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When I posted the last list of niche blogs, a commenter expressed surprise that a Tumblr is a blog. Yes, Tumblr is a blogging platform, although it is also a social network. It’s the same with Twitter, although it is referred to as a “microblogging” platform because of the restriction on text. Is Facebook a blogging platform? Yes, if you choose to use it as one, although the public will only drop in to see what’s new if you post interesting subject matter on a regular basis. A blog is a website that is updated regularly like a diary, and in fact the word “blog” is short for “web log.” The updating with new material is what keeps us going back for more. Are you ready to explore some new and interesting single subject blogs?
1. Ask the Past
Ask the Past is a blog by Johns Hopkins history professor Elizabeth Archibald. She quotes advice from old books, often very old books, whether it’s good advice or not. Mostly not. Here are some other example posts:
How to Keep Your Cat, c. 1470
How to Mouse-Proof Your Cheese, 1649
How to Fart, 1530
How to Tell if Someone Is or Is Not Dead, c. 1380
How to Sober Up, 1628
If you start reading at the home page, you may be busy all day.
2. Small Town Noir
The blog Small Town Noir tells the stories of people who were arrested in New Castle, Pennsylvania, between 1930 and 1960. Diarmid Mogg became interested in the town and its people when he found some mugshots on eBay, and researched the stories of those people in the local newspaper archives -not just their crime, but their entire lives as well as they can be reconstructed.
The men and women in these mug shots are nobody special, but they saw things that none of us will ever see. They were all arrested in New Castle, a small town in western Pennsylvania, right over by the Ohio border. It was once one of the most industrially productive cities in America, but all that’s gone now.
Although Mogg is in Scotland, he continues to collect and research the mugshots that the New Castle police threw out some time around 1990. The stories are sparse but fascinating, and the blog as a whole serves to chronicle the history of a declining American town and the everyday people who lived and died there.
The mugshot above is of John Saul, who was arrested in 1957 for disorderly conduct. But the real story came later, when he got involved with holding a woman against her will for the purpose of prostitution, a crime that involved some of the town’s notable politicians.
3. WTF Renaissance
“Like most Fashion Week attendees, Chris and Uma judged shows on the quality of their gift bags.”
The Twitter feed WTF Renaissance gives modern captions to Renaissance and other classic paintings, or, more often, details found in Renaissance paintings. You’re sure to find something in there to make you smile.
4. Illustrated Twitter Typos
It’s hard to get every letter right when you’re Tweeting from a phone. For some people, even large keyboard keys and small words will trip you up. So it was inevitable that a site dedicated to Twitter typos would come along. Illustrated Twitter Typos not only showcases the funniest typos, but shows the “Freudian typos” illustrated. Misspellings are included as well as typos, as long as they’re funny, and indeed misspellings make up the majority of funny entries. The results are unintented puns.
5. Pop Sonnets
Pop Sonnets takes modern, familiar songs and renders them into Shakespearean language. That’s all, but it’s certainly enough to make you laugh, particularly if your favorite song is there. It might well be: the songs posted so far range from “I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor to “Rude” by Magic! If not, you can suggest a song.
6. Real Anime Food
Have you ever had a hankering to try out the recipes for dishes people eat on TV? If you’re an anime fan, Real Anime Food can help! The unnamed blogger is an anime fan and amateur cook. About Sukuyo’s Mystery Croquettes (from the show Kill la Kill), she says:
Sorry it took so long to post this. This whole life thing isnt easy! Anyway I made my version of mystery croquettes! They are made kind of cheaply too because the Mankanshoku’s werent rich. Making a little cheap food go far would be important to a family on a tight budget!! I basically grabbed what I had around my kitchen cut it all up really tiny and mixed with potatoes just like Sukuyo states is her trick! If you want a recipe for meat croquettes I have one here.
That’s followed by the recipe and directions illustrated by photographs. There are nine pages of recipes so far.
7. Lego Academics
“The @LegoAcademics overlooked one somewhat improbable 'risk' on their ethics approval form.”
Stockholm scientist Ellen Kooijman (Alatariel Elensar) designed a LEGO set featuring women scientists. It was picked up and manufactured by the LEGO company, and Donna Yates, an American archaeologist in Glasgow, Scotland, bought one of the first Research Institute sets as soon as they went on sale -plus a few extra pieces for creativity’s sake. She recreates scenes from her own life in archaeology and academia and posts them to her new Twitter account, Lego Academics. It has become a hit among scientists and academics who relate to her LEGO scenes.
The image above incorporates the T. rex fossil included in the set. Other vignettes deal with drinking as stress relief, dealing with budgets, and a dinosaur fossil that wants to be involved in research. Yates says she’s been a LEGO fan since childhood, and will continue to post such scenes “as long as it’s funny.”
8. Ryan Gosling Disneyland Cats
Four years ago, there was a spate of new blogs featuring Photoshopped images of unrelated topics spawned by Selleck Waterfall Sandwich, which is now defunct, as are most of the spinoff blogs. Mental_floss reader shavenwarthog told us his favorite was Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza, which still has three pages of images. You can also still check out the archives of Tony Danza Space Pretzel, too. But the longest-lived of these image blogs is Ryan Gosling Disneyland Cats, which is still being updated, although infrequently, in 2014. It must be the subject matter.
9. It's Like They Know Us
"I am getting so much work done. Toddlers are easy."
Advertising and stock photos are an endless source of comedy, because they show an idealized illustration of the perfect life and whatever it is they are trying to sell. One blogger saw how ridiculous the depictions of parenthood, pregnancy, and particularly breastfeeding are, and thought up snarky captions. The result is the new blog It’s Like They Know Us. Anyone who has ever been around a child can relate.