Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The Ultimate List of Ways to Waste Time on the Internet

I've decided to write a blog post on something I'm a real expert on: procrastination. Specifically, procrastination on the Internet. Now, I know that there are obvious ways to waste time on the Internet: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, and Buzzfeed, to name a few. But what about when those websites have run out for the day or you're just kinda not feeling them? Fear not! I have spent the last... however many years honing the art of Internet procrastination, and I have found many, many, many places to waste hours of time on the Internet. So I've decided to organize a few of them here for your time-wasting needs. If I think of more later, I might come back and add them.

So... what is it you want in a procrastination website?

I want to watch some lighthearted funny videos!

Do you like nitpicking over grammar? Here's a YouTube series that finds Internet comments with bad grammar and reads them dramatically. It's called Your Grammar Sucks.

Do you like complaining about annoying things? Here's a YouTube playlist from the amazing Superwoman about annoying people and annoying things in life.

Do you wonder about the people who drive the Google Street View Car? Here's a funny video about those imaginary guys, and then the sequel.

Do you like 6-second videos by an adorable and hilarious young man? Here's the wonderful Thomas Sanders' Vine page!

I want to make fun of Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey!

Weirdly specific, but I got you covered!

Do you want to see videos of people reading them? Here's Alex Reads Twilight (he has some other stuff in that playlist too), and Cara Reads Fifty Shades of Grey.

Do you want an exaggerated fanfiction-esque story of the Cullens' family life? Here's the hilarious series, Growing Up Cullen.

Do you want to read a blog with MS Paint comics about the Twilight books? Here's the series Blogging Twilight.

I want to analyze my own writing and my own personality!

Do you like character questionnaires? Here's F*ck Yeah Character Development's questionnaire tag, and NaNoWriMo's Official Character Questionnaire.

Do you just want some fun quizzes? Here are two Mary Sue litmus tests for your characters, and here are (almost) infinite Buzzfeed quizzes for yourself. (Or your characters, if you really want to know which SNL funny lady would be their BFF).

Do you want questionnaires to answer yourself? Here's a Tumblr full of personal questions.

Do you want to make a word cloud? Go to Wordle!

I want to see analysis and funny posts about Harry Potter!

Oh, did you come to the right place.

Do you like long analytical essays? Here is MuggleNet's essay section, The Quibbler. You've got podcasts, essays, editorials, blogs, forums, contests, whatever you want, all analyzing Harry Potter.

Do you like cute funny comics about Harry Potter? Definitely check out this fantastic Tumblr artist's work. I am not going to spell out their user name because it is really long.

Do you like rereading the books and seeing the stuff you missed? So does Tumblr user lotstradamus! Check out her Harry Potter reread posts! (They're in order from recent to most recent, so click back to get to the first one).

Do you like pointlessly funny Harry Potter jokes? Check out MuggleNet's fun lists page!

Do you love good Harry Potter fan art? My favorite fan artist, Burdge, has a DeviantArt page full of Harry Potter fan art. She also has a Tumblr (burdge.tumblr.com) but it's more difficult to find her HP art there. (Also, if you like other fandoms, like Percy Jackson, she has awesome art for those too).

Do you like imagining diverse characters and controversial backstories at Hogwarts? Check out hiddenhogwarts, a Tumblr for diverse HP headcanons, and lavenderpatil, a blog of general interesting HP headcanons.

I want to read cute comic strips!

Are you a new adult who likes relatable posts? Check out Sarah C. Andersen's relatable comic strips.

Do you love Disney Princesses? Read the adorable and funny Pocket Princesses series!

Are you a writer with serious procrastination issues? Check out the artist/writer Inkygirl, and specifically her fantastic comic Will Write for Chocolate.

I want to immerse myself in a long and beautiful story!

(Warning: some of these are unfinished).

Do you like sci-fi/fantasy stories and beautiful art? Check out the multimedia webcomic Ava's Demon.

Do you like dry humor and parallel universes? Check out the funny webcomic BlankIt.

Do you like Harry Potter fanfiction about the Marauders? Check out the insanely long (like, 200,000+ words long) Shoebox Project, a story that I started reading a while ago but never finished. I've heard it's AMAZING though.

Do you like mesmerizingly charming worldbuilding and beautiful characters? Look at Kimberly Karalius' Figment page. She has several short stories and novellas up there and they are SO GOOD. Seriously... it's like The Night Circus and Pushing Daisies had some beautiful children.

I want to torture myself with pictures of food!

Do you like listicles and links to recipes? Explore Buzzfeed Food for a while.

Do you like a variety of good recipes, many of which are healthy? Check out the excellent Tumblr blog Foodffs.

Do you like this very blog? May I remind you that I wrote two excellent blog posts about food? SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION!

Do you just want straight-up food porn? Well, I guess /r/FoodPorn is the place for you!

I want to virtually travel the world!

Do you wish you could teleport to any random place in the world? That's exactly what MapCrunch can do! Well, it'll take you there on Google Street View.

Do you want to make a fun game out of that last link? GeoGuessr drops you in a random location and challenges you to figure out where you are. The website has a variety of games based on this theme that you can play.

Do you want to check out beautiful photos of the Earth? /r/EarthPorn is a subreddit devoted to professional photos of stunning landscapes. The entire "SFW Porn Network" on Reddit, which has nothing to do with actual pornography, has variations on this theme: winter porn, mushroom porn, design porn, etc. You can check it out by clicking the links on the right side of the EarthPorn page.

I want to play fun flash games!

Do you want to turn yourself into a mermaid! You can right here! This version also allows you to make mermen.

Do you want to learn some geography? Here's a game to learn the placement of the 50 states of America, or learn the geography and capitals of continents around the world here.

I want to read long lists of funny stuff!

Do you like nitpicking people's punctuation errors? Here's a blog making fun of signs with unnecessary quotation marks.

Do you always think the villains in movies could have done a lot better? The Evil Overlord List agrees with you. (The link worked for me this time, so I hope it works for all of you).

Do you think no one has any wonder and curiosity anymore in this world of Photoshop? Cracked.com is here to prove you wrong with their series of "I Can't Believe It's Not Photoshopped" articles! Here's a link to the first one, but the end of each article should link to the next in the series.

Do you love funny Tumblr screenshots and you don't want to actually get a Tumblr to see the funny posts? Luckily for you, Imgur user Wadjet (now ActualRaccoonBuckyBarnes) has compiled 120 galleries of funny Tumblr screenshots. Imgur users peggysue and puggless had the same ideas. So, basically, enough Tumblr posts to last to the apocalypse. A lot of them reference fandoms you may not have heard of, but most are funny to just about anyone.

Do you hate when people post obviously fake stories? Then check out /r/ThatHappened, the home of completely 100% true stories of the time someone on Facebook totally made out with Emma Watson and then told off that person in Starbucks and was applauded.

I want to shut my brain off and waste time on mindless websites!

Do you like fun websites with one or two functions? Buzzfeed has a fantastic list of 35 websites like WeaveSilk and Cat Bounce to play around with.

Do you want to come down from an anxiety attack? My anxiety post (shameless self promotion part two) has a lot of good links for calming websites.

Do you have a short attention span and need small bursts of little fun things? Shameless self promotion part three: I have made three blog posts on this theme before. One. Two. Three.

I want to scroll through some hilarious 140-character jokes on Twitter!

Do you like bad writing ideas? Check out The Worst Muse.

Are you sick of dystopian YA's repetitive tropes? Check out DystopianYA.

Do you know that one guy that thinks he's the next Hemingway, but is not? Check out GuyinYourMFA.

Do you want to make fun of EVERYTHING in ALL THE BOOKS? There's a million Twitter accounts for cliche characters. Start off with Brooding YA Hero, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Dystopian Dictator, and Typical YA Heroine. There'll be links to others on all those pages. (And I'm sure someone out there has a masterpost with all the links? But I am too lazy to find one).

Do you just want... the weirdest thing? Then definitely check out BirdsRightsActivist.

OK, wow... That took a LONG time to put together. Longer than I thought. But it was worth it if I make someone else procrastinate! As Ron Swanson once said, "I'd work all night if it meant nothing got done." And you can thank my procrastination by re-watching Parks and Rec for me having that quote at the tip of my tongue.

If you have any suggestions to add to this list, feel free to comment!

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you Saturday,
Ariel

1 comment:

  1. Best post ever!!!!
    Proving that the first advice always given to new authors is true: "Write what you know".

    ReplyDelete