we love the web
email us
FEATURES: BEST OF B3TA 2003

Here's some of the best stuff made by people who contributed to the b3ta site in 2003. What can we say? All this stuff rocks like a bastard and you won't find a better way of spending an afternoon than clicking on all these links.

SPONG MONKEYS
Joel Veitch has had a busy year. From directing ads for Switch/Maestro to making his own TV show - Rathergood Videos - for C4, he's been a pan-media monkey. Or web boffin, as the Daily Star calls him. His Spong Monkeys were his biggest net hit of the year, leading to an American ad agency asking him to remake it as an advert for sandwiches. "We like the sub - coz it tastes soo gud".

PIGEON CAM
Who would have thought that attaching a lipstick cam to a remote control car would be such fun? JFK did. And so did Christian O'Connell, who featured it on his TV show.

FALSE PERSPECTIVE PHOTOS
Steve Carter had a burst of inspiration. He realised that he could make people look really tiny by mucking about with perspective. Expect to see this ripped off for an ad campaign in 2004.

HOW MANY PEOPLE SHARE YOUR NAME?
How many people share your name in the UK? Glenn Chalmers' website will tell you, by searching the electoral roll. This proved to be a hit in offices round the country. Although mostly people were looking for people called cunt and twat...

SIMONS SWEARS
Here's a web formula: old kiddies game + swearing = net hit. But Diyjoe did with such style and blatant rudeness that offices the world over were fell to his sweary charms.

NEWSPAPER DOGSHIT STUNT
Local newspapers are but sport to b3ta contributors. CCC has been winding up his by trying to get as many references to dog shit in the letters page as possible. Joe Orton would be proud.

SQUIRREL BAND
Ah, what would b3ta be without animal bands? DJOL's "Old Grey Squirrel Test" leapt out of the web and onto the DVD of the BBC reissue of the Old Grey Whistle Test.

MAN MILK OR MOO MILK
The web loves a good quiz. And it likes them mucky. We wrote this one to test whether you could tell the difference between milk and spunk. A million tries later and you're still at it.

BIRMINGHAM - It's not shit campaign
Jon Bounds started a "Birmingham: it's not shit" campaign. We made him a promotional video and song. It kinda helped: radio, TV and newspapers talked about the issue. We even heard reports of the song being sung in the Birmingham City football club.

MONKEY MAN OF TUMBRIDGE WELLS
Remember this story from the silly season? Superhero in Tunbridge Wells? All over The Sun newspaper? Well, it was one of our guys. Same bloke that was running the dog shit stuff. All hail CCC, for we have a new god.

YOUR ALL GAY
Catchphrases. Never underestimate the power of a catchphrase. "Your All Gay" (yes, spelt like that) started when an illiterate troll from poo.com turned up on our site. His taunts became our taunts and Reverend Dan turned the whole thing into a catching little barbershop quartette thingie with Oscar Wilde.

SKIPPY THE GOTH KANGEROO
Matazone has had a good year too. His Little Goth Girl animations are now a fixture on MTV2. We still have a soft spot for this. We love the title and we love the story.

GOATSE IN THE NEWSPAPERS
There is a game on the web: try and trick people to look at goatse - a photo of a bloke bending over opening his man gash. The Boy T managed to get it in the papers by redrawing it in pastels and claiming it to be the work of a child fighting racism.

YOUR MUSIC IS SHITE
Amazon has recently opened up its database gubbins so that all can play with making their own version of the site. Chthonic's version allows you to type in the name of an artist and then read the worst reviews ever written.

HILLYBILLY ANIMAL BAND
Everybody knows Deliverance. You might not have seen the film, but you'll recognise the tune. Dylan Mackey made this fantastic Deep South-themed animation to keep it fresh in your internal jukebox.

MORISSEY LAMENTS
2003 saw Moz return to the TV screens with his C4 doc where he confessed his love for Mexican boys, and had Nancy Sinatra round for hugs and biscuits. We prefer Richard Crawford's version of the truth.

CODER OR KILLER
Ever noticed that nerdy blokes look suspiciously like the killers on true life specials? Malevole did. Oddly, the geek community didn't take offence.

POLITICIANS ACTING LIKE TWATS
Monkeymanblue wrote to 100s of MPs and asked them whether they'd ever been on a skateboard. The resulting site and photos provided fodder for political TV shows and newspaper columns for weeks. BTW: Monkeymanblue - shall we tell the truth about who you really are? No? Ok, it'll just be our little secret.

STICKMAN FATBOY SLIM
Catch the Christopher Walken video to Fatboy Slim's Weapon Of Choice? Stick Figure Ninja remade it with er.. stick figures. It looked amazing.

KIDS PLAYING DEAD
A Korean craze swept the web this year: people pretending to be corpses. And these preteen b3ta fans joined it. Cute - if you're Hannibal Lector.

GLOBAL RICH LIST
Nik Roope thought he'd to ask people how much they earned and tell them exactly how rich they are. Hopefully to guilt trip people into giving their spare cash to charity. Was there a newspaper this site didn't reach? Probably only the ones in Tunbridge Wells where they're getting a bit sick of us by now.

BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER MUSHROOM!
Another great year for Weebl. His cartoons continue to rule on MTV and he's now making robo-cow adverts for Anchor Butter. His real hit this year was his brilliantly moronic badger mantra - which allegedly led to teen suicides in Korea. Or that's what Korean TV thought until they investigated it in a 15 minute news report and found that someone was pulling their leg.

DAVID BLAINE GAME
Another web formula. Take a celebrity in the news and add it to a shooting game. Takes a bit of style to pull off something so basic these days. And that's what Brian Mung has got. Style in bucket loads. The papers lapped it up.

CACTUS DAD
Looking for new talent? Try Mushybees. His cactus story made us giggle. But where's the follow up? The public needs more cacti.

THE CURE vs MEERKATS
Remember The Cure's "Close To Me"? Best bit was the mad jazz stuff in the middle. But wouldn't it be better with Meerkats instead of fat goths? Nacho thought so and she's right. A finely wrought advancement on the animal band idiom.

SIMON COWEL IS SATAN
Want Simon Cowell buggering Will Young? How about The Blazing Squad in a Bum Sex Conga? You had it all in b3ta's most libelous work yet. It was all fun and games until Sony Music's lawyers got on our back. Spoilsports.

BOB DYLAN SPACE MONKEY
Another one to watch out for in 2004 is Mystery Bob. He writes his own tunes and make his own animations. And when they're this good - the direction of the viewer's eye is masterful - you know you'll be seeing more of his stuff in your inbox.

All this stuff was launched in the b3ta newsletter in 2003. If you want to see stuff like this in 2004 then sign up to the newsletter. It comes but once a week and it's not shit. Sign up by dropping your email address into the form below:



eXTReMe Tracker