My Ten Favourite Tumblrs

Being an aggregator of both links and images, Tumblr is definitely the most addictive of all the various social media platforms. You can lose hours there, just looking.

I think I might one day start a Tumblr of my own. But honestly, what would I post? So instead, I would like to share my ten favourite Tumblrs.

These I find to be consistently interesting. They all make me feel as though I should get out more. Or perhaps they instead suggest that I should stay in more, so that I can spend more time looking at things.

And it must be pointed out that each image linked here is for illustrative purposes only. I don't own the rights to any of them and I will remove them if anyone asks me to/looks at me funny/threatens me with legal action.



 

Screenshots of Despair

Is there a term for the inhuman yet strangely miserable sentences generated automatically by computer programmes? Screenshots of Despair seeks out the best of them. Douglas Coupland and William Gibson probably have this one open in a tab at all times.

National Geographic Found

A collection of horizon-expanding photographs from the length and breadth of time and space as we know it. Spellbinding.

Uncertain Times

Like QI but without the smug self-satisfaction. Evidently run by a historian and a scholar, this one's a collection of curios, artefacts and photographs. Above is A Map of Nowhere Showing Everything.

Wild Planet

A hideous/enthralling mess of images and gifs that will strike a chord with anyone born circa 1987. James Ferraro probably has this one open in a tab at all times.

WWWTXT

Revisiting the early internet! Images from when the internet promised everything and was yet to fail us. (1980 - 94)

Gigs

It's amazing how much time you can spend looking at pictures of people playing music.

Untitled

This is Stanley Donwood's Tumblr! Radiohead artwork in alternative forms or as works in progress!

Shot By Shot

“A celebration of beautiful cinematography.”

Midnight Mushrumps

An immensely colourful and seemingly endless collection of images drawn from the worlds of sci-fi, fantasy and prog rock.

Bumpkin Agency

Actually, do not, under any circumstances, go here. A disturbing and consistently nauseating stream of toys, food, comics, cartoons and some things that are best left unmentioned. For a bit of horrible fun, spend two hours listening to latter day Scott Walker whilst trawling through this atrocity exhibition. Then see what happens when you attempt fiction.

Critters 4 (1992)

Critters 4. This time, they're in space!

It picks up exactly where Critters 3 left off. That's to say that the closing scene from Critters 3 forms the introduction to Critters 4. Expert Crite-killer Charlie McFadden is about to destroy the final remaining Crite eggs when he's informed that destroying them would be unethical. Crites are now an endangered species and must be protected.

Unfortunately, whilst placing the eggs into stasis, Charlie is accidentally frozen himself. He spends the next few decades floating in space, only to be picked up by a salvage ship in the year 2045.

The crew of this ship are so similar to the inhabitants of the apartment block in Critters 3 that it's almost as though these films are written according to a template. There's the sexy but powerful woman, the grizzly yet caring sort, the absolute bastard (who you just know is going to get chewed to death at some point) and the plucky young scamp.

Critters 3 will possibly never be forgotten because, in that film, Leonardo DiCaprio played the plucky young scamp role. Critters 4 has no such curiosity credentials, so as such will probably only ever be watched by those who love The Horror Channel, those who own box-sets and those who run blogs on which they write at length about every single film they watch.

It's a shame, really. Critters 4 isn't essential viewing by any means. It's not good, it's not bad, and it's not at all “so bad it's good”. It just is. It's fitting that it's set in space, as it sort of just floats by. Along the way, though, there's certainly some fun to be had.

Most of the action takes place in a decrepit space station controlled by an irritating computer called Angela. Angela works on the curious logic that she should simply do the opposite of whatever those who don't have security access might say. So, throughout the film, characters say things like “Angela, don't open the door,” only for said door to slide defiantly open. “Exactly like my ex-wife,” quips one character.

What I liked about Critters 4 is that it's of the “working guy sci-fi” genre. What's “working guy sci-fi”? Well, I just made it up. But consider the astronaut – he's of peak physical and mental fitness and has a haircut to which you could set your watch. He's a maths expert who spends the majority of his day doing sit-ups and the rest of his time eating puréed banana.

My favourite sci-fi, though, send the sort of people into space who you might otherwise have expected to find in a bar with a neon beer sign in the window. They have long hair, a few days worth of stubble and talk with their mouths full. I'm not talking about Armageddon, because that film's ridiculous. I'm talking about Dead Star, Ice Pirates, Silent Running and – if you want a British take on this sub-sub-genre – Red Dwarf.

The main reason I stuck with and – yes – rather enjoyed Critters 4 was that it made me wonder when we might really find such people crewing spaceships.

When will space be democratised? That's just one of the many important questions that Critters 4 dares to ask.