This reporter did not go into an art profession for very obvious reasons.

Your Facebook profile photo is one of the first things that people notice when they browse your profile. Whether it's a meme or a picture of a cat or an actual photo of yourself, what you put in that little square space supposedly says volumes about who you are online.

Jeff Greenspan, an ex-Facebook employee who now works as BuzzFeed's chief creative officer, wanted to find a way that people could connect with each other through the visual information they offer on their profiles in a clever and creative way. Along with his co-creator Ivan Cash and Rally Interactive, the two devised a plan to "let users celebrate each other" with a site called Selfless Portraits.

"On Facebook you're connected, but you’re still kind of separated from the screen by this layer of technology," Mr. Greenspan told us by phone. "So we thought, 'Is there a way people can use this technology as a human experience?' Well, the Facebook profile is a very human visual part of the Facebook experience. What if you actually stopped and ponder one of them?"

That's how the duo came up with the idea to draw profile pictures in a collaborative project. But you're not just drawing your friends--the site, which uses Facebook Connect to collect your profile photo, matches you up with a random stranger to draw. Once you've done your first drawing, your photo is entered into the collective drawing pot until it's assigned to another user. The result is a cool gallery of artistic renderings of Facebook profile pictures, from elementary stick drawings to quality portraits.

"We now have a real interesting collection of people from all over the world," Mr. Greenspan said. "And not only do we have drawings from all over the world, but some real crazy kind of humor has been displayed by users." (Like this portrait, where a giraffe makes a random cameo.)

"My goal with Selfless Portraits was to create an experience that uses the Facebook platform to allow people to have a deeper, more meaningful connection with another human being," Mr. Cash said in a prepared statement (he's currently on a "silent retreat" and thus unavailable for interviews). "My hope is that, after engaging with the project, people will feel encouraged to think a little bit more about places in their life where connection and/or creativity is possible."

You don't need any particular artistic ability to participate. This reporter is a horrible drawer and yet still composed a two minute sharpie portrait of a man from Brazil. "Do you think this looks like this person?" we asked a co-worker, holding the portrait up to the photo for a side-by-side comparison. "I don't think that looks like any person," he responded. Touche.

To date, the site has collected over 12,000 portraits and 17,000 users, averaging about 400 submissions a day. Mr. Greenspan said the duo would love to have a showing of the portraits in an exhibition space, or even compile them in print form.

As for moderation, the two work with a few volunteers to try to keep inappropriate content off the site, but so far it hasn't really been an issue, perhaps because of the wholesome nature of the project. Mr. Greenspan said there's only been about two incidents of unwanted penis drawings.

"If someone drew a penis on my face, I’d be like, 'Dude why’d you do that?'" he joked.

Well, it is the Internet.

(Photo: Top13.net)

Famously elusive street artist Banksy has not been arrested. His real identity has not been revealed. His name is not Paul William Horner.

But you'd be forgiven for thinking so. Earlier today, outlets like Jezebel, Complex and Death and Taxes published stories saying that Banksy had been arrested by British police. These outlets sourced their reports to a press release that purported to be from the BBC, posted on the press release hub PRLog. (The release has since been removed.)

The release stated that Banksy is a 39-year-old Bristol man named Paul William Horner, and he'd been arrested during a police sting. But the document is riddled with inconsistencies, including quotes from fake CNN and BBC stories and an incorrect identification of the London Chief of Police, who the press release claims to quote. (City of London Police Commissioner is named Adrian Leppard, not Wayne Leppard, as the release stated.) Furthermore, the email address for the press release is at the domain name IYWIB, a little-known humor site.

As it turns out, a man named Paul Horner is the editor of Super Official News, a site that appears to be part of the same family as IYWIB. Super Official News was the first site to publish a post saying Banksy had been arrested.

This isn't the first time in recent months that a fake press release has sent reporters scrambling to figure out what's real and what's not. Back in November, a fake press release distributed on PR Web set off a rash of false stories about a Google acquisition of wireless company ICOA. It's like you can't even trust press releases anymore!

(Photo: Blogspot)

There are many factions of 9/11 truthers, people who believe that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center are not what they seem. While many are outspoken, none of the various groups' members has ever defaced a famous French painting, but hey, there's a first for everything.

The Local reports that a member of the group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth was arrested at the Louvre's new branch in Lens, France after scrawling graffiti on a famous painting, "Liberty Leading the People" by Eugene Delacroix. She reportedly used a black marker to write "AE911," a reference to the name of the group, in the right-hand corner of the painting.

AE911 is an outspoken faction with an extensive online footprint. Its members believe the attacks were caused by explosives instead of planes. The group has an active blog and website and they're responsible for a feature-length documentary outlining their conspiracy theories. Despite the fact that the graffiti's message is tied to AE911, France's TF1 News reports that the woman is believed to have acted alone.

Lucky for art enthusiasts, the museum said it should be able to restore the painting easily. No word on whether the Illuminati was involved in suppressing the woman's graffitiing, but with zero evidence we feel confidence in saying they were.

(Photo: Ebay)

The amazingly botched restoration of the famous "Ecce Homo" painting, done by a Spanish amateur painter who turned a 19th century portrait of Jesus into that of a ghost monkey, took the Internet by storm this year, quickly becoming what is arguably the best meme of 2012.

Now, Cecelia Giminez, the painting's infamous restorer, has waded back into the art world with some original work. The Daily Dot reports that she's selling at least one piece, called "The Bodegas de Borja," on eBay. Add that to your holiday gift guides.

The 45 x 34 inch painting depicts some old houses on a cobblestone street against a bright blue sky. It's very nice-looking and does not include any creepy blurred faces, which is a refreshing departure from Ms. Giminez's prior work, completed during her "Whooops!" period.

For just 630 Euros (or about $820) the painting can be yours, but if you're hoping to give it to a particular meme-lover for the holidays, better get to bidding. 31 people have already placed hopeful bids for the piece.

(Photo: vimeo.com)

Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey have all taken brief pauses in their pop careers to now become reality show judges on The X Factor, The Voice, and American Idol, respectively. Although it's not for a reality show, another 90's icon, Michael Stipe, is getting in on the judging game.

He's been elected to join the selection committee for "Moving The Still," which of course is the world's first GIF's-only arts festival. The event is being put on by Tumblr as well as the art collection site, Paddle8, and will take place during Miami Art Week from December 4th to the 9th.

Mr. Stipe has a Tumblr of his very own, called "Confessions of a Michael Stipe" where he posts lots of pictures of art and architecture. This isn't the first time the R.E.M. frontman has been involved with a Tumblr project before. A video profile of Mr. Stipe was featured on Tumblr's Storyboard the week that it launched and heard him saying that his site was like "a little bit of a scrapbook" for himself.

He's surprisingly very qualified to judge this contest because he's a maker of high art GIF's himself. This is one of his creations:

See, this is the kind of post that gets a lot of notes from people who love old computer screens and neon colors–also known as all of Tumblr’s entire user base.

(Photo: Max F. Albrecht)

For his summer exhibition at Bauhaus University, German art student Max F. Albrecht turned an old vending machine into a Bitcoin vending machine. You feed Euro coins into the machine and it prints out a box with an easywallet.org link in it. Navigate to that link and you'll see your bitcoin, which you can then send to whoever you want. Mr. Albrecht helpfully offers the case of Wikileaks as a worthy Bitcoin recipient.

On a Bitcoin forum, Mr. Albrecht writes:

My dream project would be a electronic version 2.0 with the ability to also withdrawal cash for BTC. My initial research shows this would be possible using a mixture of open source software and hardware and some proprietary modules to deal with the physical money.

The Bitcoin vending machine is an interesting concept as it mashes up old school hardware--an antique vending machine--with high tech currency. Mr. Albrecht says the project is still in development, and its next phase will support TORwallet.net.

It'll depend on execution and the comprehensiveness of the database, and I don't know about this line: "Collectrium empowers the 'inner curator' in all of us," but I'm down to replace my strategy of writing down artist names in a Moleskine and never consulting them again with a running catalog that might actually help me attain minimal fluency in art stuff and maybe lead to some cool posters on a wall. There are also easy revenue streams so it could potentially still be around in a year.

"The Collectrium mobile app functions both as an image recognition tool, as well as a QR code scanner, so while you're browsing the fairs during Armory Week, you can aim your phone at a piece of art and if the artwork is in the system, you'll instantly get details about it--artist, materials, dimensions, provenance--and most importantly, you can contact the gallery. Not only that, but you can also save all your favorites and share them with your friends via Facebook, Twitter or email."

Also: "It's rapidly expanding to become THE mobile app provider not just for art fairs, but for individual galleries, as well as heading toward phase two of their business as an online database and inventory management system for galleries and collectors to store and manage works of art, which includes valuable investment information such as provenance, art historical references, financial history of an art piece, etc."

They're redesigning their website and are "on the cusp of securing a large amount of financing... but more on that later."

Disclosure.