4

An Annual Nazi-Themed Christmas Party

Via City Pages

In 2014, a Minneapolis newspaper received a photo of a literal Nazi party, complete with cheerful swastika flags hung between Christmas lights over a group of men in SS uniforms. The anonymous sender provided no other information, making it seem like a really vague and bizarre threat, but the newspaper's reporters eventually discovered that it was not, in fact, a Shining-style snapshot of a ghost ball but a group of historical reenactors partying like it's 1939.

After the local Jewish community issued a call to shut down the event, its organizer made a statement, insisting, "By no means do we glorify the edicts of the Third Reich," before pulling out the smelling salts in case he got a case of the vapors at the mere suggestion.

Via City Pages

This little group just likes to get together for a bit of wholesome Nazi fun every Christmas and hand out swastika T-shirts to the restaurant staff, that's all. Another partygoer explained, "Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it's cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer." Dude, cultural appropriation is not the problem here.

3

There Are Two New Titanics In The Works

Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Apparently, there are people who watch Titanic over and over for reasons other than Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and the furious masturbation they inspire. Indeed, the ship that famously claimed the lives of approximately 1,500 people has enough fans that not one but two actual-size replicas are being built.

One will be a functional cruise ship that its commissioner, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, fully intends to sail, because some people have no fear of irony. Of course, the construction of Titanic II will comply with modern safety regulations, and it's set to sail a completely different path. Don't wanna tempt fate too much.

Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The people building the other replica, however, are actually counting on it sinking. That's because it will be part of a "6-D" Chinese theme park where people can experience the sinking firsthand with a simulation featuring an orgy of special effects and/or go insane exploring the two dimensions beyond time itself.

The guy funding it excitedly gushed that visitors "will think, 'The water will drown me; I must escape with my life,'" unwittingly unmasking himself as a robot with no comprehension of the human concept of fun. Aside from the questionable judgment of using a tragedy as the basis for a freaking theme park, what is even the point of a Titanic simulation that doesn't include Kate Winslet's nipples?

2

A Reality TV Show Simulating Life In Nazi Germany

Czeck Television

If you could travel back to any time period and experience how people lived in that era, what would you pick? The Ren Faire types might choose Renaissance Europe, the chemistry enthusiasts might choose the '60s, and so on. That covers both of our readers, which means none of you picked Eastern Europe in the 1940s. Huh, why might that be?

Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Even though everyone knows what life was like in that particular place and time -- to wit, super horrible -- that hasn't stopped those paragons of taste, reality TV producers, from bringing us The Real World: Nazi Europe. It was actually a short-lived series in the Czech Republic called, for serious, Holiday In The Protectorate. There was no time travel involved, just a modern family shut in a house with little food and period-appropriate accommodations while fake Nazi soldiers prowled outside, because they had a really weird idea of leisure.

Czeck Television

1

9/11 And Trayvon Martin VR Games

Kuma Games

It's not a mind-blowing revelation that people like to play video games to live out fantasies, the most famous of which is pretending to be an Italian man who's addicted to psilocybin and tortoise murder. There are also all kinds of Counter-Strike maps that allow you to play out real events, like the Boston Bombing and the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They're taking some pretty massive liberties with the facts, however. For example, the setup for the wildlife refuge includes fictional hostages the terrorists never took.

Nipper/Valve

We already base most of our shoot-'em-up games on real wars and the like, so that's only slightly below par for the course. Then there's the 9/11 virtual reality game.

The plot? You're not making a mad dash for survival. In fact, not dying isn't even an option. You start out in an office in the North Tower, where you receive a few commands to fetch files for your boss and things like that, but once the first plane strikes, you just go where the game takes you. Where it takes you, in fact, is to the office of a stranger who quickly becomes so distraught that he jumps out the window. Then you watch your boss call her mom to say goodbye before you both suffocate from the smoke.

That's it. Just 10 minutes of watching people cry, and then you die. It's bleak as shit.

In terms of sheer pointlessness, though, the winner is -- no, seriously -- the VR reenactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The experience is reconstructed from the 911 calls placed by George Zimmerman and, later, members of the community from inside their homes. So that's the viewpoint we take. It's literally just a bunch of people on the phone in their living rooms. We never see or hear anything of the actual shooting except for a flash of gunfire and the boy's real screams for help. The designers insist that reenactments like these could be helpful to investigators, but failed to explain how animated phone calls starring the goddamn Sims tells anybody anything.

Emblematic Group

Manna something something Twitter follow please.

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