Some Blogs You Should Know About...And Some that You Shouldn't

Useful Blogs

Music Blogs:

Do you have lots of free time and an external hard drive? Then get blogging. Congratulations, for you have clearly made this step by stumbling upon The Oberlin Tritone.

There are hundreds if not thousands of good music blogs out there (some started by your very own peers!). Once you have found one that suits your listenng pleasure, similar pages are typically linked for you. DJs love to release digital-only tracks and remixes, so as a result, blogs are simply overflowing with downloads and sometimes-useful criticism and commentary on electronic music. Sites like RCRD LBL and, to an extent, Hypemachine, double as online record labels, legally supplying free downloads from indie artists from nearly all genres. Some sites have the occasional interview along with highly bloggable music videos. This is a basic list of sites to know and love, especially if you like electronic music.

Fuck You On Friday
Brooklyn Vegan
Panda Toes
Missing Toof
Electro Rash
Fluokids
Mochi & Beats

The WOBLOG:

This is 91.5 WOBC, Oberlin Community and College Radio’s very own blog! That’s right! You can now hear, see, and with permission from WOBC DJ’s, touch, smell, and taste the essence of WOBC. Each genre has its own division on the blog, or you can view by chronological post. Music downloads, cool videos, WOBC news, and various other splendors are just the tip of the iceberg on the WOBLOG.

Nightlilfe Photography:

Isn’t it a little weird when that person you hardly know snaps pictures of you at parties and then tags you on Facebook? “Party Pixxx” blogs take that creepy aesthetic to a whole new level, because now you can spend hours looking at people you probably don’t know, taken by someone who doesn’t know them either. The new wave of commercial photography is neigh, bringing strangers with cameras to parties around the world. If the routine of the same Oberlin house parties every weekend starts getting to you, check out one of these sites to see what’s been going down in San Francisco, Brooklyn, London, etc. The charm comes from the level of enthusiasm these partiers have for being photographed, sometimes in very strange circumstances (often in bathrooms). Maybe we should start an Oberlin chapter?

The Cobrasnake
Glam Canyon
As Cool as it Gets
We Made Out Once


Hipster Runoff:

Claiming to “blog about pretty much anything,” Hipster Runoff both parodies and defines this social demographic, so don’t let the title scare you away. If you’re still shaky on what exactly a hipster is, HRO is a good place to start. If you are a hipster and want to post comments about how the Ed Banger trend is so passé, this blog is for you. And if you hate all this stuff, the satire spilling from blogger Carles’s vowel-dropped words and pathetically self-conscious narrative might just make your day. HRO makes available the occasional free music download (usually remixes of Cut Copy or anything by The Teenagers) as well as copious amounts of linkage to both useful and useless blogs. Topics covered in the past include women with back tattoos and their antics, anti-emo gang violence in Mexico, DJ Mom Jeans, fellow blogger Perez Hilton, and the baby with two faces and its pseudo-hip parents. Below is a highly estimated breakdown of Hipster Runoff's appeal to various sub-demographics, made by Carles himself.

Relatively Useless, but Highly Entertaining Blogs

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks: Do misused quotation marks “irk” you, or do they blow “your” mind? Either way, check out this blog. It combines tongue-in-cheek commentary with photographs sent in from observers of this needless quotation mark phenomenon.

Passive Aggressive Notes: Submitted from those who have been on the receiving end of over-the-top passive aggressives in action. Includes letters to corporations, rainbow-colored notes from disapproving roommates, and angry arts and crafts.

Boing Boing: Everything you would ever need concerning media, art, or pop culture in order to waste your time most effectively. Read this all day and you can impress anyone with your knowledge of chocolate Jesus performance art and backpack TV transmitters from 1951. Boing Boing TV makes available interesting videos such as this one, entitled "Tokyology," which explores various subcultures and popular social hubs within Tokyo.

LOL Porn: Do you love LOLing at porn? So do they! Includes weight room threesomes, dudes with tanlines, interesting piercings, and other material sent in by fans of the blog.

The Pen is Mightier: You can thank Oberlin senior Nick Mayor for this outstandingly delightful blog about various neon “Power Penz.” I never had any cool pens as a ten-year-old, and reading this makes me seriously question the resultant fun I had in my youth without them. Pens featured include the Air Attack, Jet Flyer, FM Radio Rocker, and the Glamour Girl Kit, among others.

The Cigarette Smoking Blog: “Conservatism, Catholicism, Yale, film and music, one cigarette at a time.” The concept is that every time writer Helen Rittelmeyer has a cigarette, she writes something ridiculous, confusing, or cigarette-related.

23/6: A highly entertaining site claiming to be “Some of the News, Most of the Time,” with contributions from alumni David Bernstein and Drew Grant.

Zac Efron Please Stop Tanning: Dedicated solely to preventing this Disney Channel icon from hitting the tanning beds. A truly noble effort.

“Dreams People Have Had About Hillary and/or Barack and/or McCain”: This project really is exactly what the title suggests; many people have sent in dreams they have had concerning the various presidential candidates. To make it even simpler, you can designate exactly which one you would like to read dreams about on the sidebar. Dreams range from the absurd to the politically poignant. One of my favorites is this stirring tour-de-force sent in from one Sheila Heti:

“There was a shootout in my home. It was like the wild west, with the women all upstairs hiding and all the men downstairs shooting. I don't know who was fighting whom, or why. Barack Obama was there. He sat next to me on the couch but sat on my glasses so I could not see.”