I think the most surprising thing about it is that it's good. Not just good as a curiosity, but actually good, in ways and to a degree that would be pretty hard to replicate if you set out to create it from scratch, without existing Garfield strips to lean on.

did you follow the "20 darkest" link?

I think (worry?) that stumbleupon rearranged my brain much like drugs or alcohol rearrange the brain of an addict. Once you’ve been there, you can’t go back to being able to have “just one” beer or, in my case, “just one click” on a link aggregator. I think the novelty-seeking part of my brain was always there, but SU helped pathologize it. I found some cool stuff, but I kind of wish it had never existed.

HN has a gentle enough design that I can enjoy it without it sucking me in, but I make a conscious choice to avoid Reddit, twitter, et al.

It's so strange that StumbleUpon died but TikTok thrives today.

TikTok's algorithm is based entirely on when you click the Like button and when you linger on a video, exactly like StumbleUpon's algorithm. StumbleUpon even had a video product, StumbleVideo, that was basically just TikTok.

But, in 2018, when StumbleUpon shut down and sold their assets to Mix, the prevailing wisdom was that people didn't want to use StumbleUpon because they wanted to use Reddit and Facebook, to follow curated feeds of links, instead of random links that other people like.

If that wisdom were true, TikTok should have failed too, because TikTok just gives you "random stuff that similar people like," just like StumbleUpon.

I guess it just goes to show that there's no accounting for the rise and fall of social media apps/networks.

I loved Stumbleupon. It was a fun way to just explore the internet and truly find many gems I otherwise would have never noticed.

Pretty interesting timeline of events in their Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon

yes, I wasted hours of my life using it until one day I landed on some site called Reddit

Kagi has brought it back (kind of): https://kagi.com/smallweb has a random button (Next Post in the top left corner)

Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Everything2, del.icio.us, Digg

I so fondly remember StumbleUpin, but I’m trying to recall what was so amazing about it. Was it just something of a novelty at the time or the autocuration of the decentralized web would still be relevant?

it seems like a few social media sites took over from the random delight of finding someone’s little weblog or side project.

I hear they’re trying to buy it back and restart with their uber gains

When Garfield Minus Garfield was being published regularly, I was a regular. I couldn't get enough of its dark, sardonic undermining of the comic aesthetic.

There's a site called cloudhiker that kinda does the same thing. The idea is the same but there was something special about early days Stumbleupon. Idk if we'll ever recapture that.

Loved stumbleupon! I think when I realized that I was no longer stumbling upon anything interesting was the leading indicator of the long downhill trend of interesting content on the web.

Same, and I had completely forgotten it existed. It feels even more prescient now than a decade+ ago

I definitely recommend this one, it has greater longevity due to the wider number of schticks the author is able to engage in over the different comics.

E.g. here's a quirky image effect: https://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=13

This is where this belongs.

Just did the same thing at the office. Nice!

As someone who has casually read Garfield from time to time, I'd describe Jon (the man in the comic) as a lovable loser. A lot of the jokes in the comics are at his expense.

Massive Garfield fan growing up.

Garfield minus Garfield is still just as eerie and depressing despite knowing the "source material". I love it.

Came here to say this. Excellent content there if it’s your sort of thing.

That was a thing! Boingboing had an article about it, but it looks like the original tumblr is no longer around.

https://boingboing.net/2014/03/09/garfield-without-garfields...

I agree! I've always wanted this, since seeing Garfield minus Garfield back in the day.

Yeah I never liked this one. There's that one other that replaces Garfield with a slightly realistic cat (without thought bubble of course) and I prefer that.

The somethingawful forums started this with garfield in the comic before "Garfield minus Garfield" was a thing. I agree that the original gag is much better.