Can you draw the internet?
November 16, 2010 1:15 AM   Subscribe

Can you draw the internet? "So who's more imaginative, the creative industry or a bunch of 10 year olds?"
posted by nickyskye (28 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
That site is really let down by its interface.
posted by Joe Chip at 1:23 AM on November 16, 2010


I think I found my favourite.
posted by jonnyploy at 1:46 AM on November 16, 2010 [11 favorites]


jonnyploy: That is totally the best one.
posted by Grimgrin at 2:21 AM on November 16, 2010


I note the conspicuous absence of xkcd's current latest offering to that domain of art.

Or even his older version, which has a simple elegance to it that makes it both visually appealing and actually vaguely useful in the "map" sense.

Of course, they all fail to capture the real spirit of the internet, due to the SFW self-censorship inherent in most such endeavors. Any serious portrayal of the spirit of the internet would necessarily start with a pink-heavy palate of flesh-tones, and would in some way manage to depict a particle accelerator having an orgasm. :)
posted by pla at 3:36 AM on November 16, 2010


That is totally the best one.

I beg to differ.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:46 AM on November 16, 2010 [7 favorites]


For some reason, I expected a lot more pr0n.
posted by moonbiter at 4:32 AM on November 16, 2010


It has to be the most annoying setup I've seen for a self-promo project since the Dollar Redesign project. (And what the hell is "the creative industry"? Did they really just lump all the visual and narrative artists in together as an "industry", or was that just code for "advertising"?)

That said, the key difference between the "kids" and the "professionals" seems to be that the kids take the challenge at face value and try to give us an idea of what the whole thing is like, while the pros try to reduce it to one simple thing. (Preferably one thing that their peers will regard as witty.)
posted by lodurr at 4:35 AM on November 16, 2010


... in case I wasn't clear, I'm left with much more respect for the "kids".
posted by lodurr at 4:36 AM on November 16, 2010


When I think of the Internet, I think of a supermegaginormous library with the regular fiction and non-fiction but then a huge "self-published" section filled with random porn mixed with incredibly useful books.
posted by DU at 4:50 AM on November 16, 2010


I thought it was a small black box with a red light on top.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:11 AM on November 16, 2010 [10 favorites]


I think Jeffrey Rowland almost does it justice.
posted by Mizu at 5:27 AM on November 16, 2010 [2 favorites]


"So who's more imaginative, the creative industry or a bunch of 10 year olds?"

The creative industry.
posted by grubi at 6:16 AM on November 16, 2010


And who is that, grubi?
posted by lodurr at 6:26 AM on November 16, 2010


Me, of course!
posted by grubi at 6:45 AM on November 16, 2010


Cool. I've never met an industry before.
posted by lodurr at 7:05 AM on November 16, 2010


Better to meet one now, than be surprised when it throws a revolution.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 7:16 AM on November 16, 2010


Oh, well, nothing to worry about here. Haven't you heard? The revolution will not be televised.
posted by lodurr at 7:19 AM on November 16, 2010


Ugh, I've been in IT way too long. I'd attempt to draw the internet in fucking Visio.

VISIO.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:20 AM on November 16, 2010


Tada!
posted by Debaser626 at 8:12 AM on November 16, 2010


Internet don't work.

My picks:

1
2
3
4
The winner
posted by mrgrimm at 9:13 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


Cool. I've never met an industry before.

Oh, please don't define me as just an "industry." I'm an entire community.
posted by grubi at 10:26 AM on November 16, 2010


Well, it takes a village.
posted by lodurr at 12:22 PM on November 16, 2010


I! DON'T! KNOOOOOOOW!
posted by sonika at 12:40 PM on November 16, 2010


Ted Stevens for the write-in vote?
posted by Hylas at 12:44 PM on November 16, 2010


Come on, everybody knows "creative industry" is an oxymoron. Once a creative endeavor reaches industry-size, it is required to have its creativity surgically removed (via keyhole surgery through its least convenient orifice). Then the 'creativity' is processed into its most debased form and turned over to the industry's Finance department.

As for the "creative community", it remains undefined because the last election for representation resulted in a 13,742-place tie among write-in candidates with 7 votes each (the total number of different individuals receiving at least one write-in vote was only recently exceeded by the number of Facebook accounts). And the "creative community" has the lowest-recorded murder rate of any community, but the highest suicide rate.

And the Internet really is totally contained in a small black box, but that box weighs over 372 tons due to its massive quantities of extremely concentrated shit and lack of a functional output device. (The oft-depicted goatse, long mistaken for output is actually used exclusively for input)
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:57 PM on November 16, 2010


My favorite sticker from Cat and Girl remains apropos: "If television is a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up."
posted by Scattercat at 5:30 PM on November 16, 2010 [3 favorites]


My favorite is definitely this: "The world is a massive meatball sitting in a bowl of noodles. The noodles connect each country around the world" (by one of the children, of course).
posted by dreamyshade at 11:23 PM on November 16, 2010


Oh, also relevant: The Web for Beginners, a YouTube mashup of explanations of the Web and the Internet in the words of experts...kind of. Quite accurate.
posted by dreamyshade at 11:24 PM on November 16, 2010


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