FreakingNews
Encyclopedia
Freaking News is a news oriented Photoshop contest
site, that came online August 2, 2002 and officially opened on October 23, 2003 as a sister site of Worth1000
. According to Alexa Internet
, Freaking News is one of the top 10,000 sites in the world. This virtual community
of 17,000+ digital artists and members features free daily Photoshop contests that are fueled by global news and events. Since its inception, Freaking News has been featured on television shows, magazines and newspapers, including Comedy Central
, MTV
, Weekly World News
, Glenn Beck Show
, Stern Magazine
, The Guardian
, The Daily News, The Dallas Morning News
, Los Angeles Times
, The Daily Mail, and The Sun
.
- by then an already established Photoshop contest
site. Apart from the custom code, Worth1000
played a major role in launching FreakingNews by promoting it to its member artists. Golunov and Taylor remain close friends today, and Golunov is the owner and active administrator of the website, using the moniker, "Newsmaster" while Taylor also is an administrator under the screenname, "Registered".
showed the picture of the Google Jet Boeing 767 - Page and Brin's personal plane, without realizing that the picture was a photo hoax created by a Freaking News member for one of the Photoshop contests. Three months earlier, aviation news site Plane Nation, featured the same hoax image as a real photo in their article about the Google Jet Boeing 767. The Business Insider website also published this image on June 4, 2008.
in light of the Arizona's Immigration Law debate. This mugshot image was used in the public rallies and was met with a lot of controversy, revealing some Americans' attitudes about race, immigrants and where some of immigration reform debate may be headed.
Photoshop contest
A Photoshop contest, or sometimes photochop contest, is an online game, in which a website or user of an Internet forum will post a starting image — usually a photograph — and ask others to manipulate the image using some kind of graphics editing software, such as Photoshop, Corel...
site, that came online August 2, 2002 and officially opened on October 23, 2003 as a sister site of Worth1000
Worth1000
Worth1000 is an image manipulation and contest website. Worth1000 opened on January 1, 2002 and hosts over 340,000 unique images made in theme contests such as "Rejected Transformers", "Invisible World", and "Stupid Protests". In mid-2003, Worth1000 began hosting similar competitions for...
. According to Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
, Freaking News is one of the top 10,000 sites in the world. This virtual community
Virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
of 17,000+ digital artists and members features free daily Photoshop contests that are fueled by global news and events. Since its inception, Freaking News has been featured on television shows, magazines and newspapers, including Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
, MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, Weekly World News
Weekly World News
The Weekly World News was a supermarket tabloid published in the United States from 1979 to 2007, renowned for its outlandish cover stories often based on supernatural or paranormal themes and an approach to news that verged on the satirical. Its characteristic black-and-white covers have become...
, Glenn Beck Show
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
, Stern Magazine
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Daily News, The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, The Daily Mail, and The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
.
History
Vladislav Golunov and Rich Taylor became online friends in 2001 when Golunov contacted Taylor after he had seen a photo-manipulated image that Taylor had created under the pseudonym Internet screenname "Registered". Golunov had an existing website that posted humorous images with the visitor being able to leave comments or share the images via email. Taylor's news based parody and satire images have been circulated and often thought to be real by Internet users that had received them, primarily via email or posted in online forums. During one subsequent conversation, Taylor mentioned to Golunov that he wished there existed a community of Photoshoppers that would create, or "chop" images based on current news stories. Following this discussion, Golunov registered the domain and called the site "Freaking News", as a mockery of "breaking news". Golunov bought the edited code for Photoshop contests from Worth1000Worth1000
Worth1000 is an image manipulation and contest website. Worth1000 opened on January 1, 2002 and hosts over 340,000 unique images made in theme contests such as "Rejected Transformers", "Invisible World", and "Stupid Protests". In mid-2003, Worth1000 began hosting similar competitions for...
- by then an already established Photoshop contest
Photoshop contest
A Photoshop contest, or sometimes photochop contest, is an online game, in which a website or user of an Internet forum will post a starting image — usually a photograph — and ask others to manipulate the image using some kind of graphics editing software, such as Photoshop, Corel...
site. Apart from the custom code, Worth1000
Worth1000
Worth1000 is an image manipulation and contest website. Worth1000 opened on January 1, 2002 and hosts over 340,000 unique images made in theme contests such as "Rejected Transformers", "Invisible World", and "Stupid Protests". In mid-2003, Worth1000 began hosting similar competitions for...
played a major role in launching FreakingNews by promoting it to its member artists. Golunov and Taylor remain close friends today, and Golunov is the owner and active administrator of the website, using the moniker, "Newsmaster" while Taylor also is an administrator under the screenname, "Registered".
Google Jet Hoax
On December 6, 2007, Fox NewsFox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
showed the picture of the Google Jet Boeing 767 - Page and Brin's personal plane, without realizing that the picture was a photo hoax created by a Freaking News member for one of the Photoshop contests. Three months earlier, aviation news site Plane Nation, featured the same hoax image as a real photo in their article about the Google Jet Boeing 767. The Business Insider website also published this image on June 4, 2008.
Dora the Explorer Mugshot Controversy
In May 2010 Dora the Explorer mugshot image, created by FreakingNews member AndWhat (Debbie Groben) for a FreakingNews Photoshop contest, was featured in the newspapers, magazines, and TV programsin light of the Arizona's Immigration Law debate. This mugshot image was used in the public rallies and was met with a lot of controversy, revealing some Americans' attitudes about race, immigrants and where some of immigration reform debate may be headed.