Amidst the ongoing debate over the iconic director’s alleged sexual abuse in 1992 of his then 7-year-old adopted daughter, numerous sources nationwide confirmed Thursday that a newly published blog post titled “What You Really Need To Know About The Woody Allen Scandal” will finally and categorically settle the matter in its entirety.
Wondering why a hand-drawn picture of a happy shiba inu surrounded by broken English in Comic Sans ended up on page 27 of today’s Guardian? The simple answer is advertising.
For those who don’t recognise the image, above, it’s an example of the doge meme – in this case, a newspaper-themed one, hence captions such as “Brekin newz: cates r ilegal” (breaking news: cats are illegal) and “pls red” (please read).
It ended up in the financial pages of the paper thanks to a business data startup called DueDil, which won a competition run by the Guardian small business network.
“We were surprised that the Guardian would let us do it,” explains DueDil’s chief executive, Damian Kimmelman.
“We got the £50,000 [of advertising space, the prize in the competition] and we were like: ‘Oh crap, how are we going to spend this money?’ We debated, and decided on Friday we were going to do something funny. We don’t really need the advertising anymore, we get enough traffic as it is.”
On the one hand: Yes, it’s pretty funny despite Doge in general harshing my mellow.
On the other: Why didn’t DueDil just refuse the prize and ask for another small business to be chosen who might have wanted the ad space?
Given its eight years under corporate ownership, it’s near miraculous that Reddit’s verve, the unruliness that makes it appealing to so many, has survived. “Condé Nast realised pretty early they’re not a technology company,” Ohanian said. (He still serves on the Reddit board.) “They gave Reddit a ton of autonomy.” Martin called Advance Publications “extremely hands-off”.
Huffman has a different stance. He was kept on to run Reddit after its 2006 acquisition and launched the company’s San Francisco office. Huffman found Reddit’s ownership stifling and told me that by the end of his time at the company he wasn’t on speaking terms with the then-president of Condé Nast Digital. One day on Reddit, the joke of the moment – there’s always one – had been to mock the retail giant Sears, a big advertiser with Condé Nast. Sears complained, according to Huffman, who says he was told to remove certain posts, and eventually gave in. “I’ve still never forgiven them.” Huffman left the company in 2009 and now runs a travel website, Hipmunk.
Long, but worth reading, piece on Reddit and the Internet at the Guardian.
BLUR – “Beetlebum”
This is one of those songs I don’t really like, and trying to work out why I don’t surfaced a few elements I DO like, but also kept bringing me up against this irreducible kernel of Damon-ness that I just can’t enjoy. So the arguments here feel a bit weak, but on the other hand, for “Damon Albarn writes a song about heroin”, 5 out of 10 is a hosannah.
I expect something of a pasting in the comments, mind you.
As “Beetlebum” is one of my favorite songs ever – and Blur one of my favorite bands – I’m very much of the “Oh, Tom, you’re so, so wrong” mindset here, but nonetheless. It’s a new Popular! You should go read.
