Getting tired of fail, fail, and yet more fail? SUCCEED Blog chronicles that which is made of win. Leave your schadenfreude at the door. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack on Nov 6, 2009 - 55 comments

Recently, there have been a host of websites that delight in exposing the inanity and stupidity of our society. There is the granddaddy, Overheard in New York, which recounts silly conversations heard in the Big Apple, as well as a host of similar sites. There are now a variety of such websites, dedicated to different aspects of our society. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Jul 28, 2009 - 51 comments

More brazen than Madoff? Former NYC hotshot attorney Marc Dreier (he of the now-defunct vanity firm), was arrested in Canada in late 2008, charged with spearheading an occasionally daring series of frauds. [more inside]
posted by Inspector.Gadget on Apr 5, 2009 - 16 comments

Short selling is basically the practice of selling borrowed shares, with the intention of purchasing them back later at a lower price. It amounts to a placing a bet on the share value dropping, is a favoured move of hedge funds, and has been recently blamed for much of the current economic mayhem. However, when last Sunday Porsche tersely announced that, in addition to its 44% of Volkswagen's shares, it had secured 31% through cash-settled call options, the invisible hand of the market gave those short-sellers an atomic wedgie: Since the German state of Lower Saxony holds just over 20% of VW, Porsche's disclosure meant that, in fact, there were only 5% of VW's shares left on the market, whereas traders were shorting for about 13% of those shares. This set off the "Mother of All Short Squeezes". [more inside]
posted by Skeptic on Oct 29, 2008 - 98 comments

The dangers of being a TV news reporter. A guaranteed context-free three-minute montage of television field reports gone awry.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 8, 2008 - 63 comments

2007's Darwin Award winners have been announced. This years crop includes death by enema, elevator, and electricity.. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo on Jan 12, 2008 - 59 comments

Image of the Year. From the article: "If you want to go shallow for an Image of the Year, you can't do better than Paris Hilton, seen through the window of a Los Angeles sheriff's car, weeping as she's being hauled back to prison to complete a probation-violation sentence. But when you first notice the credit on that now infamous picture, there's a double take. The image came from the camera of Nick Ut, whose picture of a little girl burned by napalm, naked and running directly toward the camera and into the conscience of the American people, became perhaps the most powerful and influential vision of the Vietnam War. Not only was the Paris Hilton image taken by one of this country's most celebrated war photographers, it was taken June 8, 35 years to the day after the devastating image of 9-year-old Kim Phuc fleeing her bombed-out village. Let's put these two pictures up on the wall together for one last, end-of-the-year look, and see if something emerges."
posted by kittens for breakfast on Dec 30, 2007 - 52 comments

Hopeless, hapless, helpless. [more inside]
posted by TheWhiteSkull on Nov 22, 2007 - 20 comments

In the wake of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal, several of the paper's top reporters have left for safer ground. Among them is Tara Parker-Pope, who joined the New York Times on October 3rd. Her blog, Well, currently accounts for three of the paper's top ten e-mailed stories: in addition to number 1, Five Easy Ways to Go Organic, she has number 5, Shhh...My Child Is Sleeping (in My Bed, Um, With Me), and number 8, Drug-Resistant Staph: What You Need to Know. Touché Rupert.
posted by alms on Oct 25, 2007 - 23 comments

RC Model Crashes [youtube] B-52, P-51, RC Model crash filmed with an on-board camera, Monoplane crash, Thunderbolt crash, Dogfight and mid-air collision
posted by KokuRyu on Oct 25, 2007 - 16 comments

What's It Gonna Be? NSFW language (Single link music video). On the website of Chicago's Schadenfreude comedy troupe.
posted by landis on Sep 5, 2007 - 15 comments

Fitzmas is coming!... isn't it? Can you stand the anticipation? Could this major holiday turn out to be a big letdown? (Remember, "Fantasies of Cheney being indicted and Bush as unindicted coconspirator are just that at this point--fantasies.") But that doesn't mean we can't be ready with Fitzmas carols or Indictment Bingo, which Wonkette proposed and BackupBrain has now rendered as an actual randomized Fitzmas Bingo card for playing along at home.
posted by soyjoy on Oct 21, 2005 - 45 comments

[Mugshot filter] The Hammer is tanned, rested, and ready... to kick some partisan-hack a**! But seriously folks, has Tom DeLay ever looked better in his life? Book 'im, Danno -- and don't muss that fabulous hair!
posted by digaman on Oct 20, 2005 - 61 comments

The good ladies of Go Fug Yourself have created an elegant little Web freakshow devoted to the fashion aberrations of the rich and frumpy. Less annoying than the shrill harridanry of Rivers mere et fille, hipper than Mr. Blackwell's "Worst Dressed", and much safer for work than AwfulPlasticSurgery.com, it's a must-see for anyone whose veins, like mine, are a-fizz with the coruscating combination of Schadenfreude and diet Coke.
posted by Sidhedevil on Dec 17, 2004 - 15 comments

Marilyn is Wrong! Because your life doesn't contain enough nitpicking.
posted by Johnny Assay on Jan 13, 2004 - 25 comments

The Rush to Recovery. Enjoy a little schadenfreude. Harry Shearer - Real Player.
posted by srboisvert on Oct 16, 2003 - 22 comments

The Rise and Fall of Plastic.com, part one. Freelance writer Mat Honan (Mefi user Emptyage) probes the story behind Plastic, using interviews with Joey Anuff, Carl Steadman, and the rest of the Plastic crew (some conducted publicly). Most Metafilter users never really embraced Plastic, but I can't help but wonder about Carl. $40,000 is a lot of money for one person. Does he know what he's doing? Why does he care so much? Maybe we'll find out in the second part of the OJR article.
posted by waxpancake on Jan 25, 2002 - 16 comments

Contentville goes Splitsville. Steven Brill's online newsstand -- originally funded with $130 million from CBS, NBC and Primedia in February 2000 -- closed their doors today. In a memo to his staff, Brill wrote, "My idea for Contentville just didn't work." I'm guessing that heavy competition from other online retailers and an abundance of freely available online content did them in.
posted by waxpancake on Sep 30, 2001 - 9 comments

Not that this link is of any importance. I just wanted to recognize Schadenfreude as "Word of the Day" today at merriam-webster.com.
posted by 120degrees on Jun 26, 2001 - 11 comments

Schadenfreude plus Flash equals Cadge Cinema. Nothing groubdbreaking, nothing life-changing, but a nice way to waste a little time by laughing at the misfortune of others.
posted by toddshot on May 4, 2001 - 3 comments

Now this could possibly be Schadenfreude at it's best!! "eToys Expects Lower Than Estimated Fiscal Third Quarter Operating Results" Net sales are expected to be between $120 million and $130 million, rather than the $210 million to $240 million previously estimated. How could they be off their estimate by HALF? Oh yeah, maybe if they hadn't spent so much time (and money) pursuing ETOY? Who's got the last laugh now?.....
posted by 120degrees on Dec 16, 2000 - 13 comments

Schadenfreude is such a wonderful word; too bad English doesn't have any equivalent. If it's scrolled down, look for August 22 with headline G4e still stumbling, competition massing . Critical quote inside.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 23, 2000 - 21 comments

Through some supposed database mixup, Wal-Mart sells various books on porn, and later pulls them from their website. Ha! I love seeing stuff like this happen to a company that is hell-bent on having a clean image. There's some indescribable joy I get when I hear a Mouseketeer gets arrested for drug use, or a tele-evangelist is caught with a prostitute. I can't put my finger on why, it's just incredibly comical to me. They haven't fixed their search engine yet, here's a juicy screenshot.
posted by mathowie on Jan 4, 2000 - 0 comments