/r/ShittyTechSupport

3,500 Geniuses at the Genius Bar for 1 year!

Ever wanted to spy on your friends' computers by downloading spyware? Or remove that pesky blue screen at startup? Or even cure your computer of its virus? Well then, this is the subreddit for you!

Welcome to ShittyTechSupport, the place where your shitty tech questions get answered! This week, we've got a few of /r/ShittyTechSupport's mods down with us to answer some questions!

How did ShittyTechSupport start?

agentlame: ShittyTechSupport started on some random drunken night when I was answering a bunch of threads in /r/techsupport and was dismayed by some of the extremely awful answers. I created the sub as a mental joke to myself as I was a huge fan of /r/shittyaskscience and /r/shittyadvice and thought it was funny. To this day, I have no idea how /u/Hansfan ever found the sub, but he was kind enough to add it to the sidebar of SAS.

Hansafan: I think it spontaneously popped into being, owing to some cosmic constant or other concerning the preservation of human ineptitude. For every computer that runs smoothly owing to great advice and support, there must be one that catches fire because its owner tried to cure its viruses by baking it in the oven. Or, a glitch in the Matrix.

What is the most technologically-advanced thing you have?

agentlame: I really like my Chromebook, which is also pretty shitty tech. I still love my Boxee Box... too bad they went with the odd Boxee TV business model. The fuck is a 'cloud PVR', anyways?

Hansafan: Probably my laptop, although it's starting to show its age.

What's the shitty-est question you've had there?

agentlame: Shittiest answer: this is my favorite post of all time. I realize it's not a question, but I always laugh at the absurdity and voodoo-like nature of the solutions it offers. It represents exactly what I was thinking when I made the sub.

Hansafan: One of the classics

Any tips for baking a Raspberry Pi?

agentlame: According to Microsoft, cook it at 0xB16B00B5°.

Hansafan: Probably a question better suited for /r/ShittyAskCooking, but I moderate that too, and would probably go with gas grill(coal particles aren't good for electronics). Serve with a nice Apple-flavoured dipping sauce.

Other shitty stuff that you like?

agentlame: Most all of it. Lately, I've really been enjoying the submissions to /r/shittyfoodporn.

Hansafan: Like a-lame, I'm a big fan of /r/shittyfoodporn at the moment.

That's it for this week's Shitty Sub of the Week! Staytuned for more! Meanwhile, feel free to subscribe to /r/ShittySubOfTheWeek!

/r/shittyfoodporn

A community with 8,884 culinary artists. And if you haven't suffered severe food poisoning for 9 months, you're probably in the clear.

Once upon a midnight dreary
as I pondered weak and weary
o'er many a quaint and curious
subreddit of questionable hrmh
well enough about me

Suddenly I felt a craving
Hunger rising, not abating
I relinquished my encouchment and
flung open my refridgerator door

With that, I realized my fix
and epiphanically reminisc'd
that every egg and strip o' bacon
had been devour'd the night before

Quoth the redditors:

Explain which quality or qualities attracts you about your subreddit.

lolpancakeslol: I find it amusing when something that's supposed look good comes out looking awful, the sheer ridiculousness of it cracks me up. /r/shittyearthporn is a good example of this. The thought of people admiring a pile of garbage or a badly taken photo of some trees is great.

Kreius: I think what really attracts me is the fact that food doesn't have to be appealing, or even remotely good to be edible. Thinking to myself, damn I spent 80 cents on this pizza and it sort of resembles Jesus in the fake cheese that has now turned in to a molten pool of grease and how is the tomato sauce still cold? Really sums up food for me.

agentlame: I enjoy both beautiful and awful food. But, being a guy who has eaten a bowl of $.39 ramen with a side of pepperoncini, I can understand how awesome a truly shitty meal can be.

soupyhands: I am attracted by the smell

kjoneslol: There isn't much quality, no.

Do you have any actual cooking skills, or does the sub actually reflect your diet?

lolpancakeslol: My wife has been teaching me how to bake which usually results in a huge mess. However, I'm now able to successfully bake banana bread which is like the easiest thing to make but I'm still proud.

Kreius: Yes, I am a professionally trained chef, and no it does not. However, going through life it really helps to know that you don't always make a good dish, and sometimes you just make some dishes that look better on the way out, than on the way in.

agentlame: I'm actually a pretty decent cook... but, there was a time that this sub represented my average meal. I'm not great a presentation, so even my really good meals kinda look likes shitty food porn.

I'm also impressively lazy, so I just buy lunch meat and eat sandwiches 75% of the time. I really love sandwiches.

soupyhands: I have been known to prepare raw meat to be burnt.

kjoneslol: I can cook.

Pick one of your favourite posts(whether your own or others') from /r/shittyfoodporn and elaborate a bit on what makes this submission stand out as prime Shitty food porn.

lolpancakeslol: This one. The title is just the url to the picture, the picture is low resolution, dark, fuzzy and you can hardly even tell what the food is supposed to be. There is no debate as to whether or not the submission qualifies as shitty, everyone is equally repulsed by it. It is the perfect submission.

Kreius: I think it'd be two posts, the first one because it's bacon, fuck you. And the second one because it really sums up the culinary power of the microwave.

agentlame: We see so much shitty food, it's hard to have a 'favorite'. However, I remember lauging out loud at the mac and cheese bagel from last month. These are my favorite type of submissions. The ones that combined foods that should never be eaten together.

soupyhands: Toast Salad for it's creativity and simplicity.

kjoneslol: hahahaha

What is your non-Shitty, i.e. real-life favourite food?

lolpancakeslol: I absolutely adore the quesadillas at this side-of-the-road taco truck near my place. The roaches just add to the taste.

Kreius: Definitely simple, a nice piece of blackened grilled chicken over a ceasar salad with garlic croutons and an actual parmigiano reggiano.

agentlame: Sushi, no doubt. I don't think I've ever seen a shitty sushi submission, but just the thought terrifies me.

soupyhands: Spicy Chirashi Donburi

kjoneslol: chicken sate but only in Jakarta or some chicken katsu would be my pick.

What food do you absolutely hate?

lolpancakeslol: Tofu. The only time I've ever tolerated it was when it was deep fried, and even then it hardly had much of a taste. I've been told that it's there to absorb flavor but I personally don't see what the point is in creating something that has no flavor to begin with. It's a worthless food and I swear if anyone reading this posts tofu on /r/shittyfoodporn I will come to your house and crap in your mailbox.

Kreius: Fucking liver, fuck you liver you taste like horse shit and uncooked rice grain.

agentlame: Stuffing. It reminds me of something someone already ate. shudder

soupyhands: Mayonnaise

kjoneslol: cow lung. It tastes like rubber. maybe the cow I tried was a smoker, though.

Still, there was some bread left
and of cheese I was not bereft
And I threw it all together
in my skillet and with every
flick of the whisk so deft
I flung all culinary
tradtion to the floor

Suddenly the air grew denser
"sweetened" by a very obvious censer
not helped by my fucking ventilator
which shouldn't be fucking legal
now or nevermore.

And still the grease is sticking
sticking, never ever quitting
every fucking flat-ish surface
in my kitchen
evermore

#/r/shittyearthporn a community for 9 months, created by [deleted]

With 6,516 Plant Hungry Hipsters /r/shittyearthporn has become the best place in all the internet to get hight quality pictures for use in post cards and covers for national geographic.

1. Who created the subreddit and why? Why did you decide to make it a shitty as oppose to a circlejerk?

soupyhands: Sincretyc created it. He is very creative. He used "Shitty" and "EarthPorn" and made a portmanteau, which is french for "something creative."

kjoneslol: because it's funnier.

SaltyChristian: I made it. Pay no attention to soupyhands.

HandicapperGeneral : I created it. Pay no attention to SaltyChristian.

2. What is your favorite color?

soupyhands: I am partial to Gamboge, but I occaisionally flatter myself with a tunic of Caput Mortuum with Malachite trousers.

kjoneslol: green

SaltyChristian: blue

HandicapperGeneral : Like, tye-dye maaaannnn... It's like, all the colors at once man!

2. What is your favorite shitty earth porn picture?

kjoneslol: Cathedral

SaltyChristian: The one I made the day we created the subreddit it woulda been top of all time if I posted it later.

jokes_on_you: it's been posted a few times, but this is my favorite http://redd.it/rdaxl

HandicapperGeneral: I dunno. I don't pay attention.

3. Do you plan on expanding the shitty porn network?

soupyhands: Would that make it better? Then no.

kjoneslol: It's slowly expanding, much like shit.

SaltyChristian: No fuck that shit it would be the same as shittyearthporn with a different subject. Nothing new would come of it. /r/shittyquotesporn is cool because it adds the layer of quotes, not just pictures.

HandicapperGeneral : ...

4. ...

soupyhands:

Quote	Attribution
In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away	shing xiong
When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.	Unknown
Never tell your problems to anyone...20% don't care and the other 80% are glad you have them.	Lou Holtz
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.	Dr. Seuss
Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one is watching.	Randall G Leighton

kjoneslol: OK

SaltyChristian: This

HandicapperGeneral: That one where it's like EarthPorn, but shitty.

5. Anything you would like to say to your millions of fans?

soupyhands: Eat right, exercise, and get plenty of sleep.

kjoneslol: no

SaltyChristian: Fuck you millions of fans

HandicapperGeneral : Hi mom!

edit: I'm a dickfart

/r/shittyragecomics

A community for 9 months with 658 readers!

I used to write for the real, actual /r/SubredditOfTheDay. Let me tell you, it was a magical time. Up at the crack of dawn to pound the foggy pavements with only my notebook, my fedora and a cup of bitter joe to warm my hands. Searching out leads from my underworld contacts; fighting for truth and justice and the common man mired in a cruel uncaring world.

But the harsh realities of that life caught up with me; crushing deadlines, interference from the Vatican, bitter flavourless coffee. I had to pack it in.

Regrets, I've had a few. But none more regretful than missing the opportunity to feature /r/ShittyRageComics during my tenure. Why I did so is an artifact of happenstance, really. At the time there had been a lot of features from the shitty network and frankly I feared accusations of favoritism.

Now it's time to write that wrong.

/r/ShittyRageComics is a beacon of hope in the crumbling edifice of internet culture. It takes the ubiquitous (and much-abused) rage-comic and turns it into something transcendent. Some offerings are straight parodies of the form, with "le"s aplenty, and while these will elicit a knowing chuckle from the au fait redditor, the real gems are much harder to categorize.

This example from today's frontpage, for instance, showcases the flamboyant disregard for conventional narrative concerns that characterises my favourite shittyragecomics. The first thing you notice is the bizarre format; 6 panels rounded off with not one, but four double-panel "oh crap" faces. When you get into the meat of it you see that the plot starts off conventionally enough, our trickster OP decides to be le super troll having breakfast at 1pm. But in the 6th panel things begin to unravel and Op has a moment of terrifying existential angst before bringing proceedings to a close with a rousing musical number. The violent emotional pivot which is central to this piece is something which we find all too seldom in the popular rage comic, and who among us could fail to be moved when even in the depths of his despair OP remembers to display his musical erudition, providing a glimmer of hope that his now damaged psyche can in time regain its lost humanity.

/r/ShittyRageComics is the most fun you can have with strangers, so go there now and gorge yourself.

ps. here is a comic that was too weird to describe

Might as well get that shit(ty) out of the way, so our first shitty sub of the week, is [drumroll]

/r/shittysuboftheweek

A community for 1 day with a whopping 2 readers.

It was a dark and stormy night... Nah, in reality, it's around 2AM, only slightly rainy and I really should get to bed after the evening shift. This means that the introduction and conclusion to this article/interview/thing will be painfully short, and will be more of a "meet your moderators" thing than me rambling on at length about stuff, relevant and enlightening though it may be.

Without further ado, let's give a welcome to the awesome moderators, /u/aagavin, /u/jesushx, /u/agentlame, /u/MaoThatHurt, /u/PotatoMusicBinge, and since the rest are lazy bastards who couldn't answer a few simple questions, I chose to include myself as well.

1: Tell us a little about yourself. You know, for science.

aagavin: I'm the one and only /u/aagavin(check for yourself, there isn't another). I joined reddit about two years ago. That was before digg v4. Like many people I lurked for a while before I stared commenting/posting. I found my way to /r/shittyadvice from an /r/askreddit post explaining how to customize your subreddits and stay away from defaults. Anyway, after a couple of months posting/commenting on /r/shittyadvice I saw a post mentioning the creation of a new sub /r/shittyaskscience and the rest is history.

jesushx: Unlike /u/aagavin I am but one of many. I am however the only reddit Jesus that watches over the shitty network, starting with /r/shittyaskscience when I was plucked from obscurity and thrown into an obscurity of a much grander scale.

Also surprise twist: I am a woman.

agentlame: I'm nuclear physicist in Bangladesh. Not nearly as cool as it sounds; I clean the bathrooms. I also may split my time doing tech support in Cleveland... may.

MaoThatHurt: I'm MaoThatHurt. Fuck you. I got involved with shitty subreddits because there was a shittyaskscience and I wanted there to be a shittyasksocialscience but that was too many characters so we have /r/shittysocialscience instead.

PotatoMusicBinge: I'm Irish!

Hansafan: Well, I pour metal for a living and drink beer and reddit(fuck you, it's a verb now) in my time off. As a new-found hobby, I like to mess with CSS, but I have sworn not to use its powers for evil anything productive.

2: What is Shitty Subreddit of the Week meant to accomplish, exactly?

aagavin: I think this sub can be used to promote shitty subs and let users get to know their moderators a little better. Kinda like /r/srotd. One question that's still there is whether it's going to be a /r/srotd for shitty subs or a shitty parody of /r/srotd. Guess we'll find out as we go along.

jesushx: Highlight the tremendousness of the subs in the shittynetwork and the genius submitters. We have talked about possibly adding in a shitty subredditor of the week or whenever feature too. There are some amazing submitters.

agentlame: No idea, but I was offered fame and glory.

MaoThatHurt: Blatant self promotion of shitty subreddits and the network.

PotatoMusicBinge: I'm Irish!

Hansafan: And into this subreddit he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life Just another way to make the Shitty Network more awesome. I mean, we have everything; science/academics, great advice forums, our very own SFWporn subreddits, the list goes on. While they're all Shitty(aka terrible) in their own way, and it's all a joke/parody/satire, a lot real talent and effort goes into a lot of the Shitty subreddits - a shameless /r/srotd rip-off seemed to be the thing we were lacking.

ShSOTW was actually created a good while ago, but never got off ground. I bullied talked /u/jesushx into making me a moderator and gave the place a little makeover before the grand opening.

3: "The Shitty Network": What does it mean to you?

aagavin: I really enjoy the shitty network because you get to see some amazing talent at work. Even though it's called shitty, it's far from that. With people who come up with the posts/comments to the mods and CSS people, all amazing.

jesushx: Super cool party smarty people making fart jokesSwiftian level satire by the seat of their pants, every damn day, connected to each other. Like a web, or intersecting, meshing of some kind, as a system, or you know like that.

And mutually assured destruction.

agentlame: Satire. A lot of stuff on reddit has gotten way too real, as of late. Hell, even circlejerk has super cereal subs now... SN is one of those places that you can just go and have fun.

MaoThatHurt: The Aufheben of quality and inferior posting. High quality subreddits, defaults, everything washed away in a sea of shit. Infinite absolute negativity.

PotatoMusicBinge: I'm Irish!

Hansafan: In the end, the Shitty subreddits are about satire, quite simply providing a shitty/lighthearted alternative to any given "serious" subreddit.

4: Plug your personal favourite Shitty subreddit.

aagavin: My personal shitty sub right now is /r/shittyprogramming.

jesushx: I love them all equally.

But I have the most pictures of my first born /r/shittyaskscience . I love /r/shittyshitredditsays and the ones I feel too dumb to submit or comment to. But love to read.

And I might add a shameless plug for /r/shittyaskhistory my adopted baby.

agentlame: I'll always plug /r/ShittyTechSupport. It's my first sub. Small as it is, it's my baby.

MaoThatHurt: /r/shittyspacedicks

PotatoMusicBinge: I'm Irish!

Hansafan: This varies a lot. My moderator baby steps were taken in /r/shittyaskscience, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I recently reassumed a mod position there too, after an extended hiatus.

One very small and unrecognized reddit that is very dear to me is the advice forum for inept practitioners of the arcane arts, /r/askashittymage. Right at the moment though, I'd also like to plug /r/ShittyMachinePorn, the newly introduced wrench in /r/MachinePorn's gearbox.

And here we are. /r/shittysuboftheweek is live, and will continue to feature both the best and/or most obscure Shitty subreddits that reddit has to offer. Enjoy!

#/r/shittybestof

For when an upvote is not enough

Come across a post or comment in a shitty sub so well constructed that merely giving it an upvote, seems a measly, paltry, inadequate, cowardly, and not-at-all the shout from the Internet rooftops treatment you'd like to give it?

Yeah, there's gilding, but when I hear gilding I think gelding, and then I think castration, then I shudder and move on, and forget all about the great comment I just read.

Ofcourse you can still gild shitty comments, but before you do send it off to /r/shittybestof, a repository of the best of the shitty network, for all posterity, or the end of today whichever ends first.

##1. How did you become involved in /r/shittybestof?

NA

##2. Are involved in any other shitty reddits?

NA

##3. Do you have any favorite shitty subreddits?

NA

##4 .What do you like best about shitty subs?

NA

##5. I love this sub, and would like to see it become more well known and active. How can we help?

NA

##6. Is there anything else you'd like to add or promote?

NA

There, now go out and make this little known shitty sub great!

The place to leave your suggestions for Shitty subreddits you feel deserve to be featured in /r/shittysuboftheweek.

Feel free to discuss entries/suggestions, but top-level comments are for subreddit suggestions only.