jackfrost wrote:

Optimist With Doubts wrote: http://www.cracked.com/article/178_the-5-most-unintentionally-racist-movies-about-racism/ Bobby "fatboy" has to be the most unfunny person writing for cracked today. That was the worst article I have ever read on there. It is not funny in the least, and it looks like he was too stupid to understand those movies or never watched them in the first place and just read about them on Wikipedia.

As a frequent writer for Cracked, I totally agree. Compared to what the rest of us do with the normal daily feature articles and the process we have to go through to get published there, this one was totally lazy, completely unfunny, and inaccurate.

I'm not really sure what the editors are thinking beside that they must have had to fill some space, and had nothing better to fit in there (kind of like that awful Saw topic page that was featured the other day: http://www.cracked.com/funny-376-saw/ which was clearly just an image they had laying around from a contest, and slapped some uninspired text underneath)

Cracked typically gets "guest writers" who are successful somewhere else (like with a blog or something) to write the feature article on Saturdays, and most of it is garbage simply because they don't go through the stringent, very self-selecting process that the other writers do.

Some topics can be pretty good if people spend more than an hour or so making them. I just completed my second one on NFL Sideline Reporters (I'll post a link to it over in the OPP forum) and it took me just as long to finish and complile as the big feature articles I've done, mostly because I'm really OCD and everything has to be perfect.

But yeah, most of them are pretty lame and bare bones, mostly because, again, they don't go through the Cracked workshop so they aren't edited by the editors like the features are. Anyone can write one anytime they want to, and they usually only get featured up on the front page (like my Google Earth one did) if the editors think it's good enough.

ReeperTheSeeker wrote:

I've always wondered this, PJ, do the Cracked stuff live in close proximity of each other and have meeting or do you guys live in various parts of the world and use chat rooms?

Yeah, pretty much what Optimist said. Anyone can write for Cracked (if they're good enough, that is) by joining the "Writer's Workshop" which is a hidden part of the forums. Once you're there, you just pitch your idea with a sample write-up to demonstrate that you can actually write the idea. If the editors like the idea, they move it to a "considering" section which is just a holding tank for their weekly editorial meeting.

The main staff consists of three editors that conference call weekly with a couple copy editors and higher ups from their parent company to discuss which pitches they will accept for that week and if they like your idea and think it'll make a good article, they "accept" it and direct you to go write it. Then once it's finished, it's featured on the front page sometime during the next month or so, and you get paid.

Everything is done online via the forum, and it's a really unique process that really teaches you how to write for a publisher, and gives a lot of people a very good opportunity to become serious published writers if that's a goal for them. If not, it's just cool seeing your work on a popular website and get paid for it.