Grantland contributor Richard Rushfield wrote a treatise on how group Internet experiences (like the Breaking Bad premiere) are affecting how we digest our media, suggesting that maybe we’ve taken things a little too far: “Sharknado represents the internet now creating material for itself to mock … The camp fun of watching old disaster films was mocking the dead serious overacting and unintentionally hamfisted actions. Now at Twitter’s demand, networks are producing intentionally hamfisted and overacted pieces so the internet can tear them apart. They are even letting us — in a contest — pick the name that we find most mockable. So we pick the thing we most want to rip to shreds, like a school bully making a nerd dress up in the most ridiculous costume, so we can make fun of him for wearing it.” At least now that we’re getting closer to a universally synched Internet of Things, maybe we can hope to create illusions of togetherness during these virtual get-togethers, cuing up our thermostats en masse and piping each other’s dinner smells through a wireless router. Just a whiff of human contact, nothing excessive.
- Or we could just whizz up to San Francisco on the Hyperloop and hang out there together.
- The “We Can’t Stop” fan video: so many Smilers jigglin’.
- Shia LaBeouf, Method actor, has been wearing the same soiled clothes since … I don’t know, like 2012?
- Behold the Histomap of 1931!
- Paul McCartney should be good to repay you that $20 now.
- Here’s the first trailer for Frank Darabont’s Mob City.
- SyFy nabs the first two seasons of New Zealand’s The Almighty Johnsons, which is about “four typical fun-loving guys — who have inherited the power of Norse Gods.”
- Cory Monteith’s final two films will show at the Toronto Film Festival.
- Listen to an unreleased album from the Go Getters, featuring Kanye.
- Someone creeped out Famke Janssen by breaking into her house and leaving a copy of The Lonely Doll by her bed.
- The ShamWow guy is concerned about Leah Remini.
- In praise of Futurama, before we say good-bye.
- Photos from inside the Ku Klux Klan, just to give you nightmares.
- A guacamole cruise.
- TV deaths you didn’t see coming.
- Oh, Terrence Howard.
- A VIP Facebook for celebrities.
- Kafka toilet paper. Related: “I can now understand my mother’s desire for an outhouse because I have finally discovered its many wonderful qualities.”