The internet is a magical place filled with wonderful things. Unfortunately we're often too focused on the hatred, anger, and disillusionment on display on social media to see the true beauty of this wonderful machine we've all created together.
I thought it would be cool to compile some of my favorite things and the favorite things of other people on The Outline staff into a totally sort-of-random list. You only have a few days left in 2016. Spend them wisely. By looking at these websites.
Please enjoy. And stay safe out there.
The Zoomquilt
This might be, put simply, the best the internet will ever do at doing anything ever.
Magic Realism Bot
A bot that generates dreamlike stories every two hours. Take a trip on your timeline.
Cats morphing into croissants
A video of cats morphing into croissants. That's it.
chinaSMACK
A look into modern day China from the people who actually live there. Fascinating, enlightening, funny, strange.
Find a Grave
Need to figure out where someone is buried? They made a site for that.
Pan-African Space Station
A pop-up live radio studio, art space, and ongoing internet radio project. The kind of thing that feels like what the internet should be.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons, one of the most important forces for good on the internet.
Patti LaBelle, “Where My Background Singers?”
This video of Patti LaBelle looking for her backup singers is pure gold on every possible level.
National Archives Records
A truly essential database. Military records going back to the Civil War; declassified FBI files; etc.
Mouth Silence
The most internet mixtape ever.
censusAmericans
Brief biographies of every American in the census, compiled and tweeted randomly.
gangculture Instagram
A beautiful Instagram account. Not actually about gang culture.
Hackertyper
Hack the world. All on your own. Without doing anything.
Clickhole
The best news site on the internet.
Beyoncé’s website
Beyoncé's website is one big, beautifully shot Tumblr. And we're good with that.
The Mother of All Demos
You can't imagine how far we've come until you see this video of how far we were a long time ago. Staggering, inspirational, educational, and fucking entertaining.
Wikipedia
Have you heard of this internet encyclopedia? We suggest a donation.
Where do people say that?
Find out where people say things you think they say in a specific place in specific places. An invaluable tool from the invaluable people at Quartz.
Imgur Video to GIF
Making GIF-making tolerable for all the people. This is God's work.
Dogs of Wisdom
Accept the wisdom now.
Basenotes Forums
The best forum on the internet? A place where people discuss how perfumes and colognes smell.
Gettysburg Address PowerPoint
The Gettysburg address, as a PowerPoint presentation.
This Vine
R.I.P. Vine.
The Prelinger Archives
An ever-growing compendium of "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. Utterly enchanting.
Paper Journal
Steam
Steam is awesome. Games have never been better. Get a PC and unlock a whole new world.
News report about Beyoncé and Jay Z
This is an important and well researched news report about Beyoncé and Jay Z that definitely was not automatically created by a bot.
The New York Times’ searchable archive
The New York Times' searchable archive goes deep. Want to know what was happening with hat fashions in 1890? They've got you covered.
Chill Wildlife Instagram
Relaxed animals on Instagram.
huffduffer
Instapaper for audio. If you’re into that sort of thing.
Everything But the House
Estate sales in the 21st century. Get lost, spend dough.
Watch it melt
A place to... watch things melt.
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared
"What's your favorite idea? Mine is being creative."
pavanepavane
An attractive French Instagram account.
IFTTT
If this, then that. A fantastic tool that makes all of your stuff work better together.
Shaye St. John
Google Trends
How popular is the term "google trends"?
Berlin Community Radio
A place to explore audio in every form.
Audio Tool
It's just insane that a website can do this. Finally a reason to use Flash again.
Bob Ross’ YouTube page
Happy little trees, whenever you want them.
NewsDiffs
Spot the edits to your daily news.
ItsNiceThat
One of the best websites for things to look at and think about.
How To Be Alone
A weirdly earnest take on being alone that also weirdly works.
Draftback
A Chrome extension to see every draft you've ever had in Google Docs.
The ice-cream van
Be careful out there.
Venmo
Give money. Get money. Charge people outrageous amounts for outrageous things with no expectation of getting paid. The internet is alive.
The Parkers theme song
One of the most underrated theme songs.
SavedYouAClick
Thwarting news scammers, one click at a time.
Very Goods
Buy better and more beautiful things.
“STATUE” by Bonnie Banane
This is wonderful and intense music. Put it on repeat.
Space Jam, the website
Nothing is permanent in life. Except this website.
The history of Japan
This is soothing. And informative.
Female rapper crushes guy in hip-hop rap battle
A great clip from a movie about rap music inspired by the diaries of Anne Frank.
Rickrolling
This isn't actually a Rickroll, but it's still a really interesting story about the phenomenon.
