B3ta (stylised as b3ta) is a popular
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...
, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''. It was founded in 2001 by
Rob Manuel, Denise Wilton and
Cal Henderson
Callum James Henderson-Begg (born 17 January 1981), known as Cal Henderson, is a British computer programmer and author based in San Francisco.
Education
Henderson attended Sharnbrook Upper School and Community College, and Birmingham City Un ...
.
B3ta's main feature is a
newsletter featuring the latest work of the B3ta community and other interesting, humorous or perverse things found on the Web. The newsletter has about 100,000 readers.
A
message board
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
allows members to post digital images and short animations they have created, the ones considered the best appearing on the front page, along with various announcements. Previously there was a B3ta radio show on the London station
Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station specialising in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective (LMC). The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and ...
.
To inspire creative works, B3ta poses a weekly image challenge, such as "if cats ruled the world", and a "question of the week", for example asking "what's your most embarrassing injury?"
Many popular
Internet phenomena
Social and cultural phenomena specific to the Internet include Internet memes, such as popular themes, catchphrases, images, viral videos, and jokes. When such fads and sensations occur online, they tend to grow rapidly and become more wides ...
were created by B3ta members (also called "b3tans or "B3tards"). These include the
Macromedia Flash Macromedia Flash may refer to:
*Adobe Animate, a multimedia authoring and computer animation program formerly known as ''Macromedia Flash''
*Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform ...
cartoons created by
Joel Veitch
Joel Veitch (born 28 March 1974) is a British web animator, singer-songwriter, and member of the humour website B3ta. Veitch is owner of the web site RatherGood where he showcases many of his animations. Joel has also created the Mr. Stabby an ...
and
Jonti Picking
Jonathan "Jonti" Picking (born 17 May 1975), also known as Weebl and Mr Weebl, is a British Internet personality and Flash animator and is the creator of ''Weebl's Stuff''.
His animations are known for repetitive melodies and surreal dialogue ...
, the surrealist animations by
Cyriak Harris, and the quizzes by Rob Manuel.
A book entitled ''The Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes'' was published in 2006, containing jokes compiled from B3ta contributors and a spin-off wiki humour website, Sickipedia.
Newsletter
The newsletter has about 100,000 subscribers and was originally published weekly, although recently has been significantly less frequent. It features the best work by members of the B3ta community and other links from across the web. Famous examples include
Rob Manuel'
Female or Shemale Jonti Picking
Jonathan "Jonti" Picking (born 17 May 1975), also known as Weebl and Mr Weebl, is a British Internet personality and Flash animator and is the creator of ''Weebl's Stuff''.
His animations are known for repetitive melodies and surreal dialogue ...
's
Badger Badger Badger
''Badgers'', also known informally as ''Badger Badger Badger'' or ''The Badger Song'', is a Flash animated meme by British animator Jonti Picking. It consists of 12 animated cartoon badgers doing calisthenics, a mushroom in front of a tree, a ...
, and
Joel Veitch
Joel Veitch (born 28 March 1974) is a British web animator, singer-songwriter, and member of the humour website B3ta. Veitch is owner of the web site RatherGood where he showcases many of his animations. Joel has also created the Mr. Stabby an ...
'
Punk Rock Kittens Generally, the newsletter consists of the following sections:
* "Newsletter Title" – These are usually humorous or offensive (or both), and often can relate to a news item. Recently Rob has invited suggestions for the title on the main board.
* "What B3ta people have been making this week" – websites, animations and photos created by people who either post on the messageboard, or email their work to the site directly.
* "Sites in brief: Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates" – although in theory similar to the first section, it increasingly features oddities from around the Internet in general. This frequently includes items not intended to be humorous but that are from their context, such as a watch with inbuilt Geiger counter.
* "Things that make you go aaah" – usually linking to photographs of baby animals. The newsletter itself describes it as its "great voyage to catalogue the cutest things in the world".
* "B3ta
image challenge" – the results from the previous week's image challenge, and up until recently, the announcement of the next week's challenge. The image challenge is currently announced on Wednesdays.
* "Question of the week" entries which caught the editors' eyes.
* "Video Schmideo" – links to online videos, often hosted on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
.
* "What happened next?" – follow-ups on stories previously featured.
* "Star in next week's issue" – a plea for content for further newsletters. This is very tongue-in-cheek, but occasionally one of the less ridiculous suggestions will get made.
* "Top tip" – a domestic tip provided by one of the board members. More recently this has been replaced by a random joke from Sickipedia.
* Some older newsletters also contained a "B3ta radio" section – a summary of the content of the up-coming radio show, and listening details.
Message boards
Main board
On the main board, images and animated
GIFs are posted by the members. The B3ta message board has a strong code of "
netiquette
Etiquette in technology, colloquially referred to as netiquette is a term used to refer to the unofficial code of policies that encourage good behavior on the Internet which is used to regulate respect and polite behavior on social media platforms ...
" – a new thread should generally not be started unless it contains an image, made by that user and not previously posted to /board. Spamming (promoting a website purely for financial gain) is not tolerated.
Newly registered users cannot post on the board until the Tuesday after they register, known as "Newbie Tuesday". This gives an opportunity to discover site etiquette before getting involved.
Internet meme
An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
s are the lifeblood of B3ta messageboard. Meme is a name given to a clichéd image that is frequently used in images as a cheap gag. Although many older board members may resent the lack of originality shown by using these clichés, some, such as ''The Quo'' or ''The Fear'', crop up regularly.
Image Challenge
This is a weekly
Photoshop contest
A Photoshop contest, or sometimes Photoshop battle (often abbreviated to PS Battle), 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 ...
, where images are posted along a certain theme – examples include "New Software Products", or "The World If It Was Run By Kittens". The entries are posted as normal threads on the message board, but are marked with a "C" icon to differentiate from normal posts. Entries are collected in a central repository that can be browsed any time, with the highest voted images displayed first. Three "special mentions" are chosen by the site mods, and these are posted along with the theme of the new challenge in the Friday newsletter.
The challenge topics are alternately chosen by board members, and the "Challenge Dictator" (basically a site moderator) on a two-week cycle.
Image Challenge suggestions appear to be generally listed in order of posting, with the newest responses first. However, whilst a question is open, other users can click "I like this!" which gives a score of one point to that answer. Once a question is closed answers are listed by the number of users who have clicked the "I like this!" on that answer; however, as many answers are submitted each week, most are never clicked on and so are sorted by the time they were posted.
Question of the Week (QOTW)
Recognizing that "not everyone wants to muck around with Photoshop", the site asks a question each week hoping to provoke amusing anecdotes. It was originally used as material for the radio show and the newsletter, but realising the popularity of the content, the site owners decided to continue the questions after the close of the show. A new topic is begun every Thursday (at which point it becomes impossible to reply to the previous QOTW) and, as with the other areas of the site, Question of the Week attracts regulars known for their characteristic posts. Each post is voted for in the same way as the image challenge.
The first question was "Worst Record Ever?" posed by Rob Manuel in 2003;
examples of questions since include "Why should you be fired from your job?", "Mad Stuff You've Done To Get Someone To Sleep With You" and "Expensive mistakes".
QOTW Off Topic was invented for those users of QOTW who found they had things in common and liked to talk to each other using the reply system. Over several weeks it became clear that more and more people were preferring to chat to each other through the replies instead of the /talk board which was already set up, so Off Topic was created.
Links board
The links board is another section of the site that was created in response to an equivalent page on the 4rthur website. This board is a place for b3ta members to share interesting links they have found, in preference to the original practise of posting them on the main board. The links board has itself become a place for particular groups of b3tans ( or "b3tards") to congregate, and for links specific memes to proliferate.
Posting something which is deemed to be clichéd is not tolerated. These cliché links are often referred to as "glasscock", named after the famous image of a female golfer kissing a glass trophy, which appeared to be a phallic shape due to the camera angle. The best images of the day are displayed on the front page of the site, reaching many more people. The Board members vote by clicking a button labelled "I like this!", then the site moderators pick their favourites.
Talk board
The talk board is identical to the main message board except for the fact that it is not possible to post images. It was created in response to the arrival of
4rthur, a (now defunct) talk based offshoot of b3ta which drew a couple of hundred members away, and, more recently,
cliqr,
Dynafoo (both also defunct now) and
c4mbodia. Also, the site owners wanted a place where people could banter without worrying about creating images.
Like the many message boards, the b3ta talk board has developed a clique-like atmosphere, with many users having met one another at so called "B3ta bashes".
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in particular has become known amongst members as a bash hotspot, and has developed from a few B3tards getting together for a drink to a genuine spectacle. On 31 May 2008, the biggest "bash" so far took place in Earls Court, London, although this was mainly a messageboard event.
B3ta Radio
From August 2003 until July 2004, B3ta had its own radio show, which was broadcast from
Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station specialising in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective (LMC). The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and ...
(104.4 FM in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, also available via streaming broadcast from the Resonance FM website) between 4pm and 5pm. The show was presented by
Rob Manuel, a co-owner of the site, and David Stevenson. There were often special guests – sometimes contributors to the site, sometimes semi-famous people, such as the drummer from
Blur,
Miles Hunt
Miles Stephen Hunt (born 29 July 1966) is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. He fronts the alternative rock band The Wonder Stuff.
Early life
His father was a union official for the TGWU. In the 1970s, his father was based at Derby, a ...
of
The Wonder Stuff
The Wonder Stuff are a British alternative rock band. Originally based in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England, the band's first lineup released four albums and nearly 20 singles and EPs, enjoying considerable chart and live success in th ...
and "a chap who once played a
Dalek
The Daleks ( ) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. They were conceived by writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 ''Doctor Who'' ...
in ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
''".
''The Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes'' and Sickipedia
In 2006, independent publishers
The Friday Project
The Friday Project was a London-based independent publishing house founded by Paul Carr and Clare Christian in June 2004. It evolved out of ''The Friday Thing'', an Internet newsletter taking an offbeat look at the week's politics, media acti ...
and B3ta launched a venture to publish a collection of "
sick jokes" gathered from B3ta contributors. A public wiki site named "Sickipedia" (a pun on "
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
") was established to collect
user-submitted humour for the book. The site encouraged submission of jokes intended to be bad taste or
taboo
A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
, and entries were organised under a categorisation system of topics which included
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, jokes about
celebrities
Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...
,
current affairs and
sexual humour
Ribaldry or blue comedy is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to indecency. Blue comedy is also referred to as "bawdiness" or being "bawdy".
Sex is presented in ribald material more for the purpose of poking fun at ...
. Similarly to the main B3ta site, Sickipedia site functionality offered an electronic voting system to subject user submissions to a form of
peer review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
.
The book, entitled ''The Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes'', was published on 20 October 2006 and was made available from both online and real-world bookshops. It claims to offer an "antidote" to
political correctness. The book is now published by
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
.
The Sickipedia site was sold in 2012. The new owners released an ebook and a print-on-demand book in 2014 entitled ''The Best Of Sickipedia: A Collection Of The Sickest, Most Offensive and Politically Incorrect Jokes'', along with mobile apps. In February 2016, the Sickipedia website went offline due to a drive failure, resulting in the apps also failing.
Controversy
Virgin
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
asked B3ta to run an image competition in which board members could win
PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...
s and an
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
for creating something on the theme "What would happen if you said Yes to everything?". Virgin later cancelled the challenge early because they did not like some of the images being created, including
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.
Branson expressed ...
urinating on
Rob Manuel, dressed in baby clothes.
On 4 June 2007, a b3ta member posted an "alternative logo" for the
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
in London, which referenced an image from the former
shock site
A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive or disturbing to its viewers, though it can also contain elements of humor or evoke (in some viewers) sexual arousal. Shock-oriented websites generally contain material such as pornograp ...
goatse
goatse.cx ( , ; "goat sex"), often spelled without the .cx top-level domain as Goatse, was originally an Internet shock site. Its front page featured a picture entitled hello.jpg, showing a close-up of a hunched-over naked man using both hands ...
. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
channel as part of a viewer-submitted contest.
In November 2007, lawyers acting for
threatened the site and its members with legal action over an image challenge.
A Sickipedia joke about stricken
caused outrage on Twitter. In February 2009, the site was criticized as "monstrous" for its jokes about the death of
, and one of the site's users reported "very real threats of legal action". In October 2012, a 19-year-old from
onto Facebook.