information right next to it. I understand that not everything I write will please everyone and that sometimes my opinions will be offensive to some people or just plain wrong, in which case I’m happy to explain my position and alter my opinion based on the new information presented to me. I believe in free speech, however I don’t believe that free speech means people can say whatever they want without consequence. If people say something stupid or offensive, they should be held accountable. So I’m going to do that right now. Because fuck some people in particular.

A few days ago, Anita Sarkeesian uploaded a video discussing the tropes of women in video games, I’m not going to discuss that because I’ve studied the shit out of gender roles and the media in university and because I’m also aware of and have written about how useless arguing with someone with a deep rooted belief is. Basically, if someone believes something, presenting evidence to the contrary or trying to convince them that they’re wrong only makes them think that they’re even more correct.

In short, arguing with someone about a topic as emotionally charged as sexism, especially if they belong to a sub-culture as internet savvy as gaming, is utterly pointless. That person has already made up their mind and nothing I say is going to make them change their mind. Which is why instead I’m just going to make fun of them. Because if I can’t change someones mind, I can at the very least make their offensively misinformed arguments make other people laugh. Because they just make me sad. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Warcorpse666.

Ladies especially.

Now if you’re not familiar with my blog, I’d like to point out that I’m not making fun of Mr Corpse’s looks. I’m making fun of his ideas, because he can change those. However, pictures break up the article and Mr Corpse has no problem showing his face online, so I’m assuming he has no problem that I’m sharing it here. Also, as mentioned, I think that it’s important for people be willing to put their face next to their opinions so before this article continues, here’s an unflattering picture of me that I encourage people to make fun of if they so wish.

Awesome. Now a number of people have already rebutted Anita’s video and I don’t begrudge them that, however WarCorpse666 irked me when he referred to Anita as a “fucking bubble living bitch”, (Edit: I’d like to point out that this guy removed his video because people were sending him abuse and criticisms, you know the exact same fucking thing he was taking a pot shot at Anita for.) referring to the fact Anita has blocked comments and likes on her videos. Though I don’t agree with censoring feedback, I do agree with filtering out assholes. It’s why on this blog I’ll gladly approve any comment about my work, so long as it doesn’t simply consist of an insult. Because criticism however harsh, is at least somewhat helpful, an insult has only one purpose, to make someone feel bad and I don’t agree with that. It’s why when I saw Warcorpse666′s video I just had to take all of the anger and bile contained in it and present it in a way that didn’t make me sad. So below you will find actual quotes from WarCorpse666 photoshopped onto pictures of kittens. Because I needed cheering up after watching that video and I don’t want to waste time writing a rebuttal when looking at kittens is going to make me feel so much better about myself. Enjoy!

Image source.

Image source.

Image source.

Image source.

Image source.

Thanks for reading! Remember, if you see something online you don’t agree with, don’t argue with that person, all you’re going to do is make yourself feel bad. Look at pictures of kittens instead.

I had plenty of replies sure, about a dozen in total. Around 4 were from people congratulating me on the idea, 4 from people asking for additional details (who never replied to my answer) and 4 from people trying to guilt trip me into sending them the money with no effort on their part by promising to send it to charity.

The latter of which was something I took particular offence to since it assumed that simply promising to do something nice trumped, ACTUALLY FUCKING DOING SOMETHING NICE! When I lamented this fact via Facebook, someone hit the nail right in the face and pointed out that this may have had something to do with the fact people online are naturally lazy and shy.

With that in mind, I’m setting a new challenge for everyone and I’m making it as easy as I possibly can for people to take part.

To be considered for this weeks prize of 50 fucking dollars you need to: Share the work of someone who doesn’t get the recognition they should be getting.

I don’t count.

The internet is chock full of people creating awesome content and a large number of those people don’t get anywhere near the number of people viewing their work as they deserve. So I want to fix that. To enter this months contest, share the work of someone who creates original content you admire, I’m not talking about a Strokes video with 40 thousand views.

I’m talking about people who put in the effort to create content that you genuinely think should be viewed more. For example, this is a video by my friend Bennet Leung, he’s probably one of the best guitarists I’m aware of and the fact that his videos have little over a thousand views is criminal. Or this one by my friend Tom Scott, which at the time of writing this only has 43 views, which is fucking diabolical considering that his voice is like someone sticking a dick made of audible chocolate snugly into your ear.

I’m sure everyone reading this has a favourite blogger (I don’t count) or YouTuber who has nowhere near the amount of views you think they should have. So my challenge to you is simple, make that persons day by sharing their work via whatever social media you have access to, leaving a nice comment and then by sending the proof to me in a screenshot or something. I will choose one random entrant and send them 50 dollars and feature all examples sent to me in my follow up article next week giving said people more exposure.

Of course if you’re uncomfortable with being named or featured on my site, let me know and I’ll of course block out any identifiable information, not wanting people to see your face won’t affect your chances of winning.

People who make original content for the internet are vastly outnumbered by the people who consume it, so this challenge is aimed at giving such people the recognition they deserve and I can assure everyone reading this that a nice comment on something that’s not been seen by many people can really make your day.

I’ll announce the winner, if anyone actually enters this time in two weeks on 22nd of March. The contest is open until the 21st. Tweet your screenshots to me or email me at: karlsmallwood@hotmail.com Let’s fix the entire world already.

Ephraim Wales Bull

Though to most of us, picking wine is a matter of deciding which carton looks like it’s the least likely to give us crippling stomach cramps. Back in the day, wine and grapes were serious business.

Which is why some people dedicated their lives to breeding the perfect grapes, because perfect grapes mean better wine and better wine means more bitchin Girls Gone Wild Parties, surely a dream all men share.

Ladies go crazy for my sick vines.

Image from here: http://dailyapple.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/apple-552-concord-grapes.html

Ephraim Wales Bull spent the better part of his twilight years breeding the perfect grape, using a variety of remarkably sophisticated grape breeding techniques we won’t go into here lest we anger the many grape growing aficionados we know frequent our comment section with our sub-par knowledge. Needless to say, Ephraim got shit done and his toil eventually paid off in the form of the “Concord Grape“. A veritable super grape that kicked the ass of other, lesser grapes and taunted them with its superiority, it was more hardy, ripened quicker and even tasted better. Whether the fact Ephraim looked like a gnome had anything to do with this isn’t clear, but we’d like to think that it did. Because look at the guy.

That’s actually a toothpick he’s holding.

Image from here: http://kaufmann-mercantile.com/ephraim-wales-bull-and-the-concord-grape/

The grapes (which marked six years of work on Ephraim’s part) represented untold millions to the lucrative winemaking industry, since they were able to produce high quality wine, in low quality conditions, (read, California). So, surely Ephraim was hailed as a hero, right? We mean, it wasn’t long before concord grapes represented 80 fucking percent of the entire United States grape sales and consumption, hell, this source notes how quickly the grapes spread just months after they were introduced. The one thing that source fails to mention though, is how royally fucked over Ephraim was.

You see, Ephraim, despite breeding the best thing to happen to the grape industry since the first guy to mash and fermented that shit and realised if his wife drunk enough of it she’d be more open to playing a game of just the tip, he never saw a penny. Oh and the reason his grapes spread across the country so fast is because rival growers realised  that if they grew the grapes way across the country, Ephraim couldn’t do shit about it because of his spindly old man legs and lack of anger based telepathy.

He lived to 95 and never saw any money whatsoever from his grape, the same grape that still dominates the market today and also might just cure every ailment known to man. The kicker though, is that even in death, Ephraim couldn’t catch a break because his tombstone actually reads “he sowed, others reaped” because screw you for giving us a healthy snack that made people millions before seed copyrights existed. You should have known better.

This may as well just say, neeeeeeeeerd!

Image from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ephraim-bull-039.jpg

The hope is that this will improve the day of whomever takes part, which will in turn improve the days of the people who come into contact with that person and so on and so on. I was inspired partly by the nice things people did for my sister and partly by this story which basically says that happiness is contagious.

The reason I’m offering money out of my own pocket is because in the words of a very wise man, money talks and bullshit walks. So here’s this months challenge:

Cookies for everyone!

It’s a known fact that everybody in the entire in the world loves cookies and hates exaggeration, with that in mind this months challenge is procure some cookies, make them, buy them, whatever floats your boat and give them away. Simple.

Take a picture as a proof and send it to me via Twitter or if you’re so inclined via my email address. (karlsmallwood@hotmail.com) and I’ll select one random person who does so next friday and send them 30 dollars via PayPal.

Think of it as a raffle, only it’s a raffle where even if you don’t win, you’ve still improved the day of like 9 other people. If the idea takes off I’m happy to do another challenge for a larger amount of money next month, so if you don’t win this month, share this shit to have a chance of winning next month.

To get the ball rolling, here’s my rather lacklustre attempt, to put this in context, I left out a 2 cases of cookies and by the time I came back to take a photo, they’d all gone. Never underestimate how much people love cookies.

People love cookies more than I love looking like I’m in a boy band.

Earlier today I was linked to this article, which basically calls everything I wrote in the article titled 5 Depressing Realities Behind Popular Reality TV Shows into question. The author of the linked article, in a post that I can only describe as a the most desperate attempt to prove someone wrong since Hitler wrote a strongly worded letter to the Vienna Academy of Art with Nazi stationary, pretty much accused the article I helped write, and by extension all of Cracked of being full of shit.

Accusing this way more popular site of being full of shit is in now an attempt to make this post go viral.

For anyone who is curious, this claim has less basis in fact than the author of that VICE pieces ability to fly. Cracked.com has rules about sourcing in place that are so strict drinking while reading them automatically gives you a DUI. If any writer, whether they’re a first time pitcher or a long-time columnist tries to deliberately misrepresent facts, they’re gone. End of story. If an article is found to have shaky sources it’s sent back to the workshop and the writer is banned from doing anything else until said sources are fixed, how do I know you ask? Well …

That’s Cracked senior editor, David Wong raking me over the coals for shitty sources in what became this article. I was literally banned from doing anything else Cracked related until I fixed every single source, until I backed up every thing claimed with a rock solid quote from a reputable source. At the time of that indiscretion on my part I had 20 articles under my belt. Wong thought nothing of slapping down my shit and I don’t blame him, one bad article calls into question everything Cracked has done. Which is why VICE’s article was particularly insulting.

It didn’t just insult me and my co-writer, it insulted the dozens of people who helped get that article to the front page, the people who’ve spent years making Cracked the foremost source of fact based humour on the entire internet.

In the article linked above, Mohammed Shariff (my co-writer) and I researched the living fuck out of every example linked, as is the Cracked way. VICE seemed to take exception to every single one, so I decided to explain why they can go fuck themselves.

VICE, or more specifically, their writer “Jamie Lee Curtis Taete” took exception to the claim that “No One from The Biggest Loser Can Keep the Weight Off” because according to him “About one-fourth” of contestants weren’t able to keep the weight they’d lost off. Which means that the Cracked.com claim of “Almost everyone”  wasn’t true.

Which is where I point out that virtually every person from the show put on at least 20 pounds after it ended, in other words the difference between being healthy and being overweight. Then I should point out that the actual article I wrote says, right there in it “almost every Biggest Loser winner has gained back a chunk of the weight he or she lost on the show“. Not all of the weight, or even half of it, but a significant, noticeable chunk of it. Like you know, for example 20 fucking pounds. That may be a drop in the bucket for some of the people featured on the show, but 20 freaking pounds is a pretty noticeable difference. So the first example that VICE found fault with is actually perfectly acceptable (if you read it properly), because everything claimed in the article is 100% fucking true! Virtually no fucker can keep the weight off, as evidenced by the fact that virtually everyone involved with the show has put some of the weight back on and that only like 3 people involved lost any more weight after it ended. Even the really fucking fat ones who probably needed to do just that.

But hey, VICE had 5 points to pick apart, surely their other points held water. Is a sentence that is so wrong typing it out technically counted as incest.  Basically the entire article hinges on the fact that Cracked.com (a comedy website) used hyperbole to describe certain examples, thus everything it has ever published is completely baseless.

Cracked.com is a comedy website, sure, but it’s also one of the most disciplined and demanding places to write for. Simply because the standard and quality of the content they put out is only matched by the standards they demand of the sources included in said content.

So for everyone who read that VICE article and wondered if Cracked really is full of shit, whether they’ll happily publish any old rubbish to get views. Please, go pitch there yourself and try it. See how far you get.

I can safely say that Cracked.com is one of the most, if not the most reputable sources of information on the entire internet. But like I said, if you don’t believe me, go pitch there and see for yourself how difficult it is to get something published. I’ll wait.