Interesting online diversions: Nestflix, Wine Project, Bodega Cats

I love the fact that people can express their creativity on the World Wide Web. Whether its videos on YouTube or TikTok, niche photo accounts on Twitter and Instagram, or making dedicated websites, people have a lot of outlets to express themselves.
What follows are some of the interesting websites and accounts that I’ve come across in recent months.

Nestflix

Phoenix-based web designer Lynn Fisher created a website full of fake movies and TV shows that were depicted in actual movies and TV shows. The website is modeled after Netflix and called Nestflix because the fake movies and TV shows are “nested” within real productions.
Examples include “Angels with Filthy Souls” from “Home Alone” and “The Rural Juror” from “30 Rock.”
(See articles by AV Club, the Verge, Laughing Squid and EW.)

Wine Project

Brazilian photographer Marcos Alberti made a project that photographed people after one, two and three glasses of wine. The Wine Project shows how the alcoholic beverage lowers people’s inhibitions and lets them relax and have fun.
(See articles by VinePair and Considerable.)

Sebcolorisation

Paris-based digital artist Sébastien de Oliveira brings old black-and-white photos to life using Photoshop to colorize them. The result is like being transported to the past to witness a scene as it happens. He specializes in street scenes from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. He posts his photos on an Instagram account called Sebcolorisation.
(See article by Bored Panda.)

Bodega Cats

Rob Hitt started an online project called Bodega Cats where he posts sweet and funny photos of cats in New York City’s many convenience stores and delis, known as bodegas.
(See article by Bored Panda.)

A Street Cat Named Benson

Rescued from the streets of Dubai, Benson the cat became Insta-famous when he was adopted and brought to the U.S. His human companions dress him up in costumes and the handsome, patient kitty is happy to oblige. The photos are posted to the Instagram account A Street Cat Named Benson.
(See article by My Modern Met.)

Brands Against Humanity

Ellie Daghlian and Elisa Czerwenka, a creative team at Uncommon London, made a card game about corporate greed called Brands Against Humanity. It’s a parody of the game Cards Against Humanity. It highlights the real misdeeds of major companies such as Amazon, Coca-Cola and DuPont.
(See article by Fast Company.)

Mr. Skin

While I’m not a customer of Mr. Skin, I admire the website’s meticulous chronicling of movie nude scenes.
The website recently commemorated its 22nd year in business with a list of history’s 22 Sexiest Screen Sirens. Salma Hayek was No. 1, followed by Eva Green, Pam Grier, Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron.

Profiting from lying clickbait

For years, online content promoters have profited by serving up lying clickbait to consumers. But now the average person can profit from those businesses, too.
Two such clickbait promoters recently went public on the Nasdaq stock market: Outbrain and Taboola. But both stocks have fallen hard since their public debuts. So, maybe their businesses aren’t that great after all.
What follows are some of the latest examples of lying clickbait that I’ve seen from Outbrain’s Smartfeed.

An article promoted by Outbrain titled “Julia Roberts’ daughter turns 16 and is her replica” used two different photos, neither of which featured her daughter.
One post showed Julia with her niece, actress Emma Roberts, from a movie premiere in February 2010. The other showed Julia in a Photoshopped picture with her younger self. (The latter photo is part of a series of pictures of celebrities paired with their younger selves. The illustrations were created by Linzi Silverman for People.com.)

An Outbrain article titled “[Photos] Meet Tom Selleck’s better half” used a photo of Selleck with Access Hollywood host Shaun Robinson, not his wife.

An Outbrain article titled “Tom Cruise’s private jet is absurd” used a photo of a tricked-out limousine. The limousine pictured is called the “Learmousine” because its designer used a Learjet’s fuselage to create a street-legal party bus. (See article by Insider.)

Covid-related cancellations pick up as delta variant spreads

Here we go again with cancellations because of the lingering Covid-19 pandemic. Music acts are canceling their concert tours. Conferences are canceling in-person events. And theatrical movies are being postponed or switched to streaming services.
Almost daily now, music performers are scrapping their tours. Just this week, K-pop group BTS, country star Garth Brooks, country duo Florida Georgia Line and industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails canceled their fall tours. They followed recent tour cancellations by singer Stevie Nicks and rock band Limp Bizkit.
Billboard is keeping a running list of cancellations. (See “Every 2021 Concert & Festival Canceled Due to Covid-19.”)
Other live events recently canceled include the VidCon and BravoCon conventions.
VidCon, which brings together online creators and fans, canceled its in-person conference for the second year in a row. This year’s show had been slated for Oct. 22-24 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif.
The Bravo television network also canceled its in-person event. BravoCon had been scheduled for Oct. 15-17 in New York City.
Also, a bunch of movies that had been set for release this fall have been delayed because of Covid. They include “Clifford the Big Red Dog” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” (See the USA Today article “Covid is delaying concerts and movies, again.”)
And Sony is rumored to be skipping a theatrical run for “Hotel Transylvania 4” and selling the streaming rights to Amazon Prime Video.
I’m sure these won’t be the last Covid cancellations and delays. Things were supposed to have returned to normal by now, but many people refuse to get vaccinated, despite the more contagious delta variant.

Photo: Washington-Lee High School track in Arlington, Va., closed during Covid-19 outbreak in April 2020. (Photo by dmbosstone via Creative Commons)

‘Hot vax summer’ ruined by anti-vax idiots

We were promised a “hot vax summer” as people emerged from their homes after the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to the availability of Covid vaccines. People were supposed to resume their normal lives and have fun this summer, unlike last year’s boring shelter-in-place summer.
But the Great Reopening of the economy has been slow to happen because of the large numbers of anti-science, anti-government morons who refuse to get one of the Covid vaccines.
Almost daily I see stories about some anti-vaccine idiot dying of Covid-19. The stories are almost cliché now with the victim saying “I wish I had gotten the vaccine” before they die.
Their decision to die senselessly in this pandemic is bad enough. But they’ve made the pandemic worse by allowing the disease to flourish and mutate into variants that are easier to transmit and are more lethal.
The delta variant of Covid-19 is the strain that’s wreaking the most havoc in the U.S. now. It’s causing governments to consider mask mandates, vaccine passports and more shutdowns.
Worse yet, the Covid pandemic looks like it’s becoming endemic. That’s means it will stick around forever like the flu.
On the entertainment front, concert tours are getting canceled again and theatrical movies are being postponed or moved to streaming.
Covid-19 is reshaping our work, school and home lives. And not for the better.

Related articles:

So Much for a ‘Hot Vax Summer’; The Delta variant puts a chill on bacchanalian behavior (The New York Times; Aug. 14, 2021)

Whiplash for the Concert Business as the Delta Variant Rages On (The New York Times; Aug. 13, 2021)

Concert industry moves to vaccination and negative test requirements as Covid cases surge (Cleveland.com; Aug. 11, 2021)

From Fall Out Boy to Counting Crows — Shows Shutting Down While Delta Surges (Rolling Stone; Aug. 9, 2021)

We’re starting to see how the pandemic affected births in the U.S. (CNN; May 6, 2021)

The coming Covid-19 baby bust is here (Brookings; May 5, 2021)

Photo: Covid mural in Chicago (Terence Faircloth via Creative Commons)

The most popular fairytale characters in porn movies

Several years ago, during my research into adaptations of public domain works, I investigated which fairytale characters were depicted the most in porn movies. It’s time to reexamine the subject.
For this article, I used the Internet Adult Film Database and news sites AVN and Xbiz.
When I did my first article on the subject in 2014, porn parodies of fairytales were moving from full-length adult films to shorter productions for online sites. The latest trend is virtual reality porn films, some of which feature fairytale cosplay.
So which fairytale character is No. 1 for depictions in porn movies?
Little Red Riding Hood is the most popular fairytale character. She shows up in at least 23 adult movies and videos.
Cinderella comes in second with 12 porn movies, followed by Alice in Wonderland and Aladdin (The Arabian Nights), each with 11.
Snow White has been the subject of eight porn parodies. Beauty and the Beast got the porn treatment five times. And Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty and the Wizard of Oz tied with four porn flicks each.

Related resource:

Porn movies based on fairytales

Photo: "Little Red Ride-him Good" (2013) starring Krissy Lynn.

Lessons from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2021

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is preparing to induct its class of 2021 in a ceremony on Oct. 30 in Cleveland. But which inductees will show up is still an open question.
As a casual observer of the Rock Hall, it’s clear to me that the institution has a lot of work to do to mend fences with the music industry and its fans.
The 2021 class of inductees is a good start. To begin with, the hall is inducting 12 groups and individual artists. That’s double the six performers inducted in 2020. (The hall also is inducting one non-performer this year: music industry executive Clarence Avant. That makes a total of 13 inductees.)
Technically, the Rock Hall is only inducting six acts in its “performer category” this year: Tina Turner, Carole King, The Go-Go’s, Jay-Z, Foo Fighters and Todd Rundgren. But it found a backdoor way to induct Kraftwerk and LL Cool J as well as session musician Billy Preston (known as “the fifth Beatle”), heavy-metal guitarist Randy Rhoads, “Father of the Delta Blues” Charley Patton and soul-jazz performer Gil Scott-Heron. The hall used its “musical excellence” and “early influence” categories to induct the additional performers.
Some observers complained about the use of those categories to induct artists. But in the absence of a veterans committee to install other deserving artists, I have no major problem with it. However, the hall might need to change its extra categories.
My biggest complaint about the Rock Hall has been that it’s been too stingy about installing new acts. With the sizable backlog of worthy acts not inducted, adding five to seven performers a year just doesn’t cut it. Adding 12 artists this year is a positive step.
Another positive this year is that the hall appeared to pay attention to the online fan poll. The fan poll winner, Tina Turner, was inducted this year.
Three of the five acts picked for the fan ballot this year were inducted. The Go-Go’s and Foo Fighters also were in the top five. (Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti and heavy metal band Iron Maiden didn’t make the final cut.)
A year earlier, the hall snubbed the top vote-getters – Dave Matthews Band and Pat Benatar.
Some pundits thought Foo Fighters shouldn’t have been inducted in their first year of eligibility. I disagree and think it’s great that a rock band that’s still culturally relevant is getting honored. (Consider the Foo Fighter’s recent trolling of picketing members of the Westboro Baptist Church, its support of Covid-19 vaccinations and headlining of Lollapalooza 2021.)
Too often it seems like the hall waits until acts are deceased or no longer touring to induct them.
Finally, there’s been a lot of reports in the media of music acts criticizing the Rock Hall for its policies. For instance, making inductees pay for tickets to their own show is a dick move.
The hall has created much ill will with the music industry related to its snubbing of certain acts and its mandates for inductees.
This animosity partly explains why prog-rocker Todd Rundgren doesn’t plan to attend the induction ceremony. He has a concert booked for Cincinnati that same night.
The Go-Go’s also are a question mark for performing at the ceremony. Lead singer Belinda Carlisle has a solo concert set for Sheffield, England, that night. The group had been ignored by the hall for about 15 years.
Tina Turner, 81, is in poor health and highly unlikely to travel from Switzerland.
Jay-Z has been silent about whether he’ll perform at the Rock Hall induction ceremony. If he and his superstar wife Beyonce are no-shows, it would be a major diss of the institution.
Meanwhile, Foo Fighters, Carole King, and LL Cool J are seen as the safest bets for performing at this year’s show.

Netflix is taking away the ability of subscribers to reorder their streaming lists

For organization freaks like me, Netflix’s announcement that it is taking away the ability for people to reorder their streaming watchlists is a disappointment.
Last week, Netflix posted an announcement at the top of the My List function on its website. It reads, “It’s time to say goodbye. Beginning early September, you will no longer be able to manually order titles in My List. Titles will default to automatic ordering.”
This isn’t a huge surprise to me because the reordering function has been broken for over a year. Users have been able to move titles lower but not to the top of the list. I complained about this to Netflix in February 2020, but I received no response.

@netflix Please fix the My List streaming queue. It has been broken for weeks. I can't move video titles to the top or manually change the order of shows. Very annoying.

— Patrick Seitz (@PatrickSeitz) February 7, 2020

Still, I have been able to do some reordering. For instance, I put all the series I’m interested in watching together at the bottom of My List.
The Amazon Prime Video watchlist, called My Stuff, automatically separates movies from TV shows into separate tabs. Netflix needs to do that as well. And Netflix also should add a tab for documentary movies and series, too. I ended up creating a separate user account for non-fiction programming on Netflix.
When Netflix switches to “automatic ordering,” I hope it makes some sense such as alphabetical order. Otherwise, it’s just going to be a crazy jumble.
My guess is that Netflix will try to use algorithms to present the content in a ranking of what it thinks you’d like to watch next.
I add a lot of movies and TV series to my watchlist – many of which I’ll probably never view. I like to have a wide selection of content I’ve preselected to choose from, depending on my mood.
If Netflix takes the crazy jumble approach, I’ll probably delete a lot of titles for simplicity’s sake.