This week we’ve been enjoying…
When it comes to must-read blogs you could choose ones focused on politics, or the environment, or industry. You could seek out fact-happy blogs about history, and get the latest statistics about science. Or you could read blogs about all of those things at Cracked.com.
Warning: Cracked isn’t exactly safe-for-work material. Not the way the blogs are written at least. There’s enough bad language and attitude in a single blog to make Sid James blush! But that’s just an in, a way of getting facts across in a rebellious, teen-cool kind of way. It’s a tone adopted to stand out on the web, and man, does it work. Cracked is now one of the top visited sites on the internet
The real heart of the blogs are facts. Just look at the top blogs for today:
- ‘5 Brainwashing Tricks That Work No Matter How Smart You Are’
- ‘The 19 Most Inexcusable Ways the Media Failed’
- ‘Why 4 Famous Documentaries Are Full of S#!%’
- ‘5 Strange Things You Learn as the Madam in a Brothel’
So that’s psychology, social commentary, film and human interest pieces on a single comedy blog. You’d be hard-pushed to find that sort of broad coverage anywhere else on the web.
Cracked started out back in 1958, as a comedy mag to rival the infamous MAD magazine, and it stuck around for almost 50 years before sinking like so many other print outlets. Thank God for the internet though, as it was resurrected in 2005 as a humour site (or ‘humor’, as Americans insist on spelling it) complete with videos, articles and hilarious Photoshop specials sent in by readers.
The site itself favours, usually, the listicle approach. Those sorts of posts are punchy, easy to read on your lunch-break, or on the train journey home, or when you should really be conversing with your significant other. That also means they’re easy to write; there’s always something new to read on Cracked.com – heck, they don’t even break for weekends as mere mortals like you or I do.
Know what else works? Many of the articles are written by Joe and Jane Schmo, guys and girls with a talent to write and a great idea. Anyone can write for Cracked.com, working up their idea in the online writers’ room before uploading their blog to be praised or torn apart in the vicious ‘below-stairs’ world of the comments section. And anyone courageous enough to face that crowd deserve all the respect they can get.
Of course, there are a few staff writers and regular bloggers on the site, each with their own unique style: David Wong, Soren Bowie, Christina H., John Cheese, to name a few – and those guys have really flourished as writers, with books published and movies filmed. Not bad for a free humour humor site. Broaden your horizons, widen your language, and blush a little, by checking out Cracked. You won’t regret it. And if you do, just ask nicely and they’ll give you a refund on the way out.
