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Worth 1000
This is "the top creative competition and photoshop contest site on the web" — in other words, very likely, the most colossal waste of man-hours since the erection of the pyramids.
Content
Random complaints about Worth 1000's general fag level can be emailed to CEO Dave Adams at his private email address: [email protected]
Of course, there are many, many ways to waste our precious time on the Internets. But most of them don't require any particular skill. Consider, on the other hand, how long it took some basement dweller to figure out how to photoshop a lightbulb that's also an orange. Or a lightbulb that's also an egg. Or oranges that are also lightbulbs. Or pancakes with teeth. Or a lemon with teeth. Or a pear with teeth. Or teeth with teeth. Or a flower with barely perceptible teeth ("Creator Comments: Many hours of work on this one"). Or any one of at least 100 frogs with teeth.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Well, you get the idea. They supposedly disqualify images that contain "clichés," but what that actually means is just that no in-jokes or recurrent pop-culture old memes of the type that occasionally make YTMND mildly amusing will ever be allowed to get off the ground. It doesn't mean that every other image can't be yet another idiotic variation the theme of fruit, lightbulbs, and teeth, entered into a contest called something like "Lightbulbs Everywhere! 3" or "Fruit with Teeth! 15."
Another The other popular theme is celebrities. For example: look, it's Angelina Jolie, or whatever, only, omg, she's, liek, old!!!1!11 Or fat. Or a zombie. Or a cyborg. Or a pirate. Or a lemon with teeth. This theme is particularly annoying because all celebrities look the same, because they are all old media pieces of crap that nobody cares about, and because there are no n00dz at all (see below).
Oh, and, did I mention? There is also what amounts to an extensive series of furry galleries. Yippee!
SFW :(
The entire site is hellishly SFW. In fact, even the word "hell" is caught by the filtering software and (in an apparent attempt at humor) automatically changed to "New Jersey." Occasionally there are special NSFW contests. This means that, if you can get up the courage to click through the intimidating warning message, you might, if you're lucky, see a boob. With teeth. That's also a lightbulb. You will never, ever see a contest called "Goatse Everywhere! 4" or "Celebrity Bukkake 8" .
Structure
Just as the original pyramids were built by Jews, so, too, Worth 1000 is all run (with an iron fist) by some Jew from New York whose IRL name is embarrassingly close to "Munch-dick,"[9] and who, on the site, goes by the if possible even more embarrassing name of JaxomLOTUS. This being an Intrawebs thingy, however, there is naturally also some kind of extremely complicated bureaucratic system involving "admins," "moderators," "jurors," "credits," "sponsors," and God only knows what else. The administrative structure of the original pyramid-building operation was probably a lot simpler.
Anyway, the end result of all this crap is a bunch of pictures which are entered into contests. (There are also various other kinds of contests.) Registered users can comment on them and read each others comments, and they also vote on them (again, in some overly complicated way). Finally, there are also forums where users give each other advice and discuss other important photoshop-related topics.
This sounds like a perfect recipe for drama, you might say. A votes down B's brilliant fruit/lightbulb/teeth creation, thereby reducing B's "credits" or raping B's "sponsor" or whatever; B retaliates by making nasty comments about A's cyborg-pirate Arnold Schwarzenegger; A posts scandalous details of B's personal life to a forum — and we're off! But, alas, matters are not so simple.
Drama?
In its current incarnation, this site not only lacks teh lulz, but actually declares war on them. From their FAQ:
- What is the general atmosphere here like?
- We're a friendly, yet competitive bunch. For new people this is an atmosphere of learning. You will find some incredible talent here and would be surprised how quickly they will offer tips.
- The learning and fun come first.
- The competition and winning come second. As such we strongly frown on negative comments on other peoples' entries, and we do not permit drama of any kind. We prefer a calm, relaxing atmosphere to compete and have fun in.
[...]
- What is inappropriate behavior in the forums?
- You will find Worth's forums to be slightly different than many online communities. No drama whatsoever will be tolerated. [...]
- Please note that database space isn't cheap and isn't infinite. While we encourage you to voice your opinions, note that we're hypersensitive to people deliberately posting comments that are wasteful or have the potential to start a flame war, which is possibly the most blatant waste of space there is.
It sounds like the forums must be stored on a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk or something (which is odd considering that, elsewhere on the site, they have enough space for tens of thousands of huge image files).
In any case, a little half-assed research reveals that this virulently anti-lulz attitude has been growing worse with time. For example, a list of so-called "Worthisms" includes this friendly, calm and relaxing entry:
CREME DE LA CRAP - The area on the site where all the really crappy pictures used to get moved by moderators. This no longer exists.
Perhaps the most bizarre manifestation of this tendency is the "user status" displayed with people's comments on the forums. At one time this was a number indicating the user's overall rank on the site. But, because that was too competitive and might make someone feel bad, it was replaced by a new user status system which is the absolute gayest thing known to science (see screencap).
Today the place really is pretty tame. Even the shittiest entries get mostly positive comments, and the few critical comments are insufferably constructive, typically along the lines of, "Hey, great job, but you missed five red pixels in the upper left hand corner, next time try using the magic liquefy blah blah whatever tool."
Nevertheless it would not be impossible to troll this site. It has been done successfully at least once[10] (under somewhat special circumstances, however: see below).
Areas for Further Research
In the past there has been some hostility between Worth 1000 and other sites. Well, Ebaumsworld, obviously.[11] Beyond that: the aforementioned troll appeared during a tournament between Worth 1000 and Something Awful. That seems to have been mostly friendly, however. On the other hand, there are dark hints about a past war with photoshopcontest.com. The details are shrouded in mystery, except that, allegedly, some of the PSC people threatened JaxomLOTUS's wife.[12]