Ok, so this isn’t as funny as their story on Google Purge in 2005, but today’s story making fun of blogger navel gazing is worth the read. If only they had somehow worked TechMeme into it.
Entire Blogosphere Stunned By Blogger’s Special Weekend Post
NEW YORK—In what is being called a seminal moment in Internet history, a rare weekend post by 25-year-old blogger Ben Tiedemann on his website bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com rocked the 50 million-member blogosphere this Saturday.
The landmark post, which updated nearly every member of the global online community on the shelf Tiedemann was building, was linked to by several thousand sites, including Daily Kos, Digg, and The New York Times.
“Wow, what a special treat this was for all of us,” said Talking Points Memo head blogger Joshua Micah Marshal, who, along with all other bloggers, checks Tiedemann’s site every day just in case something monumental occurs. “I thought I was going to have to wait until Monday to find out if Ben decided to put [the shelf] in his bedroom or the living room. The pictures were great, too.”
Within two hours of going live, Tiedemann’s 15-word post received 34,634,897 comments.
Sorry Michael, God doesn’t exist.
Sorry Permeate, you don’t either.
The idea is great, but I saw better executed idea on Onion, though.
Enh. The Onion’s gotten funny again in the last year or so, but this (and today’s Pearl Before Swine column)? Isn’t making fun of blogs by saying “who cares about your pointless life” somewhere around the 2004 area? Maybe next they’ll make fun of this crazy email thing!
I must be stupid or something, but I just don’t get the point of this post ? Is this some attempt at humour ? If so, it’s not funny, it’s stupid.
understanding sarcasm requires a certain level of intelligence.
HAHHAHAHA
I don’t like blogger at all…..it looks like a child’s site
what’s wrong with you people.
ScenicBooks@gmail.com
Could always contact him to offer him a job at TechCrunch
; )
Seriously, Michael – it’s not funny.
I guess unless you’re a professional blogger or something, which you have to admit is a small community.
It would be funnier if bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com actually blogs about getting blogged when he didn’t actually blog at all when Onion came up with this blog idea.
It’s not funny, because it’s so bleedingly obvious.
I agree with Reid. If we have anything to thank God for re:The Onion it would be that it is actually a lot funnier than this piece would indicate.
@michael: not to be a stickler, but this isn’t actually sarcasm, it’s parody. (http://en.wikip...org/wiki/Parody). In any case sarcasm might require “a certain level of intelligence” to decode, but it isn’t a very high one. Ask any 11 year old
.
I do agree with Michael Arrington understanding sarcasm requires an intelligence which most of the ppl don’t hve. guys take a chill pill
THIS article isn’t meant to be funny, the article Michael is directing you to is intended to be funny.
And for God’s (in my world his does exist) sake…it’s satire.
Lighten the hell up kids! And thank you Michael for the morning chuckle.
GONG
I can’t stop laughing, my eyes are tearing up.
Mike, I read Private Eye cover-to-cover, devour columnists like Matthew Parris, and watch every single TV satire programme without fail – Have I Got News For You, The Thick of It, Mock The Week, even the average ones like News Knight with Sir Trevor MacDonald. In short, I love funny satire. This isn’t funny. I wish to God I could explain the difference between satire and sarcasm (the lowest form of wit and the highest form of vulgarity), but I can’t – it’s indefinable.
The only good thing that can be said about this article is that it’s short. When the Onion does come up with a good joke (like Christians demanding schools teach ‘intelligent falling’ instead of the theory of gravity), it then beats it into the ground as if its writers are being paid by the word.
It’s probably a matter of taste. I can’t tell the difference between good wine and bad wine, for example, so I’ve got no business being condescending to Americans that can’t tell the difference between good satire and bad sarcasm. If I enjoy a £3 bottle of wine that a Frenchman would spit out then why the hell shouldn’t Americans enjoy reading the Onion? But it’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t move to America if it meant becoming richer than Page.
What the hell is going on here? I never realised that finding the Onion hilarious was a matter of opinion. I thought it was just FACT that the Onion was the funniest, most ironic, and deliciously saracstic ‘news’ source out there. I know its TC, but lighten up guys!
[blah blah blah deleted for trolling]
ah see, you don’t have to think it’s funny to understand that it’s sarcasm. It’s the people who don’t understand that it is supposed to be funny that I worry about. So funny/not funny is open to debate. Whether it’s supposed to be funny isn’t.
Feedpass – seriously, you guys need to go find another blog to troll. It was a YEAR AND A HALF AGO that I trashed your startup. Get over it. Move on.
http://www.tech...lutely-nothing/
That Google Purge post was back in the lean times. Only one comment, and it was positive! That was another era for Techcrunch, huh?
Scott – yeah, just a couple of months after we launched in june ‘05
God i love the onion. Great post!
Hey Mike – I agree, for what it’s worth, it’s sarcastic AND funny. But this Onion article had me really laughing my ass off.
http://www.theo...tent/node/27796
You win: http://www.fuck.../28/bologodork/
Who thinks Ryan Merket is a douche bag raise your hand…
Permeate, really? You don’t think that perhaps your comment might have been potentially offensive and douche bag-like? I’m not religious, and I don’t personally take offense to your comment, but it wasn’t exactly insightful, or funny. It can be argued that his comment wasn’t either, but that doesn’t really make him a douche bag.
As for the topic at hand, I found it amusing. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but it had me smiling. To each his own, though.
The Onion would have done better poking fun at testimonials. I’ve recently had it explained to me that they’re not a means of letting others know that a social site member is an OK person. Rather, it’s for the user to know what others think about them.
When people crave testimonials from complete strangers you know you’ve found someone who really needs to get a life.
As far as “Ben” and his “shelves.” I think that’s a key misunderstanding in the blogosphere regarding blogs. When I blog, it’s not for the world to see. I don’t want zillions of people replying to my post with pats on the back. But I might want my friends and family to see. If I’ve just spent a month finishing a dining room table (as I have) I would like very much for those close to me to see my accomplishment. So yeah, it’s funny if the expected audience is global. It’s kinda cute when the expected audience is mom and dad and a few friends.
Fav Onion headline: Transformer Refuses to Turn Back into Volkswagen
I thought the post was funny.
I forwarded an Onion article to Dave Farber’s IP list following the US Attorney General’s demands to have The Onion remove the presidential seal from their “Weekly Radio Address” webpage.
He posted my email and the link to IP. I wonder if he had a bunch of people whining at him about it being an inappropriate post?
WOOT- Just got off the phone with Ben and he is coming to work for the Comotion Group next week.
Booyah!
I have nothing to say on this! —- yup!
The stupidity speaks for itself.
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
[color=#3993ff]
Interestingly enough, the majority of these same people who are confused about how to permanently lose fat, avoid any type of bodybuilding fitness or diet program like the plague. [/color]
[color=#3993ff]
Fat regardless of the type has a whopping 9 calories per gram. In comparison both protein and carbohydrate has only 4 calories per gram. [/color]
Well I’m chuckling just reading this comment thread. If one thing is always funny, it’s a bunch of people getting all offended or sanctimonious about why exactly something was or was not funny.
Incidentally, a remark on Non-Blog-Spammer’s comment. According to Bill Bryson, Americans (of whom he is one) see humour as just another skill, “like being a good driver”; whereas Brits would rather be accused of being bad in bed than of lacking a sense of humour. (Note the “u”!) There’s probably a grain of truth there.
Here’s the thing. The Onion article is pretty darn funny. But I think that the folks in the blog industry probably find it a lot more funny than the rest of us because they live this issue day in and day out. I can just hear the bathroom conversation between Om Malik and Mike at their umpteenth startup launch conference together:
Om: Hey, Mike, you writing anything this weekend?
Mike: Yeah, but I’m not looking forward to another Saturday and Sunday hunched over my keyboard, trying to crank out something interesting for my so-called fans just so they can crap all over it in the comments. I tell you, running a top-rated blog site 24×7 is a pain in my f—ing ass! All I can say is that TechCrunch better make me f—ing rich one of these days or I’m gonna be mighty f—ing pissed off!
Om: Amen to that, brother.
The Onion piece was funny because it was sarcastic.
Same for Wednesday Pearls Before Swine comic:
http://www.comi...s-20071128.html
no idea at all, what happens here. Sometimes, things just happen. To spice up ur life. Pizza without Onion is not a pizza…
Am I missing something?
I get news and info from the Onion to use on my site all the time. Very cool!
HA HA HA
Australians invented satire so we get it organically. And those of you ‘Yanks’ who don’t get it might be interested to hear that your lack of comic depth (to say nothing of your belief in make-believe e.g. God and America’s respect on the World stage, provide us with some of our most satirical laughs.
All the breast,
Sal