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10) You read this headline and instantly thought of 5 different ways I could have written it to make fun of Buzzfeed headlines.

9) The usage of outdated “hip” terms like epic, fail.

Buzzfeed is the guy who is still doing his Borat impression 10 years later, and thinks everyone thinks it’s hilarious. He will never stop doing his Borat impression because somebody found it funny once, and he has no idea how to come up with a second joke. Epic and fail are terms that became obsolete the second they entered the internet lexicon, yet here Buzzfeed is, building their entire website upon these terms. I went to Buzzfeed right now, and the first phrase I saw was “Secret Brohaviors”. Jesus Christ.

8) Hyperbole

Nothing can be amazing, or glorious, or awesome, or winning, or great, or cool because of you. You have ruined every single adjective that even remotely means good. In fact, you’ve ruined adjectives. We now have to invent new adjectives because you have overused every single one to the point that nothing means anything anymore.

Cat falls off couch? Amazing. Child rolls over? Incredible. Ohmigod dog thinks heez people? MIND BLOWING. I thought this was just a normal wedding video until something incredible happened (SPOILER ALERT: They broke out into a choreographed dance)? UNBELIEVABLE. WILL RESTORE YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY. Man buys bag of chips at store, heroically declines his 5 cent change, says pay it forward? HISTORY ALTERING. The author ran out of time before their deadline, googled “youtube funny”? THIS IS THE FUNNIEST THING YOU WILL WATCH ALL DAY. JUST 5 MINUTES WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER.

Reading Buzzfeed is like being on a never ending date with someone that continually says “That’s hilarious” without laughing once. Do they even know what these words mean anymore? Or is it just some long lost concept, the true meaning forever lost to history of 5 years ago, when Buzzfeed mercifully didn’t exist? I imagine a new hire coming into Buzzfeed and asking what to make their headline:

New Hire: “Hey, does this look good?”

Buzzfeed Manager: “Yeah, but let’s throw ‘Amazing’ here, ‘I didn’t believe it at first’ here, ‘You will never look at things the same again’ here.”

New Hire: “I didn’t believe it at first, but these amazing Boy Meets World quotes will make sure you never look at things the same again?”

Buzzfeed Manager: “Mmm yes, the pageview will be most pleased with that one.”

Then they go have a prayer service to their pageview idol like some sort of cult. But not like a good cult where they eventually kill themselves over punch.

7) Complete lack of creativity.

Buzzfeed is the Chris Farley Show of websites.

Hey, remember these things that happened? That was awesome. Here’s 18 pictures of them and 18 randomly generated half-sentences. You know who else can write a really good Buzzfeed listicle? The DVDs in my living room, read from left to right. Buzzfeed is so obsessed with getting people to believe that it’s funny and clever that it forgets to actually be funny, or clever, or written above the comprehension skills of a 6th grader.

6) The Quizzes

Fuck you.

5) GIFs

GIFs can be funny. GIFs do not need to be everywhere. GIFs are a handicap. You are literally taking other people’s work and humor, compressing it down into an easily digestible snippet, then taking credit for it because you recognized that someone else’s work was funny. You are saying, “Here, I personally don’t know how to creatively express this thought, but someone else did!”

4) An entire site was made to make fun of them, and they took it as flattery.

Clickhole, if you’re not aware.

Aww, you guys just make fun of us cause you love us. No, we hate everything about you, and all that you stand for. Like, all of it. I can promise you The Onion, Clickhole, and all of their employees hate you. They are not making fun of you, or paying tribute, or jealous. They thoroughly hate you and are absolutely elated to eviscerate everything you stand for.

3) The complete lack of a single original thought.

Okay, so this is really the same thing as number 7, but I just have so much more to say.

Buzzfeed is so desperate for attention that instead of providing any content, it sticks to what it knows will get clicks and pageviews, which is by appealing to something everybody already recognizes and using the best jokes and moments from that. And then pretending that they added anything even close to tangible to it.

Buzzfeed is the person who quotes a movie so much that they start to believe they were the person who actually wrote the line. It’s like retweeting a joke, then feeling good about yourself because someone favorited that retweet. If Buzzfeed was your friend and you told them a joke, they would laugh then tell all their friends, but pretend it was their joke.

On top of all that, at least 50% of their lists are the same exact thing, just slightly reworded and repackaged. Buzzfeed has become a parody of itself. Quick, which of these are real Buzzfeed headlines, and which ones did I make up?

16 Important Butt Facts That Will Blow Your Mind Which Movie Girlfriend Stereotype Are You? Which Taylor Swift Album Are You? We Need To Acknowledge Pink Starbursts Are The Best Starbursts 17 Reasons Why Taylor Swift’s New York Is Actually The Best New York Can You Remember A Sequence Of Flashing Colors? How “Cat” Is Your Cat? Are You Actually A Zombie? This Little Girl Just Found Out She’ll Never Meet George Washington And Can’t Stop Crying

Got your answer?

Ready?

Ok, here’s the answer.

They’re all Buzzfeed headlines, that were posted this week. And in the back of your mind, you already knew that.

2) It perpetuates lies and bullshit news stories for the sake of pageviews.

Yet it wants to be a serious news source. I will say one thing good about Buzzfeed. Their actual reporting on real issues is solid. The problem is, nobody takes them seriously. That’s from people across the entire political spectrum. The same people who will believe absolutely anything as long as it fits their preconceived world view. Part of that comes from their stupid fucking articles, and another part comes from the fact stated above. Like most new media, they will put anything out there before it’s verified, if it will get pageviews. They are often caught spreading fake viral bullshit that could have been caught with a simple google search, or having Snopes bookmarked.

Even they have recognized the bullshit they usually push forth.

http://gawker.com/don-t-ask-buzzfeed-why-it-deleted-thousands-of-posts-1621830810

And of course, they try to backtrack and bullshit their way out of it, but as the quote in the article states.

“Retracting a story is viewed as a serious blow to one’s journalistic credibility—and to do so without notifying readers is a cardinal sin. Retracting four thousand posts without telling anyone is simply unheard of.”

But they don’t care, and they never will, because pageviews are pageviews and fuck you. Not only does this make them untrustworthy and vain, it also hurts their legitimate original reporting. But that’s what you get when you place popularity and firsties over truth.

1) It thinks it’s way more important/clever/funnier than it is.

If it weren’t so self-important, I think I could ignore it and just live and let live. They’re a site that wants to make people laugh and enjoy their time on the internet. It’s a frivolous clickbait site. A terrible, uncreative one, but nothing worth getting worked up over I suppose. The problem is that clickbait articles are killing creativity. When a site that spits out nothing but bullshit can rack up millions of views without even trying, the incentive to put out actual thought-provoking, creative, or comedic articles falls off drastically. We should demand more from our entertainment, not settle for websites dangling keys in front of us, and expecting us to roll over in excitement for how shiny they are.

And if we don’t demand more, we’ll soon remember that we’re adults who aren’t entertained by jingling keys, and the websites like Buzzfeed shaking the shiny keys will be too stupid to realize that they could have used those keys to unlock something special, instead of standing there like an idiot.

Contact me at shamelesspopdotcom@gmail.com to complain, send hate mail, compliment me, just talk, send more hate mail, etc.

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