With hours to spare until Memorial Day weekend begins, an armada of Americans are preparing to storm beach towns across the country like their Greatest Generation grandfathers stormed Normandy—with dreams of sand, Budweisers and gnarly barrels dancing in their heads.

Holiday weekends, though, are bad news for beach locals who all year ‘round dread the mass arrival of “kooks” (i.e., someone who doesn’t understand the rules of surfing, or pretends they can surf when they actually blow at it). Example: “That guy has a surf-rack on a Land Rover, what a kook!”

The only upside to a kook is that they’ve inspired a hilarious Instagram account called Kookslams, where post after post (sent by angry local after angry local) is dedicated to kooks getting crushed by waves, blow holes and beaches.

And so, a few of our favorite wipeouts…

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about where we’re at with the ‘Why do Slavs squat’ meme.

More of Sam’s bullshit:

• The World’s Largest Bong and Other Devices That Will Blow Your Mind (and Destroy Your Lungs)
• Reddit Proves Nothing is More Metal Than Nature
• Angler Fish and All the Other Members of the Animal Kingdom Who Have Awful Sex
• The Subreddit Where wikiHow’s Illustrations Are Even Better Out of Context
• The Crappy Design Subreddit Is Home to the Dumbest Things Ever Constructed

The Never-Ending Appeal of the Kookslams Instagram Account was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Even though it’s been more than a decade since we were introduced to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, lines like “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood” and “Ouchtown, population: You, bro!” are still parroted in frat halls across this great land of ours.

In the film, the International Dodgeball Open is covered by “ESPN 8: The Ocho… Bringing You the Finest in Seldom Seen Sports,” a satire of ESPN and its oversaturated empire. Some of The Ocho’s programming included: Tractor Racing; Soccer with a Flaming Ball; and Two Men Whipping Each Other with a Rope.

Ten years too late to the joke, in August, ESPN dedicated an entire day to being the Ocho, making shitty Ben Stiller jokes and showing live Cornhole tournaments in the process.

All the while, though, the true Ocho already existed.

For the last five years r/TheOcho has been the true “leader” in random sports coverage, making the vision of ESPN 8 a reality. From Steph Curry playing ball against a giant Korean puppet to Synchronized Fingering, r/TheOcho has it all.

“Back to you Cotton!”

Senior Citizen 60-Meter Dash

Fierljeppen (translation: Far-Leaping)

‘Bring the Pole Down’

2017 Wife-Carrying World Championship

Bike Soccer

Knife-Cutting Competition

Belt-Sander Races

Ladder Races

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about where we’re at with the ‘Why do Slavs squat’ meme.

More of Sam’s bullshit:

• The World’s Largest Bong and Other Devices That Will Blow Your Mind (and Destroy Your Lungs)
• Reddit Proves Nothing is More Metal Than Nature
• Angler Fish and All the Other Members of the Animal Kingdom Who Have Awful Sex
• The Subreddit Where wikiHow’s Illustrations Are Even Better Out of Context
• The Crappy Design Subreddit Is Home to the Dumbest Things Ever Constructed

The Subreddit That’s Made ‘The Ocho’ from ‘Dodgeball’ A Reality was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2012, from the depths of 4chan’s international board, we were introduced to the stereotypical and satirical catchphrase “Why Do Slavs Squat”? The phrase was normally paired with photos of young Eastern European men wearing Adidas jumpsuits, drinking vodka, smoking cigarettes and squatting on the ground.

The squat in particular set the internet ablaze.

The origins of Slavic squatting are unclear, but theories abound. Some believe it’s “because many Slavic people grew up in impoverished post-socialist countries,” where they had no other option than to squat due to a lack of park benches and miles upon miles of dirty grounds. Others think it was inherited from Turkish ancestors who apparently also loved to squat. Though, this guy makes the best argument: “The question is not ‘why do Slavs squat. The question is ‘Why the rest of the world doesn’t… It stretches and massages your glutes, hamstrings and your calves. Helps maintain hip mobility.”

Most recently, the meme has taken a new turn, in the subreddit r/slavs_squatting, where the rules are simple:

1. Only Slavs
2. Only squats

Whether you find it extremely offensive or you’re a “moth to the flame,” when it comes to Eastern European men in Adidas squatting, know this: The meme is only growing stronger, my comrades. And so, get caught up with this slideshow of our favorite squatting Slavs.

Za Zdarovje (To Health)!

The Squatting Giant

The Hero We Don’t Deserve

Double the Slav, Double the Adidas

Map Squat

How to Squat with Your Gold-Winning Turd

Anti-Gravity Squatting

Google Maps Squatting

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about the world’s largest bong.

More of Sam’s bullshit:

• The World’s Largest Bong and Other Devices That Will Blow Your Mind (and Destroy Your Lungs)
• Reddit Proves Nothing is More Metal Than Nature
• Angler Fish and All the Other Members of the Animal Kingdom Who Have Awful Sex
• The Subreddit Where wikiHow’s Illustrations Are Even Better Out of Context
• The Crappy Design Subreddit Is Home to the Dumbest Things Ever Constructed

Where We’re at With the ‘Why Do Slavs Squat’ Meme was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Illadelph beaker, 4 tree perc and honeycomb with ash cather and detachable dab rig binger not hitting you like it used to?

Same.

Think a 22-foot bong would do the trick instead?

For such a monstrosity, look no further than fabulous Las Vegas. Now that weed is legal in Sin City, Vegas is taking full advantage of “kush tourism,” so much so that it’s building its very own weed museum. Cannibition will open this summer as a full-blown “immersive cannabis museum experience.” Tickets start at $4.20 (noice), and its features include a 360-degree movie theater, stoner-themed art exhibits and the aforementioned 22-foot bong.

Yeah. Just totally blew my mind, too, man.

Constructed by Seattle’s Jerome Baker Designs, the bong will become the largest water pipe in the world. But major buzzkill, it’s just for looks. Even with weed being legal in Vegas, you won’t be able to buy it at the museum or take a world-record bong toke.

But this is America, land of dreamers, just because we can’t hit the Cannibition’s giant bong doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying to get as blitzed as possible. In the spirit of 420, I scoured the web looking for inspiration for my next weedventure. And a two-story binger is just the start.

Praise Jah!

The ‘Pineapple Express’ Guy Hits a Futuristic Gravity Bong

Weed + Car + Mattress Pump = Epic Hotbox

Gravity Bong Quartet

A Bong as Long as Its Smoker is Old

The World-Famous Hamm Autobong

This Guy Had to Have Died Shortly Hereafter, Right?

Weed + Leaf Blower = Kush Cannon

A Bong Load as Tall as Andre the Giant

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about the nature is metal subreddit.

More bullshit:

• Having a Favorite Anything as an Adult Is Bullshit
• The Eight Glasses of Water a Day Thing Is Bullshit
• ‘Sell by’ Dates Are a (Mostly) a Bunch of Bullshit
• Is Fruit Secretly Bullshit?
• The Last Time We Realized We Were Saying Something We Knew Was Bullshit

The World’s Largest Bong and Other Devices That Will Blow Your Mind (and Destroy Your Lungs) was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

WARNING: The following article contains graphic content that may leave you with a melted face and a taste for death. Parental discretion is advised. 🤘HAIL SATAN 🤘

1982: Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne bites off the head of a dead bat thrown on stage while performing live in Des Moines, Iowa.

METAL!

1986: Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen has his arm amputated after a car accident. He says fuck it, continues drumming for the band with one arm.

DOUBLE METAL!!

2014: Cute snow owl kills 70 lemmings, uses their furry carcasses to make a nest for its young.

HOLY SHIT, NATURE IS METAL AS HELL!!!

Speaking of nature and metal, if you happen to have a taste for the dark arts, but also find yourself watching Planet Earth on Netflix stoned, the subreddit Nature is Metal is the place for you. It’s an endless list of insane moments that occur in nature and a constant reminder that at any moment a leopard seal could decapitate you. For animal lovers, the moderators make it clear that they in no way condone animal violence and that “this subreddit is to appreciate the brutality and unforgiving parts of nature.”

After carving a pentagram into my forehead, I spent most of today compiling a list of my favorite metal moments in nature. I also enlisted metal sommelier and MEL editor Nick Leftley to pair each moment with a great metal song so as to enhance the experience even more.

A Group of Bees Avenge Their Friend Who Got Killed by a Hornet

Pair with DragonForce’s “Heroes of our Time”

Seal Gets Serious Air Time After Being Launched by an Orca

Pair with Megadeth’s “High Speed Dirt”

Jaguar Diving for Caimen (aka Crocodile) Kill

Pair with Trivium’s “Into the Mouth of Hell We March”

Pack of Wolves Hunting a Buffalo

Pair with Mastadon’s “Blood and Thunder”

Komodo Dragon Chowing Down on a Monkey

Pair with Gwar’s “Gor-Gor”

Jaguars Throw An Antelope from A Small(ish) Hill

Pair with Cannibal Corpse’s “Kill or Become”

Crocodile Gets Fucked Up by Gaggle of Hippos

Pair with Gatecreeper’s “Stronghold”

Trapdoor Spider Eats a Cricket

Pair with Morbid Angel’s “Immortal Rights”

Leopard Bitch-Slaps A Crocodile

Pair with Pantera’s “Walk”

A Golden Eagle Killing a Goat by Dragging it Off a Cliff

Pair with Christopher Lee’s “Massacre of the Saxons”

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about angler fish and all the other members of the animal kingdom who have awful sex.

More bullshit:

• Having a Favorite Anything as an Adult Is Bullshit
• The Eight Glasses of Water a Day Thing Is Bullshit
• ‘Sell by’ Dates Are a (Mostly) a Bunch of Bullshit
• Is Fruit Secretly Bullshit?
• The Last Time We Realized We Were Saying Something We Knew Was Bullshit

Reddit Proves Nothing is More Metal Than Nature was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”

Thus wrote Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Or maybe Roy Croft — who knows? Certainly not the internet. Whoever wrote these wedding-ubiquitous words, they forgot to include an addendum specifically for the case of the male anglerfish:

“…when I am fused to you by the mouth for eternity”.

That’s right: The male anglerfish spends its entire life floating around in a dark abyss searching for a female to mate with, and when he finds her…boy, does it get steamy!

The fish shoots its shot by becoming permanently attached by its mouth to the bottom of the lucky female anglerfish, who, it should be noted, is 60 times larger than her mate and one of the ugliest creatures to ever live.

The male’s sole purpose in life is to produce sperm for his giant host, so that it may give birth to more ugly fish. As time passes, the male becomes completely parasitic to the female: Its organs eventually disappear and the female’s blood circulates through its tiny cuck body to keep it alive and producing more fish spunk.

Actual footage of this most sacred ritual has been non-existent until March this year, when two researchers from the Rebikoff Foundation captured a skinemax version while filming in a submersible.

Naturally, when it came to weird, gross animal boning, we couldn’t just stop at anglerfish. Here’s what we dug up, presented without comment because we couldn’t stop vomiting long enough to say anything useful.

Bed Bugs: “When bedbugs mate, they do so by ‘traumatic insemination.’ As the female lacks a genital opening, the male pierces her abdomen with his hypodermic genitalia to leave his sperm in her abdominal cavity.” — Mother Nature Network

Ducks: “Once positioned properly, the drake’s penis explodes outward, into the oviduct — or vagina — of the female, a process that takes approximately one-third of a second.” — Sciencing

Cats: “Cat sex is excruciatingly painful. The cat penis is essentially a horrifying engine of pain covered in a dozen tiny fishhooks.” — Knowledge Nuts

Garter Snakes: “When a female garter snake emerges from hibernation, she releases a pheromone that attracts hundreds of male snakes in the vicinity to rush her and create a large squirming ‘mating ball.’” — Neatorama

Giraffes: “First, he nudges her rump to induce urination. He then takes a mouthful of urine. If it tastes good to him, then he begins to court her.” — Neatorama

Snails: “Before two snails mate, they shoot ‘love darts’ made of calcium at each other. People used to think that these sharp darts are nutritional gifts, like you give someone you love a box of chocolate.” — Neatorama

North American Porcupine: “The lucky male that finds her — and manages to chase away any rivals — stimulates ovulation by drenching her in an explosive jet of urine described as ‘a high speed projectile.’” — Live Science

Honey Bee: “Whenever a male drone ejaculates into the queen his testicles quite literally explode, propelling both his semen and his (now broken off) penis into the queen’s vagina. This act paralyses the male, leaving him to die.” — What Culture

Hippos: “For a hippo, mating begins with the romantic act of marking your territory by urinating and defecating (at the same time, no less!), then twirling your tail like a propeller to spread the olfactory mess in every direction.” — CNN

Suddenly that last Tinder date doesn’t seem so bad, huh?

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about: The Subreddit Where wikiHow’s Illustrations Are Even Better Out of ContextMore bullshit:

• Having a Favorite Anything as an Adult Is Bullshit
• The Eight Glasses of Water a Day Thing Is Bullshit
• ‘Sell by’ Dates Are a (Mostly) a Bunch of Bullshit
• Is Fruit Secretly Bullshit?
• The Last Time We Realized We Were Saying Something We Knew Was Bullshit

Angler Fish and All the Other Members of the Animal Kingdom Who Have Awful Sex was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

wikiHow has long been the best place on the internet to find answers to life’s most important questions—e.g., “How to Hide an Erection” or “How to Be Okay with Having a Communist Friend.” Besides the in-depth explainers on whichever strange topic you’re searching, however, the forum also has become well-known for its ridiculous illustrations. Exhibit #1: This illustration showing that you should “never get physical” at a rave, “even if you feel like someone is violating your space.”

Personally, I didn’t think wikiHow’s art could get any funnier. But then I found r/disneyvacation, which the page makes abundantly clear, “is not about actual vacations to Disneyland or Disneyworld.” It is, though, remarkably good at mocking wikiHow by allowing subscribers to post “weird/terrifying/hilariously bad pictures from WikiHow” along with “original and funny captions” (generally, by taking them completely out of context). It also made me laugh my ass off. So allow me to pay it forward in the hopes that your ass disappears from laughter, too.

How to Fuck a Ghost

How to Spice Up a Thumb War

How to Tell Someone Their Diet Failed

How To Maximize ‘Quiet Time’ For Your Kindergarten Class

How to Act Sad for the Police After You’ve Murdered Your Wife for the Insurance Money

How to Be President

How to Prepare for the War on Manspreading

How to Cheer Someone Up by Chucking a Fucking Stone at Their Head

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about kingpin grannies.

More bullshit:

• Having a Favorite Anything as an Adult Is Bullshit
• The Eight Glasses of Water a Day Thing Is Bullshit
• ‘Sell by’ Dates Are a (Mostly) a Bunch of Bullshit
• Is Fruit Secretly Bullshit?
• The Last Time We Realized We Were Saying Something We Knew Was Bullshit

The Subreddit Where wikiHow’s Illustrations Are Even Better Out of Context was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Grandma has been up all night working in the kitchen, but she’s not cooking her world-famous meatloaf: She’s cooking crack, pushing pills and fucking shit up.

Throughout history, men have often been associated with being kingpins of criminal organizations—from “Lucky” Luciano, who’s widely considered the father of modern organized crime, to Pablo Escobar the “King of Cocaine.” But that’s only a partial history. There are also plenty of women—septuagenarians, in fact—who have run their only families (the criminal kind, not the sons/daughters/grandchildren kind).

The most famous kingpin granny is probably Griselda Blanco (aka “The Cocaine Godmother” or “the Black Widow”). She earned the latter nickname because she was allegedly responsible for killing all three of her husbands. The assassinations, however, didn’t stop with the men she married. While she was the head of the Medellín Cartel, it’s rumored that she was responsible for more than 200 murders and that she raked in more than $80 million per month from selling coke. Sadly, in 2012, at the age of 69, she was killed while leaving a butcher shop in Colombia. She was recently portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the TV movie Cocaine Godmother.

More recently (as in last month), 75-year-old Betty Jean Jordan (aka the “Kingpin Granny”) was busted in Tennessee for moving a considerable amount of prescription drugs—1,000 pills to be exact (including opioids and Xanax).

Sixty-year-old Leola Michelle Alston (aka “Trap Queen”) was half “Cocaine Grandmother,” half “Kingpin Granny,” cutting the 100 kilos of coke cops found on her with 50,000 oxys. When asked by police about her 2016 arrest, she responded: “Every ghetto has a candy lady and that was me for years. But I just graduated to that other candy. I didn’t do it for me. I have 17 grandkids, and I wanted to send them all to college, so they won’t have to sell drugs.”

So the next time you get a $100 check from your grandma for your birthday, don’t go snooping around for answers.

Unless you want to get whacked, that is.

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about the Crappy Design Subreddit

More bullshit:

• Having a Favorite Anything as an Adult Is Bullshit
• The Eight Glasses of Water a Day Thing Is Bullshit
• ‘Sell by’ Dates Are a (Mostly) a Bunch of Bullshit
• Is Fruit Secretly Bullshit?
• The Last Time We Realized We Were Saying Something We Knew Was Bullshit

Kingpin Grannies was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Humans in a capitalistic society are constantly subjected to the hard work of designers, but in most cases, they could give a fuck. Nonetheless, every billboard, smart car, playground or ejaculating sex doll was meticulously architected by a genius designer, a modern Picasso if you will. Even if that Picasso is more or less ignored by the people who consume these things, rendered as something that simply exists around them as visual white noise.

But every so often, there’s a glitch in the matrix. Someone fucks up a design so badly that it ends up on the internet—most commonly the CrappyDesign subreddit, a place where awful design is publicly and deservedly shamed. It’s a place I go for solace, a place to feel better about myself and my ever-evolving design skills. Because if there’s one thing I know to be true it’s that I’ll never place a red slide in an elephant’s anus. (I, at least, would’ve gone with burnt umber.)

Either way, here’s the worst of the worst of CrappyDesign.

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer. He last wrote about how it’s mostly men who are killed by lightning—like the Bishop in Caddyshack.

More bullshit:

• Having a Favorite Anything as an Adult Is Bullshit
• The Eight Glasses of Water a Day Thing Is Bullshit
• ‘Sell by’ Dates Are a (Mostly) a Bunch of Bullshit
• Is Fruit Secretly Bullshit?
• The Last Time We Realized We Were Saying Something We Knew Was Bullshit

The Crappy Design Subreddit Is Home to the Dumbest Things Ever Constructed was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“The good Lord would never disrupt the best game of my life.”

These are among the famous last words of the “Bishop” in Caddyshack before he’s struck by lightning, destroying his chances to set the Bushwood course record and sending him on an epic, un-Godly bender. Even after being warned to go inside until the storm passes over, he’s willing to make himself a human lightning rod in order to cement himself in fictional golf lore.

It turns out he’s not alone.

Men are being killed by lightning at an alarmingly high rate compared to women. In a recent survey conducted by the National Weather Service, between the years of 2006 and 2016, men accounted for 80 percent of all lightning-related deaths, and much like our stubborn Bishop, 90 percent of those deaths involved the great outdoors and sports. (What might come as a shocker, however, is that of the 352 fatalities, only 9 of them occurred on the golf course.)

The study concludes that men are much more likely to die from lightning because — wait for it — men “are unwilling to be inconvenienced by the threat of lightning.” The majority of women, on the other hand, understand that when you hear thunder and lightning, you should immediately go inside until the storm passes.

So like licking a 9-volt battery or testing your dog’s shock collar, men would rather be electrocuted than prematurely finish a pick-up game of soccer. Or in the Bishop’s case, a round of golf.

LONG LIVE MAN!

Sam Dworkin is MEL’s senior designer.

More electricity:

Watch: A Beginner’s Guide to Electrocuting Your Brain

80 Percent of People Fatally Struck by Lightning are Men was originally published in MEL Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.