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No Jumper, a popular podcast whose roots are in hip-hop culture, has allegedly transitioned into a platform for white supremacy, antisemitism, and misogyny, according to a Media Matters for America investigation. The news site, which describes itself as “a progressive research center that monitors, analyzes, & corrects right-wing misinformation,” points to interviews that host Adam Grandmaison, aka Adam22, has conducted with Nick Fuentes, Richard Spencer, and members of the Nation of Islam in which each expressed bigoted viewpoints that Grandmaison did not challenge. “Did I just do my part to sort...

A brand new scripted audio series that just launched this year, NPRmageddon is “what National Public Radio will sound like after the apocalypse,” the team explains.

NPRmageddon is a ten-part post-apocalyptic sci-fi arthouse radio show audio drama adjective-rich podcast in the style of public radio, broadcast from the United States of “Lost” Angeles.

Creators Bryan Keithley and Peter Podgursky tell Save the Cat, “We based our storytelling on how modern media operates and what National Public Radio sounds like now.

“Our approach with NPRmageddon was to give our listeners the good stuff—to lean on one-off stories heavy on science fiction and horror tropes, but to push those tropes through the lens of public media journalism. Step through a typical episode of NPRmageddon, and you’ll find a delicious selection of news-y mayhem worthy of any headline-grabbing lineup from the real world—from marauding mutants to rogue AI’s to parasitic pulsating brains.

Chicago hackers in support of ongoing protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death have turned to an internet classic in order to thwart police officers.

Vice reports that on Saturday, Chicago police officers may have had more difficulty communicating with one another after protesters -- thought by some to be affiliated with hacker group Anonymous -- jammed police scanners with bursts of music. (Others attributed the act to a less sophisticated commandeering of radio frequency).

Regardless, one of the songs chosen by protesters was the YouTube classic "Chocolate Rain," which turned writer and producer Tay Zonday -- whose real name is Adam Bahner -- into a viral icon. While the 13-year-old clip went viral for Bahner’s quirky mannerisms and unique baritone -- to the tune of 127 million views to date -- some viewers might not know that the track is actually “a ballad about institutional racism,” as...

VidCon has added even more Featured Creators -- who attend the event for free and populate its programming, panels, and meet-and-greets -- ahead of the Viacom-owned video convention's tenth annual gathering in July.

The latest slate of Featured Creators includes: comedy vlogger Brent Rivera, contortionist Sofie Dossi, kids' content guru Roi 'Guava Juice' Fabito, singer-vlogger Trevor Moran, comedian-host Alexis G. Zall, burn survivor and beauty vlogger Shalom Blac, YouTube vet Olga Kay, and Colleen Ballinger -- of 'Miranda Sings' fame. The aforementioned stars -- as well as previously announced Featured Creators and stars hailing from traditional media -- will descend upon the Anaheim Convention Center from July 10 to 13.

Other Featured Creators added to the lineup yesterday include LDShadowLady, Motoki Maxted, Andrea Russett, The Crazy Gorilla, Louie’s Life, Thomas Sanders, Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Natalie Casanova, Jibrizy, Jaz Saini, Harjit Bhandal, InquisitorMaster, and Rosy McMichael. (You can check out...

VidCon has added a bevy of bellwether 'Featured Creators' for its 10th annual gathering to be held this summer in Anaheim, Calif.

The Viacom-owned convention will welcome Alisha Marie, Madilyn Bailey, Rickey Thompson, Jason Nash, Smosh co-founder Ian Hecox, Simone Giertz, and Matt Steffanina. And given that VidCon plans to fete Og creators in honor of a decade spent in Anaheim, these stars will join a separate group of Founding Featured Creators -- or YouTubers who have been attending the event since its inception. The first round of Founding Featured Creators were announced in October, including Shay Carl, Ze Frank, Tay Zonday, Brittani Louise Taylor, and Julie Nunes.

Featured Creators -- and Founding Featured Creators -- attend VidCon for free, and appear across varied programming initiatives, including panel discussions, Q&As, and meet-ups.

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If you’ve ever had Amazon remove a book from your Kindle or Apple snatch music out of your iTunes library, you know that one of the evil agendas of the internet is to make you buy the same media over and over. Perhaps that’s the subtext of “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” a fairly listless sequel to “Wreck-It Ralph” that recycles many of the previous film’s ideas and themes.

There are, to be sure, some worthwhile upgrades this time around — including one sequence that’s an instant classic — but it’s hard not to feel like you’ve already played this game once before.

We meet up with Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) and his best pal Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) still living their lives at, and behind the scenes of, an arcade, even though so many of these emporiums have gone the way of Blockbuster Video. Ralph loves the routine,...

To celebrate a decade of VidCons, the storied digital convention has announced a new class of ‘Featured Creator’ for this year's event -- or the YouTube stars who are invited free of charge and featured prominently across panels and programming.

This year, as VidCon winks back to its founding days, the Viacom-owned conference will spotlight a handful of Og YouTube stars it's referring to as 'Founding Featured Creators' -- or early viral stars who have attended VidCon since its inception. Nevertheless, many of these creators are no longer active on the platform today.

The initial roster includes controversy-ridden vlogger and entrepreneur Shay Carl, top BuzzFeed exec Ze Frank, deep-voiced crooner Tay Zonday, Lgbtq commentary creator Michael Buckley, musician Dave Days, music video parody artist Brittani Louise Taylor, retired vlogger Will Hyde, and singer Julie Nunes. VidCon founders John and Hank Green have also included themselves within the Founding Featured Creator class,...

Joey Graceffa, Hannah Hart and LaurDIY are just three of the 75 “Featured Creators” that will attend Viacom’s 10th annual VidCon U.S.

The company announced its first round of Featured Creators on Tuesday morning, which includes VidCon founders John Green and Hank Green, along with Miles McKenna, Tré Melvin, Karina Garcia, Jon Cozart, MyLifeasEva, Ricky Dillon, Safiya Nygaard, and Rafi and Benny Fine. The first round slate is available for viewing at VidCon.com.

To commemorate VidCon‘s 10th anniversary, the company is also bringing back creators who were at the first VidCon, including some of the web’s earliest viral stars like Tay Zonday, who went viral after producing and singing an original he dubbed Chocolate Rain, a video that now has more than 100 million views. Other “Founding Featured Creators” will include Michael Buckley, Julia Nunes and Brittany Louise Taylor.

Also Read: Viacom Taps Former Lego Video Exec...

Shay Carl Butler, co-founder of one of the earliest YouTube multi-channel networks, Maker Studios -- which was subsequently acquired by Disney for $675 million and folded into a new entity dubbed the Disney Digital Network last summer -- has left company.

Butler, the proprietor of one of the seminal family vlogging channels The Shaytards -- which has upwards of 5 million subscribers -- is joining a brand new McN from influencer marketing software startup Social Bluebook and Bent Pixels, which helps other companies in the space launch their own boutique MCNs by providing back-end support (as it did in a recent co-venture with talent agency Abrams Artists).

In addition to moving the Shaytards channel -- as well as the Butlers' other channels -- to the new  Social Bluebook outpost, which has been dubbed Social Bluebook Community, Butler has also tendered an undisclosed investment in the company, Variety reports, and has been appointed chief marketing officer.

In a typical round of the popular video game Fortnite: Battle Royale, 100 players drop into a dynamic environment to fight one another until only a single group of survivors remains. In creator Dan Bull's latest video, however, the featured players within a Fortnite game do battle with words rather than weapons. Bull, a Brit known for rapping about nerdy subject matter, collaborated with 99 other creators to launch a "Fortnite Rap Battle Royale."

While some of the creators featured in Bull's collaborations are known for their music, many others ply their respective trades as gamers or vloggers. If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, you'll recognize familiar names like Boogie2988, Jacksfilms, and GassyMexican within Bull's video.

Each creators hops in for a line or two before giving way to another rapper. When strung together, these lines form an 11-minute track that spans three languages and describes dozens of...

Machinima's latest exploration of the Transformers universe is all fueled up and ready to roll. Transformers: Titans Return, which continues the animated saga that began with 2016's Combiner Wars, has now launched on Go90.

Titans Return features some of the most iconic Transformers characters from the franchise, with Peter Cullen leading the way as the voice of the legendary Autobot leader Optimus Prime. Cullen anchors a strong cast that includes several actors who will reprise voice roles from earlier installments of the Transformers canon, including Judd Hirsch and Wil Wheaton. Several YouTube stars, including MatPat and Tay Zonday, are featured in the new series as well.

Like Combiner Wars, which according to Machinima has received more than 125 million global views since its premiere, Titans Return is available in most countries via Go90, which is run by Verizon. In China, the series will be released in partnership with local media company Sohu thanks to a 2016 deal.

Hasbro and Machinima have released the first trailer for their upcoming new Transformers animated series, Transformers: Titans Return. This is the second chapter of the series that started with Transformers: Combiner Wars, which is a series you should watch, especially if you're a fan of the original 80s Transformers series!

This latest iteration of Transformers was made for all of us who grew up on the original Transformers because it captures the style and spirit of it. This new trailer definitely shows off some cool footage from the new series, and I'm looking forward to checking it out! Here are the details that have been released for Titans Return:

Picking up right where the destruction of the Combiner Wars left off, Titans Return takes the action of the Prime Wars Trilogy to new ‘heights,’ and features return appearances from many fan-favorite Transformers characters as well as introduces new Autobots and Decepticons.

Hasbro and Machinima have released the first images from their upcoming new Transformers series Transformers: Titans Return! This is the second chapter of the series that began with Transformers: Combiner Wars. If you haven't watched this series, you totally should, especially if you're a fan of the original 80s Transformers series! This series is seriously made for all of us who grew up on Transformers. It's definitely better than the live-action Transformers movies! Here are the details that have been released for Titans Return:

Picking up right where the destruction of the Combiner Wars left off, Titans Return takes the action of the Prime Wars Trilogy to new ‘heights,’ and features return appearances from many fan-favorite Transformers characters as well as introduces new Autobots and Decepticons. In the series, enormous Transformers called Titans are awakened and these massive characters bring massive problems. Trypticon, a gigantic lizard-like Transformer, rises to wreak havoc on Cybertron,...

Hasbro, a global play and entertainment company, and Machinima, the premiere digital video programmer of gamer and fandom-focused content, announced the launch of the second chapter of digital series, Titans Return. The companies have confirmed that Peter Cullen, who originated the voice of Optimus Prime in the 1980s animated Transformersseries, will be making his Prime Wars Trilogy debut in the upcoming installment as the voice of Optimus Prime. Cullen will be joined by a host of fan favorites including Judd Nelson, who is reprising his roles of Rodimus Prime and Hot Rod from the 1986 animated Transformers movie, Michael Dorn as Fortress Maximus, Wil Wheaton as Perceptor, Nolan North as Metroplex and Jason David Frank as Emissary.

They are joined by returning talent from Combiner Wars, including Abby Trott (Windblade), Jason Marnocha (Megatron), Frank Todaro (Starscream), Lana McKissack (Mistress of Flame), and DashieGames (Menasor), as well as a new set of...

Sunday marked the 100th episode of “Last Week Tonight.” John Oliver dedicated the entire program making another rallying cry for retaining net neutrality rules. “The Internet is the repository of all human knowledge — and goats singing Taylor Swift songs,” the host joked, adding that “the Internet is an incredible place.” But, that is being threatened by the Trump administration’s decision to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules.

Read More: Stephen Colbert Slams Congress for Scrapping Internet Privacy Rules — Watch

To explain net neutrality, Oliver brought in Internet celebrity Tay Zonday. Net neutrality rules guarantee that Internet service providers (ISPs) cannot limit, slow down access to, or manipulate in any way the choices that consumers make online by slowing down access to less popular sites. Basically, they have to treat all websites equally. So, if net neutrality rules were wiped out, ISPs could slow down or even deny access to...

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of an important YouTube milestone: it will be 10 years to the day that Adam Bahner -- better known by his online moniker Tay Zonday -- wrote, produced, and uploaded one of the platform’s most infamous viral videos, Chocolate Rain.

The original piece -- delivered with quirky facial expressions and mannerisms, and in Bahner’s unique baritone, featuring lyrics like, "Some stay dry and others feel the pain” -- catapulted into the cultural zeitgeist in April 2007, and today counts upwards of 112 million views. It also helped Bahner become a bonafide YouTube star. His channel, featuring vlogs and cover videos, has now clocked over 1 million subscribers.

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Hotel of the Damned is waiting for you to check in. From Uncork'd Entertainment, Hotel of the Damned will be released on VOD on December 6th. Also in today's Highlights: a trailer for Nathan Ambrosioni's Therapy, premiering exclusively on Shudder, Kickstarter details for the slasher/whodunit short film White Knuckle, a teaser video and release details for Johnny Dagger's horror novel, Neverlasting,

Hotel of the Damned VOD Release Details and Trailer: "Make your reservation with the Hotel of the Damned this December via Uncork’d Entertainment.

No use hanging up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign here. After a car accident and stranded in the middle of nowhere, an ex-con and his daughter find themselves in an abandoned hotel, populated by sub-human cannibalistic creatures. Is it check-out time, already!?

Peter Dobson (The Frighteners) and Louis Mandylor (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) star in a Bobby Barbacioru film, out December 6th on VOD.

Gore fans rejoice! Happy Wheels The Series premieres today on go90.com. The new nine-episode series is based on the hit online-game-turned-app which has been played by millions around the world. The series will feature the voices of many of the YouTube personalities who helped make the game such a big success — including Jordan ‘CaptainSparklez’ Maron, Shanna Malcolm and Jerome ‘JeromeASF’ Aceti. Other YouTube stars lending their voices to the show include Chocolate Rain singer Tay Zonday, Lance ‘Lance210’ Stewart, Anna ‘Brizzy Voices’ Brisbin, xRPMx13, LogDotZip, RickyFTW, Eliot Dewberry, Brizzy Voices and Lance Stewart. For those who haven’t been party to the...read more...

Some of your favorite characters from Masters of the Universe have joined Funko's long line of Dorbz figures. He-Man, Skeletor, and Mer-Man also come with a limited variant version. Also: ReAction E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial figures and a new trailer for Tiffany Castro's Lucifer.

Masters of the Universe Dorbz: From Funko: "By the power of Grayskull! Masters of the Universe are coming in Dorbz form!

Prince Adam, aka He-Man, and his weaponry ally Man At Arms are joined by the villainous Skeletor, an evil demon, and Mer-Man, ruler of Eternia's undersea kingdom!

He-Man, Skeletor, and Mer-Man each come with a limited chase variant, all with a 1 in 6 rarity!

Be sure to pick up Faker, available exclusively at Walmart!

Collect them all this winter!

Coming in December!”

Images from Funko:

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E.T. The Extra-Terrestial Re-Action Figures: From Funko: "E.T. phone home!

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and his buds Elliott and Gertie come...

Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy are waiting to be the star of your nightmares! Funko's Five Nights at Freddy's action figures and Mystery Minis will be available in December! Also, check out the details and trailer for Machinima's Happy Wheels series and Thin Air book details and ghost prank video.

Five Nights at Freddy's Figures and Mystery Minis: From Funko: "Action Figures: Five Nights at Freddy's

The Five Nights at Freddy's gang is returning to our Action Figure line!

Don't be fooled by Funtime Foxy's cheerful appearance -- Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy are in their terrifying Nightmare form!

Collect them all to assemble a special Nightmarionne!

Coming in December!

Mystery Minis: Five Night's at Freddy's

These Mystery Minis glow in the dark! Freddy Fazbear and his creepy crew of animatronic buddies are coming this winter!

Coming in December!”

Images from Funko:

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Machinima's Happy Wheels Animated Series: Press Release: "Burbank,...

Anti-villain Media has released the first trailer for Lucifer. Developed from a short film, Lucifer involves a caretaker and author, in a remote home. The subject matter of her story causes all kings of haunted chaos. And, the film has been directed by Tiffany Castro, from Brent Trotter and Justin Kornmann's script. Ryan Kelley (“Teen Wolf”), Jessica Morris (“One Life to Live”), ex-con actor Dave Vescio (Hick), Tay Zonday and Jason Horton star. The film's teaser trailer is hosted here. The trailer shows character Amiel (Monique Marie Gelineau) ascending a set of stairs, in a darkened home. A voice-over narrative talks about the devil's existence as Amiel approaches a closed door. What lies in the darkness? Lucifer is expected to release this year. Slated for a Fall 2016 release, Lucifer will bring true supernatural terror to the big and small screens, later this year. Release Date: Fall 2016. Director: Tiffany Castro.

What do you get when you cross a Halloween party in a haunted mansion and the ability to immerse yourself and pick what happens next? That’s what YouTube Nation’s Halloween: Can You Survive? special wants to find out. Produced by Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf and hosted by GloZell, the Halloween special allows viewers to pick their own adventure once the main storyline is set up. The special starts off with the Halloween party Tay Zonday is throwing for several other YouTubers in a haunted mansion he purchased (with some spooky sets designed by Guillermo Del Toro at the YouTube Space La). After Zonday warns the guests not to move any item from its location so as not to incite the anger of the spirit who lives in the estate, Steve Zaragoza runs into the room with a crystal he removed from the attic and consequently drops dead...

Since its introduction in early 2013, Revision3’s sub-network TestTube has exploded in popularity, producing cool science-y shows the McN’s parent company Discovery Digital Network has a knack for, like the popular I F***ing Love Science. Now they’ve got a new show called Life Noggin, aimed at the incurably curious people among the online video masses. The show’s creator Ian Dokie told Tubefilter about show in an email: “Every episode is created in a clean 2D animation style and we cover everything from science to pop culture.” Similar in style to Hank and John Green’s CrashCourse, or the trivia-based Mental Floss, Life Noggin presents interesting facts and information through a 2D character named So far, only two videos are on YouTube (excluding one that introduces the channel), but Dokie says they plan to be release new content every Monday. The most recent episode from August 25 is...

We've all heard it - legendary YouTube video 'Chocolate Rain', crooned by the deep-voiced Tay Zonday. But the song was actually uploaded over seven years ago, so you'd be forgiven for wondering what Tay looks like now.

Well, wonder no longer - because Tay makes an appearance on our televisions tonight (August 11) on E4's Virtually Famous - and, yep, he pretty much looks exactly the same.

Tay pops up on the Kevin McHale-hosted panel show to use his voice to great effect (mocking Radio 1 DJ Chris Stark). We have a clip from the show right here, so have a watch to revel in Tay's voice:

Virtually Famous airs tonight (August 11) at 10pm on E4.

YouTube has turned nine, and it celebrated by singing a few of its favorite songs. In a video released on the YouTube Spotlight channel, a handful of the site's top stars belt out karaoke versions of YouTube's greatest hits. The four-minute video runs through nine years of viral YouTube hits. Chester See kicks things off with a rendition of "Chocolate Rain" before Tay Zonday himself arrives to belt out his version of the "Bed Intruder Song". Other highlights include MysteryGuitarMan's on-point cover of the "Trololo" song and Steve Kardynal's hilariously off-key mangling of "Call Me Maybe". There are plenty of other YouTubers in attendance, and they team up to sing karaoke versions of eight different YouTube classics. The video arrived on YouTube one day after the site teamed up with John Legend and the Kennedy Center to present YouTube Onstage Live, a showcase of some of the brightest musicians YouTube has to offer.

Frozen's hit song is called "Let It Go," but this catchy tune isn't going anywhere. Between Frozen's box-office success and the deluge of frigid weather, "Let It Go" has become the anthem of the season. This perfect storm reached a new peak with the ballad's Academy Award win for Best Original Song, making writer Robert Lopez the youngest Egot ever. Related: Watch the Oscars Performance of 'Let It Go'Throughout it all, fans have fed "Let It Go" fever by churning out their own versions of Idina Menzel's (or is it Adele Dazim's?) ode to self-empowerment. Batman villains,...

A number of popular YouTube creators are all converging on the Webisodes Network platform for some card game comedy. Boogie2988, Tay Zonday, Kylie Sparks, and Bryarly Bishop are among the cast members for Top Decking, a web series based around Magic: The Gathering that recently began its second season. Top Decking takes place inside a game store where the main characters all hang out and play Magic. At the start of the second season, the plot has shifted to a new gaming store owned by a lisping Boogie. The debut also contains a guest role from a fifth YouTube creator, Jimmy Wong, who portrays a particularly sardonic lawyer. Top Decking's second season has thus far run for four episodes, and while the show's first season is available across multiple platforms, the new releases are housed exclusively on the Webisodes Network, which brands itself as a go-to source for short form web content.

You may not know the name Catie Wayne, but if you spent a lot of time on YouTube around 2009 or so, you're probably familiar with her alter ego: Boxxy. Wayne's excitable, rambling vlogs turned her most popular character into an Internet sensation, but she has recently expanded her presence to other endeavors. Wayne is the host of Weird, Gross, and Beautiful, a web series set starring the unusual members of the animal kingdom. Weird, Gross, and Beautiful is part of Discovery's Animalist network. The three adjectives in its title probably give you an idea of what it entails. Each episode will take on a different revolting critter, with Wayne explaining why it is beautiful, not ugly. She gushes about maggots in the first episodes, and by the time her vlog makes its way to botflies, its less "beautiful" and more "unbelievably horrifying." As with any other series on a Discovery vertical,...

Southern California isn’t exactly the first location that springs to mind when one thinks of a winter wonderland, but that didn’t stop the folks at YouTube Space La from turning their studios into a veritable White Christmas for this holiday season's annual #Tubeathon. Presented by What’s Trending in partnership with Ford and its FiestaMovement, the second annual iteration of #Tubeathon was held this past December 12th, 2013 to a capacity crowd and broadcast live to millions over the internet. The evening, emceed by What’s Trending’s own hostess with the mostess Shira Lazar, parody king Bart Baker, and all-around wunderkind Ethan Newberry, was truly a meeting of online greatness for a worthy cause. Nearly 100 YouTube and traditional media celebrities gathered to raise money for Covenant House, a nationwide charity network dedicated to raising money for homeless children. With a powerful end goal in mind, spirits couldn’t...

Toronto -- Canadian Internet video sensation Corey Vidal is launching the inaugural Buffer Festival in Toronto this November to showcase popular YouTube content in front of a theatrical audience. The festival, to run over three days at the Bell Lightbox Theater in Toronto, will feature video content from YouTube stars like Vidal, Charles Trippy, Tay Zonday, Charlie McDonnell of YouTube's charlieissocoollike channel and Jack Douglas. The aim is to go beyond smartphones, tablets, computer screens and TV sets to show popular YouTube content in a film festival setting. Story: Lawrence Lessig Sues Over Takedown of YouTube Video Featuring Phoenix Song The

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Six months after it finished a triumphant run on Indiegogo, ShayCarl's documentary about vlogging is beginning to take shape. The popular YouTuber, Maker Studios co-founder, and loving husband and father debuted the trailer for Vlogumentary during a presentation at Vidcon. Vlogumentary used to be titled I'm Vlogging Here, but despite taking on a (marginally) less goofy name, the film itself will explore the same subjects Shay proposed during his Indiegogo campaign. Specifically, it will delve into the art of vlogging and explore every nook and cranny within. Judging from the trailer, Vlogumentary's subjects will include popular vloggers, lesser-known vloggers, happy vloggers, sad vloggers, serious vloggers, silly vloggers, and many other classifications. For many of Shay's fans, it is the first group that will be the main draw. There are many well-known YouTubers involved in the project, including the Vlogbrothers, Nice Peter, Toby Turner, Grace Helbig and Tay Zonday. If you watch the trailer,...

This will be our second week doing a new series of posts here at SciFi Mafia that we’re calling Web Series Wednesday where we devote a space to the wonderment of the web series. Every Wednesday we’ll cover two awesome web series shows and give you all the info to get into them.

If you’ve got a favorite web series you’d like us to cover, head on over to the Contact Us page and shoot us your request. To catch up on past Web Series Wednesday posts click here.

This week we’re covering The Guild and The Doctor Puppet.

The Guild is one of the best known web series, so if you’re familiar with its awesomeness you can go on and skip to the next series. The Guild is the brainchild of Felicia Day and has just completed its Sixth Season. It’s won...

Three more YouTube channels are hoping to catch a bit of the Epic Rap Battles of History magic. Nerdist, Toonocracy, and Official Comedy have teamed up for Animeme Rap Battles, where iconic Internet characters go toe-to-toe in lyrical combat. Three episodes, one on each of the contributing channels, have been released, and there are a plethora of YouTube stars providing the necessary voices. Tay Zonday gives his typical sub-baratone performance as the suave Old Spice guy, Michelle Glavan channels Overly Attached Girlfriend, and, in the best of the three options, Shane Dawson and Grace Helbig face off as Nyan Cat and Grumpy Cat, respectively. While a rap battle series featuring incredibly popular characters from internet culture is potentially great, Animeme Rap Battles could use a level up on its smack talkin' game. That isn't to say the program is without clever lines, but the raps resort far too often to petty,...

Ladies, gentleman, aliens from the farthest reaches of the galaxy and daedra from the deepest parts of Oblivion.... The Internet!

In something that can have only come from the mind of Sheogorath, "Internet Celebrity" Tay Zonday, famous for Chocolate Rain belts out the thunderous tune from "Skyrim." In a weird way I can't help but sing along, not only because it's a fine tune, but he also graciously provides karaoke style sing along text. So now that you finally have the words, there's not much of an excuse to not toss back a flagon of mead and summon your "Thu'um."

Comments about this version have been pretty funny but the best one comes from YouTuber "toydoctorrrs" with the below comment.

Still, for my money's worth (which is free... I guess...) I prefer this rendition of "Dragonborn Comes" beautifully sung by Malukah. Check out her YouTube channel for a few more video game songs.

The Fine Bros' MyMusic show is wrapping up its first season this weekend (more on that in a couple days), but meanwhile, another one of Benny and Rafi's shows is just heating up. The popular duo has released a second episode of YouTubers React, and in addition to returning all of the YouTube stars who appeared in the first installment, the brothers have added gamer Syndicate and visual effects gurus Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch of the FreddieW channel. In the episode itself, one of the three featured videos is Tay Zonday's 'Chocolate Rain', which seems like an ordinary choice aside from the fact that Tay himself is one of the featured YouTubers. I'm not sure how he'll feel about the way several of his fellow YouTubers mocked his insistence on moving away from the microphone to breathe in. I'm sure he's heard it all before. I'd like to...

The Fine Bros can thank Kids React for launching them to YouTube superstardom. When that idea started to get a little stale, the duo introduced Teens React, which somehow managed to reach even higher levels of popularity. When they needed an Even Fresher idea, they turned to our nation's seniors, and Elders React is probably my favorite variation. A new version, however, may challenge for that title. The Fine Bros will soon debut YouTubers React, which is exactly what it sounds like: as with previous installments, the featured group (in this case, notable online video stars) will sit in front of a computer, watch a video, and let Benny and Rafi film their reactions. What's notable is the sheer number of famous faces involved in this project. They go by pretty quickly in the trailer, but we get to see iJustine, Smosh, Epic Meal Time, Shane Dawson, ShayCarl, CaptainSparklez, MysteryGuitarMan,...

Over the summer, Ashton Kutcher's Thrash Lab channel (a YouTube Original) aired Dream Bigger, a ten part series profiling the work of ten aspiring young creators. In the end, three of the ten pilots were chosen to develop into full-on web series. Two of the winners have already debuted: Bklyn Flex, a series about the unusual "flexing" dance subculture, and Real Artists, the brilliantly apt comedy about the Brooklyn hipster stereotype. Now, the third entry from the Dream Bigger series, titled Eric Finley: Comment Counselor, has finally debuted. Eric Finley tells the story of its titular character, a saccharine guidance counselor who gets many inflammatory comments on a poorly made YouTube video. Finley then attempts to track down the users who have insulted him with the intention of giving all of the hateful commenters a free counseling session. Obviously, plenty of hijinks ensue along the way. The first episode...

The first season of D-Trix Presents Dance Showdown, which paired YouTube celebrities with professional dancers in a Dancing With The Stars-type conceit, was a smash it. Dance Showdown was the flagship program on the DanceOn channel, and the series' 10 million views have led the way for DanceOn to become the ninth most viewed network in the YouTube Original Channels Initiative. Though similar in concept to Dancing With The Stars, Dance Showdown was a hit due to the goofiness of the YouTube celebs it featured. Who doesn't want to see Tay Zonday attempt to get jiggy with it? Today, Ubisoft and DanceOn announced that Dance On will be returning for a second season, which will premiere on October 5th. D-trix will return as the producer, with 'NSync's Joey Fatone (a one-time Dancing With the Stars contestant) and 'Choreographer to the Stars' Laurieann Gibson as regular hosts. Both a...

Scooter Braun, the puppetmaster behind pop acts like Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen, has signed another Internet sensation to his musical roster: Psy, that weird dude who made the “Gangnam Style” video. Braun’s betting that the South Korean isn’t just this year’s Tay Zonday, announcing earlier this week (via YouTube, appropriately enough) that the two are now working together. Psy has been signed to Braun’s label, Schoolboy, which is under the Universal umbrella. To date, "Gangnam Style" has been viewed over 107 million times on YouTube and remained at No. 1 on Billboard’s K-Pop ...

“Call Me Maybe” is the gift that keeps on giving. As if it wasn’t enough that the unofficial music video featured Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Tisdale, there are versions from Katy Perry, Harvard’s baseball team, Donald Trump, and even the leader of the free world.

Today brings the total up two more. We have (shirtless!) Abercrombie & Fitch models dancing all over the world, and, well, a sign that the end of this trend is most definitely near: Corgis. Check out their versions — as well as a round-up of some more of our favorites — after the jump.

'Chocolate Rain' singer Tay Zonday has covered Carly Rae Jepsen's smash hit 'Call Me Maybe'. The deep-voiced Zonday, who was an early YouTube sensation, opens the clip by revealing that he purposely sang 'Call Me Maybe' "as low as [he] could just for fun". Zonday's cover of Jepsen was released on his YouTube page on Tuesday (June 12) and has already amassed more than 650,000 page views. The 29-year-old Minneapolis native has covered other artists' work in the past, such as (more)...

Here's a "Call My Maybe" cover star we didn't expect: Colin Powell!The song that just won't die got two brand new versions this morning -- one from the former Secretary of State.Powell was a guest on "CBS This Morning" earlier today, when he and host Gayle King sang Carly Rae Jepsen's infectious tune.Powell isn't the only one with a new cover of the song though.Tay Zonday, the guy who made "Chocolate Rain" an Internet sensation, also posted his YouTube version ... and it's creepy.With Zonday's crazy deep voice, it's "Call Me Maybe" as you've never heard it before.Do you think these covers will stop anytime soon?! Read more...

“Call Me Maybe” is the gift that keeps on giving. As if it wasn’t enough that the unofficial music video featured Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Tisdale, there are versions from Katy Perry, Harvard’s baseball team, Donald Trump, and even the leader of the free world.

Today brings the total up two more. We have former Secretary of State Colin Powell dueting with Gayle King, as well as YouTube superstar Tay Zonday, of “Chocolate Rain” fame, using his signature deep voice to bring a different spin to the song you can’t get away from. Check out...

Move over, President Obama. Jimmy Fallon? Yesterday's news. Because there's a new sheriff in "Call Me Maybe" Town: Tay Zonday.

The "Chocolate Rain" singer has jumped in the game of covering Carly Rae Jepsen's inescapable pop jam, albeit about a dozen octaves lower than we thought possible.

This video may not clock 80 million views like "Chocolate Rain," but if it doesn't cement "Call Me Maybe" as the official summer song of 2012, we don't know what could.

We all know the future of TV is the web, and now DanceOn has officially launched the first major online dance competition series. HollywoodLife.com has all the scoop! Have you ever watched your favorite YouTube star and asked yourself, "Sure, they can make me laugh -- but can they dance?" If so, allow me to present your next addiction: Dance Showdown, a new interactive web series, pairs famous YouTube personalities ("Obama Girl" and Tay Zonday are among its ranks) with professional dancers to compete against other teams. And while that aspect might sound vaguely familiar, DanceOn founder Amanda Taylor and Dance Showdown creative executive producer D-Trix give HollywoodLife.com three key differences to mainstream TV dance competitions. 1. The audience is broader: "It's actually cooler than just America voting," Amanda points out. "It's the entire world." 2. The drama is real: "Sometimes [dance competition shows] get too personal," D-Trix says. "We're cutting around all...

It's time to get your DanceOn. America's Best Dance Crew's D-trix is executive producing a new weekly interactive dance competition show, D-trix Presents Dance Showdown, featuring YouTube’s biggest names battling it out for the title of ‘Dance Showdown Champion’ and $25K. Contestants include Obama Girl, Hannah Hart, Tay Zonday, ItsKingsleyBitch, xJawz, and Good Neighbor. The show debuts today on YouTube Original Channel DanceOn, the global entertainment network for dance, championed by superstar partners like Madonna. DanceOn was selected as part of YouTube's $100 million original content initiative. The show will also feature So You Think You Can Dance winner Lauren Froderman, the star of E’s The Dance Scene Kherington Payne, 2012’s Superbowl Halftime Show choreographers Napoleon and Tabitha D’Umo, Beyonce’s lead dancer, Bryan Tanaka, and YouTube dancing prodigy Ian Eastwood, who will mentor and choreograph the contestants, for whom audiences will get to vote after the first performance on Thursday,...

What do you get when you combine five YouTube stars with an aggregate view count just shy of 700 million and a total subscriber base bumping 5 million individuals, under the banner of a single channel that’s part of the $100 million YouTube Originals initiative and run by a media company that provides “marketing and production resources for the biggest YouTube influencers”? You get a YouTube channel with a name that’s evocative of something you’d see on a Roy Lichtenstein print that features original content across five brand new series from the likes of MysteryGuitarMan, DeStorm, CorridorDigital, Mike Diva, and Tay Zonday. Bammo is Big Frame’s entrant into the online original channels fray. The YouTube network and talent aggregator started by Sarah Penna (back when she was Sarah Evershed) and helmed by Steve Raymond officially launched the online video destination that brings you “all your favorite YouTube superstars together...

YouTube has produced its fair share of celebrities. And while Tay Zonday's no Justin Beiber, his 2007 hit "Chocolate Rain" took him all the way to to TV, radio and the cover of The Los Angeles Times.

Since then, the barritone voice actor has created several other internet memes (though none quite as successful as his original hit, which has garnered more than 73 million views) and even made an appearance alongside Beyonce in a 2010 Vizio Superbowl commercial.

Zonday's latest work, "Mama Economy," aims to explain the country's economic crisis...in song. Could this be the new anthem for the 99 percent?

Watch:...

Internet hits are the subjects of new documentaries, giving fans a chance to uncover some mysteries. Like, what is 'accoutrema'?

First posted on YouTube in 2007, the viral clip known as Iron Mic: Eli Porter vs Envy is, at first glance, a rap battle between two teenage MCs of questionable talent. But it's also much, much more. Imagine a hip-hop special of Britain's Got Talent – if Britain's Got Talent had a production budget of £4.50 and was crewed entirely by high 16-year-olds – and you're starting to understand why the clip has won 3.4m views. It's also a treasure trove of amateurish camera angles, mic feedback and inexplicable editing choices. For hip-hop fans, it's either the worst rap battle ever or the greatest, depending on your point of view, and a source of endless online musings. The idiosyncratic delivery style of the clip's star, Eli Porter, led some viewers to assume he has...

There's a particular formula for becoming a YouTube star -- shades funny, shades talented, shades blithely un-self-aware that yields a ridiculously watchable, viral result. So when the internet video's reigning champions went on "America's Got Talent" YouTube Show Wednesday night, we were curious to see how Rebecca Black, Keenan Cahill and early YouTube phenomenon Tay Zonday of "Chocolate Rain" fame would fare. (Other-act-of-the-night Ok Go also performed, but the treadmill-happy band hardly counts as being unseasoned on stage). After all, between the three of them, they've amassed hundreds of millions of views and collaborations with bona fide celebrities, like Katy Perry and 50 Cent.

So did they deliver? Well, it was pretty much as you'd expect. Tay Zonday performed first, singing a refrain from his lower-register song while sitting in a golden throne and looking awfully serious. Keenan Cahill was the worst of the three, despite a much-needed boost from host and singer Nick Cannon,...