When I signed up as a reviewer for TWR, Brent told me I would need “about an hour” to do each review. Although this has held true for many reviews, every now and again I come across a blog where I don’t want an hour to review it at all, I want a week. “Pop Culture – Consider The Source” is one of those sites.
Now I think it is only fair to point out, before I go any further, that this weblog has many good points. Many. BUT…it is perhaps not for the faint hearted. Although according to one article, the content has actually been toned down recently. There is nothing illegal here (I don’t think), nothing explicitly pornographic but there are issues and pictures which would appeal probably to the more broad minded amongst you. Ok, now I have that cleared up, on with the review.
My first impressions were extremely favourable- the design is the most impressive I have seen so far for a weblog- in fact it won “The Golden Web Awards” as a result, by the looks of things. Effective use has been made of Flash, (the menu buttons are way cool) and the general theme of “SpeedMonkey” (the primary author) is prevalent throughout the site including a nifty logo and even merchandise. There are polls, photos, a map, a chat room, a forum and even a media centre, (though I couldn’t get it to work, but that may have been due to my own stupidity). So, top marks for design then.
Now on to the content. It is curious amongst weblogs because it is not organised by date at all, but by category. Incidentally, to view the archives, you must either select read more from the posting or click on a category title in the menu bar. This will then take you to the most recent posting (if going through the menu) and a list of all the other posts in that category can then be found above the post itself. There are many, many postings, some by another author (Dr Tom) but most of them by SpeedMonkey. Of the articles I read, all were funny, most of them personal and very honest and it was easy to get a clear picture of who the author is. There are movie and music reviews, including live gigs, articles about sex and relationships and also quite a few rants about various issues- politics, the ineffectiveness of large corporations and the like. Also the author clearly doesn’t like “pop culture”- a man after my own heart I must admit. I think the rants may get a bit tiresome after a while, though most are interesting and intelligently argued. My only gripe with this blog is that there is a fair bit of negativity to be found, and this can be off putting after a while.
So overall there is loads of content to be found here and most is very funny and intelligently written. When I have that spare week I will be spending more time here, as I quickly grew rather fond of the author. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, hence the 4.5, but I loved it.
Pop Culture – Consider The Source