Occupy Wall Street and the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Steve Jobs, and Amy Winehouse may have been among the year’s biggest news stories — but not on Facebook. The social networking monolith has published a list of 2011′s 40 most shared articles, and none of those topics makes the top ten. While the #1 story — The New York Times‘ satellite photos of the Japan earthquake — is hard to argue with, the rest of the list includes two pieces on the “new zodiac signs” hoax, three animal curiosities, something called “Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps,” and, of course, “You’ll freak when you see the new Facebook.” Puzzle over the ten most-shared stories of 2011 after the jump, then visit Facebook’s blog for the entire top 40.
We’ve found the Sophia Petrillo of social media. She’s related to Chacho Puebla and is the subject of his new photo series, Grandmother Tips. It’s a fun collection of advice and tips about various forms of social media and Internet hangouts like Vimeo. Although there’s a lot of timeless advice about money and relationships that our elders try to pass down to us, the times are a-changin’. Puebla’s tips include the humorous worries of a new generation. Click through to find out what your grandmother never told you. Read More »
If you’ve visited a newsstand in the past decade or so, then you know it’s impossible to escape digital retouching — and we’re not just talking about the covers of fashion magazines. Tired of all of the “impossibly thin, tall, and wrinkle- and blemish-free models” overrunning the media, researchers Hany Farid and Eric Kee of Dartmouth College have created a new algorithm that mimics human perceptions and can detect when a model’s face has been retouched using Photoshop with 80% accuracy. “The ubiquity of these unrealistic and highly idealized images has been linked to eating disorders and body-image dissatisfaction in men, women, and children,” they write in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They believe that if viewers know how much an image has been altered, it might help. Read More »
Yanko Tsvetkov’s Mapping Stereotypes project looks at the world’s misguided opinions about their neighbors far and wide. The Bulgarian-born, London-based designer entertains what Americans — who exist in the “civilized world” — really think about the rest of the map. (Hint: California is loaded with “fake boobs and oranges” and Alaska is land of the hockey moms.) Tsvetkov’s works also poke at Europe’s stereotypical worldviews, adding what the Vatican feels about those “frigid women” and where gay men go to drink “posh beer.” Click through for some amusing impressions. Read More »
Mapping thirty years of Apple products ranging from 1983′s Apple IIe to this year’s iPhone 4S, Pop Chart Lab has released The Insanely Great History of Apple infographic print. Sorted according to type and graphing the connections between form and function, it’s clear to see that Apple has created some stellar — and dare we say, sexy — products over the years. Bask in the rainbow-licious glow of Apple’s full-size history over here. We think the print still holds up at a distance from a design perspective (must be that lovely retro wave), but if you need more personal time with it, pick up a print on PCL’s website before this limited edition run sells out.
Jim Clark’s animations resurrect legendary poets and literary figures from the past so we can enjoy readings of their famous works. The result is uncanny and somewhat hypnotizing — particularly when the animation appears to be totally seamless with the photographic image used. The sound of an old LP crackling and the scratchy film quality adds to the ambience. Light a few candles, and check out a few of our favorite readings past the break. Read More »
The New York Times Magazine is known for its lithe, minimal cover designs, and Tim Enthoven’s illustration for the November 13 issue of the popular publication doesn’t stray from that in the slightest. There is still big meaning behind those tiny images, however. The feature story, “The Human Swap: How a Single Israeli Came to Be Worth 1,027 Palestinians,” has 1,028 hand-drawn people on its cover. Each one of them is a Palestinian captive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to release last month in exchange for the return of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. What do make of this memorable collaboration between design director Arem Duplessis, Editor-in-Chief Hugo Lindgren, and Enthoven? [via Mediabistro]
By manipulating the same software that Google uses to translate websites into different languages for intelligible browsing, someone was able to reveal the wide variety of languages “spoken” on Twitter. The social network’s linguistics translates to a Technicolor satellite map of the world where English appears ghostly gray and parts of Europe are dotted in eye-popping color. Africa appears to contain the least amount of Twitter users, and several areas prove that their country’s official language isn’t the one they choose to actually Tweet with (German dominates Switzerland and there’s a healthy dose of Dutch used in Belgium, for example). What other little quirks do you spot? Check out the map in full over here. [via big think]
You don’t normally think of the words “Dakota Fanning” and “scandal” in the same sentence — unless you count the time that Kathy Griffin made an inappropriate (but hilarious!) rehab joke about the then child star on the red carpet at the 2005 Golden Globes, and later had to apologize. But today The Guardianreports that a new ad for Marc Jacobs’ Lola perfume, which features an image of the 17-year-old sitting with a bottle of the fragrance between her legs, has been banned in the UK.
Why has this particular campaign been deemed “sexually provocative” by the Advertising Standards Authority? “We considered that the length of her dress, her leg, and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality,” they say. “Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered the ad could be seen to sexualize a child. We therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible and was likely to cause serious offense.” They also feel like Fanning looks to be younger than she actually is. What do you think of the ad? Is the controversy warranted or is it just as “provocative” as what you normally come across in magazines?
Map nerds: prepare to be seduced. This beauty hails from The General Atlas of the World — an 1854 volume printed by A & C Black Publishing Company, the same folks who issued early editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The tome contained steel engravings from well-known cartographers like William Hughes and featured close to 70 maps. The Victorian map featured above charts the rivers and mountains of its time — something that becomes more apparent when you note that Dhawalagiri is listed as the tallest peak, not Mount Everest. The color-coding and drawing (those root-like rivers and bloody volcano clouds are amazing) make this a particularly stunning little map. You can zoom in on its legend over here.
