2014 Review: things that BLEW OUR MINDS

Mandelbrot Animation1″. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

December 15, 2014: 2014 was a pretty damned funky year. Here is a list that made us  go BWUH, WOW, or AIEEEE! So OH MY GERD! — welcome to THINGS THAT BLEW OUR MIND in 2014. The entries appear in no particular order.

Ello: I felt so COOL when I received six invites to this super-exclusive, still-in-beta social network. These invites were spread around to Didit staff and quickly snapped off. But as of this moment, Ello is still in development, missing a bunch of features, and seems to have as a revenue model the fact that it will never have a revenue model. So, BWUH?

Horse Mask: This crazy trend seems to be simply people photo-bombing in horse masks. This Washington Post article reveals how Horse Mask started from a bit of creepy weirdness in an anime show, but it seems to have expanded out into just plain creepy. AIEEEE!

Alex from Target: A cute teen boy amasses 60,000 Twitter favorites over one weekend after his photo is uploaded. The following Tuesday a PR firm called Breakr claims to have orchestrated the whole thing, but Alex and his family claims to have never heard of them and no one knows who’s telling the truth. This affair demonstrates the weird murky funhouse nature of the Internet. WOW.

Grumpy Cat‘s big comeback: Our maestro Steve Baldwin talked about the squished faced feline at length. But interest in the animal increased in 2014, moving the cat from has-been to hero. Today GC is worth deals that number in the hundred million dollar range. That’s $100MM (maybe) for the Grumpy Cat movie, folks. AIIEEEEE!

The Cross Hilt light saber from the Star Wars VII trailer: Anger over the new design of light saber, in the  otherwise well received Star Wars trailer, is apparently a new new thing. After a lengthy debate and consensus, we here at Didit HQ have come to the conclusion that people are fine with intelligent robots lifting stuff with your mind and spaceships that make sounds in a vacuum, but have a big problem with a new design of a laser sword after watching 25 years of laser swords. BWUH.

Dungeons and Dragons 5^th Edition: The grand daddy of all nerd past-times released its 3^rd and final core book on December 9^th. A lot of folks were scared that it would be the nail in the coffin for the beloved fantasy game franchise (especially after the rocky reception of the last edition of D&D). Instead, they seemed to have knocked the ball out of the park, much to everyone’s surprise and delight (except for Paizo, the producer of D&D’s direct competitor, the Pathfinder RPG). D&D 5^th has been hailed as a return to the game’s roots and has met rave reviews, much to everyone’s surprise. So, YAY!

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: While the actual challenge had been around for quite some while, celebrities on social media picked up on this way to promote awareness in a big way in 2014. The challenge has been done by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Chris Pratt, Matthew Lewis, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. We feel that the ALS Association is an awesome cause to support and this trend if a good thing. WOW!

The popularity of GoPros: This trend is a no brainer, as this stunning video of a GoPro camera attached to the back of an eagle proves. GoPros are insanely cool and allow for POV filming of all sorts of situations. WOW.

The Potato Salad Kickstarter: If you haven’t heard about this one, you’ve been living under a rock. Zack Danger Brown earned himself lasting fame and $55,000 simply for making potato salad and offering backers the chance to pledge to this Kickstarter campaign. I personally regard this as performance art. I won’t write this off as AIEEE, because, well, folks knew what they were getting into when they gave this guy money.  So, BWUH (maybe meh.)

The Rise of Internet Stars To The Mainstream: Here we have cases like Bethanny Mota (now on Dancing With The Stars), Vine stars like Shawn Mendes, Nash Grier (who is as of April 2014 the most popular user on Vine and just got a clothing line with Pacsun) and… all the other stars and memes on the Internet: As the Youtube Rewind for 2014 shows, the Internet is now the center of the media universe and pervades everything in our lives. Yes, I work in online marketing. Why do you ask? WWWOOOWWWW.

The great Iphone Bend Test. Apparently, destroying expensive phones on YouTube is now a thing. I winced when I saw this particular Iphone 6 destroyed by a hammer. Is this covered by phone insurance? AIEEEE!

A triple mind-expanding mystery: Pirate Bay: I don’t know what’s weirder – that it’s still up, or that people are still trying to take it down. BWUH? Futurama is not on the air: This speaks for itself. AIEEE! The Simpsons are still on the air: This speaks for itself. BWUH?

Two Goldfish Playing Street Fighter II: Courtesy of Twitch. Actually this is really damned entertaining. So, WOW.

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Things that BLEW OUR MINDS in 2014

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2014 was a pretty damned funky year. Here is a list that made us go BWUH, WOW, or AIEEEE! So OH MY GERD! -- welcome to THINGS THAT BLEW OUR MIND in 2014.

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Chris Bell