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My Favorite Subreddits: Joy, Wonder, Knowledge, and Birds with Arms

2017-06-06 · list · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Advice & reviews · tags: community lore

John recommends his favourite subreddits, from Children Falling Over, Better Every Loop and Birds with Arms to Data is Beautiful, Imaginary Maps and High Quality GIFs, saying uncurated Reddit can be toxic but has wonderful corners, and asks viewers for their favourite corners of the internet.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting, 'They're decorated', little sleep and high puff levels

  • ★ John says he hasn't been getting much sleep lately and, as Hank can probably tell, his puff levels are a little high. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:04 · the Puff

00:00:12 — What Reddit and subreddits are; uncurated Reddit can be toxic; r/nerdfighters

  • ★★ John describes Reddit as a link aggregator of communities called subreddits; browsing it uncurated is a little unpleasant and at times kind of toxic, but it has many wonderful corners. (hedged) — 00:00:12 · Reddit
  • ★★ John points to the Nerdfighters subreddit, where you can follow along with all the happenings in Nerdfighteria. — 00:00:22 · Reddit, Nerdfighteria

00:00:30 — Children Falling Over and Better Every Loop ('Four Girls One Rat')

  • ★★ John's first pick is Children Falling Over, a collection of mostly wholesome GIFs of children falling over, like a kid falling off a diving board. — 00:00:30
  • ★★ John recommends Better Every Loop, GIFs that get better with every loop, such as 'Four Girls One Rat', in which young people devise a strategy to rid their home of a rat. — 00:00:43

00:01:04 — Aside on the GIF/JIF pronunciation flame war

  • ★★ Expecting flame wars over how he says 'GIF', John says both pronunciations are entirely correct and that he will use both to infuriate everyone. (playful) — 00:01:04 · GIF pronunciation

00:01:19 — Birds with Arms, InternetIsBeautiful, Data is Beautiful, RuPaul's Drag Race, Empire Did Nothing Wrong, Nature is Lit, Reddit Gets Drawn, Oddly Satisfying, Imaginary Maps, High Quality GIFs

  • ★★ John recommends Birds with Arms, which sounds like a weapons euphemism but is a subreddit of birds with arms: owls, roosters, hawks, all the major birds. (playful) — 00:01:19
  • ★★ John recommends InternetIsBeautiful, which introduces beautiful websites, such as live radio from anywhere and a site where Google's AI guesses your doodles, like Pictionary against Google, which is very good at it. — 00:01:34 · Google
  • ★★ John jabs that Google's AI is great at Pictionary but still can't figure out which videos to demonetize. (playful) — 00:01:52 · Google
  • ★★ John recommends Data is Beautiful, which shares interesting, beautifully presented data, like a web tool on which countries emit the most carbon and from what sources. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ John recommends the RuPaul's Drag Race subreddit of screenshots, fan art and GIFs, calling the show the best reality TV show currently on the air. — 00:02:07
  • ★★ John recommends Empire Did Nothing Wrong, devoted to the fan theory that in Star Wars the Empire is good and the Rebel Alliance are the bad guys. — 00:02:13
  • ★★ John recommends Nature is Fucking Lit, which explores how amazing nature is, like a crab using two sea anemones to protect itself. — 00:02:24
  • ★★ John recommends collaborative communities like Reddit Gets Drawn, where people submit photographs and others draw them; it makes him happy. — 00:02:34 · Reddit
  • ★★ John recommends Oddly Satisfying, images and animations that are oddly satisfying, such as 'Double Dominoes'. — 00:02:46
  • ★★ John loves Imaginary Maps, unsurprisingly for readers of Paper Towns: occasional copyright trap maps, but mostly fantastical maps like the Republic of Skyrim's languages or New York State High Speed Rail 2030. — 00:03:05 · Paper Towns
  • ★★ John lastly recommends the very weird High Quality GIFs, where people spend many hours making astonishingly high-quality GIFs, almost all meta: GIFs about GIFing. — 00:03:20

00:03:40 — The kind of community he hopes for; ask for viewers' favourite corners of the internet; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says High Quality GIFs gets better the longer you hang around, his favourite kind of internet community and the kind he hopes Nerdfighteria is. — 00:03:40 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John says he must get back to work but will need a break, and asks to be told in comments about viewers' favourite corners of the internet, on Reddit or elsewhere. — 00:03:50 · Reddit

Humor (significant)

  • Having said 'JIF' repeatedly, John vows to use both pronunciations. — 00:01:15

    “In fact I'm just going to use both pronunciations to make sure that I infuriate everyone.”

  • Birds with Arms sounds like a weapons-related euphemism but is literally birds with arms. — 00:01:22

    “Basically all of the major birds but with arms.”

  • Google's doodle-guessing AI turns out to be very good at Pictionary. — 00:01:52

    “That AI still can't figure out which videos to demonetize, but it's great at Pictionary.”

  • High Quality GIFs are mostly meta, JIFs about GIFing. — 00:03:36

    “Or possibly GIFs about JIFing.”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Reddit

Also: Works: Paper Towns · RuPaul's Drag Race · Star Wars

Organizations: Google

Terms: the Puff

Concepts: fictitious entry · GIF

Events: YouTube Adpocalypse

Characters: Galactic Empire · Rebel Alliance

Memes: GIF pronunciation

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