The 5 Best Internet Things I Found This Year

 In the hopes of starting some sort of annual traditions, I want to end this year with a list of cool things I found online. From text-delayed gifs to cigarette-smoking insects, these are things that made me happy online in 2015.

This is not a list of things released this year, just what I discovered in 2015.

In case it's worth mentioning, no one is giving me money or free stuff for this. That's because my blog's unimportant, not because I've taken a moral stance. I am 100% open to the idea of free shoelaces.

Without further filibuster, here we go!

1: Ian's Shoelace Site

Diagonal checkerboard shoelaces featured on the site

First place has to go Ian the shoelace savant and his site so remarkable that when you Google 'shoelace', this site beats out Wikipedia.

It's an instruction site for different ways of tying shoelaces. Some are practical, like ways to keep your boots staying tighter for longer or to make shoes easier to remove, but some are purely decorative.

Still from an instructional gif on the site

On Halloween I completed my outfit with inverted pentagram shoelaces and I have a pair laced in the filigree-like spider web method to compliment my favorite black metal t-shirt. Novel shoelaces reel in compliments completely disproportionately to the time spent in tying them.

2: Gratisography, the weird free stock site

This is an actual Gratisography stock photo of a smoking mantis

Stock sites are usually only of interest to designers (and the geniuses behind memes) but this one's worth a look for all of the original and unusual content.

We've all wanted to do this to Furbys

Who masterminded this photo shoot?

How I envision the protagonist of Neverwhere

What's the target audience for this?

3: The Devil Wears Prada fanfic portal on Archive Of Our Own.

666 Devil Wears Prada fics!

Enough said.

4: Jenny Trout

My favorite blogger of the year (almost the only blogger I've read regularly), Jenny Trout blogs often and candidly about romance, pop culture and feminism.

I like her recaps, especially her recap of a series of coffee commercials which I believe I've linked here although I can't be entirely certain because her blog is blocked here for some reason.

5: The best gif-making sites, Giphy and Imgflip

I've seen a fair few gifs in my time.

I didn't make this gif

Of the many online gif makers I've toyed with, Imgflip is my favorite for the option to time and position text.

This is a gif I made from Key and Peele

I think Giphy rose to the top of casual gif sharing hosts, and their gif maker is worth mentioning because it lets you add glitter text and animated stickers. If you want to make glittering pizza cat gifs, this is your site.

This is a gif I made from Fringe

 As you can see, this year I made a lot of gifs, read a lot of fanfic, and tied several shoelaces. If we treat beloved internet sites as a modern Rorschach inkblot test, ultimately the result for all of us would probably be 'wastes too much time on the internet'.

I'm always open to wasting more, though, so please feel free to comment with your favorite internet finds of the year!