You come to mental_floss for a great variety of news, knowledge, and trivia. That's wonderful, but just scratch the surface of the internet and you'll find blogs dedicated to very specific subjects -subjects you'd never know had enough material for an ongoing blog. But many of them do -and those that don't will at least have a decent archive of material. Every once in a while, I collect a bunch of them that you might want to look over, because you never know when you'll find a new passion or a new community to enjoy on the internet. Here are eleven such blogs, in no particular order.
1. My Dad Was in a Band
It seems that forming a band was a rite of passage for young men in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Those young men now have grown children. Right before Fathers Day, a new blog was launched with the intriguing name and concept My Dad Was in a Band. The entries contain photographs, stories, audio recordings, and sometimes videos of dads who were rock stars in their day, submitted by their proud progeny. The music can be awesome, and the pictures will make you smile. So far, there are only two pages of entries, but if your dad was in a band, you are welcome to submit him.
2. Mean Mad Men
Mean Mad Men is a mashup of the AMC TV show Mad Men and the movie Mean Girls. Quotes from Mean Girls are laid over appropriate screenshots from Mad Men. There are four pages now, with new items being added very slowly as they are created.
3. Racial Misprofiling
There has been a recent boom in posts, and even blogs, dedicated to weird stock photography. Between trying to please all possible clients and fulfilling specific orders, stock photo companies offer some of the most ridiculous staged illustrations that it's a wonder no one mined this rich vein of content years ago. Racial Misprofiling is one such blog, where you'll find ridiculous stock photos that come up when you search for the word "Arab." Each has a caption. The caption for the picture above is “He’s starting to ask questions, Jack. I’ve told him you’re Arab a hundred times, but he says the kids at school told him Arabs don’t suffer from rosacea.”
4. Reasons My Son is Crying
One of the hottest recent tumblr blogs is Reasons My Son is Crying. Launched in April, it began when Greg Pembroke was perplexed by how little it took to set his sons, ages 20 months and three years, off on a crying jag. Each picture is accompanied by the reason for the meltdown. Pretty soon, other parents were submitting photos of their children crying for strange reasons. Well, they are strange reasons to an adult, but some things are as important as life and death to a small child. This one shows the son crying because his father broke his cheese in half. The blog went viral so hard and so fast that Conan O'Brien's Team Coco launched a parody site called Reasons My Talk Show Host Is Crying.
5. Food Replicator
Food Replicator is a blog of Star Trek recipes. How fun! You'll find recipes like Balso Tonic, Klingon Octopus, Jellied Gree-worms, and Earl Grey Tea. Some are foods mentioned in the various Star Trek series and movies; others are something that one of the characters might have cooked. There's a handy index of recipes, too.
6. These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
These Boots Are Made For Walkin' lists cover versions of the 1966 Nancy Sinatra song. The blog was started on April 8 and was updated regularly until April 25th. That seems like a short time, but in all it lists 172 versions of the song! So even though it is a Tumblr blog, it is now a website with a respectable archive covering a single subject.
7. Zombie Dead Blog
No, it's not a blog about zombies (although that would be cool). Zombie Dead Blog is a tribute to the weirdness of abandoned blogs. Some of the blogs featured haven't been updated for years, and many seem to be started for a particular rant and then forgotten when the author ran out of steam. Here's an entry of a found blog called Why I Hate Sears, which only lived for two months in 2005.
When I first started working at Sears there were 3 pregnant women. Within the last month we have a grand total of 7 pregnant women. I am not even with a guy yet I am a bit nervous about ending up #8. It's like there are sperm floating in the air! If I go to the bathroom are they going to fly in?!
Recently my fear has subsided thanks to pregnant woman #3. She told me quite firmly to stop drinking the Break Room Dr.Pepper.
The curator of the Zombie Dead Blog spends time combing through the muck of dead and forgotten blogs just so we can enjoy gems like this.
8. Goldblumings
Goldblumings is nothing but flowers in bloom featuring the face of Jeff Goldblum. Because we need more silliness on the internet.
9. The Folk Ye Bump Intae
The Folk Ye Bump Intae is a webcomic of life. Stuart Murray takes home the things people say to him during the day in Glasgow, Scotland. Then he draws them. That's it, but some of them are pretty funny. And many contain NSFW language.
10. Movies in Color
Here's one for pop culture design enthusiasts and movie fans, too. Movies in Color features stills from famous films and their corresponding color palettes. Why? Because it's a neat idea. Blogger Roxy Radulescu says,
So far, the blog has not only been an aesthetic pursuit but also an educational pursuit that showcases the relationship between color, cinematography, set design, and production design. Overall, it is a study of color in films, but has other uses and applications. One of the goals is to give artists color palettes they can use in paintings, films, videos, graphic design, and other pursuits.
It turns out to be pleasing to the eye, for sure.
11. The Metropolitan Museum of Butts
How do you make fine art more fun? Or conversely, how do you publish nude pictures without getting anyone upset? Dedicated to the curation of the backside of fine art, The Metropolitan Museum of Butts manages to do both. The tagline is "Gay or straight, man or woman... everybody likes butts. And everybody has a butt." Most of the pictures are of classical sculptures, taken from the rear view, so to speak, although there are some images of paintings, ceramics, and other artworks. Even animals are represented!
Find more in our previous posts on Niche Blogs.