Single Serving Websites - Part One: Chaos + Simple = Humor

Justice Mitchell
Interactive, LOL, Trends

Single-serving websites are a bit what the name describes. They typically do one thing and one thing only. They still exist in this giant mix of the internet as a beacon to simplicity. They're typically not fancy; they typically don't take long and often they're funny. I remember my first fore into this arena is what I still consider the greatest single-serving site ever: http://zombo.com/. This site was ironically brought to my attention by one of the premier masters of this genre, David Kraftsow, to whom will be my final post regarding this space.

Take the following list with a large grain of salt. Some of this content is crass, others inspiring, but what's most important is that in a day and age of sites with mountains of data, these sites still get mobs of traffic. Why? Well I would speculate that it's just that. A throwback, something simple, a quick laugh, shocking but most of all it's a one hit wonder. I start this list with http://ytmnd.com (YTMND), which if you're new to this site stands for "You're The Man Now Dog", taken from the film Finding Forrester, a 2000 American drama film written by Mike Rich and directed by Gus Van Sant. (YTMND)

"YTMND, an initialism for "You're The Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted web pages (known within the community as YTMNDs or sites) featuring an absurd juxtaposition of a single image or a simple side-show, which may be animated or tiled along with optional large zooming text and a looping sound file. Images used in YTMNDs are usually either created or edited by users. Most YTMNDs are meant to expose or reflect the more insubstantial facets of pop culture, and some can be considered inside jokes." ~ wikipedia

Random single-serving site generator:

End of days:

Shockers:

Sign-a-longs:

Celebrity one offs:

Sounds:

Colors:

Just words:

Artsy-fartsy:

Personal favorites:

Total wastes of time:

Tools:

And now for something completely different:

Fore more education on this phenomenon see: http://isthisyourpaperonsingleservingsites.com

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