Is that Hulu with a hard U or a soft U?
April 10, 2015 3:11 AM Subscribe
Those TV streaming fools at Hulu have come up with a 21st Century Social Media way to promote their mostly-traditionally-sourced video content - a tumblr site called Hulu: The Perfect Gif which has assembled over 1700 gifs (so far) of moments from over 80 series ranging from I Love Lucy to Parks and Recreation, and including Agents of SHIELD, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Louie, Cheers, Spongebob Squarepants, Gotham, Twin Peaks, Webster, Xena, Doctor Who (mostly 11th doctor so far), Buffy, X-Files, Glee, Mary Tyler Moore, Ren & Stimpy, Arrested Development, Archer, Sons of Anarchy, Absolutely Fabulous (OMG!!!), RuPaul's Drag Race, Firefly, The Voice, Alf (WTF?!?), Star Trek Original Series and Next Generation, Bob's Burgers, The Brady Bunch, Key & Peele, Spaced (hmmm...), Once Upon a Time, Community, Scrubs, the last 10 years of Saturday Night Live, and many more*, all under 3 seconds, watermarked for attribution, with external hashtags but no captions, and un-hotlinkable but with plenty of social media buttons. Network TV at its best, regrettably.
*sorry, no Hannibal, Person of Interest, Adventure Time, Daily Show (or anything late night other than SNL), Babylon 5, Gilligan's Island or Simpsons... yet. For Simpsons gifs, go here.
*sorry, no Hannibal, Person of Interest, Adventure Time, Daily Show (or anything late night other than SNL), Babylon 5, Gilligan's Island or Simpsons... yet. For Simpsons gifs, go here.
That tagging must be generated by robots. No, wait, robo-generated tags have more personality. They must be tagged by committee.
posted by Mizu at 3:29 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by Mizu at 3:29 AM on April 10, 2015
I guess those are technically "moments", but looking at the Buffy and Firefly pages so far they are not any of the classic moments a fan would choose – they actually seem clipped at random.
posted by nicwolff at 3:34 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by nicwolff at 3:34 AM on April 10, 2015
Yes, the only genuinely iconic moment I could find was in the Brady Bunch collection - Marcia's "OH MY NOSE". Network promos are better at finding short scenes.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:44 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:44 AM on April 10, 2015
Do they inject ads in the gifs? Really, really mind-bogglingly stupid ads?
posted by sidereal at 3:49 AM on April 10, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by sidereal at 3:49 AM on April 10, 2015 [7 favorites]
Wow, somebody/somealgorithm really likes that episode of Star Trek where space hippies took over the ship. If you need lute-playing gifs this is your lucky day.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:04 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:04 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
I refuse to pay for Hulu because they play ads after I've given them money. I'm all for ads if your service is free. I see that as your income for that free service. But if I pay you, you better not be also making money on the side wasting my time with the same 3 ads.
I totally get that this isn't the norm(see paid TV channels), but this is the 21st century.
posted by Twain Device at 4:20 AM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
I totally get that this isn't the norm(see paid TV channels), but this is the 21st century.
posted by Twain Device at 4:20 AM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
All those Archer gifs, but no #YUP or #NOPE. /me wanders off muttering about kids these days
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:59 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:59 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
I used to pay, like, $80 a month for cable, and all the shows I watched had ads, so I guess it never occurred to me that I should be upset to pay $8 a month and still have ads. I must be old.
Dammit, I paid $1.50 for this newspaper and there are ads all over the place.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:15 AM on April 10, 2015 [19 favorites]
Dammit, I paid $1.50 for this newspaper and there are ads all over the place.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:15 AM on April 10, 2015 [19 favorites]
The ad-free versions are generally available for $2 per episode on Amazon and iTunes.
So basically if you watch more than four episodes of Hulu Plus content a month, Hulu and its ads are worth it.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:19 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
So basically if you watch more than four episodes of Hulu Plus content a month, Hulu and its ads are worth it.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:19 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is perfect synchrony with Tumblr's genius breaking of their bookmarklet's photo option by constantly resizing it to be larger than most users laptops screens on mouse-over and disabling the scrollbar. Soon the internet will be just for robots and iOS app users.
posted by srboisvert at 5:33 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 5:33 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Frankly, the ad breaks at Hulu aren't really that intrusive. For pretty much everything (excepting anime and some foreign shows), the ads come on at the normal act breaks and last for maybe 60-90 seconds total. Compared to regular TV, where the ads can go on for 4 or 5 minutes at a time, it's not bad.
Also, if an interactive ad break comes up where they ask you "which ad experience do you prefer?" I take a perverse enjoyment from picking demographically "wrong" ones, which seems to influence the non-interactive ads that I get later. I think I've managed to convince Hulu that I'm an 18-24 year old, Spanish-speaking woman, because I keep getting ads for teen telenovelas now.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:56 AM on April 10, 2015 [11 favorites]
Also, if an interactive ad break comes up where they ask you "which ad experience do you prefer?" I take a perverse enjoyment from picking demographically "wrong" ones, which seems to influence the non-interactive ads that I get later. I think I've managed to convince Hulu that I'm an 18-24 year old, Spanish-speaking woman, because I keep getting ads for teen telenovelas now.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:56 AM on April 10, 2015 [11 favorites]
Of course they are hot-linkable. E.g. https://33.media.tumblr.com/5bb1e1efc991d0e7e973d689f0633abd/tumblr_nl4b2p1XPh1upxwm8o1_400.gif
posted by two7s_clash at 6:06 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by two7s_clash at 6:06 AM on April 10, 2015
The "Scrubs" GIFs that I looked at are all too short, and oddly choppy for so few frames.
These are essentially hashtags. #LAME
posted by wenestvedt at 6:07 AM on April 10, 2015
These are essentially hashtags. #LAME
posted by wenestvedt at 6:07 AM on April 10, 2015
#BRANDS #MARKETING #PEPSIBLUE
Sorry for the snark, the tags just have a fellowkids thing going on. The clip art on top of the categories sampler is particularly hideous. So is the corporate sameness of seeing all these clips with little #hulu tags superimposed and the show name and other video bugs. It's all just the opposite of the organic culture of GIF creation and sharing. No random imgur GIF has ever demanded "By clicking any of the below, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy".
OTOH there's a lot of great clips here, and they are nicely categorized. It's like a well sourcedy version of giphy. It's a shame these are actually all GIFs instead of the new hotness, soundless MP4 clips (what imgur calls "gifv"). You can use gfycat to convert them automatically. e.g. #SNEAKY, which goes from 1MB to 67k with the encoding.
posted by Nelson at 6:08 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sorry for the snark, the tags just have a fellowkids thing going on. The clip art on top of the categories sampler is particularly hideous. So is the corporate sameness of seeing all these clips with little #hulu tags superimposed and the show name and other video bugs. It's all just the opposite of the organic culture of GIF creation and sharing. No random imgur GIF has ever demanded "By clicking any of the below, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy".
OTOH there's a lot of great clips here, and they are nicely categorized. It's like a well sourcedy version of giphy. It's a shame these are actually all GIFs instead of the new hotness, soundless MP4 clips (what imgur calls "gifv"). You can use gfycat to convert them automatically. e.g. #SNEAKY, which goes from 1MB to 67k with the encoding.
posted by Nelson at 6:08 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
We have Hulu Plus but the only things that I watch are the Criterion movies which thankfully have no ads.
posted by octothorpe at 6:20 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 6:20 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
GIF with a soft-g is how you get ants, duh.
posted by dorian at 6:29 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by dorian at 6:29 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is that Pepsi Blue with a hard U or a soft U?
posted by blue t-shirt at 6:36 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by blue t-shirt at 6:36 AM on April 10, 2015
These are good. I will use them to decorate my statements of emotion as I communicate on social media.
posted by nom de poop at 6:43 AM on April 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by nom de poop at 6:43 AM on April 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
Network TV at its best, regrettably.
You're watchin' the wrong network TV.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 6:48 AM on April 10, 2015
You're watchin' the wrong network TV.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 6:48 AM on April 10, 2015
I'm mostly upset at the idea of 21st century gifs. Yeah, they work reliably, but the compression and colors are terrible.
Webm as a replacement, as 4chan is doing, is a step in the right direction. But since it's a video format, it's hard to tell what a site will support. Someone with clout needs to define a subset of webm for short form animated images, and get that in the HTML5 specs.
Of course, that will probably end up being something like .mpng, .mng, or whatever, with obscure support on some browsers, with Firefox or Chrome holding out for licensing or ideological reasons.
I'm sorry for going on a rant and implying web technology is a patchwork of antiqued solutions that are a pain to work around when creating a modern experience.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:56 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Webm as a replacement, as 4chan is doing, is a step in the right direction. But since it's a video format, it's hard to tell what a site will support. Someone with clout needs to define a subset of webm for short form animated images, and get that in the HTML5 specs.
Of course, that will probably end up being something like .mpng, .mng, or whatever, with obscure support on some browsers, with Firefox or Chrome holding out for licensing or ideological reasons.
I'm sorry for going on a rant and implying web technology is a patchwork of antiqued solutions that are a pain to work around when creating a modern experience.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:56 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
My old laptop was capable of watching Hulu video, but choked every time the ads came on, especially the stupid interactive ones. That, combined with the irritation-inducing way they'd show the same ad during every ad break, means I'm probably never going to be a Hulu subscriber.
Still, hey, Xena GIFs.
posted by asperity at 8:18 AM on April 10, 2015
Still, hey, Xena GIFs.
posted by asperity at 8:18 AM on April 10, 2015
This thread is not available in my country,
posted by Mezentian at 8:31 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Mezentian at 8:31 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
The problem to me with Hulu's ads isn't that they exist, it's that they're often outright insultingly sexist. Apparently, they think I need lots of products for housekeeping and childrearing and also Botox.
posted by Sequence at 9:20 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Sequence at 9:20 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
where they ask you "which ad experience do you prefer?" I take a perverse enjoyment from picking demographically "wrong" ones, which seems to influence the non-interactive ads that I get later . . .
On Hulu, no one knows your audience is dogs.
I guess those are technically "moments" . . . they actually seem clipped at random. . . .
Network promos are better at finding short scenes. . . .
somealgorithm really likes that episode of Star Trek where space hippies took over
I know nothing of these newer shows, but the available moments on the older ones seem a bit thin.
Yes, there does appear to be a woodstock of space hippies; that aside, the Star Trek ones are nearly all from the first half of the first season.
The one called "Working out" is kinda fun. There was an unusual bit of naturalism in that scene from "Shore Leave". Kirk, McCoy, and the yeoman sprint like hell toward the sound of shots fired to find that it's only Sulu with a pistol he'd just "found". The three sprinters play that whole scene sweating, panting, and out of breath, barely able to speak -- as they would have been IRL. (Trust me, that would have been unusual in 1960s teevy.) It can't be easy to run in Trek Beatle Boots, either.
I didn't spot any 'keepers' under MTM. One I'd like to see is where she giggles uncontrollably at the absurdity of beating a chest-of-drawers with a chain, alone in her apartment. I believe a magazine article had told her it was a way of 'antiquing' furniture. Being Mary, she can't quite bring herself to do it. A pretty good moment.
I sure don't need any "Lucy" moment. We only had one teevy in the house growing up, and my mother watched every single iteration of Lucille Ball's shows from 1951 to the 1970s in prime time and reruns of the original Isle of Lucy during the day. I don't need no steenkeeng mirror routine, no candy factory, no vitameatavegamin. I already been Lucy'd to tears.
posted by Herodios at 9:24 AM on April 10, 2015
On Hulu, no one knows your audience is dogs.
I guess those are technically "moments" . . . they actually seem clipped at random. . . .
Network promos are better at finding short scenes. . . .
somealgorithm really likes that episode of Star Trek where space hippies took over
I know nothing of these newer shows, but the available moments on the older ones seem a bit thin.
Yes, there does appear to be a woodstock of space hippies; that aside, the Star Trek ones are nearly all from the first half of the first season.
The one called "Working out" is kinda fun. There was an unusual bit of naturalism in that scene from "Shore Leave". Kirk, McCoy, and the yeoman sprint like hell toward the sound of shots fired to find that it's only Sulu with a pistol he'd just "found". The three sprinters play that whole scene sweating, panting, and out of breath, barely able to speak -- as they would have been IRL. (Trust me, that would have been unusual in 1960s teevy.) It can't be easy to run in Trek Beatle Boots, either.
I didn't spot any 'keepers' under MTM. One I'd like to see is where she giggles uncontrollably at the absurdity of beating a chest-of-drawers with a chain, alone in her apartment. I believe a magazine article had told her it was a way of 'antiquing' furniture. Being Mary, she can't quite bring herself to do it. A pretty good moment.
I sure don't need any "Lucy" moment. We only had one teevy in the house growing up, and my mother watched every single iteration of Lucille Ball's shows from 1951 to the 1970s in prime time and reruns of the original Isle of Lucy during the day. I don't need no steenkeeng mirror routine, no candy factory, no vitameatavegamin. I already been Lucy'd to tears.
posted by Herodios at 9:24 AM on April 10, 2015
The problem to me with Hulu's ads isn't that they exist, it's that they're often outright insultingly sexist. Apparently, they think I need lots of products for housekeeping and childrearing and also Botox.
posted by Sequence at 12:20 PM on April 10 [+] [!]
Their ad pairing algorithm is sexist, too. What I think is super weird about this is you could be watching an action show and getting ads for mundane cleaning products, which I never really saw in broadcast days. This can lead to what seems like a super weird tone shift if you grew up in an era where advertisers paired their ads to a shows content and are used to seeing car ads during your action shows (because they know you want to feel awesome) rather than just constant Febreeze ads. All. The. Time.
posted by edbles at 9:32 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by Sequence at 12:20 PM on April 10 [+] [!]
Their ad pairing algorithm is sexist, too. What I think is super weird about this is you could be watching an action show and getting ads for mundane cleaning products, which I never really saw in broadcast days. This can lead to what seems like a super weird tone shift if you grew up in an era where advertisers paired their ads to a shows content and are used to seeing car ads during your action shows (because they know you want to feel awesome) rather than just constant Febreeze ads. All. The. Time.
posted by edbles at 9:32 AM on April 10, 2015
Yeah, so they have a #Dancing tag, they have Star Trek, but they don't have this so something clearly went wrong.
posted by RobotHero at 9:50 AM on April 10, 2015
posted by RobotHero at 9:50 AM on April 10, 2015
I've always wanted an animated GIF of Linda shaking her Spice Rack ... took about 30 seconds via Google Images.
... and I still have absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever visit Hulu.
Network TV at its best, regrettably.
You're watchin' the wrong network TV.
There aren't many network shows (meaning Fox, Cbs, Nbc, Abc) better than Bob's Burgers. Honest.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
... and I still have absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever visit Hulu.
Network TV at its best, regrettably.
You're watchin' the wrong network TV.
There aren't many network shows (meaning Fox, Cbs, Nbc, Abc) better than Bob's Burgers. Honest.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
My old laptop was capable of watching Hulu video, but choked every time the ads came on, especially the stupid interactive ones. That, combined with the irritation-inducing way they'd show the same ad during every ad break, means I'm probably never going to be a Hulu subscriber.
The ad chokes are because the ads seem to be from a different server or are not cached properly. I frequently get stutters and fails on ad streaming but very rarely ever get them with the show. Every now and then an advertisemnt on Hulu throws up an SSL certificate error on the Hulu app on my bluray player.
posted by srboisvert at 11:47 AM on April 10, 2015
The ad chokes are because the ads seem to be from a different server or are not cached properly. I frequently get stutters and fails on ad streaming but very rarely ever get them with the show. Every now and then an advertisemnt on Hulu throws up an SSL certificate error on the Hulu app on my bluray player.
posted by srboisvert at 11:47 AM on April 10, 2015
Network TV at its best, regrettably.
You're watchin' the wrong network TV.
Clarification: some of the shows featured ARE the best that network TV has ever had to offer. But the overall experience feels like something made by the network execs who greenlighted "My Mother the Car".
And ok, not easily hotlinkable.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:06 PM on April 10, 2015
You're watchin' the wrong network TV.
Clarification: some of the shows featured ARE the best that network TV has ever had to offer. But the overall experience feels like something made by the network execs who greenlighted "My Mother the Car".
And ok, not easily hotlinkable.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:06 PM on April 10, 2015
"Remember Alf? He's back. In gif form."
posted by DiscountDeity at 12:59 PM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by DiscountDeity at 12:59 PM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
Alf never went away... he's been lurking in the background of every Muppet production, every Invader Zim episode, every cat video (with a knife and fork)...
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:10 PM on April 10, 2015
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:10 PM on April 10, 2015
Alf never went away...
Everything's comin' up Milhouse!
posted by dialetheia at 1:12 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Everything's comin' up Milhouse!
posted by dialetheia at 1:12 PM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
90% of the reason I don't have cable but will always have text-based social communities and community gaming is because of the annoyance of intrusive advertising. Static advertising is okay. Intrusive advertising is not cool.
Print ads do not have to interrupt my media attention. Video ads by definition do, except as props or appropriate mention in dialog.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:15 PM on April 10, 2015
Print ads do not have to interrupt my media attention. Video ads by definition do, except as props or appropriate mention in dialog.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:15 PM on April 10, 2015
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