On bookmarks, favourites, and ports of call on the Internet

...Huh. It's been a while.

Haven't used this for film reviews for a few reasons: Most of them have gone to Splendid Fred, an online magazine run by students and staff of Winchester. The ones currently up are a re-edit of my Prometheus review, a look at Rock of Ages (long story short, it sucks), and a look at The Fall, a lesser-known little gem. Furthermore, there's just not a lot of films to write about. I could review The Dark Knight Rises, but at this stage it would feel like cheerleading, and I feel the need to sit down and rewatch it a few times before reviewing. The Man Who Fell to Earth was, and still is, on the agenda, but until I can sort out a few problems with my TV, that's on the backburner.

So there I am, browsing the web, feeling the need to dust off the cobwebs, when I notice this little blog post by a friend of mine. Then another one, talking about how much you can tell about a person based on their bookmarks. Might as well join in, and at least turn the bookmark bar tag into a thing.

1) That Guy With the Glasses.

The advent of YouTube has given rise to Internet reviewers, people who set up a camera and talk/rant about whatever little corner of pop culture they specialise in - anime, video games, music, film, and cartoons. A few years ago, Doug Walker came in playing the Nostalgia Critic, a cynical manchild with emotional problems who reviews (i.e. rants) cartoons and films from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. From there, he blossomed into an Internet celebrity, forming his own website where fellow nerds can wax lyrical about their specialist subject.

Said subjects are very diverse - along with the usual rigmarole of video games and anime (which is most of what the Internet talks about anyway), we have comic books, pop music, arthouse films, direct-to-video films, exploitation flicks, rap music...chances are there's something on the menu for you.

If you want personal picks, Todd in the Shadows is always a winner, as is Brows Held High if you feel like broadening your horizons some. The site is also in the middle of their third feature length web film (yes, THIRD) To Boldly Flee; earlier efforts, Kickassia and Suburban Knights, are well worth your time.

2) Topless Robot.

This is better than you think it sounds, honest. I'm a disciple of Cracked and Something Awful, so my sense of humour veers toward the dry and scathing, and as nerd blogs go, they don't come much more dry and scathing than Rob Bricken's offering. Covering nerdy interests like action figures, anime, TV shows, video games, films and anything that caters to a geeky palette, Topless Robot has gained popularity through its contests for free T-shirts that yield hilarious results...and Fan Fiction Friday, where Rob reads a horrible pornographic fan fiction and mocks it, because if he has to hurt, we all hurt too.

All joking aside, I always come here because it's a damn good laugh, and if you've been on the Internet enough to actually read fan fiction, it's always welcome to watch Rob take vengeance on it.

3) The A.V. Club.

An offshoot of satirical newspaper The Onion, The A.V. Club went from merely being the entertainment arm to its own beast; still connected to The Onion, but with its own identity. Reviewing pop culture esoterica, The A.V. Club isn't satirical, but its reviews are witty, intelligent and thoughtful, often containing extensive essays on certain films or albums. Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops column, later resurrected as My World of Flops, is a thing of beauty, particularly when he finds a lesser-know gem, and gives it much needed care and attention.

Really, what separates The A.V. Club from most, if not all, of the websites I visit is the fact that the comment section is probably one of the best on the Internet, and not just because the comments don't make me want to slash my wrists. Fans of dark and sarcastic humour, you've found a new home, or at least one that doesn't require you to pay a fee like Something Awful or is full of child porn (*coughRedditcough*). A.V. members are sharp-tongued, bitingly sarky, and wildly enthusiastic; what other community will quote classic Simpsons episodes at every passing opportunity?

Can't think of one? Then you should visit The A.V. Club.

4) Tumblr.

I have no idea why this is still on here. I joined Tumblr a while ago and gave it a shot, but I got bored and annoyed with it within a few months. Don't get me wrong, there are parts of it I liked - you do get really cool people on there, like Wil Wheaton, Kieron Gillen, Bryan Lee O'Malley and Trolling Chris Brown (because seriously, fuck Chris Brown). But those were few and far between, and I got really tired of every ten seconds of a show being turned into GIFs, the endless circlejerks in communities ("You're pretty!" "Aw shucks, no I'm not!", etc. etc.), and - the final straw - the amount of special little snowflakes infesting it.

You know the ones I mean. If you follow Tumblr dot TXT on Twitter (and if you don't, frankly, why the hell not?), there are countless displays of self-serious idiocy that get featured on there. You can't make a joke out there without someone going "Um, actually, I'm a bisexual white female otherkin who believes they're really a cat, and what you're saying is really offensive but then you're a cisgendered male how could you possibly understand and I'm going to spend 1500 words explaining why you're wrong and include the words 'male privilege' or 'cis privilege' somewhere and" FUCKING ENOUGH.

These are the sort of people who don't like it when you say 'idiot' because "DAT'S ABLEIST LANGWICH!", and I have no time for these special little snowflakes who think there's always something unique and special about them, and are utterly unable to take a joke. If you've found a community you identify with, that's cool, that's the beauty of the Internet. But for God's sake, have a sense of humour.

...Damn, that felt good.

5) Netflix.

I'd imagine most people probably have Netflix already through Facebook and its free trial for a month. For those who don't, Netflix is a subscription service that lets you stream films and TV shows on your computer for a small monthly fee. When it first launched in the UK and Ireland, the selection was decent, but still lacking; as more and more people sign up to it, though, it grows wider, and now you have stuff like Drive, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Pulp Fiction, Firefly, Misfits and countless others.

Guilty as I am saying this, I do watch stuff online that I'm not technically supposed to, but I justify this by the shows/films not being available anywhere legally/trying before I buy. Those are my excuses, I'm sticking to them, and Netflix certainly saves me the hassle of Googling for sites to stream movies on that a) don't require a plug-in and b) won't fuck up my laptop with some exotic new Trojan virus. There's a very good roster of films and TV, and the more people use it, the more stuff becomes available, meaning more people use it, and so on and so forth in a happy circle of business.

There's a reason more people use iTunes and Spotify nowdays than pirating music, although not to begrudge anyone who does; it's simply good business to have what we want on demand. Netflix is the first step on the film front, and as a film geek, I welcome that.

Aaaaand that's about all you're getting. There are a lot of bookmarks, and to go into all of them with the amount of detail I have with these is getting into overkill territory. Besides, this probably paints a better picture of me as a user. My fellow bloggers, what do you have bookmarked?

The bookmark tag will be a thing, whether you like it or not. Credit to Abby Harris for the idea.