Tag: parody
Supreme Court Rejects Ohio Man’s Bid To Sue Police Over Arrest of Facebook Parody
In March 2016, Novak set up a Facebook page that purported to be that of the Parma Police Department. He published six satirical posts in 12 hours, one of which claimed there was a job opening to which minorities were encouraged not to apply and another that warned people not to give food, money or shelter to homeless people. The police department, claiming the posts had disrupted its operations, launched an investigation and ultimately searched Novak’s apartment, arrested him and jailed him for four days. Novak was charged under a state law that criminalizes disruption of police operations but acquitted at trial.
The police officers, Kevin Riley and Thomas Connor, say they had probable cause to arrest Novak because they genuinely believed his conduct was disrupting their operations. Novak sued the officers and the police department, saying they had violated his free speech rights, as well as his right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. After lengthy litigation, a federal judge dismissed Novak’s claims. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling in April that “the officers reasonably believed they were acting within the law” even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody. That’s because there was no court precedent saying it’s a violation of the Constitution to be arrested in retaliation for satirical remarks when the officers have probable cause, the court said. Novak’s appeal was backed by satirical news sites The Babylon Bee and The Onion, which filed a lighthearted brief saying its writers “have a self-serving interest in preventing political authorities from imprisoning humorists.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tumblr iOS Revenue Increased 125% Since Launching Its Parody of Paid Verification
According to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower provided to TechCrunch, consumer spending on Tumblr’s iOS app increased since November 2022’s double-blue check launch, now totaling $263,000 in net revenue. While that’s not a significant figure in the grand scheme of things by any means, it still represents a 125% jump in spending compared with the prior three-month total of August through October 2022. When looking at more long-term trends, Tumblr’s revenue remains up — but not by as much. Sensor Tower says the in-app purchase revenue on iOS is up 19%, compared with the prior ten months ahead of the blue check’s launch (January through October 2022).
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI-generated Seinfeld parody suspended by Twitch for transphobic content
What’s the deal with the AI-generated Seinfeld parody “Nothing, Forever?”
On Sunday night, “Nothing, Forever” found itself in hot water after its AI-generated dialogue included a rant about trans people while streaming on Twitch. The show mimics the hit 90s sitcom, Seinfeld, and follows Larry Feinberg, a robotic 3-D animated stand-in for Jerry Seinfeld, and his three pals have all sorts of zany discussions about, well, nothing. Much of “Nothing, Forever” occurs in Larry’s living room but, like Seinfeld, the show includes a stand-up set opener from our main character.
“There’s like 50 people here and no one is laughing,” Larry said during the stream. “Anyone have any suggestions?”
Larry then dropped some transphobic lines that likely run afoul of Twitch’s guidelines, resulting in a temporary two-week suspension.
Since Dec. 14 of last year, a computer-generated, 3-D animated parody of Seinfeld has been airing around the clock on Twitch. The dialogue is completely generated by OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model. (If OpenAI sounds familiar, that’s because they are behind the popular ChatGPT AI chatbot as well.) The media group behind the project, Mismatch Media, included a few moderation filters when setting “Nothing, Forever” up, but beyond that, they’ve been hands-off and letting the AI take the show wherever it may go.
But, something clearly went wrong on Sunday.
The creators of “Nothing, Forever” explained in the show’s Discord chat that they were changing AI models when the moderation failure occurred, leading to Larry’s rant about trans people. Another person on the team also stressed that the resulting content in no way reflected what the show’s creators believe.
Twitch has suspended the channel for two weeks. After that time, it appears “Nothing, Forever” will be back and Larry will have better stand-up material.
TF2 voice cast chaos now includes ABBA parody because why not
TF2’s cast continue their spree of sandwich chaos with an ABBA parody
God bless the Team Fortress 2 voice actors, who continue to enrich the internet with their nonsense. We’ve seen them lark about on a ferry. We’ve seen them confuse bakery staff, and amuse the guy behind a counter at a convenience store. Now, we get to see them perform an ABBA parody celebrating sandwiches. The Sniper plays banjo, and the Pyro’s contributions are soul warming. Enjoy.
SZA Can’t Believe How Her ‘SNL’ Parody Song ‘Big Boys’ Has Blown Up on Tik Tok
‘SNL‘ may be no stranger to seeing their music video parodies elevated to viral status on social media over the years, but none seem to have caught on quite like the SZA-led ‘Big Boys’ featured on the legendary variety show’s December 3 episode.
Blazed with hilarious verses from the night’s hostess KeKe Palmer (as well as ‘SNL’
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‘White Lotus’ Star Jennifer Coolidge Reacts to SNL Parody of Her – CNET
Supreme Court to Take on Jack Daniel’s Dispute Against Parody Dog Toy Maker
Whiskey conglomerate Jack Daniel’s Property, Inc has filed a dispute against the dog toy maker VIP Products LLC for making a toy parody of its signature whiskey bottle. The company has even successfully pushed the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their dispute, which they agreed to on Monday.
How am I supposed to mark myself as parody if I can’t change my screen name, Elon?
I can’t change my screen name on Twitter. I can change my bio. But not my screen name. So although I was helpfully trying to describe myself as “Elizabeth Lopatto (parody)” that simply wasn’t possible.
Now I hear Elon Musk fired about 50 percent of Twitter employees (though apparently he’s trying to hire some of them back). I also hear that lots of people have been changing their screen names to “Elon Musk” in order to get excommunicated. According to David Sacks, an investor in Musk’s deal to take Twitter private, “Twitter’s longstanding policy is that the account name must indicate a parody account.” Unfortunately, I can’t comply.
Anyway Sacks, who is part of a “war room” of advisors helping…