People have always and will always stereotype other people, hell we even stereotype animals, inanimate objects and entire religions so why wouldn't they stereotype other humans, right?
Attempting to characterize millions of people seems a bit strange, but sterotyping an entire country is bonkers- because a country's population is almost always made up of people from different regions who come together under one flag.
Is Romania really full of vampires? Are all Swedes tall, drunk Vikings? Does every Haitian know Voodoo? Does the Pope crap in the woods? Wait, don't answer that...
In this episode from the Many People From Many Countries Say Things by Condé Nast Traveler we meet 70 people who reveal the most prevalent stereotypes about their respective countries, most of which are truly laughable.
French artist and photographer Francois Beaurain has an extensive collection of hand-painted movie posters from Liberia. These were mainly produced for video clubs in the 1990s, painted on plastic tablecloths, using the image on a VHS box.
Tablecloth was preferred to primed cotton canvas because it was thought more resistant (posters were nailed outside on any kind of support, exposed to the sun and the rain) and cost efficient. It was not an easy task to find the posters as most of the video-clubs have long dumped their piles of posters. Most of the posters found here were found in video clubs, usually under a mattress or nailed on the tin-roof to make the projection room darker.
Look at this backyard bowling lane. It's ingenious, with strings to reset the pins and a sloped gutter to bring the ball back. Then you think about how the strings and pins laying around would interfere with the second ball. How would you ever get an honest spare? But that's really a moot point. The first ball would bounce around against the backboard and knock them all down anyway. And how would the wood hold up against the weather? Not well, if the wooden table on my deck is any indication. But it was the string pinsetter that got the most interest when this picture was posted at reddit. Some folks had never heard of such a thing, while others say it's used at all the bowling alleys where they live. Here's how a string pinsetter works in an indoor alley:
Guile is a noun in more than one way- it's a word meaning cunning intelligence and it's the name of a flat-topped street fighter who represents the good ol' U S of A. When guile is used in a fight a guy Guile's size can take down a bison or a mountain of a man like Sagat, but can we call doing a mid-air flip kick or throwing a sonic boom using guile? It's more like good ol' American ingenuity, and with his moves and his might Guile almost makes that flattop haircut look cool! Almost...
Show the world that Guile is your homeboy with this Fight With Style t-shirt by Ddjvigo, wearing it is a great way to meet your fellow Street Fighter fans and plan a tournament!
Visit ddjvigo's NeatoShop for more mighty cool designs:
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H. Mayne Young, a Church of England cleric, was living in colonial India in 1906 when he saw a Bijli, or evil spirit. A wandering holy man had warned him not to use water from a certain tank, but he ignored that warning and used it to bathe. Young wrote an account of what happened later when he traveled to a camping spot in the middle of the night. His servants and even his horse fled when they saw a light approaching.
The situation was now getting exciting. Deprived of my horse, and two guides, and in the midst of pathless fields, I felt it would be difficult for me to proceed, so raising the rifle to my shoulder, I cried “Stand still, or I fire at you! ” Hardly had I uttered the words, when I was horrified to see that the figure, which seemed to fly along, and was now only some few yards distant, was no human being at all. All that was visible was a grinning, bony skull and eye sockets, with long lank hair, and a fleshless arm holding a flaming torch ; the rest of the figure being a mere trail of grey mist.
As I stood there, unflinching, with my finger on the trigger, the apparition, which was now only ten or fifteen feet distant, suddenly diverged from me, and rapidly sank into the ground, some twenty feet past me, so that I had a good view of IT. I rushed up to the spot where it had disappeared, but no trace of it was to be found. I stamped upon the ground, but the only proof of the apparition was a sprinkling of red hot embers, which a moment before had formed the flaming torch.
The encounter was interpreted as a further omen that bad things were going to happen to Young, but what could he do about it at that point? And something bad indeed happened. You can read the whole story of the Bijli encounter at Haunted Ohio. -via Strange Company
The Slo Mo Guys have an underwater camera and they have to do something with it. So they are going to give us an up close look at a belly flop from 15 feet up in slow motion. Okay, maybe 12 feet. From both above and under the water. Dan is a big, pasty, fleshy mess (Gav's words, not mine), so he is the one who gets to do the belly flop. But first we have to see him in his Speedos.
We all know it, and we all struggle with it. The worst part about listening to oneself is that there's always an argument going on. The id battles with the superego. The heart conflicts with the brain. Then our fears and doubts take over and we end up giving in to the tongue and the stomach. Maybe the real secret to discipline is to stop listening to our own bodies and take control. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Go to the comic link for the hovertext and push the red button for an extra punch line.
The German TV show Beginner gegen Gewinner (Beginner vs. Winner) pairs an amateur with a professional in athletic competition. The pro must perform with some kind of handicap. In this case, professional long jumper Alyn Camara is wearing a T-rex costume. The participants are taking this way too seriously, but it's all worth it to see the T-rex bounding down the ramp to make his jump.
The amateur won this one because Camara's last jump was disqualified. He couldn't see the line! This show is broadcast live in Germany, which is why we had to wait for the sand to be swept between each jump. Also see a women's footrace and men's table tennis. -via reddit
When Valentine's Day rolls around our minds turn to thoughts of romance, and before you know it spring has arrived and love is everywhere you look, from the birds to the bees to the stray dogs in the streets.
Real life romances can go on for decades, but in the fictional worlds of movies and TV shows our favorite characters are often involved in romances that are doomed to end really badly, after the credits have rolled of course.
Thinking about the tragic fate that awaits our favorite pop culture characters may make you feel a bit blue, but don't let their doomed love get you down- let it remind you how good you've had it with your loved ones.
After all, you get to snuggle up in front of the fireplace with your loved ones- instead of hanging out on the wall above it!
Every U.S. president eventually has a portrait hanging in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Last Monday, President Obama's portrait was unveiled. At the ceremonies for these unveilings, the subject of the portrait normally has praise for the artist's talent, often accompanied by a self-deprecating joke about their own appearance. That was not the case when Lyndon Johnson's portrait was made public in 1967.
When he first laid eyes on the painting that was to be his official White House portrait, Lyndon B. Johnson disgustedly called painter Peter Hurd’s work “the ugliest thing I ever saw” and refused to accept it. Hurd was already decades into his successful career as a painter, specializing in portraiture and landscapes of the American Southwest. Arrogant enough to be unaffected by the comment and eager to publicize the president’s “very damn rude” behavior, he readily responded to press curiosity about the incident. Americans were sympathetic toward the scorned artist and increasingly skeptical of the president’s character—a slight that Johnson, who was already seen as short-tempered, could hardly afford. After displaying the piece at a Texas museum in retaliation, Hurd later donated his painting to the Portrait Gallery, which agreed to not display it until after Johnson’s death.
Johnson did not elaborate on what made the portrait "ugly." Hurd's portrait was a very good likeness of the former president, and if anything, it made him look less mean than he was. Plenty of folks speculated as to why Johnson reacted the way he did, which you can read about in an article at Smithsonian that looks into Johnson's way of thinking.
According to the myths and movies vampires cast no reflection in mirrors because they have no soul, making it easy to identify any bloodsuckers hanging around your house.
But this part of the vampire myth has always made me wonder- do vampires see a reflection when they look in the mirror, or do they see an empty frame like normal humans do?
That sucks for them if they can't see their reflection in the mirror because, as this Random Crab comic shows, vampires are hardcore pranksters so mirrors probably factor into a lot of their pranks.
Maybe that's why so many vampires carry parrots around on their shoulders...
A true capitalist can see the value in any political movement if there is enough money to be made from it. In 1911, women in England were working to achieve the right to vote. A large demonstration was planned for June 17, to coincide with the coronation of George V, in which participants were urged to wear white in solidarity. That, of course, meant buying new clothing, and there was a mad scramble for customers who wished to vote.
Readers of the weekly newspaper, Votes for Women, which was edited by Frederick and Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, were urged to buy their outfits from firms that advertised there. ‘If they find it pays them to advertise in VOTES FOR WOMEN they will advertise – if they find it doesn’t, they won’t. The more money that flows into the coffers of our advertisement department the better our paper can be made, the wider its influence reaches. Therefore let every woman who believes in this cause never enter a shop that does not advertise in VOTES FOR WOMEN, and let her deal exclusively with those firms that do, and inform them why.’
Women who obeyed this call to arms would have had a good choice of items to ensure a suitably modish appearance during the procession. Advertisers enticed them with pictures of dresses, dainty blouses, charming hats, smart coats and hair care products. The procession through London from Westminster to the Albert Hall comprised around 60,000 women from around the world carrying 1,000 banners and stretched for seven miles. One hopes that they also bought the comfortable shoes on offer!
On the one hand, it helped the cause that so much purchasing power could be harnessed in the fight to change hearts and minds about the rights of women. On the other hand, third-wave (and even second-wave) feminists have to cringe at the image of women buying new corsets, wigs, and "charming" hats for a suffrage demonstration. See more of these ads at The British Library. -via Strange Company
Confidence is a state of mind, which is why all of the pop culture heroes we love exude confidence- because they're fictional people, so if their writers say they're badass heroes brimming with confidence then that's what they are.
In the real world confidence isn't so easily acquired, but a heroic wardrobe will make you feel more confident because if you look good you'll feel good, and no geeky shirt looks as good as a NeatoShop shirt- because our print quality is legendary!
Pop culture heroes show us that nerds are actually really cool
I've actually thought about the curves and a possible sphere when playing with matches. But it's been long time since I've played with matches, and I never had enough free time to amass this many matches and put this experiment into action. YouTuber All Is Art did it.
What happens when you start gluing matches together? Because the heads are slightly wider than the wooden bodies, they begin to form a sphere. This was an experiment in how many matches it would take to get all the way around to make a perfect globe. After months of gluing and gluing and gluing we made it to the other side.
The answer is 42,000, give or take a few matches. What do you do with this sphere afterward? Light it up, of course!
Don't let the length of this video deter you- that all happens in the first three minutes. Then we get to see it from all angles, then in slow motion. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Monsters have been villified for so long that people still aren't willing to accept the fact that they're just like us, so seeing a bunch of happy monsters posing for a family photo may seem a bit jarring at first. But once you realize monsters aren't all bad, they can be happy and have families that they love, perhaps you'll think twice about calling in the monster slayers to blow them all away like a bunch of savages. After all, how can we call them monsters when humans are so quick to kill each other, and any other form of life on the planet?
Show people the creatures that lurk in the night need love too with this Monster Family Photo t-shirt by Sombras Blancas Art & Design, it's sure to make people scream with delight!
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!
