Blagger’s Blog: Royal blood, bloody shadow art, Santa’s habit

Weekly High

While the BBC’s recent adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic ‘Dracula’ divided opinion, the billboard used to promote the mini-series didn’t. Reacting to daylight, or rather sunset, it’s an eye-catching way to set the mood for gothic horror and shadow art at its finest. And we love it.

Weekly Low 

A line of Christmas sweaters at Walmart’s on-line shop were removed because they depicted Santa snorting coke on a table.

So, I guess when he says “On Vixen,” he’s actually just talking about snorting coke off the belly of a stripper at the North Pole Spearmint Rhino! pic.twitter.com/gyd4ndcvvV

— MeatBlanket (@MeatBlankett) December 25, 2019

While most of us were busy finishing our seasonal shopping and making sure the cupboards were stocked with all manner of treats and delicacies, US retail giant Walmart was apologising for selling Christmas jumpers that depicted Santa doing, well, something he definitely shouldn’t. Let’s just leave it at that (and apologise for not picking up on this before the holidays).

Need to know

Snapchat’s latest trend report has just been published — white elephant, impeachment process, full moon and Hanukkah were among the biggest topics in the final weeks of the last decade.

Twitter is introducing options to stop people replying to tweets in the hope of reducing anti-social behaviour and improving the quality of discussion.

Facebook is pursuing a ‘partial ban’ on deepfake videos.

How the internet broke this week

Thread:

I recently enquired to a football team, bit of 5-a-side fun. What I got in response is biblical.

A 14 page club guide. One four. For a 5-a-side team. Within it it absolute footballing gold, the highlights of which I am now going to share with you…..

— Martin (@NewAgeBoxingUK) January 9, 2020

This guy’s in-depth thread on the world’s strictest and most regulated five-a-side football team is pure Twitter gold, and is probably the best thing to happen online since we all got back to work. Take five and dive in, you’ll be a happier person for it.

Blagger’s Blog— Smoking Gun’s weekly roundup of media news, sans effort.