Need to escape from a stalker or clean up your online identity before a potential or current employer finds out that you have a personality? Here’s instructions on how to delete yourself from the internet, everything from erasing your profile from Facebook to “unGoogling” yourself.
How to Delete Yourself from the Internet [WikiHow]
Remember those glorious days of indoor recess, during which you would while away the half hour playing that most iconic of computer games: Oregon Trail? Well, now you can reclaim them, because new media production group Half Day Today has come out with a (fake) trailer for Oregon Trail, the movie.
Although the vid only has around 300 views right now, it’s been popping up on video blogs, Twitter and friends’ Facebook profiles all day — so we predict that this parody is ripe to go viral. Why? Well, it adheres to the “Candy Corn” theory coined by College Humor’s Ricky Van Veen: It contains a cultural touchstone that everyone knows, but doesn’t actively think about.
Moreover, it’s part of recent wave of faux trailers: see, Jane Austen’s Fight Club, Java: The Movie!, The Meaning of Rainbows, etc.
Whatever the reason for its appeal, this vid prompted everyone over at Mash HQ to have extremely strong elementary school flashbacks — a return to the days when being a banker from Boston was everyone’s most ardent desire, and you created dream families entirely composed of your homeroom crushes. This one’s for you, bowl-cut kid whose name I no longer remember, who sadly passed away whilst fording the river. This one’s for you…
[via Buzzfeed]
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Kids around the country are getting high on the internet, thanks to MP3s that induce a state of ecstasy. And it could be a gateway drug leading teens to real-world narcotics.
At least, that’s what Kansas News 9 is reporting about a phenomenon called “i-dosing,” which involves finding an online dealer who can hook you up with “digital drugs” that get you high through your headphones.
And officials are taking it seriously.
“Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places,” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs spokesman Mark Woodward told News 9.
I-dosing involves donning headphones and listening to “music” — largely a droning noise — which the sites peddling the sounds promise will get you high. Teens are listening to such tracks as “Gates of Hades,” which is available on YouTube gratis (yes, the first one is always free).
Those who want to get addicted to the “drugs” can purchase tracks that will purportedly bring about the same effects of marijuana, cocaine, opium and peyote. While street drugs rarely come with instruction manuals, potential digital drug users are advised to buy a 40-page guide so that they learn how to properly get high on MP3s.
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“WHAT DOES IT MEAN?” cried YouTube-sensation Double Rainbow guy, whose trippy experience witnessing a pair of colorful streaks in the sky caught fire on the Web recently, and amassed more than 1.5 million views. Indeed, what does it mean? For Double Rainbow guy, aka Paul Vasquez (the “Yosemitebear Mountain Giant”), it was the bedazzling wonderment of dual rainbows that provoked the question.
Here at Fast Company, we’re more interested in figuring out what it means for the clip to have gone viral as part of our chronicle of the social graph, The Influence Project. Is Vasquez just another popular, soon-to-be-forgotten YouTube star? Will he ride the wave of “success” across the Web, like a unicorn atop a rainbow? Does Vasquez now have influence? Is “influence” even the right term to use?
“When I first shot it, I was like, Whoa,” says the professional cagefighter-turned-nature-lover. “I always knew it had the potential–that it was special–and I was thinking it was going to catch on. I shot a video before called Giant Intense Rainbow that had the capability of going viral, but when I shot this one, I was like, this is even better.”
“People think you can only have that kind of experience on drugs,” he explains. “But you don’t have to be–you can have the experience with nature without having to be high or having sex.” However, Vasquez quickly clarified the point. “But I’m not opposed to it! I mean, I was high in the other video, Giant Intense Rainbow,” he assured me with a burly chuckle. “I smoke pot myself–I mean, I have a prescription for it–it’s legal here in California.”
Of course, speaking with the man behind Double Rainbow about how videos go viral isn’t exactly scientific–after all, this was the guy who spent minutes describing to me the overwhelming beauty of the rainbow: “It started to double! Then it turned into a triple! Then a complete circle, like a complete disc of color! Like a giant eye looking at me! You could feel the rays, like of the sun, but it was rainbow rays!” It’s probably no better than asking the Star Wars Kid for tips on fight choreography.
But Vasquez does represent a prime fixture of the Web–someone who has gone viral without intention, who has popularity but perhaps no influence, and could care less about ego (unless it was a drug-induced Freudian-examination of his dreams). If anything, Double Rainbow guy illustrates how difficult it is to define what “influence” and “popularity” mean online.
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Leanback is a simplified YouTube experience designed for TV screens, especially ones equipped with Google TV. In a demo we received from YouTube Product Manager Kuan Yong and UI Designer Julian Frumar, we learned that pretty much all actions come in the form of four buttons: up, down, left and right. The down button opens up a navigation menu, where you can browse a collection of videos based on categories such as entertainment or music. You can also access your video playlists or just watch random videos. Hitting “up” opens up the quick search box.
As you would expect, the design is very simple and intended to allow users to “lean back” and watch YouTube videos one after the other. It was very simple for me to use and understand in my hands-on demo.
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