Cracked Lists Streisand Effect Sufferers, Curiously Leaves Out Streisand
from the everybody's-gonna-rain-on-my-parade dept
Last year, Mike praised (and raised a couple of small quibbles with) the hilarious explanation of scarcity by Cracked.com editor David Wong. Now Cracked is tackling digital issues once again with a list of their favourite examples of the Streisand Effect. Many of the examples will be familiar to the Techdirt community, but Cracked’s skewed approach is amusing nonetheless. Take the thoughts on Cook’s Source editor Judith Griggs’ infamous response and “apology” to the writer whose recipe she used without permission, in which she only-half-jokingly suggested the writer should pay her for the editing work she did:
Wow. At this point we can’t tell if Griggs is insane, or thought she was auditioning for the part of an 80s movie villain. It was like she stole someone’s car and then sent them a bill for the gas she put in it on her way to Mexico.
…
That’s so amazing that we’d actually read a magazine based entirely around Griggs trying to apologize to people.
It’s not Cracked’s funniest article, but it has its moments, although I’m a little surprised they didn’t include the original Barbara Streisand story that led Mike to coin the term. A few of the choices seem odd, especially when things like the skinny model affair and the egged German houses were left out—both of which seem like better comedy fodder to me. But what do I know? In any case, it’s a fun read.
Filed Under: cracked, streisand effect
Comments on “Cracked Lists Streisand Effect Sufferers, Curiously Leaves Out Streisand”
For some reason my mind read this in the voice of Casey kasem.
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Yes! Ditto that.
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Heh. I wish!
It was a little disappointing to see them discuss the AACS key without mentioning the previous similar situation with the original break of the encryption on DVDs:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
Streisand’s original case was kinda boring, which is probably why it was left off. It was just people seeing a picture of a house.
Good for demonstrating the idea behind the Streisand Effect clearly, not for making people laugh.
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True. But then again, Barbara Streisand jokes are easy, and seem to be a favourite of Jewish and gentile comedy writers…
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“True. But then again, Barbara Streisand jokes are easy, and seem to be a favourite of Jewish and gentile comedy writers…”
Yeah, it seems easy to have a good nose for Streisand jokes, nowhati’msayin’?
Nice
Three things:
1. I had no idea Mike was actually the originator of the phrase “Streisand Effect.”
2. The “Karl” who wrote that article is not yours truly.
3. I really want one of those AACS shirts.
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“3. I really want one of those AACS shirts.”
I like the flag. It’s like a geek version of the rainbow flag.
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Forgot link.
Keep an eye out for us!
I love observation deck stories. Thanks Marcus!
Re: Keep an eye out for us!
You’re most welcome. I am making the effort to submit to Techdirt more regularly, so hopefully you’ll be seeing more soon!
I’m a regular reader of Cracked, and caught this article a couple of days ago.
I assume the reason they didn’t actually talk about the Streisand case in the article is because they linked to the Wikipedia article early on, which itself tells the story.
We think we have #1 Streisand Effect disaster
The Daily Variety multiplies “harm” by 100,000.
The Daily Variety, a Hollywood Trade Publication, objected to punk band The Vandals doing a parody of their font in 2004. The band was forced into a settlement, but 6 years later the Daily Variety, and their parent company Reed Elsevier (Dutch) have filed a lawsuit against the Vandals again claiming they saw images of the now discontinued version of the album “Hollywood Potato Chip” on the internet in places like myspace and youtube.
The Fallout:
If you google “The Daily Variety” today you get a page of entries about their frivolous attempt to abuse the legal system to bleed $75,000 out of a punk band that never should have settled with Variety in the first place. The band is representing themselves in Federal Court and is on their way to overturning the original forced settlement. Worst of all for Variety and Reed Elsevier, by filing this case in public, they have nullified the confidentiality part of their settlement with the Vandals so the internet is now full of information on their bully tactics to stifle protected artistic speech. If you Google their competitor, The Hollywood Reporter, you get a page of entries about Hollywood journalism. Variety can only dream of this kind of reputation. So after 101 years in business (and trying to be sold), this is how the Daily Variety defines themselves on the internet. see http://www.vandals.com for more info.