Cracked VS Evangelion

[Chuckman]

Cracked runs on the same scam as eHow and Livestrong and those other places. They have some feature article writers but most of the people who work for them churn out crap like this for $5/article or something. It might take ten minutes to write the article but they're getting a fraction of a penny on the dollar from the amount Cracked makes back from that in advertising revenue.

[Catamari]

Cracked runs on the same scam as eHow and Livestrong and those other places. They have some feature article writers but most of the people who work for them churn out crap like this for $5/article or something. It might take ten minutes to write the article but they're getting a fraction of a penny on the dollar from the amount Cracked makes back from that in advertising revenue.

It's important to remember, Cracked exists for the purpose of entertainment. Facts take a back seat.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

It's important to remember, Cracked exists for the purpose of entertainment. Facts take a back seat.

Entertainment only works when it's well done. Cracked has some amazing articles, and it also has some that look like they were done with little/no effort. It's a balance.

[Dream]

If you think those are small I don´t even want to know what are big oversights.

That was badly written on my part, sorry. By small i meant more that such an oversight is rather rare for a Cracked article. History isn't my forty so i don't know how glaring the error is.

As for the filters, i'm not sure if editors would be ok with me saying this and i don't remember too well, but basically you write a pitch which then gets confirmed/approved by specific moderators if it's good enought, then you go to the next stage where editorial takes a look at it and gives feedback, once enought work is put into it, you go to a third section which is where shit gets real (many articles don't get past this stage), after that (and the many hours of work and critique applied to the article) the article is accepted, and the writer starts writing out the entries.

It's way longer and more complex than that, but that's basically the rought sketch.

@Chuckman: While topixs might be "churned out in ten minutes for 5$", it is important to mention that topixs are not the main element of Cracked. In my experience as a lurker, most people who write for Cracked originally go for the articles. Said articles are paid 100$ for the first five you write, and 200$ after that (plus some sort of bonus if your article is the one most seen that week, or something like that) and they certainly aren't written in less than ten minutes or even ten days.

Also, saying that "facts take a back seat" is not entirely untrue, but i feel it's a gross oversimplification.

Uhh, we're getting a bit off-topic. Sorry OP. I haven't seen any topix pages in a long time, but if i recall correctly they're just like that.

[Varan Bon Ziller]

That was one of their laziest and sloppiest articles. It receives an eye roll at best.

[Bryan]

Advocates of the series proclaim it to be a more realistic story about real people and how they'd really react in such a situation. We at Cracked are often puzzled by this declaration as we've unanimously agreed getting to pilot a giant robot in high school would be FUCKING AWESOME regardless of how big a tool our Dad was.

These guys are clearly psychological experts taking this very seriously. Why wouldn't the prospect of risking your life to save everyone you've ever known be FUCKING AWESOME?

[Monk Ed]

Advocates of the series proclaim it to be a more realistic story about real people and how they'd really react in such a situation. We at Cracked are often puzzled by this declaration as we've unanimously agreed getting to pilot a giant robot in high school would be FUCKING AWESOME regardless of how big a tool our Dad was.

I don't care to read the entire article but if I were to go by this paragraph alone as a representative sample I'd assume the rest of the article to be pure satire (making fun of people who typically hate Eva the way Stephen Colbert makes fun of conservatives) written by actual Eva fans.

[Nyanlathotep]

It's important to remember, Cracked exists for the purpose of entertainment. Facts take a back seat.

Comedy is funny because it's true.

When it's not true, you get schlock like this article.

Facts are an integral part of entertainment.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

So, a comedy site reviews a tragic show. This is important or relevant because... why?

[Catamari]

So, a comedy site reviews a tragic show. This is important or relevant because... why?

Because there is nothing more important than Evangelion having an immaculate reputation on the interbuttz.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Because there is nothing more important than Evangelion having an immaculate reputation on the interbuttz.

Some people have a different opinion, I guess. Whatever. I can only be bothered with such opinions if those holding them are educated enough to maintain their point. (I know people who don't particularly care for NGE, and the educated reasons they gave are understandable even to me, a rabid Eva fan who drools more than he should over every technique Anno uses.)

Given Cracked's past in understanding movies, I treat whatever opinion they have with less respect that TV Tropes, which I don't respect at all. They're both good for laughs occasionally, as is anyone who thinks they're getting the slightest bit of educated material from the site.

[Rena]

I treat whatever opinion they have with less respect that TV Tropes, which I don't respect at all.

TV Tropes' editors do a lot more research than Cracked's writers. But eh, TV Tropes is supposed to be a free informal tropes wiki, while Cracked is a big pond filled with little fish writing half-assed "funny" articles for an extra $5. You can't expect that much from either of them.

[SimplyMason0]

This one seems quite sloppy for even cracked. They usually use a lot of research and trivia for their articles. I think its just fan bait solely because of that.

Kinda disappointing cause I read the site a few times and would be interested on what they really think of Eva. Though they don't focus on anime much anyways.

[MoroNoKimi]

TV Tropes' editors do a lot more research than Cracked's writers. But eh, TV Tropes is supposed to be a free informal tropes wiki, while Cracked is a big pond filled with little fish writing half-assed "funny" articles for an extra $5. You can't expect that much from either of them.

This, this. Although in some instances I've found TVTropes a useful reference, it's not serious business (and isn't trying to be) but they do actually really do the research for every entry. Cracked...not so much, they can write some funny articles sometimes but they clearly just didn't try here.

[user-02]

I hate to be that guy who says to take a chill pill, but...let's all take a chill pill and put this into perspective. It's neither the best article ever written, nor the funniest, but it's not altogether horrendous. It's...mildly funny. Emphasis on mildly. I mean, shit, I am as big an Eva apologist as anyone, flaws and all, and I can smirk knowingly at some of the big issues in the series as humorously called out in this piece.

Clearly, this article was intended to be snarky. It may be a little heavy handed and clumsy in the application of said snark. But it is what it is. Laugh, don't laugh, or move on. This is nothing to freak out about, and certainly not worth several pages of angst.

If NGE got this kind of writeup in, say, The New Yorker, I'd be visibly and expressedly disappointed. But this is Cracked. It's a hit or miss publication, and an article like this will be of no consequence in the grand scheme of things.

[Monk Ed]

It was just two pages, and it had already died off by the time you posted. (Yours and mine are the only posts here all day.)

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

It's all "meh" for me anyway. I'm not interested in reading or taking issue with the bullet-points an article written for the sake of attempting to make people laugh. It would be like nit-picking one of Pat Oswalt's comedy routines in an attempt to argue his views on whether or not God's exists. It's neither the proper time, place, nor atmosphere for such a discussion to take place. So I'm not gonna bother.

[LeoXiao]

It's Cracked, don't worry too much. Their job is to make things look funny, not to portray them accurately.

[Squigsquasher]

Meh, it's another of Cracked's "LOL Japan IS TEH WEIRD HAHAHAHA WE ARE SO EDGY AND FUNNY" articles. Complete crap, but not really worth getting wound up about.

I'll be honest, most of Cracked's stuff is terrible. There are a few gems, but mostly crap. Most of the people writing about video games don't even play them, which says a lot.

Sites like TV Tropes, whilst informal and silly, really do their research and even when mocking a work, will still respect it. Cracked just trash-talks basically everything.

[Dream]

Meh, it's another of Cracked's "LOL Japan IS TEH WEIRD HAHAHAHA WE ARE SO EDGY AND FUNNY" articles. Complete crap, but not really worth getting wound up about.

While you are ridiculously wrong about your opinion of Cracked and TV tropes and always will be, i have to agree with you on this. It's seriously something that has always bothered me a lot about Cracked (well, that and some of their fetish bashings, but that's beside the point) If at least i didn't get the impression that some of the writers seriously thought that way about Japan, it wouldn't bother me as much. Then again, one of the regular writers actually lives in Japan, IIRC.

As for the video game articles... I think you might be remembering the top 8 of past year way too much. Brockway and Cheese are pretty avid gamers IIRC, and it's not like people who don't play videogames actually write many articles about them. Also, if you don't mind me asking, what kind of research could TV tropes do? As far as i know the only focus of their site is fictional tropes. Mind you i don't mean to say that TV tropes's content is lesser or less funny because of that, just that i can't imagine what sort of research they could be doing.

Also, sorry for getting so defensive and confrontational in this topic. It's just because... Well, i like Cracked, many of their articles have helped me a lot in my life and to develop as a person, and i just generally find it a really funny and well-spirited place, if a rather... american one. So it's a bit sad for me to see people continually bash the site and call everyone in there "crap". Add to that my impression that most people here seem to be talking about Cracked without much or any factual knowledge of the site or how it actually works (which is kind of a general pet-peeve i have agaisnt a lot of EGF) and i think you can see why i've been getting so incensed over some of the replies in this thread. Sorry about that.