Cracked.Com then and now

[Sweet and Savoury]

Here's a image that shows Craked 2010 vs the current page. Kind of an eye-opener for me, seeing something I once loved fall to such dregs.

 

[WireSponge]

Yeah, it really has become just another clickbait site these days. However, I don't really think this belongs in Deep Thoughts. It's more of a thread for off-topic or maybe multimedia.

 

[Watcher]

I like the boobs pic in the first image

 

[Conrix]

Yeah, it really has become just another clickbait site these days. However, I don't really think this belongs in Deep Thoughts. It's more of a thread for off-topic or maybe multimedia.

Your concern is understandable, but I already reported that the thread should be moved to Off-Topic.

 

[SpessCaptain]

Until a moderator moves this thread into Off-Topic (or deleted) the thread will be locked.

 

[Surtur]

Moved here. I like this topic.

 

[EI 903]

As far as the content goes, I wouldn't say that Cracked has 'fallen.' They've always been about lists and articles that are clickbaitey and highly prone to be shared. All that's happened is that they glommed onto the cause of the moment for clicks. I'm sure they'll move on when something else gets a lot of attention.

Plus, that is a highly cherrypicked screencap. Here's what the front page looks like for me right now:

Spoiler

SJW-mania is the Red Scare of the modern internet.

 

[AnOminous]

Interesting. The actual politics in terms of partisanship hasn't really changed. Cracked has always made fun of right wingers way more than lefties.

However, on the left from 2010, literally only one article is pure politics, and even that is making fun of a figure most people on both sides of the spectrum consider somewhat funny.

The change from then to 2015 is dramatic. Literally not a single article isn't pure SJW clickbait shit. Even if you agree with some or most of this shit, you wouldn't want to read it all day long.

There's also boobs on the left. Those are completely verboten now, apparently.

Also, a few of the articles on the left look like they might be funny. On the right, there is nothing remotely funny. It has all the humor value of an autopsy. Actually an autopsy would be more likely to be funny. Corpses sometimes belch and fart, I've heard.

As far as the content goes, I wouldn't say that Cracked has 'fallen.' They've always been about lists and articles that are clickbaitey and highly prone to be shared.

Subjectively, the experience has been a lot different for me.

It used to be something I could click around in for a while, open a dozen tabs and waste some time, and usually be somewhat amused.

Sure, those lists of lists are pretty lame and cliched and pretty much clickbait, but sometimes, that was amusing.

I haven't seen much funny there in ages. On the rare occasion I have wandered across a Cracked page recently and it's been funny, I scroll back up and look at the date and it's always at least a couple years ago.

 

[EI 903]

I reverse-searched the image, and it looks like something from a year ago that some butthurt Redditor threw together. Users there even called bullshit in the comments:

 

[Hyperion]

I might be the only person on this site that read Cracked back when it was still a Mad clone. This is so long ago that none of the current Cracked staff even has any idea what the fuck I'm talking about.

RIP Severin

http://www.avclub.com/article/rip-john-severin-emmad-magazineem-and-emcrackedem--69367

 

[HG 400]

The clincher for me is those '5 amazing things that happened in history once' type articles. They apparently ran out of amazing things that actually happened, because they're willing to change the story so blatantly they practically fall into the realms of making shit up wholecloth. I realise it's dumb to expect factual accuracy on a comedy site but when your main marketing strategy is 'learn new cool things in an entertaining way' they should try to, y'know, not be completely full of shit.

edit ; also David Wong is a hilarious faggot and chimps out at the drop of a hat.

 

[Zeorus]

I'm a bit conflicted re: Cracked. I can pretty easily ignore the SJW shit, but the history articles get on my nerves a bit, mostly for the same reasons Dynastia mentioned. The method of historiography that's in vogue at Cracked is really simplistic, even for a non-academic medium like this. The end result, to me, is a portrayal of history that embraces cool at the expense of integrity. Their articles on American history are usually the worst offenders (I'm baffled by their eternal boner for Teddy Roosevelt).

 

[ToroidalBoat]

The "top # of X" clickbait format itself is normally kind of annoying anyway, although some articles on Cracked are amusing, like why they think space travel sucks.

 

[QI 541]

Most annoying thing about Cracked is when you point out a mistake and everyone goes "it's a comedy website you shouldn't expect them to be correct".

 

[AnOminous]

The clincher for me is those '5 amazing things that happened in history once' type articles. They apparently ran out of amazing things that actually happened, because they're willing to change the story so blatantly they practically fall into the realms of making shit up wholecloth. I realise it's dumb to expect factual accuracy on a comedy site but when your main marketing strategy is 'learn new cool things in an entertaining way' they should try to, y'know, not be completely full of shit.

I haven't really analyzed these, but I think they used to be slightly better. A lot of articles like these end up getting recycled in one way or another for news of the weird type things, and while I've done a few of these kinds of things myself, I try to research them. Cracked is at the bottom of the barrel and rarely are these things even close to correct.

 

[XYZpdq]

Cracked is fat and I would not have sex with it, but it needs to be repeated that first image is basically bullshit.

I might be the only person on this site that read Cracked back when it was still a Mad clone.

It was weird to see Cracked go from shitty magazine to actually good website as Mad got worse and worse and started taking ads.

 

[AnOminous]

It was weird to see Cracked go from shitty magazine to actually good website as Mad got worse and worse and started taking ads.

Weird to see that and depressing to see it turn into shit.

I just took a trip there. I didn't see much of note. It might be the schtick got old, but I do think it's actually noticeably deteriorated in quality.

However, the point others made earlier is correct. Only about 10% of the stuff was overtly SJW type stuff, and I suppose some more could be if you really stretched. One Confederate flag is horrible and one sex change article stood out, but not particularly awfully. I didn't see one of those "why all white people suck" articles of the sort in the cherry-picked selection or, for that matter, any article that would have fit in on that.

However, all those humorless articles actually did show up in recent Cracked. They didn't make that part up. And they wouldn't have previously on the grounds of just not being funny.

 

[HG 400]

Weird to see that and depressing to see it turn into shit.

I just took a trip there. I didn't see much of note. It might be the schtick got old, but I do think it's actually noticeably deteriorated in quality.

However, the point others made earlier is correct. Only about 10% of the stuff was overtly SJW type stuff, and I suppose some more could be if you really stretched. One Confederate flag is horrible and one sex change article stood out, but not particularly awfully. I didn't see one of those "why all white people suck" articles of the sort in the cherry-picked selection or, for that matter, any article that would have fit in on that.

However, all those humorless articles actually did show up in recent Cracked. They didn't make that part up. And they wouldn't have previously on the grounds of just not being funny.

Most of the social justicey articles are just mediocre, they're clearly prioritising politics over humour to some extent but they're no worse than articles that just aren't very funny. I think there has been a noticeable decline in quality, because the vast majority of their articles now are just that. Mediocre, maybe worth a pained smile or two at most. The politics don't really matter. Still, I do remember a few that pretty much threw out all pretense of comedy and just preached at the reader. "5 things you never knew about being a child sex slave" or something sticks out in my mind. Yes, sex slavery is an extremely nasty and overlooked issue that more people should know about but what overblown pretentious motherfucker thought cracked.com was an appropriate platform to spread awareness of serious issues? David Wong, probably.

We should hear from @SatanicPanic!AtTheDisco since she's our very own social justice tranny lolcow and wrote some (actually good) articles for cracked back in the day.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Honestly, the only articles I read up there nowadays are the Pop-culture ones. And even those have dropped significantly in quality compared to those from a few years back.

And while you guys have complained about the history lists/articles they do, I have another to throw out there: music. I never really liked any of their music-related articles and lists. they usually boil down to "This band sucks" or "Throw in a 'Nickelback sucks' joke in there somewhere". And the ones that don't a re boring and rather poorly researched in their content, I find.

 

[Operator Kyoko Sakura]

Cracked is such a horrible site nowadays.

I used to read all the stuff they posted before they went full SJW.

Even as bad as they are, still not as bad as Upworthy, Salon, or Buzzfeed in terms of clickbait.