Life isn’t nearly as exciting with no new Harry Potter books or movies coming out. I’m pretty bummed about it, but probably not nearly as bummed as the people who hang out on MuggleNet. In case you’ve never heard of it, MuggleNet is “the world’s #1 Harry Potter site.” It was started by Emerson Spartz when he was 12 years old, and it quickly started generating a ton of traffic. And with that traffic came some serious revenue opportunities. As MuggleNet turned into a real business, Emerson rolled it into a company called Spartz Media and started launching new entertainment focused sites. Some of the bigger names include OMG Facts, Gives Me Hope, and SmartphOWNED. Spartz Media is located in Chicago, IL (about 3 blocks from me), and they’re reaching more than 8.5 million people every month through their web properties. They’ve been at it since 2009, though MuggleNet has actually been around since 1999.
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I love the idea of April Fool’s Day, but I’m almost never impressed with the pranks that people come up with. It’s really become a day where people show off how lame their sense of humor is. Since this is my fourth April Fool’s Day doing this and I still don’t have the heart to play a trick on hopeful job seekers, we’re going to do what we’ve done for the past three years–look at companies with good senses of humor. Last year we covered Second City (and at least one reader landed a job there). The year before it was CollegeHumor. And the year before that we took a look at Motley Fool (check out this job that their recruiter sent me this morning). We’ve also covered jobs at The Onion, but that wasn’t for April Fool’s Day. This year it’s all about Funny or Die, the “rapidly growing celebrity-anchored video website” based in San Mateo, CA. I guess this is what you get when you combine “a bunch of Silicon Valley dudes and ladies” with funny guys Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, and Chris Henchy.
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I’m not a big t-shirt guy. Don’t get me wrong, I have a ton of t-shirts, but they’re usually ones that I somehow managed to get for free. For me a t-shirt isn’t a great way to make a statement, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy the statements that other people make across their chests. Anti-eco is a New York City based t-shirt company that is all about making statements. They are “lovers of social commentary, rational provocation and a thriving healthy planet,” so they poke fun at the environmentalist movement while actually supporting it. You’ll find t-shirts with sayings like “acid rain tastes like chicken,” “be organic. eat an organ,” and “global warming sounds comfy.” They certainly sound anti-eco, but then you see that they use organic cotton, water based inks, and certified responsible apparel production methods. How ironic!
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I know how tough the job search is, so I’m not going to pull a prank on you. It would just be mean to tell you about some awesome jobs and then say that they don’t exist. Instead, I’m going to stick to what I’ve done for the last two April Fools’ Days and introduce you to some jobs with a humorous side to them. Two years ago we took a look at Motley Fool, and last year it was College Humor. This year we’re going to check out The Second City, which is “the leading brand in improv-based sketch comedy.” They have theaters in Chicago and Toronto, along with Training Centers in those cities and Hollywood too. The Second City is also where famous comedians like Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters!), Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Chris Farley cut their teeth. (My buddy Jason Seiden also did a little work at their Training Center.) It is the place for comedy, and it’s all located a mile up the street from where I live.
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Today’s post came from a reader recommendation (thanks Derek!), which is awesome because I was on the company’s site a few days ago and never would have imagined that they offer jobs (or even considered them a company as opposed to a website). The reason that I was on the site was that I was reading the story of Epic Beard Man (it is tagged NSFW), which is another one of those ridiculous things that has become popular on the Internet. The term that many use to describe these phenomena is meme. Know Your Meme is a website that organizes all of the world’s memes. Let’s say that you’re looking for the story behind Rickroll because you have no idea why people think it’s so funny. Know Your Meme, which is based in New York City, will not only explain the meme to you, but it will also detail the history of how the meme became popular and how it evolved. To some Know Your Meme may seem frivolous, but in many ways it’s the Historical Society of the Interwebs.
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I really wanted to play a gag on you this year. I wanted to post a ridiculous sounding job with a ridiculous application process, but I couldn’t bring myself to have fun at your cost. The job search is stressful enough. You don’t need someone messing with you even if you should know better than to believe anything that you read on April 1st. It’s going to be hard to top last year’s April Fools’ Day jobs with Motley Fool, and unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to save jobs with The Onion for today, so we’re going to go with CollegeHumor, which “was founded in 1999 by two high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland who went to different colleges as a way to share all of the pictures, videos, and links their friends would IM and e-mail each other.” Somehow, a completely childish and immature website turned into a real media company over the past 10 years; in fact, IAC recently bought a majority share in CollegeHumor’s parent company. College, just like April Fools’ Day, is a time to have fun – often at the expense of others. I guess it makes sense that CollegeHumor, now based in New York City, has become a real business, with real employees.
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Happy Election Day! I’m not going to urge you to vote like most other people will, because yesterday I learned that “It’s more likely that you will be killed driving to the polling booth than it is that your vote will change the outcome.” That’d be a lot to have on my conscience, so I’m going to say vote at your own risk. If you’re upset that I’m making a mockery of the political system, then today’s company isn’t for you. That’s because we’re talking about The Onion and their entry level jobs. I can’t think of a more fitting company for election day (except for maybe Diebold, but they’re not nearly as much fun) than The Onion because politics and satire go hand in hand. Without politics satire is hamstrung, and without satire politics is utterly painful. The Onion is not only “America’s finest news source,” but also “the funniest publication in the US” according to the New Yorker.
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