Cool Things in the Internet, Nov 2024: Buddy blogs, Gameboy reviews and rock music
Welcome to the November 2024 edition of Cool Things in the Internet, where I dump a whole load of neat things I've been enjoying in the web on your unexpected feet.
The Winner's History of Rock & Roll
So this is actually something pretty old: this article series (I've linked to part 1) is from 2013. I read it back then, too, but it's for some reason stuck in my mind all these years and earlier this month I finally managed to rediscover it via some good ol' google-fu. It's a series of rock music's status as a mainstream market force from the 1970s to the then-present day, from Led Zeppelin and KISS to Linkin Park, and specifically from the perspective of rock as a marketable, commercially viable affair rather than as a cool alt rock history. It's a good series of articles about one part of music history which feels more distant than ever in 2024, as rock is basically all but gone from the charts.
The Game Boy Abyss
Neocities is popping up with all kinds of sites now, which is very cool. I've really enjoyed stumbling into The Game Boy Abyss, where the author - Mitch - reviews a whole ton of Nintendo Game Boy games. Including all the forgotten shovelware, the bad stuff that didn't need to be unearthed and the beautifully dodgy licensed games.
Dave's Place
Dave is a rad guy and a friend of mine, and they recently started a Bear Blog too. Check it out for various music musings, recommendations of obscure Bandcamp finds and general life things!
DarkOverord: Twenty
Another friend blog, DarkO is an artist and a dear IRL buddy of mine who I've had the privilege and pleasure to know for almost as long as I've lived in the UK for. I would be amiss if I didn't link to its latest post, which took DarkO literal months to write - a long and extensive personal history of twenty years in the internet, tracking through art changes, personal changes, the local furry scene and life. It's an extensive biographical read and really fascinating (and I can say I was there, in those early furmeets).
Forest Sounds: Woodland Ambience, Bird Song
I've been having stressy times at work and just having some nature ambience in the background has been really good to keep me collected. This is the best one I've stumbled onto. Like the top comment says, "Finally, a nature video that doesn't make it seem like you're IN the river or up a tree with a family of birds".
And finishing this post with a dump of Sonic video content because November has been a good month for it. From Ace Attorney mashups to just really good fan animation, a detailed breakdown of various art styles (interesting even for non-artists) and the plethora of animations that have spurred from the most recent Twitter takeover, us hedgehog-heads have been feasting.