Art inside of Flickr
May 24, 2006 2:44 PM   Subscribe

I'm a huge fan of clever unintended uses for things, and loloroy's favorites reuses a page/interface I've seen hundreds of times before in a cute way. It may take a second to figure out, but should be worth it [via tmn].
posted by mathowie (49 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Just as an FYI to those prone to mindless clicking of the 'next' button, subsequent pages in his favorites have an awful lot of NSFW nekkidness.
posted by verb at 2:47 PM on May 24, 2006


Not enough nekkidness to make this a worthwhile post. I'm going to ask Matt to delete it.
posted by Joeforking at 2:52 PM on May 24, 2006


c'mon, it's a brilliant hack.
posted by mathowie at 2:52 PM on May 24, 2006


When I realized that he didn't actually go out and take pictures of things to spell out what he wanted, but, rather, used a "favorites" function to do it, yeah, for some reason it earned a few more points on the clever scale despite being easier to do.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 2:55 PM on May 24, 2006


Meh.
posted by dios at 2:58 PM on May 24, 2006


Hack? Really?
posted by eyeballkid at 2:59 PM on May 24, 2006


I'll second that "meh"...
posted by Orange Goblin at 3:02 PM on May 24, 2006


It would be a brilliant hack if it vibrated.

AMI RITE LOL
posted by selfnoise at 3:02 PM on May 24, 2006


A hack? To spell things out in photos? Amazing.
posted by puke & cry at 3:05 PM on May 24, 2006 [1 favorite]


Don't you understand the jaded audience you've cultivated? They've seen everything!
posted by SweetJesus at 3:13 PM on May 24, 2006


c'mon, it's a brilliant hack.

I have to disagree too Matt. Flickr folks have been using the interface in unintended ways since a long time back.

I dont have a pile of links right now but here's one: This one guy took advantage of the photo calendar view showing the first photo posted from that day, posted a piece of a larger photo and thus made the calendar view itself into a photo. See here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zen/3653971/
posted by vacapinta at 3:13 PM on May 24, 2006


Oh, that's pretty cool vacapinta.
posted by mathowie at 3:18 PM on May 24, 2006


I thought it was brilliant and innovative and I'd like to thank matthowie for bringing it to my attention.
posted by horsewithnoname at 3:22 PM on May 24, 2006


I'm pretty into the idea, and glad that this post made me see vacapinta's link, but the message is pretty tired and boring. But I'm sure there's an audience for it, since I still hear a "stolen election" or "two-time loser president" crack at least once a week...ugh. (for the record, I'm kind of a crazy leftie, so it's not because I'm in love with Bush)

Still, thanks - seeing these awesome things people do with flickr makes my bunch of photos look even worse - they're not even good shots, much less awesome interface hacks. But I would have been more impressed with this one if it said...well, anything else.
posted by pinespree at 3:24 PM on May 24, 2006


Not bad, I bet there's someone on Flickr with a mosaic Goatse in their favorites.

And neat stuff, vacapinta. I need to play with the widgets more.
posted by fenriq at 3:25 PM on May 24, 2006


It may take a second to figure out, but should be worth it

I still haven't worked it out. I mean, I see the stuff, I just can't fathom the symbolism. Here's what I have so far:

1. Blind spot/loves/beer = the American public is incabable of seeing the tyranny they suffer under due to alcohol abuse?

2. Amoeba thingy/Chinese writing/flower = genetically modified goods from the East will overthrow Bush?

3. Run down a corridor/up some stairs = self explanatory.

4. Feet/stairs = the above repeated for emphasis.

5. Pixels/squiggles = computers bad, nature good?

So the imagery is some sort of call for a luddite teetotal society reliant on imports from China?
posted by jack_mo at 3:27 PM on May 24, 2006


c'mon, it's a brilliant hack.

We've really lowered the bar on 'brilliant', then.
posted by ChasFile at 3:29 PM on May 24, 2006


OMFG onelink flickr hardlybestofweb double fake delete flagged

hey, naked chicks! kickass!
posted by sergeant sandwich at 3:34 PM on May 24, 2006


Nobody ever likes mathowie's posts. But his Star Wars kid impersonation? Now that was a brilliant hack!
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:40 PM on May 24, 2006


Odd that someone so keen on boobs would be anti-Bush.
posted by yoink at 3:41 PM on May 24, 2006


i don't know about brilliant or innovative. this:
http://metaatem.net/words/


at least starts to move in that direction.
posted by casconed at 3:58 PM on May 24, 2006


thanks for the hot women though.
posted by puke & cry at 4:06 PM on May 24, 2006 [1 favorite]


I think the page would have been much more interesting if you hadn't warned us in advance that there's something interesting to see. The warning (combined with the lack of context) prevented us from looking at is as a normal flickr favorites page, which made it difficult to appreciate the novel re-purposing of an interface. To really appreciate it, I think we'd be coming to the page from another flickr page, expecting to see photos similar to what we were just looking at, being confused by all the photos of letters, and then finally figuring out what's going on. You just skpped straight to figuring out what's going on.
posted by scottreynen at 4:12 PM on May 24, 2006


Okay, so the message was lame.

Even Matt has his off moments, but c'mon, the post wasn't that bad.
posted by bwg at 4:13 PM on May 24, 2006


This post was deleted for the following reason...
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:26 PM on May 24, 2006


hack != emergent behavior

I'd say this is an example of the latter. Flickr users are simple, as is the site.

/me ducks

Certainly there will be better follow-ups.
posted by ryoshu at 4:32 PM on May 24, 2006


I like how this guy has combined soft porn with geology , its even more bizarre than jacks bisto fetish.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:40 PM on May 24, 2006


I did not vote for that musician.
posted by Eekacat at 5:05 PM on May 24, 2006


Apparently, matt has finally come over to the opinion that "BUSH SUX" messages make good Front Page Posts. Congratulations on wearing him down, gang.
posted by wendell at 5:05 PM on May 24, 2006


That Zen calendar that vacapinta linked to is great, but this kind of thing doesn't happen just on Flickr. Martin Gee, one of the most creative newspaper designers in the United States and an all-around cool guy, did something similar with his page at Newspagedesigner.com, the highest-profile portfolio site in the industry. Nice kitty, Martin.
posted by diddlegnome at 5:08 PM on May 24, 2006


Subsequent pages in his favorites have an awful lot of NSFW nekkidness.

Dammit, I had to click through to the fourth page to find any nekkidness at all, and then it wasn't anything to write home about. And then when I went on to the fifth page I got hit with photos of wrinkled old Jacques Chirac. You owe me for my time.

Sarge, on the other hand, provided a very nice image. One click, one nice nekkid gal in an impressive landscape. Keep that up and you'll make lieutenant.
posted by languagehat at 5:10 PM on May 24, 2006


its even more bizarre than jacks bisto fetish.

I'm never going to live that down, am I?
posted by jack_mo at 5:39 PM on May 24, 2006


I approve of this just for making me aware that there's titties on flickr.
posted by borkingchikapa at 5:52 PM on May 24, 2006


I voted for bush, but all I got was titties.
posted by nomis at 6:32 PM on May 24, 2006


The commentary on this photo was intresting.
posted by delmoi at 6:41 PM on May 24, 2006


w untitled Aa T
T 015 H E
F Uu C k interrogación a la parilla
posted by loquacious at 6:43 PM on May 24, 2006


Wow. After the first page it's just picture of after picture of beautiful, half-naked women.

Not that I'm complaning.
posted by delmoi at 6:44 PM on May 24, 2006


loquacious wins.

This thread has been closed.
posted by shoepal at 6:47 PM on May 24, 2006


Yeah, as far as the "brilliant not brilliant" debate goes, put me firmly in the "not brilliant" slot.

The naked chicks, however, make this post worth every penny.
posted by delmoi at 6:54 PM on May 24, 2006


I guess he better not add any more favorites.
posted by danb at 9:42 PM on May 24, 2006


I was underwhelmed by the link, but loquacious' mosiac made up for it. Once again the commentary is the redeeming part of the post!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:03 PM on May 24, 2006


(All hail loquacious, but) shouldn't that be:

w untitled Aa T
T 015 H E
F Uu C k


untitled A10 T T
interrogación a la parilla

posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:54 PM on May 24, 2006


(All hail loquacious, but) shouldn't that be:


It can if you want it to be. Even though that's the proper verbatim meme, I wasn't going to go that far.

I love that text generator. I've had an output from it on my profile page for ages now. (Since profile pages were locked down? Dunno.)
posted by loquacious at 12:00 AM on May 25, 2006


Profile pages are locked down? This I did not know.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:21 AM on May 25, 2006


I was amazed at how much work he must have had to do to find all those pix of single letters, and then I saw that there's a "single letter" pool to draw from. Still, v creative.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:48 AM on May 25, 2006


and then I saw that there's a "single letter" pool to draw from

Not only that, but all the letters are tagged with those letters, so to find a "W" he looked for the tag "w", and so on.
posted by mendel at 9:13 AM on May 25, 2006


This flickr set (w/nekkidness) blows my mind. I was going to FPP it, but the interface to the dude's main site is just horrendous.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 9:54 AM on May 25, 2006


I was amazed at how much work he must have had to do

Uh, guys?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on May 25, 2006


I like the concept, and the variations on the theme leading to stavro's link above make the whole FPP worthwhile. Well started, matt; well one-upped, loquacious, and well capped, stavros, you wonderful chicken, you!
posted by Doohickie at 7:40 PM on May 25, 2006


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