We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies

Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.

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Video: How Bread Was Made In The ’80s

Recommended by: Mel Campbell (‘According To China’s Angriest Newspaper, Clive Palmer Is A “Rascal” And So Are You’)

Junkee has quite a lot of young readers who might ask: “Mel, what was life like in the ’80s?” Well, it was exactly like this.

I remember when it was time to add extra fibre, protein and vitamins to our diets, we’d begin the sexy, sexy bread dance. Back then I was too young to question how the sacks of flour would magically appear under people’s hands just as the intense body-rolling began, or why you had to pour the liquid ingredients in from a jug on your head, but trust me, this was EXACTLY how bread was made. And trust me, it tasted a wholemeal lot better. *rips off T-shirt.

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Instagram: Everyday Iran

Call me ignorant, but I know next to nothing about Iran, beyond that it’s wedged between some of the most unstable and war-torn countries in the Middle East. Which is probably why I love Everyday Iran so much.

Organised by five Iranian photographers, the project collates photographs depicting daily life in Iran: a man napping in his bus, young people smoking on the stairs, picnicking families. It’s an Iran you don’t often see in mainstream media and it’s beautiful, even though all the pictures are taken on nothing fancier than a mobile phone. There’s a Facebook page too, if you prefer floating that particular social media boat.

The project was inspired by the equally captivating Everyday Africa, which founders and journalists Peter DiCampo and Austen Merrill dreamed up as a “response to the common media portrayal of the African continent as a place consumed by war, poverty, and disease”. They’re hoping the collection of (often astonishingly stunning) images create a more accurate understanding of what the majority of Africans experience on a day-to-day basis: normal life.

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Taser Photoshoot

Recommended by: Elizabeth Flux

If you’ve ever wondered what semi-naked people look like when they are tasered by their loved ones, then this video and its accompanying pictures are for you. Photographer Patrick Hall explains in his article that he wanted to flip his usual desire to make people feel uncomfortable on-camera on its head, and instead take them to the extreme opposite. Looks like he succeeded.

This idea is 20% amazing and 80% stupid. Some pretty fantastic photographs have come out of it, but also, wow. Tasering is awful and painful, and 100 people willingly did this for beer. Yes, beer is great, but I can’t even begin to get my head around what this says about us as a species. Nope. Just nope.

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Twitter: Junkee Writer Brendan Maclean Successfully Flirts With Hodor

 

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Video: Brittany Murphy Biopic

Recommended by: Sinead Stubbins

This week, Lifetime released some footage of the Brittany Murphy biopic they’ve been threatening for some time now. It’ll be a classic tale of girl hitting the big time, releasing a moderately successful EDM single and then being inextricably struck down by toxic mould. It should not shock you that Lifetime does not approach this fact with much sensitivity.

The experience of watching the clips is … something. As in, something that I want to write in my nightmare journal and think about never, but also I want to write one thousand think pieces about in an effort to exorcise my brain of this nonsense? As Margaret Lyons notes, “There are Chihuahuas wearing better, more believable wigs”.

Are we being Punk’d? Is this the new Sharknado? I have watched both clips five times each now. The Brittany Murphy Story will air in the U.S on September 6.

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Album: Ryan Adams ‘1984’

Recommended by: Matt Banham

Ryan Adams has made a million albums by now, surely. Most of them are a bit frrrrrrt, but this one — a punk-inspired 7″ called 1984, which came out exclusively on vinyl last week and has already sold out — is really good. A fan captured it on their record player, and you can listen to it below.

Ryan Adams’ self-titled album comes out through Sony on September 5.

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Video: Homer Simpson Does The Ice Bucket Challenge

Recommended by: Michelle See-Tho

I know some of us are already sick of the ice bucket challenge, but when The Simpsons gets in on anything, it’s hard not to love it. In this particular video, Homer takes a deep breath and douses himself in icy cold water. And then some.

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Infographic: Themes From Every Episode Of The Simpsons Ever

Recommended by: Katie Booth (‘The Trailer For Jon Stewart’s Directorial Debut, ‘Rosewater’, Just Dropped’)

The U.S is currently in the middle of a massive 12-day Simpsons marathon, so of course someone was going to create an infographic charting the main characters or themes across all 25 seasons. The graphic from Beulter Ink maps all 552 episodes and is pretty impressive (though debatable considering some episodes could be sorted into a number of the 25 categories listed).