Friday Q&A

Questionable Delusion

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A. I'm glad you're here, unless you disagree with me in any way whatsoever, in which case you can go fuck yourself. This week, I'll be taking questions about the newest changes to Fark. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so I'll have to skip my conventional opening diatribe about TheSniperZERO. I'm sure he won't mind, because he's a stupid jerk.

Q: Why is Fark selling headline t-shirts?

A: Drew must need more beer money. In a feature similar to CNN, Farkers can now buy a shirt with their favorite headline proudly emblazoned on the front. Unfortunately, many users took issue with the annoying presence of t-shirt icons all over the main page. Others noted that the tags on the shirts don't match the standard Fark tags, the left-justified text looks awkward, and anyone seen wearing a Fark shirt should immediately be punched in the face.


Even worse is the fact that 90% of all headlines don't make sense/aren't funny when printed out of context on a t-shirt. Some pretty bizarre examples were posted in this thread. Can you imagine having to constantly explain the shirt to everyone who sees it? I don't know many people who are even aware of what Fark is. Thankfully, the PS community escapes this blatant consumerism due to the quasi-legality of what we do (at least according to the lawyers of a certain well-endowed rodent). Don't look for your favorite photoshop entry on a shirt any time soon. In fact, no PS headlines are available for purchase.

In the end, I suppose submitters may want their headline on a shirt, so there's the potential for at least one sale per link. Unless users figure out they can reproduce Fark's craptastic design in less than five minutes with MSPaint, Drew stands to make a good 15 bucks for every link that gets greenlit. That makes enough sense on paper to justify the attempt, and I'll be interested to see how sales go. In the meantime, Adblock can eliminate the annoying t-shirt icon.

Q: What happened to the TotalFark logo?

A: The logo was shortened in order to make room for all that new ad space. This redesign was necessary, and no one really expected much in the way of graphical styling. After all, the original TotalFark logo was nothing special. Unfortunately, the new logo is a mess.



I don't know why the powers that be went with that design, but critiquing a web site logo is asinine. Personally, I adblock the damn thing. It makes the top of the page look a lot cleaner if you're already using Stylish to remove the banner.

Q: Are you a commie or a fascist?

A: I can only assume you're asking that question in reference to Fark's new Political Inclination Thermometric Analyzer. According to Drew's description, the PITA meter has been implemented in order to pacify accusations of bias by both left and right wing whiners. I personally was not aware of the delicate balance between communism and fascism. It's kind of depressing that the extreme of both ideologies ends in a police state.


At any rate, this is just another new feature that doesn't affect the photoshoppers. I suppose if you really hate the graphic you could adblock it (this blog is becoming like a damn advertisement for that plug in). As for my own political views, I try not to make them an issue here at the Clinic, something that I'm sure my international readers are thankful for. American politics is surely an annoying distraction from scratching at the dirt in front of their ramshackle huts.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. As always, thanks for stopping by. While some of you may be upset at the unappealing look of Fark 2.5, keep in mind that things could be a lot worse. While a contest to design the t-shirt template or TF logo would have been fun, Drew chose to go another route. I for one am glad we didn't get involved. People are going to hate the shirts and reduced logo regardless of who creates them.

Stay tuned for more truthful cynicism from the Doctor!