We weren't going to bother writing a newsletter the day before Xmas as we quite fancied the day off. Then an email came through offering to buy some last minute advertising and a thought occurred to us: this is the best job in the world. Someone is offering money to sponsor the newsletter and we can write what the hell we want.
So let's pretend some fancy newspaper has been stupid enough to commission us to write a review of the year. Think of us as some kind of "Cyber Clarkson" (on a 100th of the pay) and you're halfway there already.
People keep asking us, "B3ta, what are your favourite iPhone apps of 2010?" Actually, they don't, but here's a quick list, just in case they might:
Brian Blessed is one of those B3ta memes that never die. His image is never off the board, Jonti booked him for real on his Weebl & Bob DVD, and we once fantasised about getting him to do the audiobook version of the Sick Joke Book.
But B3tan Richard Gardner managed to do the impossible. He turned a whimsical idea from a Facebook campaign into a real product. You can now buy this bloody thing, in the shops.
Richard then got in touch asking whether we wanted Mr Blessed to do something for B3ta - and although "The Brian Blessed Swearing Keyboard" would have probably been the iPhone app hit to make us all rich beyond the dreams of Rupert Murdoch, we forgot to suggest that and instead did a phone interview.
If you've got a spare half an hour, copy this to your MP3 player and listen us chatting with Brian. We burst into manic giggles after putting the phone down as the whole experience was so very very peculiar. "WE'RE ON THE PHONE TO BRIAN BLESSED!"
Very, very much loved the campaign this year to send Josef Fritzl Christmas cards.
BTW: We've stopped calling B3tans B3tards because people were getting confused with B/tards.
2010 was Dan Bull's year, we just lived in it. We couldn't decide which song to pick so watch his whole YouTube channel. EVERY LAST BASTARD ONE. Then listen to his album on Spotify. He's ace.
BTW: Dan is known on our boards as B3tanhousewife, and on YouTube as Douglby. It's confusing innit?
Being old men of the internet, we've taken to writing crank letters to government ministers about their frankly dreadful proposals to fuck up our internet. In this case it's Ed Vaizey who wants an "anti porn lock" on all web content, a concept that would likely categorise B3ta and lots of forums as porn, as it's based on a shitty thing they already do on mobile phones and it doesn't work there either. We even managed to get The Telegraph to quote our letter, which was fun:
After nearly 10 years of furious keyboard pounding the B3tans have lost none of their enthusiasm for imagefwapping.
Here's the top 10 photoshops this year (by your votes)
There's a big list of people who work tirelessly behind the scenes at B3ta, and here's us saying thanks and suggesting you follow them on twitter just to make them paranoid.
Good old Tom Milsom, he posted about 16,000 messages on our site, wrote some songs that we stuck in the newsletter then actually became a proper pop star with bright blue hair, billions of followers on Twitter and really selling records and stuff. Go Hexy, Go!
http://twitter.com/hexachordal
On our links board, dreadfully creative people make the most amazing shit then click "I made this" to make it clear, well, that they've made it and it's not just some another crappy thing off the web.
Thought we'd do a little top three of the best stuff from 2010 as made by B3tans and as voted for by B3tans.
Actually, let's make this a top ten. But we're fucked if we're going to write this up properly. Just click-a-the-links knowing they are good. Because they are.
BTW: Interesting to note the chart domination of Cyriak, Cassetteboy, Sheep and B3tan Housewife.
We loved Assange this year...
[*1 We changed the name to protect the innocent.]
We've been the main supporters of Kunt in his obviously doomed attempt to drive his song "Use my Arsehole as a Cunt" to be UK Christmas number 1. Here are our campaign highlights:
Our favourite bits of new slang we heard in 2010 include
KMT - meaning 'kiss my teeth' as in 'Nick Clegg is a twat. KMT'
ENDZ - meaning where you live. "I'm getting me bus to me endz"
REFUGEE PHONE - meaning a Nokia, as favoured by, well, refugees.
MEGALOLZ - sometimes just saying lol isn't enough.
And our favourite playground joke:
"Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn't"
Prodigy69 writes, "Respect to Mutated Monty for still making things for b3ta and for the TV and for not fucking off and leaving us as soon as he found a bit of fame."
Mutated Monty is better-known to the world under his real name Cyriak, and his latest gig is an animation for the American TV company Showtime - who make everyone's favourite serial killer rom com Dexter. Watch it.
Nina the snow leopard as cuddled by Hazel Carter.
Image credit: Telegraph / James Godwin
Barryheadwound writes - "The massively-loved b3tan and Derby Bash supremo was tragically taken from us in May of this year, and Prof Kenny Martin now faces the daily bummer of life without her. Big thanks to Mrs. Trellis for sorting out the whip round that realised over 2 grand in her memory. And to Jahled for christening a baby snow leopard after her."
2010 was truly the year that Tumblr stopped being whatever it was designed for and became the home of single gag photo memes. We're sure the owners are so proud.
Here's 8 of the best:
Your nominations are a little eccentric and occasionally in-jokey but it's what you voted for and we didn't flush them all down the bog like Time magazine:
QED is a weekend celebration of science, reason and critical thinking. Featuring top speakers like Jon Ronson, Jim Al-Khalili and Robin Ince.
QED will be held in Manchester on Feb 5th-6th 2011. Because science is awesome.
BTW: This is our sponsored link. And it's very handy that it's filled up our Q for us as what the hell could we have stuck here? Quims? Anyway, this QED thing sounds like something we'd have happily linked to without sponsorship, so yay for good people supporting B3ta and bunging us money. AH FUCKING HELL. Obviously Q should be Question of the Week. Let's have TWO Qs. No one will notice.
The best story on QOTW in 2010 as voted for by YOU was for "The Tale of the Cornflake" by frightfullybored and, for those who didn't read it, here's your chance.
"Many years ago, my aunt had a friend who was a serial complainer/consumer terrorist. She used to fire letters of complaint off to all manner of unsuspecting companies regarding their shoddy wares or, in this case, food. The usual response was a fistful of money off vouchers or a cheque from the unsuspecting company to calm the rabid bitch's fevered brow.
"Anyway, one day, Kelloggs appeared on her radar because they'd committed the heinous crime of palming a large box of cornflakes off on the unsuspecting masses (in this case her) with a burnt cornflake in it.
"The sternly-worded letter of complaint was duly written and dispatched post-haste to those fine people at Kelloggs. She really went to town on them over how outrageous it was that such a fine upstanding company should be peddling this sub standard filth on the general public and what were they going to do about it regarding compensating her for this impurity in her breakfast cereal.
"Their response?
"A 'With Compliments' slip with a single replacement cornflake taped to the top right-hand corner..."
If you fancy reading the best ever QOTW answers, this link is your friend: every single answer, of all time, in order of votes. Print it out and stick it in your toilet. It would make a great book.
www.b3ta.com/search/answers/everyone/best
No, nothing to do with licking your lover's anus with your tongue, but a bizarre bit of marketing from Blackberry phones - how can they not know?
Here's a story about when one of our sponsored links went wrong.
Someone approached us to buy unused ad space in the newsletter by suggesting that we stick in a link to their video chart for viral ads and we'd get pennies for each click.
Anyway - one week we didn't get an ad and linked them up and we thought to maximize click-throughs we'd take the piss out of an advert. "Look at this worst ad ever. It's just embarrassing shit" being a much more compelling phrase than "woo hoo!"
It was an ad for some Barclays thing at the height of the banking crisis and we threw in a few extra digs about spending money on rotten advertising being probably part of the reason we were all so fucked.
Barclays saw it and got very angry that they were paying to have their brand rubbished. Oops! And that was the end for us and the viral chart.
BTW: The newsletter is funded by advertising. This year has not been easy due to both the recession and increased competition. However we've survived in no small part to our wonderful readers, who keep suggesting us to their clients and also the even more wonderful W00tmedia who make special efforts to ensure we don't wither away and die. Thank you. Especially Bex and Austen. We love you.
"Twitter is like uploading a collective liberal super ego to the cloud - a critical and moralising voice with the amplifying power of retweeting", we said pompously.
In 2010 twitter hate mobs came for
In 2011 they're coming for you.
A is for Anonymous calling us an "internet cunt"
B is also for Baldmonkey. King of /talk.
C is for Hunt as in Jeremy Hunt
F is for Fwapping.
J is for JMG. King of /talk.
K is for Kate Middleton's lovely norks.
P is for Paywalls.
Apparently there was some kind of World Cup going on but we didn't know because we're sad internet cunts who got picked last at games.
Keen internet masturbators tell us that in 2010 they've mostly been tugging off to the porn tubes that have sprung up. Still, it beats waiting for 30 minutes for some GIF of Pamela Anderson to download, like what we had to in the 90s. Or, like we did in the 80s, the fashion pages in Cosmo.
We didn't watch it. Sorry. If you want shit like that try a different internet newsletter.
2010 was another heartbreakingly poor year for Yazz in the pop charts. The only way isn't up, is it Yazz? Where's your plastic population now, Yazz? Melted, Yazz, like your chart dreams.
Despite nearly 10 years of B3ta history, we're probably still known best for the swearing keyboard. Here's some facts about it we'll be able to stick in our memoirs one day:
CREDITS
A to Z written in one manic burst starting at 3pm and finishing at 9:30pm by Rob Manuel and it's currently got a word count of 3,800 words which is about 10 words per minute, so... not so impressive when we put it like that.
But then the formatting took about the same time again. This is why we don't do imagey / html emails. It take bloody ages.
Proofed by Lucy Reese, David Stevenson and Fraser Lewry. The poor sods.
And specific thanks for help on this newsletter to @JonathanEx, @piersroberts, @mattmcd, @SSTRareFM, @defrost, @twiceydrinker, @Mme_G, @matthewgardner, @jamesmcgraw, @jetpackmedia, @sh4r0ng, Whato_Jeeves and The Great Architect.
Also thanks to Pep, Cal, Mystery Bob, Tomsk, Spacefish, Fnord and Stallion_Explosion. Forever B4ta.
