When I was a kid, “Mad Magazine” was the magazine you brought home from the drugstore if you wanted to annoy mom. It was just off-color enough, just gross enough, just funny enough, that a twelve-to-fourteen-year-old would find it irresistable. My favorite part of the magazine was always the margin doodles by Sergio Aragonés, whose tiny illustrations were somehow more satisfying that full-sized comic strips.
And then there was “Cracked.”
“Cracked” was the also-was, a publication that tried so hard to ape the style and format of “Mad” that it even poached various “Mad” staffers over the years. “Cracked” was never as good as “Mad,” but it was okay. It ran for almost 50 years before flagging circulation prompted it, briefly, to reinvent itself as something of a “lad” magazine.
In 2007 it printed its last issue and was reborn as a website that is now really nothing like either print formats. Instead, Cracked is run and written by what seems to be people in their 30s and 40s—people my age who likely read and enjoyed “Cracked” as teenagers but who have since outgrown it.
The result is a kind of news-of-the-Web infotainment site targeted to thirty-somethings and above that crowdsources funny photo captions and gives Sean Patrick “Seanbaby” Reiley something to do that isn’t carefully sculpting his mohawk or delivering atomic wedgies to hated nerds. At times, it is funny. At times, it is insightful (one of my favorite articles explains the ways that poverty affects one’s decision-making processes). Much of time time, however, it is simply obvious and tiresome.
In the spirit of the hit-pieces “Cracked” authors love to write about topics, figures, movements, and cultural trends with which they disagree, let us examine five uncomfortable truths behind the Cracked.com website:
1. Cracked.com is painfully leftist.
One of the lessons left-wing comedians never seem to grasp is that bitter hatred for your political opponents isn’t funny. Prominent once-comedians like Bill Maher and, increasingly, Jon Stewart demonstrate this for us on television every day. The more they devote their time to hating republicans, crafting ever-more-tasteless insults under the guise of “jokes,” the more bitter they become and the less funny their routines happen to be.
“Cracked” suffers from this problem, but it is not the website’s primary issue. Much more problematic for even the apolitical reader is the fact that Cracked frequently forgets to be funny in favor of political rock-throwing. In some articles this creeps in as gratuitous shots at Fox (a favorite target of left-wingers, who have never forgiven the right-leaning Fox for breaking their iron grip on network news) and offhand comments that show a hatred for conservative and even libertarian or constitutionalist views.
“10 Baffling Romance Tips From the Sociopaths at Fox News,” is the title of one article. “The 8 Greatest Wars Ever Fought By Fox News” is another. “Okay, so maybe Fox News and the Chinese government aren’t bastions of journalistic integrity,” writes Danny Gallagher in “7 Clearly Fake News Stories That Fooled The Mainstream Media.” Fox is such a frequent target of the site that it is its own topic category at “Cracked.” Why, they even found time to write an article defending Fox (sort of) from the very hatred their contributors heap on it.
Other notable left-wing articles at Cracked include the assertion, “Almost every republican is a white lower to middle class uneducated person from the south, meaning a majority of them range from stupid to dumbfuck stupid.” Another page at Cracked calls republicans “stubborn gun wielding anti-abortion homophobes,” while the article “The 5 Biggest Pricks in Congress” cites four Republicans and only one Democrat.
The Democrat “Cracked” did choose? Robert Byrd, widely reviled for having been a member of the KKK—whom the author then defends because Mr. Byrd apologized for his Klan affiliations “hundreds of times.”
Libertarians and those related to them fare no better on the pages of “Cracked.” “…[A]nyone who quotes Ayn Rand must be met with a frothing at the mouth hatred,” reads one article. “Anarcho-Communistic Libertarian Freedom is the primary philosophy of Edgar Friendly in Demolition Man. This is also the primary reason why killers were cryogenically un-frozen to kill him.”
What all these shots at non-Democrats and non-liberals have in common is that a liberal’s hatred for conservatives, his contempt for libertarians, and his knee-jerk disdain for things like guns or people like Ayn Rand just isn’t that funny. It isn’t particularly entertaining. It just puts people off.
2. Cracked.com presents a variety of propaganda as “truth”
Furthering a cultural war that paints men as the enemy and women as perpetual victims, “Cracked” has fired more than one salvo across the bow of anyone who is not a simpering, politically correct beta-male. Two of its worst examples are “5 Ways Modern Men are Trained to Hate Women” and “5 Uncomfortable Truths behind the Men’s Rights Movement.”
The former is propaganda because it projects onto all men an emotion—“hate”—that is neither reasonably construed from the cultural phenomena identified, nor reliably divined by the author (who we must presume is not psychic).
The latter is worse than propaganda because it slanders and smears the entire manosphere—that loose collection of men’s rights and men’s interests websites that includes Return of Kings—as fedora-wearing misogynist neckbeards who can’t get laid (the favorite insult of both feminists and even some members of this site when dismissing, without critical analysis, an opinion with which they disagree).
The first article purports to identify cultural conventions that institutionalize female victimhood—of course, casting men as the villains and accusing them all of “hate.” This is part and parcel of accusing all men of creating and sustaining “rape culture,” wherein “rape” is any act, word, deed, or thought that makes any woman, no matter how sensitive her feelings and no matter how appropriate or proportional her reaction, uncomfortable in any way for any reason in any context. It does so by wildly distorting a series of cultural facts, twisting perfectly ordinary and understandable human reactions into male hatred.
Do you, a single man, hope to find—or even fantasize about—an attractive woman, even a woman “out of your league,” for sex and a/or a relationship? Do you long for basic human contact and want to be loved? That, according to David Wong, is “hate,” and you feel entitled (and thus you will react with bitter violence when you are denied, you fedora-wearing neckbeard). Do you find fat, ugly people to be unattractive? Clearly society has taught you to hate and objectify women (you fat, ugly, fedora-wearing neckbeard).
That selective reiteration of random assholes’ commentary is precisely how J. F. Sargent justifies his or her laughable piece, “5 Uncomfortable Truths Behind the Men’s Rights Movement.” This column is nothing more than Sargent’s hatred for non-submissive males projected onto the closest group that makes Sargent uncomfortable.
From dishonestly linking Men’s Rights to the UCSB “shooting” (the perpetrator of those killings was part of a group devoted to hatred of “pick-up artists” and was not in any way a men’s rights activist) to proving Godwin’s law in the second paragraph (Sargent claims Men’s Rights activists are closer to “neo-Nazis” than civil rights activists), Sargent’s article is a laughable exercise in slander and misinformation that, sadly, seems typical of Cracked.com’s approach to sociopolitics.
3. Sometimes Cracked.com makes no sense.
A recent article, “5 Pieces of Advice Your Dad Gave You (That Are Total B.S.),” is a great example of a largely incomprehensible “Cracked” piece. If there is one thing contributors at “Cracked” like to do, it is call bullshit on various widely held notions. If slaying sacred cows were a competition, “Cracked” would hold several third-place trophies and a room full of participation ribbons for its barbecue sauce.
Among the advice that author John Cheese thinks are B.S. are, “Slow Down Before You Burn Yourself Out,” “You’ll Understand When You’re My Age,” and “You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To.” In some cases, Cheese declares these aphorisms “useless” because he ignores their context. In other cases, Dad is a hopeless moron for offering advice because Cheese insists, absurdly, on taking the words completely literally.
In all cases, the attempt to shoot down widely held (even overused) beliefs fails because Cheese is struggling to find problems where there really are none. There is nothing over which to be outraged—and no real B.S. to expose. The article is essentially meaningless. And it certainly isn’t funny.
4. Motherfucking lists.
Seemingly 99 out of every 100 articles on the site is a list, even if the list format is unnecessary to the material presented.
5. Cracked.com simply isn’t very funny
Granted, humor is subjective. I will also stipulate that there are certain articles on Cracked.com, both new and old, that are screamingly funny and have made me laugh out loud. Overall, though, Cracked really isn’t a comedy publication. It’s a sometimes humorous opinion site that has more in common with Web newsies like the Daily Dot or Buzzfeed (which are similarly liberal and anti-male).
Its video features are almost never funny (not the ones featuring Cracked.com staff, anyway). They come off more as smugly self-aware. One supposes all that green screen money goes somewhere.
There’s no law that says “Cracked” can’t be leftist AND funny. Jon Stewart certainly manages it—or he did before he started interviewing economists and political figures his audience has never heard of. When a comedian (or comedy outlet) starts believing it is itself more important than making people laugh, however, it runs the risk of becoming exactly what Jon Stewart is now: An occasionally offensive and not particularly incisive Democrat political pundit who hides behind, “I was only joking,” whenever anyone calls him on his assertions.
There will always be a market for smug. People love to read humor that is rooted in denigrating people and groups they don’t like. No well-trafficked site is immune to that. But the more “Cracked” becomes an echo chamber for only one side of the political aisle, the more that it ignores even the most rudimentary facts and logic in presenting its opinion—and the more it does both to the exclusion and detriment of actually making people laugh—the less relevant the site will become.
If it can’t make you laugh, if it can only misinform, it is not useful at all. If that is to be Cracked.com’s fate, it is destined to whither away much as its printed predecessor did.
Read more: Red Pill Truths In Classical Conservative Thinkers
Firstly, I am a politcal athiest. In regards to the leftist propoganda, it is one of the main reasons why I am very careful about deciding to what to read and whether to fully believe in it or dismiss it.
As with any magazine or mainstream media outlet, there is always going to be poiltical bias that will be disguised as “journalism” in an attempt to manipulate and brainwash the masses. Television and even the internet, are some of the greatest brainwashing tools out there.
Therefore, I always recommend people to be cautious about the kind of material that they read. Yes, even though there may be some degree of truth and validity to what is being said, nonetheless, there is an intent behind the material, to drive one’s thinking in a certain direction ie) left or right wing propoganda.
There is no more ethical or responsible journalism in the mainstream media. Everything is now to do with political agenda and making money. Which is why I advocate all men to always keep an open mind, look at both sides to a story and to draw your own personal conclusions, rather that what the author or mainstream media want you to take in.
both right and left wing propaganda is bullshit in the first place. theyre meant to distract you and separate you from each other. who gives a fuck
bit liberal spin is worse. at least the republicans advocate better policy whereas libs want to spread the wealth and acquiesce to our enemies
They all eat from the same trough, brother.
neither is “worse” they both have their goods and bads. How can you say what is a “better” policy? They each benefit different groups of people, some will be “better” for others and some will be worse for others. Saying which is worse doesn’t make a difference, none of it fucking matters in the first place.
Ah Sergio Aragones! His comic Groo the Wanderer was hilarious.
What happened to good ol National Lampoon the magazine?? It published its last print mag around 2000. The fake letters to the editor were brilliant.
Here is a clip of one of the best shows ComCentral ever made(and Colin shut it down bc the suits told him to tone it down):
I forgot how brilliant his final opening monolog was…
The best thing National Lampoon ever did was in 1972 one issue had an ad that showed a VW Beetle floating down a river. The caption read, “If Ted Kennedy drove a VW he would be president today.” That was back when humor was aimed at everyone, even left wing sacred cows.
Not really related to the actual article, but speaking of Mad magazine, Sergio Aragones’s Groo the Wanderer was one of the finest comic books ever written.
I still have the graphic novel.
The guy could sketch amazingly detailed little “doodles” with more art and feeling than bloody near anyone, amazingly quickly.
I read the ‘5 reasons modern men are trained to hate women’ article. I feel ‘self-hating male’ should be a title given to this kind of sentiment, akin to the once-infamous ‘self-hating Jew’.
That post just proves me correct how “Men are the new Jews.”
I previously read a couple of Cracked articles myself and in hindsight, made me feel I ate a red herring.
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The only difference is, as far as I can tell being a jew from new york, is that “self-hating jew” was more of a tongue in cheek joke. Men aren’t the new Jews as Just Tim put it below. Men are the new women….constantly obsessing and changing ourselves to be more presentable to the opposite sex rather than trying to be as great as we can be and relying on the fact that that greatness in and of itself is what will attract the opposite sex.
Are you completely out of your mind, man? “Self-hating Jews” is not primarily a tongue-in-cheek phrase. It’s what far-right Zionists call Jews who speak honestly about Israel.
Zionism is a British-mandated union of Church and State, especially when the founder of the Zionist movement sold out to the British Crown from the very beginning.
And technically, Palestine IS Israel, not some British designation, which is the Israel we know of.
@ Pearlbuck : That’s laughable. A “self-hating” Jew is a libtard Jew who buys the Leftist propaganda about Israel and the Jews being the bad guys and the poor, helpless, pitiful “palestinians” being the victims. A “self-hating” Jew is one who very weakly knuckles under to the guilt trip the Left puts on Jews for being successful and prosperous.
For a long time, the funniest thing about Cracked has been the comments section.
I remember 4-5 years ago when I first when on Cracked I thought it was pretty funny, had some good jokes and was definitely a male-friendly website. I went on it for a couple of months then stopped, and then went on about two years ago. It still had its moments but then all of a sudden every once in a while there would be a leftist propaganda piece that was similar to the one’s described in the article. No big deal,(especially when I used to be more left-leaning) I thought nothing of it.
I went on last month and all I have to say is, what a cesspool of self-capitulating, whiny, sycophant, white(or upper middle class to wealthy) liberals. They ream themselves constantly and go into apologetic hysterics even when it is completely unwarranted and pathetic. For example, just looking on Cracked today I’ve come across these hot items(and no I didn’t read the articles):
-How the world would look without guns(probably leftist bullcrap about guns being the source of all evil)
-5 Famous Historical Figures you didn’t know were perverts(I’m going to guess most of them were hardly perverts)
-5 everyday groups of people who society says it’s okay to mock(oh God, spare me)
-5 BS health myths people still believe(I’m sure I want to listen to doughy, pasty, and flabby men giving me diet and exercise advice)
The list goes on and on. I’m not saying there’s no comedy in it whatsoever, I’m just saying it seems like they’ve gotten a lot worse.
Update: Just read the “5 ways modern men are trained to hate women”, what a fucking piece of crap. Again as I stated in an earlier comment, if male shaming was all that was necessary to fix America and the world, the world would be fixed 1000X over. It’s simply over-simplification, ad hominem, and I feel like he just wants to be like “Hurr durr ur all fedora wearing neckbeards, I’m soooo funny you guise”. He does not say that but I get the strong urge that is what he wanted to say. All I read from articles like that is, “Your sexuality is wrong, your beliefs are wrong, your existence is wrong.” I cannot believe millions of middle to upper-middle class liberals(usually white or Asian) accept that as gospel. It’s fucking sad how many problems could be solved in this country if things like prostitution was legal and not stigmatized and male sexuality was celebrated correctly as the driving force of civilization that it is. Anybody that says otherwise, I can point to virtually all human civilizations to prove you wrong so don’t bother.
Never been on the site and have no intention of doing so.
I didn’t even read the article because I have no idea what cracked.com is.
Keep it that way.
Did this list just hate on lists un-ironically? Or is ROK funnier than I had previously imagined?
check out this one:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person_p2/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage
with items such as “the hippies were wrong” and “you hate yourself because you don’t do anything” it seemed almost like something that would have been right at home on ROK. not surprisingly, it got a lot of hate in the comments.
Those are some good ones.
I started reading Cracked many years ago, when the site’s articles were mostly lists of interesting facts that were somehow related to each other. The focus of these weren’t humor, they were more like “Hey, check this out! Isn’t this interesting?”
Now, it’s unabashedly leftist preaching (with a recent and embarrassing embrace of SJW agenda.) Often the focus of articles is a single point like “this commercial promotes rape culture” that the author then clearly struggled to create a list around. A good example of this is a list they published yesterday wherein they accused a thirty-year-old game named King’s Quest II of misogyny. Hilariously, they failed to realize the game was designed and written by a woman.
Because of this change in focus, it has lost a great deal of its readership and will soon be out of business. In the end, who cares?
Interesting, just yesterday a friend of mine brought up the point that it seems like most comediens and entertainers are lefties/liberals, including those we find funny. I couldn’t come up with a reason why. Maybe it’s a Yale thing.
Because we live in a leftist-dominated culture that’s created an atmosphere where the only type of humor that is acceptable in the mainstream is leftist humor. Try watching some Looney Tunes from around the 40s, many of which have been banned from today’s television. They were not leftist at all, yet were still pretty funny.
PePe LePew! no way that cartoon gets made these days…
I don’t know. I’ve watched a few by Bill Burr and he seems pretty funny (and he is or he at least leans right). He may be liberal on a couple of items but you can tell he’s conservative on many other. I think the problem has been with people being labeled one or the other instead of the ideas, issues or subjects being labeled.
I’m conservative on the gun issue. I’m liberal on the prostitution issue.
Many need to get back to a little common sense as well.
Cracked sucks. It was once funny, then it became clickbait, then it became feminist clickbait. But don’t bring Seanbaby into it. Mention someone who actually works for cracked. Seanbaby is really funny, and he barely writes for cracked anymore. And his “Romance tips from Fox News” article was not more of the “fox news is dumb, amirite” nonsense from liberals. It was funny and fair. He wasn’t making fun of Fox for being conservative. He was making fun of them for plagiarizing an article about fun pranks for kids and passing it off as romantic tips.
I like cracked, except as the author states the political articles. One of the most eye-opening articles was about why comedians kill themselves http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/robin-williams-why-funny-people-kill-themselves/ . And that article will also explain why the majority of writers there are uberbetas on suicide watch. QED.
> criticizes list articles with a list article
I’m guessing this was intentional.
some of the articles like ‘you’re a loser because it’s your fault’ are good and ‘why being smart is better than being dumb’ another
Stewart lost credibility with me a loong time ago as a jester.
Within two or three weeks after Benghazi, he went from spending a segment poking fun at the Obama administration for, weeks later, STILL not admitting it had anything to do with terrorists/terrorism, to slamming Romney after the dabate because Obama, in a bare technicality, had actually used the word “terror” (in a non-terrorist context, after making it clear it wasn’t about “terrorism”).
No. Integrity. At. All.
For anyone wondering –
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/3gy5pa/american-terror-story
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/b7fjce/democalypse-2012—the-second-debate—now-including-the-president—benghazi
Cracked was very good back in the day, now is just SJW propaganda trash.
This article has been a long time coming, and needed to be written.
“Cracked” is one of the websites I never visit. “Gawker” is another. I advise others to similarly refrain. I do so because I don’t want to add even a single click to their statistics which they can then use to court advertisers.
It was a while ago, but I pretty sure it was a gawker writer who died as a result of how the owner(who trashes Repubs for squirreling away their money overseas, while he does the same thing) demands non stop click- bait articles or be fired. I wish I remember what he died from, but it hadsomething to do with stress from working there…
Seemingly 99 out of every 100 articles on the site is a list, even if the list format is unnecessary to the material presented.
I don’t mean to be that guy but have you checked the main page of RoK in the past couple of months?
Excellent. I gave up Cracked years ago when they made a video claiming that the best possible “Republican” candidate was Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight, since Cracked painted any non-SJW beliefs as murderous and insane (and of course, the Joker blows up a hospital—just like everyone who’s against universal healthcare wants to do, amirite?). That was my “fuck this shit” moment when I realized that any further clicks on their website only rewarded truly bad people who hated me.
I gave up on the Daily Show when Jon Stewart—instead of ripping Obama apart for his weak-look-the-other-way Jeremiah Wright speech—suddenly pretended it was the second Gettysburg Address. That;s the point I realized he’d jumped the shark and gone full partisan hack.
I would encourage other manospherians/red pillers to similarly drop pop culture that insults them. One of the hardest was Family Guy, but Seth MacFarlane, for all his race and sex and gay humor, is truly a jerk pushing the SJW memes hard and calling anyone who disagrees evil. I was very happy when his latest movie tanked, and I avoid all his products.
Wow. I thought family guy and american dad was a great viewing for the right. It’s about the only venue where they talk about race with no reprimand. Peter: ” minorities with guns kill people”
no way, man. Although they occasionally make a race joke, it’s all in the realm of “hey, we’re all still equal guys” etc. Seth MacFarlane is nothing if not an SJW stooge. Gays are all equal, women are equal, Democrats are heroic, republicans are evil (although he softened this latter bit after Limbaugh and he became friends), etc.
Fuck MacFarlane.
You want to Fuck Seth MacFarlane? Makes sense. He’s attractive and has more money than you’ll ever have. While Family Guy has become unfunny, why do you not see everyone as equal? You’re just being a whiny little bitch just because he isn’t a sexist, homophobic piece of shit like you. Get the fuck over it. People are gonna do whatever thr fuck they want, especially Seth.
And why be against universal healthcare? Yeah, it’s people like you who should hsve been aborted.
Oh wait, you snowflakes get butthurt about an embryo getting killed. Lmao
Yeah, Seth can be funny but he is an ultra-liberal Jew — which is very frustrating for someone like me who is extremely pro-Jew and pro-Israel. He’s just a liberal and liberals are very nasty and hateful when it comes to criticizing anyone who doesn’t agree with their ultra-liberal beliefs.
Stop watching his shows them, snowflake. Easy as that. There are plenty of conservative celebs. Go dick ride them instead
About damn time RoK took shots at Cracked.com. We should mobilize with sock-puppet accounts and mob Cracked’s comment sections.
I noticed the shift towards SJW commentary recently too. I was never a frequent visitor, but now I have absolutely no reason to go there whatsoever.
American leftists are the most smug of all, especially when they are trying to be funny.
Aussies are not too far behind either.
Conservatives aren’t any better. Get over it.
I’m not a conservative, so I don’t care.
I enjoy listening to the “Cracked” podcast when working. They have some pretty interesting conversations on there while I am busting my ass and sweating up a New Orleans storm. I never went to their site but, judging from the Avi that is talking about the Men’s Rights Group and, reading the comments I can see I will be wasting my time like most other online magazines.
Point is, I am starting to see more and more that while these articles can be entertaining, they simply are a waste of time ad are offering nothing of substance for my daily life of trying to advance my mind. I am starting to see this in movies, TV, Books, etc. Basically, all forms of mainstream media, once it becomes big it is time to create a system and keep the dollars flowing.
Eminem is and will forever be my favorite artists of all time but, becoming more aware of the world I am able to find the truth in things ad talk about the freely without being trapped in a fanboy system. I am a “Stan” as the Hip Hop Community calls dedicated fans these days but, I am not a cult follower as most die hard fans are. Point is, Eminem at one time was at one time authentic and more raw with his music. But now as you can see from songs such as “Not Afraid”, “Love the way you lie”, and “The Monster” you can see now that he is now trapped within a system that he created and must maintain his lifetstyle. Even if it means going against what he despise back in the early 2000s. The truth he once had has now become something to market and sell. While I still enjoy his music currently today, its hard not to see catch certain aspects of it and see what it has become.
The truth that we talk about here and other blogs can not reach out to the entire world because it is too close to the animal world. It is too close to the void that is space where nothing goes on forever and ever. It is the reason a movie like “Blue Valentine” didn’t do as well in the Box office as a movie like “The Notebook” or “Guardians of the Galaxy” would do because the truth is a tough pill to grasp and swallow. Articles on “Cracked” are entertaining to read and go through when your brain needs a water cooler break but, it offers nothing of substance in the long run that will help you reach the truth and in the process help create your inner self.
This is why, why sites like this, Rational Male, Chateau Heartiste, have yes gained a following each year but, I am afraid if they become much bigger will try and be shot with a dose of mainstream in the system until the blood is turned cold and blue, devoided of any real passion or emotion about the beliefs and philosophies it once originally was rooted in to begin with. “Cracked” magazine will dominate because it gives the viewers something easy to read and swallow without much thought and effort to invest in.
Can’t be too mad at them though. Not everybody in this world is meant to be saved and seek the truth. Someone has to build the steps in order for others to climb. Whether the builders realize they need to climb those steps as well must be something they learn on their own for themselves by finding the crumbs of truth hidden around everywhere if you look hard enough. You can not teach a fish that it is in water. The fish must find that on their own. What they do with that information is up to them. Hopefully, they use it to build a inner core and belief within themselves. Wax on, wax off
http://associationofchronos.com/2015/01/11/ready-to-die/
The article states Cracked is made for 30 somethings but that is giving the site too much credit. Alexa stats show that the site’s main audience is young women, teens to early 20s, and the vast majority of page views come from school IPs. The site is full of hyper-offended, privileged Tumblrina, SJW bullshit because that is the level their audience is on. You almost feel sorry for the writers who have been on that site since it was a Maxim clone.
That makes more sense. I couldn’t imagine many 30 something’s really getting anything out of that site.
Oh, the irony of lists.
Seanbaby was legit. Especially the MMA ones.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-9-most-creative-mma-attacks-ever/
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-top-eight-oh-shit-moments-in-mma/
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-worst-mma-fights-of-all-time/
White progressives are just terrible.
Actually, I don’t find it that leftist. It just seems like popular media jumping on the bandwagon. The real enemies are the ideologues that infest colleges.
Everything now is list journalism, ROK is no different. ROK acts like everything they and other more right leaning publications say is absolute fact and not just opinion. C’mon, just be honest about your horseshit.
Let’s be real as well as honest. You will not find the types of list (at times) on ROK versus other websites. Men cannot even have discussions or make comments on certain subjects, in public, for fear of retribution (i.e. company fires a man for stating his opinion).
Lists written on many other sites call out men on a regular basis and in society, in general, it is all laughed off like a big joke. Lists written on ROK (not all but some) call out women (and society) for the real horseshit going on. It’s bold because you rarely get to read it or see it and it’s all due to the over reach of feminism (and the SJWs).
I’m ok with calling out the format…the subject(s) are an entirely different matter.
I’m just calling out the format but you’re right. Sometimes a list is necessary.
Ahh… So “Cracked” should instead be what?: Conservative and far-right?
How about just funny? How about comedy? How about laughs?
If it’s a humor site — a humor magazine — it shouldn’t be Left or Right. It should be apolitical, like the publication was 40 years ago when my brother started buying it.
What I don’t get is the fact that cracked is supposed to be a humor publication and now they’ve turned it into salon.com. They sorta dropped the plot on the purpose and mission of the magazine.
shit, I give it 6 months.
is this satire? Crack cracks me up sometimes
Too bad, that’s not funny, this is just how those pansies like to see commenters they disagree with. I guess it’s a perfect example of what’s wrong with Cracked – two years later it’s only gotten worse.
If you read David Wong’s fiction, he is a closet conservative. Cracked seems to be some kind of right-wing answer to Stephen Colbert-i.e. we’re going to be so obnoxiously liberal with such absurd straw-man arguments that it makes you want to consider the other side. At least that seemed to be the intentions of the senior staff-a lot of the new writers don’t seem to have gotten the memo that it’s supposed to be a parody-they’ve gone so far undercover that they think they’re liberals. Maybe they think their target audience automatically believes the opposite of what they read, so it’s an attempt at reverse psychology. At times, they seem to take up a strong position just so they can get you to hear about and think about an issue that you wouldn’t have-then they let people in the comments section spread truth by arguing with them. I heard about GamerGate and ROK through Cracked.
Cracked was alright once, but back then dinosaurs were also alright. It used to have pieces that weren’t all about class warfare, hating on everyone who opposes academic progressivism, and identity politics. Nowadays, it’s a ghastly place.
I only want to comment on the Fox new’s stuff, and how I hear people comlain that it is being criticized all the time unfairly, and how it’s only becuase the left no longer controls the media or whatever, but research shows that people who watch fox news know less about what is happening in the world than any other news source. It is not just about ideology and biased writers, it is in fact just a terrible news orginization.
I’ve always argued that it’s always about the money (viewers), first. Someone saw a “need” so they invested and filled that need. They play to a different set of viewers but that’s all it is in the end….it’s about the money (right or left).
You have to be able to see through the bullshit and use a little critical thinking (many don’t want to, though). It’s easier to sit around, listen to more talking points from assholes and blame someone else. The left has been doing it for a long time (and many have been making a fortune off of it). Now, it was time for the “other side” to get in on it.
It’s all about money. Keep that in mind.
Oh yeah, definitaly. I am in no way trying to give the other stations a pass. I generally lean left in my views, but CNN and MSNBC are pretty shitty in there own right, and completely all about money as much as Fox is, My only point is that FOX by all accounts the worst source accruate news. I usually ignore all that shit and listen to NPR.
Kevin said, “I usually ignore all that shit and listen to NPR.”
That right there tells the story on what you think is “news.”
No, it’s not a terrible news organization. You wouldn’t know what news was if it hit in the head. All of the Left likes to pretend that conservatives are lunkheads and are less informed than liberals, but the fact is the vast majority of Democratic voters are absolutely clueless nincompoops who know virtually nothing about history, governance, or economics.
Go to youtube and watch the video “how Obama got elected.” There you see the stunning ignorance of typical Democrat voters.
It’s quite sad to watch all popular media outlets slowly succumb to the intellectual disease that is modern liberalism.
The first red-pill awakening I experience came in the form of a 2012 Cracked article(which I surprisingly still have bookmarked), explaining where “nice guys” go wrong with girls. Lots of truth to the article.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-girls-dont-seem-to-understand-about-nice-guys/
I lightly followed Cracked throughout 2012, and I liked it because of the fact that they were politically incorrect, and shared unpopular opinions. Now they are like the rest of the mainstream media. Fucking worthless.
Now you’ve done it. Cracked is going to publish “5 uncomfortable truths about Return of Kings” in retaliation.
As an old regular member of Cracked, I’m disappointed that it went nutty I haven’t visited there since last August. I guess that’s to be expected. And I’m surprised to learn JF Sargent was a female, oh maybe that’s why it makes a complete sense. Her articles were nothing but clickbait bullshit justifying her questionable relationship.
I never heard of this website. Looking at the description, I didn’t miss anything.
Back in April of last year I was reading a smug article on cracked. I wish I could remember which one it was, I don’t. I don’t mind smug. Actually, I enjoy it. However, this article was thoroughly unfunny.
I actually really enjoyed cracked at the time. Actually, I mostly just enjoyed (and still do) Seanbaby.
Anyway, I made a comment on the article that I thought was unfunny. Anyone here who has seen my comments knows I do not hold back. I have found here, at ROK, that when I give critique of an article some people agree and some don’t and that starts a discussion. Recently I just said one article was a total flame homo article and the author chimed in and laughed about it. Thank you guys. Over at Cracked.com it was something different altogether.
I commented on this article: “I guess John Belushi was right, women aren’t funny.”
The next time I logged onto cracked I saw that my account had been banned. I assumed it was a mistake and emailed tech support. Below is the email chain with Jason Pargin (David Wong’s real name). I have redacted my real name and added my disqus handle for obvious reasons. This is the entity of the conversation. He never responded. Enjoy!
As this is a copy and paste from email, please read from the bottom up to follow the conversation chain.
From: lolknee
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 12:09 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Cracked Contact Us – Technical
Ok. Didn’t realize we were getting so sensitive, but whatevs.
Btw: if I ever run into Belushi in heaven ill mention that quoting him on comedy sites is no longer acceptable. Also, it is true–women aren’t funny…enjoy the Tina Feyization of comedy and, yeah, also your vagina.
On Apr 4, 2013, at 12:04 PM, “Jason Pargin”
wrote:
Hi. The era of being able to make misogynist comments toward
female writers on the site has come to an end. Feel free to take that elsewhere.
From: Cracked [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 10:57 AM
To: Mandy Ng; Simon Jia; Jason Pargin; Dan Obrien; Jack O’Brien; Greg
Shabanov
Subject: Cracked Contact Us – Technical
Name: lolknee
Email: lolknee
Comment: Tried to comment on an article but was told I was banned from commenting? Huh? Srsly?
@ lolknee:
This is the hypersensitive self-righteousness that the left has been raised to live by. They are aggressively sensitive and aggressively defensive about having their precious, precious sensibilities offended and feeeeewings hurt. We really need to come up with a new name for this kind of super-sensitive, super-self-righteous, permanent victimhood mentality.
The students at Mizzoo have been displaying this exact hypersensitive self-righteous mentality during their protests the last couple of weeks.
America is doomed.
America has been doomed. Get over it. You’re whining because all of these sites aren’t right wing and far right. It wouldn’t be any better. Get the fuck over it and focus on something better
That’s pretty surprising that someone affiliated with the site actually saw it in the first place.
I think saying women aren’t funny is a shitty thing to say (and not true, there are loads of funny women). It’s overreacting to ban someone from a site for a single infraction like that though.
Eh, you’re better off not being in that sewer anyway.
Nah women aren’t funny
The ones on Cracked certainly aren’t.
And you aren’t either you piece of failed abortion shit. That’s disrespectful as fuck to say. A woman gave birth to you (unfortunately). Stop whining just because your bitch ass views aren’t what the world sees anymore. Neither sides prefect, but conservatives are pretty fucking whiny about that shit. Be more like Alpha Omega Sin on YouTube.
see…not funny
That’s a shitty thing to say, and John Belushi had drug problems. Of course he was hilarious, but I’m not gonna take what a drug addict says seriously. There are plenty of funny women, you just have a close minded and shitty sense of humor. Your mother should have shoved a clothes hanger in her pussy when she was pregnant with you. That is simply your opinion and I hope you die alone 🙂
Fuck….every time these bitches get their period they come to this site to vent their hormonal anger.
Lexi, honey, baby, go get yourself some ice cream and a hot water bottle for that uterus. I love women. I just don’t think they make good comedians. Let me know when you are done with your monthly visitor and we can kiss and make up
I am supremely glad that finally ROK has accurately pointed out the gut wrenching Leftist propaganda that permeates Cracked. Seems like nowadays you need to bring along a barf bag just to read the utter insanity written in that puke worthy website. White knight syndrome and male shaming articles are alarmingly high.
I recommend we Red Pillers stop surfing the website to thwart their web traffic.
“…it slanders and smears the entire manosphere […] as fedora-wearing misogynist neckbeards who can’t get laid.”
I’m pretty sure the author wrote this before he looked at his profile on this site, because that description certainly seems to fit.
Would you like to make an erudite argument for why he is either a misogynist, or indeed a neckbeard? Your generalisation is rather making this site’s point for it.
I never read Cracked in its magazine days as I was a Mad loyalist, but I do remember their mascot Sylvester the Janitor (Mad’s counterpart to Alfred E. Neuman), and the coup they scored when they lured Don Martin over from Mad.
Note, however, that the figure shown in #3 was a Mad creation, and was known at the time as the Mad “poiuyt”. If that name seems familiar, start at the top right of your keyboard and read left . . .
I also believe I read somewhere that it was also used by copier repair staff to test the resolution of machines after work completion.
David Wong, et. al. thinks they are smart (i have listened to their podcast) while saying the dumbest things. Its good to see someone point this out for once.
David Wong is able to think of himself that way because he never has anyone challenge him. The podcast is just him droning on for an hour or two, pausing only occasionally for Jack to throw him a yes-man agreement. I’d pity them were they not such assholes.
Thanks so much for this. I used to read Cracked because there were, actually, some very, very funny articles. Vert funny. But then I think something happened. Some infestation of SJWs must have occurred. Now it’s basically just an outlet for the smarmiest P.C. stupidity imaginable–a cornucopia of bitter beta cliches.
O boy, attack the messenger, here we go!
1. “painfully leftist.” Ouch that’s gotta hurt! It’s like they don’t RESPECT your need for validation or something! The NERVE of those people!
2. “It’s presented as truth!” Because nothing presents truth as effectively and unequivocably as packaging that truth as “comedy” and selling it as entertainment. Which is not actually presenting it as truth, but we won’t let that concern us, that’s too confusing, because as you already know,
3.”I don’t understand any of it!”
4.”I hate lists so much, I put my hatred of lists at number four on a list of things I hate!” Now that’s the kind of move I’d pull, just to see if anybody gets it. But I can’t help but wonder if YOU get it.
5.”It just isn’t funny!” Fair enough, can’t argue there. But I thought you said it was “presented as truth,” which would absolve it of any requirement to be funny. Yeah, we already agreed not to think about that too much, I’ll just shut up about it.
Awww. Jonas decided to stop white knighting the tattooed bitches and decided to read a little more deeply into ROK. Maybe he’ll learn something here; you never know. After all, given his self-disclosed issues he’s been having with his girlfriend/wife, he might need some training in getting pussy.
I made a comment at that Gladstones twitter feed that he deemed”hateful”. He then has a mob attack me. Lmao cracked sucks now
All one has to do to be deemed “hateful” by a leftist is to disagree with the leftist.
All you have to do to be deemed hateful is be slightly out of lockstep with the current leftist ideology.
Cracked, like much of the political Left, relies much too heavily on style-over-substance fallacies. The “style” is then so self-absorbed and watered down as to be completely milquetoast. The writers, so enamored with themselves, are clearly trying to emulate a sharp, biting wit. But they are so self-absorbed with their own writing that they fall flat every time.
Nahhh Cracked nailed it in their article, especially on the part about how the comments these groups make about women.
“There’s no waxing poetic on the joys of fatherhood, the majesty of a properly groomed beard, or the exquisite joy of scratching your own balls; it’s all just variations of “fuck dem bitches” and “amiright!?” It’s not an ideology, it’s just them feeling bad about themselves and directing that hatred elsewhere … which is exactly how a hate group works. And that’s not just my opinion.”
On fatherhood:
On beards:
Scratching our balls is something no man needs instruction about, so I don’t know why Cracked feels the need for an article on it, absent being incapable of basic motor functions.
Any other stupid remarks to make?
Another problem with cracked is that their lists are poorly researched piles of garbage. I imagine most of the bloggers there just skim wikipedia for a few minutes and put it down as completely accurate.
For a while, I liked Cracked. For a while, I kept returning to it, despite it growing more painfully leftist as time went on. The few articles I did like kept me coming back. I was like an abused housewife coming back despite me being slagged in the face with their sinfully leftist articles because one or two of them eventually make me laugh or strike a good point. Then I read their article on “bullshit things we believe about Islam” and that’s when I officially jumped ship. Them trying to paint the Islam of the past as ideal and even talking about how more advanced and tolerant it was compared to the West. I shut it off. Yes, the Islamic Empire of the past had great advances in science and philosophy, but that’s due more to the fact that they managed to get scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers from the lands they conquered together. But then the Muslims started to engage in endless civil wars that ended that golden age, and replaced the previously tolerant age of the early Muslim Empires with the kind of fundamentalism they had when they killed all the Jews in Mecca for not declaring Mohammed a prophet. The increasing fundamentalism and civil war was so prevalent that the only thing that ended the latter was the Ottoman Empire, and they pretty much united the Muslims through force. They had tolerance in name only, so that they can tolerate nonbelievers and repeatedly use them as punching bags and tax mules. Comparing that to Medieval and Renaissance Christian rulers who, on the case of the former, respected the rights and privileges of their subjects, and on the case of the latter, supported the lower classes and kept the elite in check, is like comparing Saudi Arabia today with the US of the 50’s. Christendom had its kinks, but it isn’t as fucked up as the Islamic rulers were from the past who can’t even et along with each other that guys like Saladin had to drag them out kicking and screaming in order to unite. Even the Crusaders found the Muslims killing each other here and there.
A few years back I considered contributing to Cracked, getting on the writers forum and worming my way into the inner circle. But it started leaning further and further to the left, to the point where I couldn’t stand it. The kicker was a listicle by some wanker named Lucas or something equally gay, the title of which IIRC was: “The 5 sexist outfits in comics”. Yeah. The comments section was a shitstorm, which unfortunately the SJW craybabies won by sheer weight of numbers.
On another occassion there was a listicle about something or other, with the statement that women can survive deeper sea pressures than men but no one knows why. In the comments I hypothesized that maybe it’s because women’s bodies have more fat tissue than men. Oh boy did I get flayed by the feminazis and SJWs, as a woman-hating misogynyst neckbeard.
As for John Cheese.. he still alive? Anyway I’m still on the Cracked email list.. but fucked if I ever click on it anymore.
Kind of funny how one troll website is bitching about another troll website
6. It’s written by and for cultural illiterates. Any time they start writing about movies, especially, I want to track down the author and smack them upside the head with my copy of Thomson’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Film.
Mostly unfunny, mostly informative.
Mostly fragments not sentences, mostly incomplete syntax, mostly inarticulate.
Dear Idiot,
Brevity is the soul of wit.
There. A complete sentence. Don’t you feel …
Special?
Dear Self-righteous Projecting Idiot —
You’re obviously an extraordinary slow learner.
1) You’re not a comedian. This red herring comment is nothing but a snarky “pat answer” retort without any meaningful relevance.
2) Excessive “brevity” = lack of clarity. Only a poor writer makes concision the enemy of clarity.
3) To state what is obvious to everyone but you — there’s no agent in your fragments so no one knows who or what YOU think is unfunny but informative. Is it Cracked or is it the ROK author, Phil Elmore? Or is it another commenter? No reader can know which is correct — one can only assume, which most of us aren’t going to do.
4) Were you to add nouns to your original comment, you’d be burdened with the unenviable task of also adding verbs. And of course, a comment with both nouns and verbs can’t POSSIBLY be concise. Total bummer.
5) If you read through these comments — or any meaningful polemic, for that matter — you’ll notice that the key ingredient is the exchange of WHYS. That is, one person tells another the REASONING behind his thoughts and assertions. Therein lies the entire value in any and every exchange of ideas. Your comments lack this. Both of your comments lack any meaningful content.
You illustrate the fact that stupid people are literally unaware of that fact about themselves. Why you decided to latch like a brainless pitbull onto my brief comment I can only imagine. Here, let me make it so simple even a caveman (you) can get it:
1) Cracked is generally NOT funny.
2) Cracked generally IS informative.
How long until your stupidity causes you to chew your own arm off and then hit yourself on the head with the bloody stump?
p.s. you fail utterly at perceiving double entendre. Pps this article about cracked is not particulary funny but is somewhat informative. So Meta!
omfglol you are like some undead zombie shoot it and it Still keeps coming BRAAAAAAAAAINZ
Right on cue, you deflect the issue and introduce an impertinent simile; an adversarial response without a real response.
BRAAAAAAAAAINZ
I came here expecting to read about the quality of the humor itself, not some crybaby shtick about how they don’t target who YOU want them to. This is the right-wing’s version of Political Correctness, and it deserves as much respect as the left’s…
None.
You forgot one thing. It’s writers will personally insult you if you try to discuss their articles on Facebook. Not a pseudonym, you. Doesn’t matter if you use sources or have education, as far as they are concerned your not smart enough to be part of their conversation. I’m speaking about J.F. Sargent specifically.
I’m recently retired from the army and have written for cracked. I authored a single article accusing G.I Joe of indoctrinating children to become super villains. Obviously for the sole purpose of comedic joy and an excuse to write about cartoons. When I chose to write for Cracked, I’d read some pretty impressive articles on their site from Robert Brockway. After publishing my article, I’ve been beyond disappointed with the joke quality and leftist garbage that seems to take priority over quality joke writing. It seems like I’m endlessly reading liberal Twitter infographics now.
I totally agree with the writer that something has changed and it seems like nothing but telegraphed predictable jabs that should all end with the sentence “feel the Bern!”
While I appreciate Cracked for publishing my article, I haven’t written for them again
You blogger and commenters generally seem pretty good-humored and intelligent, although there’s this really strange component to all of it. I’m reading and I’m thinking haha yes, that’s true, true, yes, sing it brother…and then bam, every few sentences there’s some completely bizarre, almost childlike sentiment to the effect that someone’s bullying you, someone’s trying to make you feel bad, something’s been stolen from you. This really is what it feels like to be conservative, isn’t it? Somehow, despite your smarts and perhaps better impulses, the big picture, the weirder, sadder, funnier, sweeter, truer picture of a community — the one we’re ALL a part of — is somehow forever subordinated to the tiny picture of YOUR disappointments as underappreciated older white men. To YOUR prissy hand-wringing about the way things used to be (i.e. a tiny bit easier for your fat, lazy, whining selves). To YOUR absurd self-congratulations over things like “male sexuality” as the “driving force of civilization.” Are you fucking kidding? Do you not understand that it’s precisely this hallucinatory, masturbatory obsession with more and more contorted forms of blathering self-victimization that non-conservatives find so hilarious and heartbreaking about you?
Liberal conspiracy didn’t make you into the man-children you are. Your own limited imaginations, rock-bottom tolerance for pain and garden-variety cowardice did.
EDIT: Ah, just read up a bit on who Roosh is, as I’d never heard of his stupid ass until this page turned up in a search. Turns out he’s just another shitbag rapist. King of the Lying Cowards. You people write for and hang out on his site? Well done, crying little boys, well done.
Cracked used up all the obvious pop-culture targets (like Star Wars) early on. In order to keep churning out content, they’ve had to abandon comedy. They also know their audience is largely far-left, SJW types so they present that kind of content to get the page views and comments. I gave up on them long ago.
Cracked has gone from a distant second to MAD to this shitty SJW stronghold.
This site is crap.
Cracked was a decent site in the past. I read it a lot circa 2010 and 2011. But then it gradually just turned harder and harder to the left. I consider myself left leaning but mostly moderate, and I always vote Democrat. But these people just take it so far to the left…. There’s really no better word to call it than hatemongering and pandering to liberals and young people. Because there’s a big market for that.
They’ve nearly dropped any pretense of being a humor site. They still have that reference to being a humor site in their motto at the top of the pages. And occasionally, when called out on the absurdity of their arguments they try to use their ostensible status as a humor site as a defense. “Hey don’t take us seriously! We’re just making jokes!” As the author mentioned, Jon Stewart did this a lot. I noticed he was doing it years ago and now I just refer to the practice of making bad arguments and then using your status as a humorist as a defense as “Jon Stewarting”.
The last straw for me was summer of 2015 when they did an article “Why There’s ‘No Escape’ from Hollywood Racism”. There was a forgettable movie in 2015 called “No Escape” starring Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, and Pierce Brosnan as Americans who get caught in the middle of a violent revolt while vacationing in some Asian country. The gist of the article was that the movie was racist because there were violent mobs of Asians. Because I guess when a civil war breaks out in an Asian country, either the people revolting are supposed to be calm and civil? Or it was unfair because the citizens of an Asian country were Asian instead of white?
I dunno. Some defenders of the site said that the article was tongue-in-cheek, but it’s really impossible to tell with Cracked.
I sometimes wonder if the writers there honestly believe the drivel they spout, or if they just go over the top like that to drive clicks. I mean, attention is attention and ad revenue, whether it’s because you’re pandering to your base that loves it or you’re getting readers who just hate it. The programs that measure this stuff don’t care.
Truth. When I saw the Cracked article defending the Kardashians, I knew it was pure garbage run by garbage people.
Cracked used to actually be a pretty funny website. Now it’s just a SJW crybaby handkerchief.
This article is filled with microaggressions and I felt constantly triggered while reading it.
I think people bitch too much about liberals. Get the fuck over it. Why do sites need to be right-wing and conservatives? I thought this article would go after the shitty articles and shitty humor… Not bitch and moan about the political shit. There are plenty of sites that go after liberals in a funny way. Nothing but a bunch of old ass white fucktard complaining about how the world isn’t the way it is anymore. A bunch of homophobic Jesus dickriding retards who wish black people were still slaves. Right wing fuckers and conservative snowbunny snowflakes aren’t any better.
“God” created a bunch of idiots. America has been doomed for years. While SJWs are annoying as fuck, these comments hypocritically show what else is wrong with the world.