Cracked Round-Up: Soul-Searching Edition

We hate to admit this, dear readers, but we are woefully lost. Adrift upon a sea of existential angst which every moment reinforces the dreadful emptiness within our souls. The election is over and with it comes an end to the steady stream of easy content we once relied on. For months we've been able to coast with an eye on our Google News feed, filling in the obvious punchlines and cashing our plump Internet comedy paychecks. But now the real working season begins again, and we have months of actual thinking ahead before Democracy throws us another freebie.

Chris Bucholz kicked our week off with a feel-good column on why you should forgive yourself for being a bad speller. Following up was Gladstone, with the stupidest ways people try to look smart. Kristi gave a history lesson on five artifacts that will shatter your image of the middle ages while John Cheese explained the arguments parents never win with their children. Dan O'Brien closed us out with the Twilight movies reviewed by a man who only saw the trailers.

SCHADENFREUDE

The 6 Most Spectacularly Failed Attempts to Look Cool There's an old Hindi proverb that says, "the failures of another man are the sweetest milk in all the world". We're paraphrasing, of course. And it's possible the proverb originates from one of our office bathroom stalls. But the handwriting was terrible, so we're calling it Hindi.

Notable Comment: "Part of me is glad that stupid airboat captain got his hand bitten off. Now people will understand that alligators are not to be fucked with, because they're GIANT AQUATIC REPTILES THAN CAN LAUNCH THEMSELVES AT YOU AT HIGH SPEED IF YOU TAUNT THEM."

Too true, TheNerdBird. If we worked around alligators, you can be damn sure we wouldn't expose our hands to them for anything less than a double dog dare.

CAPTURED SECRETS

8 Ordinary Photos Hiding Mind-Blowing Details Put down a tarp before you read this article, because it's going to blow your m-wait. "Mind-blowing" was already in the title? Shit. Pretend we wrote something else here.

Notable Comment: "First picture of a person. Ever. I didn't know they had automatic shoeshiners in 1838, unless there are actually two people on that picture."

Shoe-shine boys hardly count as 'people', Glottz. Brush up on your Victorian-era morality a little bit, eh?

ANIMATED MADNESS

6 Insane (But Convincing) Fan Theories About Kid's Cartoons We're through the looking glass here, people. And that's made all the more impressive by the fact that no one in the office is entirely certain what a looking glass is. Are we talking like, a spyglass? Or regular glasses? Or a telescope? They all qualify.

Notable Comment: "The weirdest thing about this article was that my roommate had just spent two hours discussing the spongebob theory (having read it elsewhere), and then opened cracked to find an article about just that. coincidence freaked us out."

That's good to hear, art4evr66. It means our wire-tapping program works.

BUZZING FURY

The 6 Most Mind-Blowing Superpowers of Bees Think we're on top of the food chain? Think again.

Notable Comment: "And yet, despite their so-called intelligence, they still fly into windows. Repeatedly."

In their defense, Swooper, windows are hard.

LINGERING STUPIDITY

6 Insane Superstitions That Are Still Shockingly Influential One man's superstition is another nation's legitimate science.

Notable Comment: "Ireland, come on. You're a first world nation. Stop this. Just stop."

AmeliaBedelia, try staring down a raging fairie thug as he prepares to wand everything you love into oblivion and pixie dust. Then mock the Irish for their caution.

CRACKED Staff, S. Fero

If Movie Hackers Were More Like Real IT Guys Hollywood lied to an entire generation of criminals.

YOU YOU YOU!

If Content Warning Labels Were Honest We're practically giving money away! Wait, not practically. Totally. We're totally giving away money to people, people with mediocre to decent Photoshop skills. People like you. Wouldn't you like to be a person like you? This week, you can be by entering our latest contests, Movie Villains Who Secretly Had Good Intentions, Unseen Repercussions of the James Bond Universe, If Autocorrect Existed Throughout History and If You Could Send a Message Back to Your Teenage Self