For your amusement, this is the funniest article I’ve ever read on Cracked.com. In fact, it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my life. Laugh-out-load, piss-your-pants funny:
I got to the Cracked.com party a little late, probably in 2010 or so. I read the site regularly. I don’t think quality is disastrous or anything, but I feel it used to be a lot funnier and better overall. Here are my observations:
There are lot more advice articles these days, such as the stuff from John Cheese. Most of this stuff isn’t even intended to be funny, and although there can be a reasonable level of thought involved, it’s just not all that edifying or interesting. A few jokes will be scattered throughout to make it “Cracked.com-esque,” and this doesn’t work all that well either.
There are a lot more history and fact articles these days that don’t try all that hard to be funny, and they’re just not all that interesting either.
On the other hand, stuff that tended to be funny is less common. Sean Baby’s articles on comics and other stuff that really hit the humor sweet spot (I was not a huge Sean Baby fan, but at least he was making fun of stuff that was genuinely ridiculous). I do understand that Cracked.com tries to be funny/educational but these days they seem to focus more on the educational part without the humor.
Although there is still plenty to write about–it’s a big world, after all–they don’t seem to be mining ideas as well these days. Sometimes the content is just boring, or stuff I already knew. A lot of the time, it just doesn’t pop.
Cracked.com’s videos have always been bad. Really bad. Michael Swaim is just abysmally unfunny. I have no idea why they keep him on (the views of their videos always seem pretty poor compared to the article views as well–this, when YouTube is more popular than ever, so I don’t think it’s just me). BUT, they did have one series that was great: the Kay Willert videos. She is funny and hot. But then she disappeared from the site with no explanation.
So, yeah. I wouldn’t say the mojo is totally lost, but it seems down from its peak, which I think may have been in 2009 or so. Thoughts? Thanks!
I rarely watch the videos anywhere, but I find Cracked more entertaining lately than it was in the past. This is not the same as being funnier, just that the articles seem to mesh with my personal interests and style very well.
It’s variable, but it’s still on my reading list. Some of the list articles are are really forced and bent to a stupid theme - “Five Blahs That Shocked the World” and not a one is actually shocking, etc.
I wish it had a better comments/discussion feature, but that’s something I wish for pretty much everywhere. As an old, old, old forum hand, I never can stand this “throw your quip to the wind” style of feedback and “discussion.”
I liked the dating service videos though I haven’t seen a new one in a while (then again, I never went looking and always just clicked them off the side bar).
In general, I think the site is less funny than it used to be and I primarily go to Cracked.com to be entertained, not to get life advice or get some random 22 year old’s view on world events. It’s become increasingly a barely stepped up version of Buzzfeed with the “Five Amazing Things That Will Shock You” lists which is a little ironic since they once ran an article mocking Buzzfeed for that very thing. A lot less long form articles these days but I guess lists are what sells. Anyway, the short version is just that I used to laugh a lot more reading Cracked and now it’s more in the “light reading to unwind” category as opposed to something I expect to find actively amusing.
I find it interesting that the Cracked brand survives as a web site. I remember from my childhood the magazine being a distant second-best imitator of Mad Magazine.
I like it. But the OP gave me pause. Yeah, I really don’t think of it as a humor website. Just some sort of interesting stuff to read once in a while.
And I do mean “once in a while”. I go at least a month, sometimes two or three, and then do a “catch up” and read the most recent articles. I don’t even bother bookmarking it.
Makes me wonder what their branding strategy is. “America’s only humor site”? wrong in so many ways.
The one part that I really hate are those looong computer game based graphics constest articles. Or even non-computer game ones where most of the entries are game memes. Not funny. Not interesting. Ugh.
I bought/subscribed to MAD for years, from before my teens well into the uncomfortable period where I had to find my cheaters to read the latest copy. They held out (or held to their core) far longer than I would have guessed in the 1970s, but they finally went off the rails four or five years ago, choosing a nasty stripe of exclusive humor for the gentler and unique inclusive style that sustained them from the beginning. I guess their current audience doesn’t find it funny unless it’s acid and bitter.
Never read Cracked much; it was clearly an inferior wannabe. The logo-name also makes me shudder - it’s *so *fuckin’ ugly, especially the C’s.
Yes, yes it is. Obviously the quality of the content will vary day-by-day, but in the main, it’s as good as it’s ever been.
I don’t think there’s any real connection between the print magazine and the website other than the name. Obviously some money had to have changed hands somewhere for the rights, but that’s about as far as it goes, IMHO.
Many people who encounter it go through a phase of reading it a lot, going through the archived stuff and digging it immensely for a while, then the rate of new good material after you’ve tapped the archives can be off-putting. I don’t think it is as good as it was a few years ago. I like Michael Swaim but his videos have become less funny overall, over time.
The articles are hit and miss, but when they hit they hit so hard they almost knock the planet out of orbit. My husband and I have a tradition where I read the funniest cracked.com articles to him and the article a few weeks ago from Dan O’Brien about being questioned by the secret service made me laugh so hard I couldn’t read it properly and he had to pull it up on his computer and read it on his own.
The website is an entirely different enterprise. It got a lot of positive buzz years ago for being wholly different from anything in print under that name. It really is Cracked in Name Only.
The After Hours series is a great barometer for telling if you’ll enjoy the website or not, as its jokes and insights are essentially distilled Cracked article content. Personally, I think it’s their strongest series.
Also, anything written by Daniel O’Brien (who sometimes goes by the terrible handle DOB) is reliably funny and insightful. His Abraham Lincoln: Portrait of a Crazy Badass from 2011 could very well be the best Cracked article of them all.
A lot of the other contributors are very hit and miss these days. There are very few standouts, but Jacopo della Quercia is easily one of them. His is a rare blend of history and comedy. Basically, your classic amusing professor.
That self-help garbage is very much Chicken Soup for the Soul repackaged to sell glurge to college bros.
They’re running out of ideas, to be honest. You can only do so many lists before you repeat yourself or get pretty obscure. I find the John Cheese columns are especially tiresome - yeah, you’re a gin monkey from a broken family, we get it, dude.
I suspect the site will move more into video-heavy humour, quite similar to the way more and more of The Onion’s best gags are video clips now.