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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. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...
, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. It was founded in 2001 by Rob Manuel, Denise Wilton and Cal Henderson. B3ta's main feature is a
newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of ...
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 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 two permanent staff members, including Chief Executive Officer Peter Lance ...
. Many popular
Internet phenomena Internet phenomena are social and cultural phenomena specific to the Internet, such as Internet memes, which include popular catchphrases, images, viral videos, and jokes. When such fads and sensations occur online, they tend to grow rapidly ...
were created by B3ta members (also called "b3tans or "B3tards"). These include the Macromedia Flash cartoons created by
Joel Veitch Joel Veitch (born 28 March 1974) is the showrunner and co-creator of Bad Dinosaurs, a family cartoon on Netflix released on March 28, 2024. He is a British web animator, singer-songwriter, and member of the humour website B3ta. Veitch is owner ...
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 Cyriak Harris, known mononymously as Cyriak (), his B3ta username Mutated Monty, and Mouldy in the Doom community, is an English freelance animator, artist, composer, and author from Brighton. He is known for his surreal and bizarre short we ...
, 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.


Message boards


Main board

On the main board, images and animated
GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
s 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, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...
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 status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
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 two permanent staff members, including Chief Executive Officer Peter Lance ...
(104.4 FM in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, 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, an ...
of
The Wonder Stuff The Wonder Stuff are a British alternative rock musical ensemble, band. Originally based in Stourbridge in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England, the band's first lineup released four albums and nearly 20 singles and EPs, enjoying ...
and "a chap who once played a
Dalek The Daleks ( ) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. They were conceived by writer Terry Nation and first appeared in th ...
in ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
''".


''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 act ...
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 free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
") 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 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, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''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 (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
, jokes about
celebrities Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group due to the attention given to them by mass media. The word is also used to refer to famous individuals. A person may attain celebrity status by having great w ...
, 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". Like any humour, ribaldry may be read as conventional or subversive. Ribald ...
. 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 (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
. 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 "Political correctness" (adjectivally "politically correct"; commonly abbreviated to P.C.) is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. ...
. The book is now published by
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...
. 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 a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...
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 Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...
s and an
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...
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 an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...
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, were 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 that is pornogra ...
goatse goatse.cx ( , ; "goat sex"), often spelled without the .cx top-level domain as Goatse, is an internet domain that originally housed an Internet shock site. Its front page featured a picture entitled , showing an image of a hunched-over naked ...
. The
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
then posted this logo on its website and ran it on its
BBC News 24 The BBC News channel is a British free-to-air Public broadcasting, public broadcast television news channel owned and operated by the BBC. The channel is based at and broadcasts from Broadcasting House in the West End of London, West End of ...
channel as part of a viewer-submitted contest. In November 2007, lawyers acting for
Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
threatened the site and its members with legal action over an image challenge. A Sickipedia joke about stricken
Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club ( ) is a professional association football, football club based in Horwich, Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in EFL League One, League One, the third level of the Englis ...
midfielder
Fabrice Muamba Fabrice Ndala Muamba (born 6 April 1988) is a Congolese-born English former professional footballer who played for Arsenal, Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers as a central midfielder. Born in Zaire, Muamba moved to England at the age of 11 a ...
on the evening of his cardiac arrest on the pitch at
White Hart Lane White Hart Lane was a Association football, football stadium in Tottenham, North London and the home of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., Tottenham Hotspur Football Club from 1899 to 2017. Its capacity varied over the years; when changed to all-seater i ...
caused outrage on Twitter. In February 2009, the site was criticized as "monstrous" for its jokes about the death of Francesca Anobile, and one of the site's users reported "very real threats of legal action". In October 2012, a 19-year-old from
Chorley Chorley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England, north of Wigan, south west of Blackburn, north west of Bolton, south of Preston and north west of Manchester. The town's wealth ca ...
,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
, was jailed for copying and pasting Sickipedia jokes about abducted children
April Jones April Sue-Lyn Jones (4 April 2007 – ) was a Welsh child from Machynlleth, Powys, who disappeared on 1 October 2012, after being sighted getting into a vehicle near her home. Her disappearance, at the age of five, generated a large amount ...
and
Madeleine McCann Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person, who at the age of 3 disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, Lagos, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007. ''The Daily Telegraph'' ...
onto Facebook.


References


External links

{{Portal, Internet
B3ta web site

B3ta Radio
Includes archived B3ta radio shows. * Homepages of the site owners
Rob ManuelDenise Wilton

Cal Henderson
2001 establishments in the United Kingdom British comedy websites Internet properties established in 2001