#web media

[prokopetz]

See, I 100% believe Jon Bois when he claims he'd never heard of Homestuck prior to writing 17776, and it's totally plausible to me that what similarities exist between JUICE and Dave Strider are purely a product of the fact that they're both affectionately parodying the same extremely specific Type of Guy, but it still fascinates me that both authors were so personally acquainted with that Type of Guy.

[sincerelynotserious]

Back at it again with my silly little recommendations. If you ever thought “Man I wish there was a multimedia xenofiction story with some undertale-esqu gameplay about aliens being called to earth” then go check out

Corru.observer

It’s free and runs directly in your web browser and seems really cool. I’ve only gotten part way through it but I’m digging the aesthetics and the music is banging.

[gamer-of-the-day]

Today’s Gamer of the Day is: The Angry Video Game Critic

[lovelytekki]

Great news! We’ve discovered a playable build of Detentionaire: Breakout that is playable via the Wayback Machine! (Link to the game)

While it’s great that we have this, it would be best to have an offline version of this. Nonetheless, this is a great find, since these games usually bring up a 404 error.

And a HUGE thank you goes to my friend Happy Frog Games for all the work he’s been doing to help! While there’s still a lot of work to be done with preserving the lost media relating to Detentionaire, it’s great we’ve managed to discover this!

[anotheruserwithnoname]

This is why websites need proofreaders

I know it’s convenient for news websites to code their pages to auto-populate with images and videos of related topics, but sometimes I wonder if they bother actually looking at what shows up.

I was doing the rounds of the news sites to see what’s now closed and unavailable thanks to Covid-19 (Service Canada government offices, in case anyone’s curious) and I saw this pop up on Huffington Post:

Now, I need to say this in bold: Kristofer Hivju is not dead. Yes, I know the actor who played Tormund on Game of Thrones is one of numerous performers now known to be fighting Covid-19 (and yes I DID touch wood as I typed the above), but this story is actually about the fact that one of the canine actors who played one of the Stark direwolves has passed away after fighting cancer.

Which is very sad. But this unfortunate placement of a “related” video a) will probably make a few fans of the actor s*it themselves until they look more closely and b) turns what is a bona fide sad story into a joke because those who aren’t freaked out are going to laugh at the word “fluffy” in the headline! I know the word “direwolf” is right there in the subheadline: but admit it - the first thing you saw was the photo of the actor and then the word “fluffy.”

I used to make a living looking out for goofs like this.

[prokopetz]

I won't deny that there are things about contemporary web media I don't fully understand, but I find that the specific examples folks like to gesture toward as evidence of a growing generation gap just... aren't that hard to figure out? Like, I remember when Macromedia Flash going free-to-use was big news, and the stuff people did with it over the next couple of years was every bit was unhinged as anything you'll find on YouTube today. If you don't "get" Skibidi Toilet in 2023, you probably wouldn't have understood animutations or Joe Cartoon in 1998, either. It's not a generational thing – you're just boring.

[prokopetz]

I can't believe they killed Salad Fingers.