#therealted

[tedsplaceusa]

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#therealted #wowifeelgood (at Austin, Texas Y'all) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWJkmUulh85/?utm_medium=tumblr

[tedsplaceusa]

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#therealted #whatstheproblemofficer (at Austin, Texas Y'all) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWJfdz8l-XF/?utm_medium=tumblr

[tedxwarwick]

TEDxWarwick2013: A Ted Perspective

I’ve finally found some time to stop and think after the actual event! Looking through the folders and editing the photos really made me ponder about the 6-month journey.

For starters, I never actually got over the fact that I’m actually part of the TEDxWarwick team. Having followed TED videos and having seen TEDxWarwick in the background of some of them, I was really excited to know that I’d be so close to a TED event as a undergraduate at Warwick. Six months down the road, even after countless Ted-and-TED jokes and a succcessful 2013 event, this fact is still rather surreal to me.

These sentiments are not simply brought about by hearing TED talks, but also by working with like-minded people on the team. When I say like-minded, I don’t mean that every person on the team is the same. We come from different walks of life, we speak different languages, we all enjoy being involved in TED at varying degrees. We are very different. And some more different than others. Yet, we enjoy each other’s company and ideas, knowing that our collective effort will bring us somewhere – indeed, it has.

To the TEDxWarwick 2013 team: thank you for being there for me. I really enjoyed working with each of you. Tim and Alex, you guys are so good at handling so many things at once I suspect either of you have found the secret to human cloning. Give a TED talk about it next year? Sharika and Operations, my Tuesday 10am-s are not the same again. Liam, I still remember our first skype session that got me into filming and media. Enjoyed every bit of it! Melody and Sharon, both of you have artistic minds with deadly adobe skillz to match. Vishal and Content, you guys did amazing work with the speakers! What would a TED event be without speakers? Rish and ER, you guys are way too cool with all those partnerships going on. Bukola, what could we do without you arranging all the information for us. Community, you guys are awesome as well. And David: the team joker, the executor, and the executioner all in one person. Let’s just say that the lawyers’ league will never be the same once you graduate. =) The simple things that people do for one another on the team really warm my heart. Am really glad to have been part of the success of TEDxWarwick 2013. To quote a friend, TEDxWarwick 2013 was “the best I’ve been to this whole year!” High five team!

What next? The road ahead is uncertain, especially after such a successful event. Building Bridges was an awesome idea that aptly encapsulated the ethos of TED and all the efforts of the team propelled it forward. Bridges – intellectual, social, friendships – were definitely built this year. It was truly enriching doing so many different things and meeting so many awesome people through the event. Unfortunately, we can’t have a similar theme next year and remain credible as an exceptional TEDx society. It seems daunting for any of us who intend to stay on the team. Nevertheless, what we need is something very simple: one idea. An idea to spark a whole event, bring fantastic people together and make TEDxWarwick 2014 another success.

So why is TEDx such a big thing to me? Indeed, in the grander scheme of things, it is not. TED is but one organisation; a great idea, but possibly a trend that will fade in decades to come. What really strikes me is not all the hype about revolutionary ideas or the excitement about wonderful people. It is not even the similarity of the brand to my name! Rather, what fuels my passion is the power of the simple things: a small shift in perspective; a bit of effort to make a difference; a slight nudge that causes a landslide of change. A tipping point. We are so close to change.

Ted

[100worstpeopleontwitter]

#43, Ted account megapost

#BearJokesBruv

Ignore what The AV Club tells you: Family Guy had a significantly longer peak than The Simpsons and, even past its best, absolutely massacres any post-1998 Springfield product (compare a drunken Peter Griffin talking about Catdog to the episode where Bart forms a boyband, for instance). American Dad absolutely demolishes any post-2000 family-based sitcom from either side of the Atlantic. We’ll not talk about The Cleveland Show. Because we’re racist.

What we’re saying is that Seth MacFarlane has put work in the game (he wrote some of the best episodes of Johnny Bravo and Dexter’s Laboratory as well, don’t forget). So when he wants to shit out some cheap cash-in post-Hangover movie about a teddy bear that drinks and farts and whatever, more power to his good arm. I’ll probably end up catching it on E4 in around 2016 and be all “huh”.

What I don’t understand, however, is how Ted has become the Gaetan Dugas of parody accounts. I got bored trying to calculate it, but I found at least 38 “parody” Ted accounts on Twitter that have over 100,00 followers. Parody accounts are, along with New Statesman journalists, an integral part of what makes Twitter such an awful place, so consider this post a spotters guide to Ted accounts and what makes them (lack of a verified) tick.

@itsrealTED

Followers: 720,143

Sample advertisers who buys sponsored tweets on account: The PUA website gettingheriseasy.com

Tweet style: The kind of barely suppressed rage at women that can only come with a year-long dry spell. Alternating at random between ladies’ man talk (“P.U.S.S.Y = Push - Until - She - Screams - Yesssss!”, which appears to be suggesting that vaginas are some sort of Marinas Trench with the g-spot located around five miles down) and disparaging women who actually have sex (“Don’t be the freshman whore” has 1,421 RTs and 352 favs as of press time)

@TedInRealLife

Followers: 211,607

Advertisers: LifeScript.com, which promotes “healthy living for women” via a bunch of content farmed articles written by journalism graduates for $2 every 1,000 words. Been there, done that.

Tweet style: A more “urban” feel, like when Blue let Simon do lead vocals on a song. Much anger directed at “hoes” and “bitches” interspersed with the inevitable reminisces of “when Nickelodeon made sense”.  Apparently Rocket Power, which nobody cared about when it was on and only ended eight years ago, gets you RTs now.

@TheReaITED

Followers: 103,812

Advertisers: aol.com’s motoring homepage. Seriously.

Tweet style: Completely and utterly devoid of any resemblance to a heavy drinking fictional bear. Has “I think charities are awesome” in its Twitter bio, devoid of any irony. Lots of inspirational stuff about how hard it is “growing up” mixed in “do you ever hate it when you’re in class and this happens?” Also, “I wonder if British people sit around trying to talk in an American accent.” Only 149 RTs for that one though, not a winning tweet.

@ComedyTed

Followers: 130,701

Advertisers: Apparently none. Although when we checked, it did have Joey Barton in “similar users”.

Tweet style: So we all know that none of these accounts produce original content, they just recycle jokes/memes/quotes from other sources. But at least most of them manage to stick to their theme: shitty Hangover character accounts do drinking jokes, shitty Drake accounts tweet insipid “inspirational” bullshit. The reason that @ComedyTed doesn’t have any advertisers is because a) it does Condescending Wonka gags without the set up correctly and b) it does the “wait, Arthur is supposed to be a bear?” shitty 90s observation despite the fact that Ted himself is a bear. The laziness is palpable across any Twitter account created to sell sponsored tweets, but @ComedyTed just goes that little extra mile less. And for that, we salute it.

[sittinsideways]

im dead lmao