Ben Huh on the Culture, Morals, and Politics of the Internet

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Ben Huh on the Culture, Morals, and Politics of the Internet

"Internet culture is an absolute threat to existing power structures," says Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger, the popular web humor brand responsible for I Can Haz Cheezburger, FailBlog, and much more. "Because people are finally realizing that they have power in their voice."

Reason.tv sat down with Huh to talk about internet culture, why the ability of individuals to create their own content is a good thing, the common ideology that should unite all internet users, and why we have to learn to live with internet trolls.

Approximately 4:30 minutes.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Comments

[Notorious G.K.C.]

OT: Scarlett Johansson takes a bath:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0YC3RpvE3M

[Hyperion]

Nice April Fool.

[R C Dean]

My best April Fool's joke:

Somehow (it was a small organization), I got saddled with HR duties, including redrafting the employee handbook. It was close to done on April 1, so I distributed to the bosses the "new" handbook.

In its entirety it read:

(1) Do what you are told.

(2) Don't be an idiot.

(3) Unless the CEO says otherwise.

Nearly got me fired. Although I have yet to see an employee handbook that isn't just a very long version of mine.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

"You're not paid enough to ask why!"

[Hyperion]

I got saddled with HR duties

You are forever tainted. Go outside the camp and live in destitution.

[Loki]

I got saddled with HR duties, including redrafting the employee handbook.

Did you use this as the cover?

[LarryA]

Of course you almost got fired. You left out:
(4) Other duties as assigned.

[Sevo]

..."a day when tech titans like Google and YouTube roll out elaborate pranks"...

Or get pranked:
"Google bus blocked by dancing protesters in S.F. Mission District"
http://blog.sfgate.com/techchr.....22081101=0

Irony is lost on these folks. And at least it wasn't a drum circle.

[Hyperion]

Sorry if this has already been posted:

Legos will send your children to HELL!

This never actually goes away, does it?

[Pro Libertate]

Would this hold true if I were to 3-D print my own blocks?

[Hyperion]

Especially then. After a few printing, one evening, the printer would suck you in, along with any children in a 4 block radius, straight into a 4D other dimensional HELL vortex.

And our politicians tried to warn you about 3D printers, but you wouldn't listen, would you, mister smarty pants?

[Pro Libertate]

Building blocks seem so innocuous.

[Hyperion]

That's what everyone thought about weed in the 70s too, and now look at the reefer zombie apocalypse that is upon us!

[Pro Libertate]

War on Blocks?

[Hyperion]

Well, we can never have TOO many wars.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

To be fair, it's only the hell blocks they are concerned about.

[Pro Libertate]

Really, given the current state of culture, economics, and politics, isn't every day Fools' Day?

[Heroic Mulatto]

No. January 20th is National Good Day Day.

[Sudden]

I think we should have a post about how April Fools' Day really started as a mockery of the socialist May Day and is therefore a microagression and othering tool of the bourgoisie masters.

[Hugh Akston]

I gave up after about 25 Pokemon. But there's like a shitload of them in Sydney if anyone is hunting.

[RannedPall]

HELP. My professor is making the entire class watch "The Story of Stuff" by that proggie hag, Annie Leonard. No, it's not an April Fool's joke. I need more pub beer.

[Hyperion]

Do you have to watch it in class, or on your own?

[RannedPall]

No, we are all watching it in class, all 250 of us in this lecture hall. This mendacious prog cites nothing in this entire propaganda video.

[Heroic Mulatto]

What class is this?

[RannedPall]

Social Ecology 8-Environmental Analysis, it's a major requirement, so I guess I should've expected it, but still, this is just so blatantly dishonest.

[Hyperion]

Social Ecology 8-Environmental Analysis

Holy.Fucking.Proglotrad, Batman.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Social Ecology 8-Environmental Analysis

I don't even know what those words mean together. What major is this for, I may inquire?

[Hyperion]

The important thing is that we totally corrupt RannedPall, and ruin the chances of the Borg to suck him into the hive.

[RannedPall]

From wiki:"Social ecology is a critical social theory founded by Green author and activist Murray Bookchin. Conceptualized as a critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends, it espouses a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society." And my major is criminology, but because it exists in the school of social ecology, I'm stuck with taking this damn class, btw, the full name of the class is "Environmental analysis and design".

[Heroic Mulatto]

Wow. I...I have no words.

[Hyperion]

You could tell them the truth, that things like that only work on the smallest of scales, like local communities.

But I'm sure they don't want to hear that, since they know that communitarian stuff always works out on a massive centralized scale, you know, besides not ever working and millions being imprisoned and murdered in the name of 'community, social justice, equality', or whatever else the latest excuse is for psychopaths to assume control and go about their rein of tyranny.

[RannedPall]

The truth? The truth will get you flogged around these university parts.

[Sevo]

"The truth? The truth will get you flogged around these university parts."

Get Sokal to write your paper.

[LarryA]

You could tell them the truth, that things like that only work on the smallest of scales, like local communities.

Cite? That they work even then, that is.

These are the same OWS folks who can't organize a "reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical" park camp-in site, but want to tell us how to run the world.

[Hyperion]

Is laughing sarcastically every few moment an option?

[RannedPall]

It might be, but then I risk being outed as unstable, because no sane person would laugh at such an informative video!

[Hyperion]

Ok. Do you have any sane classmates how haven't had their brains pickled by this toxic waste?

[SugarFree]

I suggest farting. A lot. When someone finally asks "What is that horrible smell?!?" You can say, in your most hysterical voice "I think it's coming from... THE FILM!" Then you scream and run from the hall.

All you have to do is mumble something next class about consumerism being "triggering" because you were abandoned in a JC Penneys as a child and you were fondled by a cash register.

You are so getting an A.

[RannedPall]

Haha! That made me laugh, in an otherwise soul-sucking course.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

At least you can have enlightened online conversations during class.

[RannedPall]

Pretty much, my first thought when a class is losing my attention goes something like "wonder what's going on in the reason threads", I'm almost never disappointed.

[Calidissident]

RP, you live in LA right? Where do you go to school?

[RannedPall]

I do, in South LA, and I attend University of California, Irvine.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Yasiel Puig obliterated a baseball in San Diego. Not that I am able to watch it because Time Warner is worse than Hitler.

[RannedPall]

It's all about bleacher report, son! Oh, you mean watching the game? Yeah, maybe firstrowsports is your best bet.

[Sudden]

Summed up my entire worldview in six words.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

8.0 earthquake just hit Chile.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Dios Mio!

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

Yellowstone is waking up too

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I blame the 'Warty Hugeman and the Domcok of Doom' series for bringing this judgment down on us.

[Sevo]

If the guys in So Cal would quit stamping their feet, the rest of us could get some rest.

[Almanian!]

Great - just in time for our vacation, which includes a visit to Yellowstone!

#WINNING

[RannedPall]

Well, it hit off the coast of Chile, but still has tsunami potential. If they could just stop all their damn fracking.

[RannedPall]

Reading off of the USGS website that, in fact, a tsunami was generated, hopefully it's not destructive.

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

'Hope cancer kills you soon': Tolerant Left reaches out to Julie Boonstra

[Archduke von Pantsfan]

The Netflix April Fool's joke is also cool.

[Death Rock and Skull]

I find "meme" shit to be gay as fuck.