Feed

This Happened

By Jessica Roy 1/24 1:00pm

This Happened

(Photo: CD Universe)

Raffi Would Like to Point Out He Invented the Bananaphone Way Before the iPhone Came Out

Everyone’s favorite children’s singer Raffi, responsible for preschool james like ”Baby Beluga” and “Bananaphone,” has carved out a pretty successful niche for himself on Twitter. His followers appear to be comprised primarily of twentysomethings nostalgic for their youth (ahem) and their parents. He tweets primarily about the environment (his 1990 album Everygreen, Everblue introduced a lot of us to environmentalism) and delightful factoids about his robust discography. Read More

By Jessica Roy 1/24 9:46am

This Happened

(Photo: Deviant Art)

Hollywood So Desperate for Ideas It’s Making Movies Based on Deviant Art Drawings

The Internet has unleashed a flood of creativity and self-expression: from writing to music, there’s always another reblog to convince you that art is both valued and needed. Yet it seems that the more creators flock to the web to express themselves, the more desperate Hollywood becomes to make something–anything–that isn’t a steaming pile of shit.

Hollywood has long taken its plot cues from the Internet, but whatever nepotistic intern tasked with trawling the web for script ideas this time has truly outdone himself. Slashfilm reports that New Line Cinemas is making a movie based on a drawing they found on Deviant Art. This is not a drill, people. Read More

By Jessica Roy 1/07 12:06pm

This Happened

(Photo: Richmond.edu)

Segway Inventor Can’t Stop Having Genius Ideas, Invents New ‘Diet’ Gadget to Further Enable Giving Up

If Wall-e has anything to say about it, Segways–or, a form of wheeled transportation for people too busy to use their two legs to walk–are the symbol of the great American downfall. In the future, we’ll all be wheeled around while we snort potato chips and play Tetris with our minds.

Not content to just discourage people from using their bodies, the inventor of the Segway now has a new genius ploy to incentivize completely giving up: it’s a pump that sucks all the food you just ate right out of your stomach, allowing people to eat whatever they want without facing the caloric impact. So … kind of like scientifically-sanctioned bulimia, minus the puking part? Read More

By Jessica Roy 1/03 1:15pm

This Happened

Teen cheater. (Photo: India Current Affairs)

Teen Drugs Her Parents’ Milkshakes So She Can Go on the Internet Past Curfew

Back in the early aughts, when this reporter’s parents were fast asleep, we’d take one of those 500 Free Hours of AOL CDs received in the mail every other day, unplug the phone line in our bedroom, and hook it up to our laptop so we could log on to saucy chat rooms and browse AOL Teen. Our parents, competent as they were, had no idea we spent half the night surfing a sluggish, largely harmless web.

We assumed teens these days–born with a smartphone glued to their mutant flesh–have it much easier, especially without having to muffle the sounds of dial-up. We were wrong.
 Read More

By Jessica Roy 12/07/12 2:20pm

This Happened

America's newest public works project. (Photo: Eye on Star Wars)

Almost 7,000 People Sign Petition Urging President Obama to Build a Death Star

Let’s start by saying you can make a petition for almost anything on WhiteHouse.gov, and we’re pretty sure the President never even glances at them. But apparently, over 6,800 people have signed a petition asking President Obama to start building a Death Star, the space station/super weapon from Star Wars, by 2016. And who says the Internet savvy are politically lazy? Read More