Yes, it is. It isn’t the same as it once was, but it’s just as good.
New writers come and go, and Cracked has a policy of soliciting new writers and mentoring them, so the tone and content will always change and morph to some degree. And some of these new writers aren’t going to be as funny as others and some of them will only have a narrow focus, as people in general do, so they won’t write many articles or write on many different subjects. The laughs are still there, tho and IMO they deliver more laughs per second invested in reading the site than any other comedy site, including the Onion.
Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!
I remember reading all the individual writers before they teamed up- back when pointlesswasteoftime still existed. Brunching Shuttlecocks, anyone?
Anyways, I think cracked is trying to be more educational, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The one person I can’t stand reading is gladstone- no matter how good the title is, the moment I see his name attached to it, it’s a pass. He’s just too whiny and condescending for my tastes.
I agree that Cracked has changed a lot in the last few years, but I still find them interesting, especially some of the vid series, like After Hours, Spit Take, and Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder (Dan O’Brian is probably their greatest resource). I’m also into the podcast, especially the ones featuring David Wong (on which he goes by his real name, Jason Pargin), mainly just because I find him well spoken and I like the way he presents his ideas (see podcasts Moral Panics, Millennial Panics, and the on alien contact scenarios).
The articles are hit and miss. John Cheese’s advice does come off as a little obvious, but that makes sense when you consider where he’s coming from - it’s very, “hi, I grew up in a horrible, abusive, household and lived most of my adulthood as a poor drunk. Here’s some stuff about life that I’m discovering later than some. Let me share it with others who also aren’t on board yet.” For example, I skim his stuff about financial responsibility because I was taught how to handle money young. But he was a great help when I was sweating though the first month or so of sobriety. If I met him today, I’d shake his hand and thank him. He’s not the reason I’m over a year sober, but he did help.
I do miss Seanbaby, though. This Family Circus parody is probably my favorite thing on the web. And Michael Swaim is hilarious.
Never really watch the videos. Used to be a completist reader of the articles, but in the last year or two I generally only read one if it’s reposted to Facebook by someone whose opinions I trust.
It doesn’t help that Seanbaby, my favorite of their writers, has largely moved on.
Ditto. I still run into a cringer every once in a while, but for the most part they’re actually, you know, not fucking idiotic. Now, it’s only the occasional headline that’s completely offbase, instead of whole articles premised on ideas that are completely contrary to fact.
I feel the quality has dropped off. Like others have said, it sometimes appears the writers have used up all their good material. But even if it’s not at its peak, I find it’s still worth reading.
Given that as your example of them at their best, Cracked is no more or less funny then it was when that was written. The article is real second-rate snark and is a poor example of Cracked at its best. It’s certainly not appreciably better than anything that ran in Cracked in the past month.
The comments remind me of something James Agee once said – that it’s a trait of small children to hear the same story again and again without variation, but once they grow up, they want to see something different. None of the Batman stories listed were bad in concept, but the attitude is “Batman has to tell the same story all of the time.”
He’s been working his way out of freelance comedy entirely, it seems. I know he wrote all the dialogue for the last couple of UFC: Undisputed video games. Video games and MMA being his two biggest interests, I’m sure it’s a dream job for him. The paycheck is probably nicer than selling piece work to places like Cracked, as well.
Also I got bant from the Cracked forums for zinging John Cheese, who can apparently dish it out (he loves trolling celebrities on Twitter) but not take it.
I have found less there that I enjoy lately, but I am not sure if it is that the site is going downhill or just that I have got bored with their schtick. I don’t watch the videos, so I can’t comment. (I very rarely watch web videos, except for full TV programs, or porn. i would rather read at my own, faster, pace.)
I just said that his next article should be titled “5 Things Nobody Tells You About Not Being Relevant Or Funny Anymore.”
He was in the middle of a bit of a meltdown at the moment, and when I checked back the next morning, my comment and quite a few others had been deleted and a bunch of us were bant.
I actually feel bad that he was that butthurt, because I found his articles and vids about quitting drinking to be interesting and inspiring, but dude. Grow a thicker skin.
Some of the lists are more interesting than funny, and are good reads. Such as “X things about being a heroin addict,” written by a recovering heroin addict, and “X ways the US could improve airport security without spending a lot of money” written by an Israeli airport worker. The insider perspectives are always illuminating.
Lists like “X insane Easter Eggs that will blow your mind” are usually underwhelming though. Half of them are about video games or stills from Disney movies that look obscene when magnified and enhanced. Smacks of desperation.
I’ve tried submitting material before, but I get conflicting reasons for rejection. I submitted a list called “X reasons why Revelations could have been written by a sloppy drunk,” but they said they preferred lists based on fact, not opinion. What the what? They publish opinion-based lists all the time.
I also submitted one for “Faux Pas that resulted in the deaths of millions,” but they didn’t accept that either. They don’t think mass death is funny for some reason.
Here’s the first page of the April 2014 articles list:
The 34 Most Unintentionally Disturbing Children’s Products
4 Rags-to-Riches Success Stories That Are Full of Crap
The 42 Most Insane (But Convincing) Fan Theories Ever Found
5 Famous Celebrities With Insane Family Backgrounds
The 5 Greatest Unscripted Scenes in Video Game History
4 Movies That Got the Source Material’s Point Exactly Wrong
5 Insane Realities Behind the Scenes of a Weight Loss Ad
5 Horrifying Places Real People Got Trapped and Forgotten
Why the Internet Is Turning Us Into a Hive Mind
40 Myths We Believe Now Due to Tiny Mistakes Years Ago
Our 4 Favorite Shirts for ‘Ninja Turtles’ & ‘Star Wars’ Fans
5 Iconic Movie Scenes Almost Cut for Idiotic Reasons
7 Insane R-Rated Trends You Never Noticed in Famous Art
8 Insane Coincidences You Won’t Believe Happened (Pt. 2)
15 Ways Photo Sharing Can Go Horribly Wrong
Maybe 3 or 4 of those are purely intended to be humorous. Several more are salted with stock pictures with captions. But even those are generally fact stating/indignation oriented articles. An ad, a audio bit or two, a couple bad contests as filler.
Almost all the humor in those articles are the stock photo/caption things. Without those, it’d be a very different site.
I have found myself skimming some of their articles more lately but I still enjoy the site. I prefer the articles that are fact based vs. the ones that are just a goofy concept put in list form.
Their podcast is pretty great. I have straitened and enjoyed most of them (the ones with David Wong are best).
As for the videos I mainly stick to After Hours and Today’s Topic.
I have a feeling like right now they’re in a bit of a slump. Some of their better, long-time writers seem to have gone on to bigger, better careers and they haven’t yet found sufficiently good talent to replace them.
I like the episodes where the four of them sit in a cafe and discuss theories about films, but otherwise most of them seem to either be too poorly made or simply a rehash of content from their articles for people who are too lazy to read.
This seems to be a new thing they’ve started in the last year or so: having people who have some unusual experience and hooking them up with a writer who can relate it to the readers.
I like it and it’s been the source of some of their freshest material in the last year.
