UNILAD

Last updated

UNILAD
UNILAD logo.png
Type of site
Media and entertainment
Available inEnglish
OwnerThe LADbible Group Ltd
Founder(s) Alex Partridge, Jamie Street
URL www.unilad.com
Launched2 April 2010;14 years ago (2010-04-02)
2014;10 years ago (2014) (relaunch)
Current statusOnline

UNILAD is a British Internet media company and website owned by LADbible Group. [1] The company markets itself as "a primary platform for youngsters for breaking news and relatable viral content", [2] and has offices in London and Manchester. [3] UNILAD was shut down in 2012, but it relaunched in 2014 under new owners Liam Harrington and Sam Bentley. The company has since developed into a media network that creates and licenses original content. [4]

Contents

The company has a primary channel as well as eight sub-channels that specialise in technology, travel, and other topics. [5] [6] UNILAD's Facebook page had 17 million followers in 2016, with 2.7 billion monthly video views, second to BuzzFeed's "Tasty" channel in views. [7] In October 2018, UNILAD was bought out by LADbible. [8]

Site creation and ownership

Alex Partridge from Eastbourne and Jamie Street, a student at the University of Plymouth, created the original website. [9] According to an FAQ on the website in 2010, the site was "created, designed and written by Alex Partridge", then a 21-year-old student at Oxford Brookes University. [10] Street, then a web design student at the University of Plymouth, managed technical aspects of the site, claiming that he was "not responsible for writing or checking the content that gets published". [9]

In 2014, Liam Harrington and Sam Bentley acquired ownership of the brand name and inherited its Facebook page. [5]

Rape-themed content

The 2010 website described itself as being "for when you are bored in the library" and "the 'tongue in cheek', article based solution to library boredom". [11] In addition, UNILAD also described itself as the "number one university student lad's magazine". [12] The site also set up a "Uni Ladette" page with "debauched disasters" from a "borderline alcoholic" female writer that they supposedly found in "a gutter, muttering something about needing to get laid and nursing her broken stilettos". [13]

The site attracted considerable critical comment in the press and on Twitter due to perceived promotion of rape in some of the articles on the website. Articles that have been reported on in the press include:

The website also contained a shop section that sold T-shirts with a variety of slogans, including a rape-themed T-shirt in the style of the World War II-era Keep Calm and Carry On propaganda posters reading "Keep Calm – It Won't Take Long". [18]

Estelle Hart from the National Union of Students said that articles on the website promoted a "casual trivialisation of rape". Hart argued that "a website referring to women as wenches and slags isn't simply the harmless 'banter' the writers want us to believe". [19] A number of student newspapers published editorials condemning Uni Lad including those at the University of Bristol, [20] the University of Birmingham, [21] the University of Liverpool, [15] and Newcastle University. [19] The BBC Radio 4 magazine show Woman's Hour interviewed a number of female students in Brighton who described the 'Sexual Mathematics' article as "vulgar" and were very critical of sexist comments and 'banter' on Facebook. [22]

Sarah McAlpine wrote an article for The F-Word, a UK feminist blog, which argued that Uni Lad was "an entire culture summed up in one hideous website". [17] The website TechRadar listed it as one of the "10 most hated websites of all time". [23]

Following the public reaction, Partridge from Uni Lad said that the site "overstepped the mark" and "took things too far", and claimed that he was taking the site down until they "greatly improved" their editorial policies. [9]

The University of Plymouth launched a disciplinary investigation against Street who claimed to be the designer of the site but not involved in the content. [9] [17] The University of Plymouth Students' Union released a statement saying that there "can be no question that some of the content published on the Uni Lad website is completely unacceptable and offensive in nature", but stating that they would not make any further comment on the matter due to the investigation that the university was leading. [24]

New ownership

The brand was acquired by entrepreneurs Liam Harrington and Sam Bentley in 2014. The rebranded UNILAD launched in 2014 at unilad.co.uk. The UNILAD Facebook page, inherited in 2014 with 300,000 fans, grew to have 11.5 million Facebook likes by 2016, with a web presence at unilad.co.uk. [5]

Harrington and Bentley stated that they decline to publish some submitted content due to backlash, [7] and The Guardian notes that its content differs significantly from that of the previous iteration of the website. [5] The site is described as having a reputation for "trivial lad-focused videos", with titles such as "5 On 5 Fighting Is Back And It's F*cking Brutal." [6]

In October 2018, the company that owned UNILAD went into administration, with owners Harrington and Bentley having incurred debts of £6.5 million and owing taxes of £1.5 million. [25] A day later, managing director John Quinlan denied reports that it had gone into administration, saying the brand is "doing better than ever" and that he was "confident" that a buyer would be found. [26]

In October 2018, a few days later after it went into administration, UNILAD was bought by LADbible for an undisclosed fee. [27]

Related Research Articles

A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive or disturbing to its viewers, though it can also contain elements of humor or evoke sexual arousal. Shock-oriented websites generally contain material that is pornographic, scatological, racist, antisemitic, sexist, graphically violent, insulting, vulgar, profane, or otherwise some other provocative nature. Websites that are primarily fixated on real death and graphic violence are particularly referred to as gore sites. Some shock sites display a single picture, animation, video clip or small gallery, and are circulated via email or disguised in posts to discussion sites as a prank. Steven Jones distinguishes these sites from those that collect galleries where users search for shocking content, such as Rotten.com. Gallery sites can contain beheadings, execution, electrocution, suicide, murder, stoning, torching, police brutality, hangings, terrorism, cartel violence, drowning, vehicular accidents, war victims, rape, necrophilia, genital mutilation and other sexual crimes.

Salad Fingers is a British animated web series created by David Firth in 2004. It revolves around the eponymous Salad Fingers, a thin, green, mentally troubled man who inhabits a desolate world. As of September 2023, thirteen episodes have been published on YouTube and Newgrounds. Since its debut, Salad Fingers has amassed a cult following and has been described as a viral phenomenon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friends Reunited</span> Portfolio of social networking websites

Friends Reunited was a portfolio of social networking websites based upon the themes of reunion with research, dating and job-hunting. The first and eponymous website was created by a husband-and-wife team in the classic back-bedroom Internet start-up; it was the first online social network to achieve prominence in Britain, and it weathered the dotcom bust.

Lad culture was a media-driven, principally British and Irish subculture of the 1990s and the early 2000s. The term lad culture continues to be used today to refer to collective, boorish or misogynistic behaviour by young heterosexual men, particularly university students.

Hyperlocal is information oriented around a well-defined community with its primary focus directed toward the concerns of the population in that community. The term can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term. When used in isolation it refers to the emergent ecology of data, aggregators, publication mechanism and user interactions and behaviors which centre on a resident of a location and the business of being a resident. More recently, the term hyperlocal has become synonymous with the combined use of applications on mobile devices and GPS technology. Use of the term originated in 1991, in reference to local television news content.

<i>Critic Te Ārohi</i> University of Otago Students Association magazine

Critic Te Ārohi is the official magazine of the Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) of the University of Otago. It is freely available around both the University's campus and selected sites in Dunedin city weekly during term time. Critic is New Zealand's longest-running student newspaper, having been established in 1925. Weekly circulation is 5,000 copies, with an estimated readership of approximately 20,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">User-generated content</span> Online content created by users

User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is generally any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online content aggregation platforms such as social media, discussion forums and wikis. It is a product consumers create to disseminate information about online products or the firms that market them.

Leicester Student Magazine is the student newspaper at the University of Leicester, England. The publication operates almost entirely online, covering local and university-centered news, as well as arts, entertainment, lifestyle, fictional works and student opinion articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beefeater (restaurant)</span> UK pub chain

Beefeater is a chain of over 140 pub restaurants in the United Kingdom, owned by Whitbread.

Internet censorship in the United Kingdom is conducted under a variety of laws, judicial processes, administrative regulations and voluntary arrangements. It is achieved by blocking access to sites as well as the use of laws that criminalise publication or possession of certain types of material. These include English defamation law, the Copyright law of the United Kingdom, regulations against incitement to terrorism and child pornography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chase & Status</span> English music duo

Chase & Status are an English electronic music duo composed of Saul Milton (Chase) and Will Kennard (Status). In addition, Andy Gangadeen is the drummer when the band performs live. MC Rage formerly performed as MC with the group, but left in July 2021 to focus on solo ventures. The duo are from London, and formed in 2003 after meeting at university in Manchester. The duo have since released six studio albums and collaborated with major artists such as Plan B, CeeLo Green, Rihanna, Example, and Tinie Tempah. They run the independent record label MTA Records. William Kennard founded ELAM in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XVideos</span> Pornographic video sharing and viewing website

XVideos, stylized as XVIDEOS, is a pornographic video sharing and viewing website. Founded in Paris in 2007, the website is now registered to the Czech company WGCZ Holding. As of October 2023, it is the most-visited pornographic website and the 9th-most-visited website in the world.

National Report is a fake news website that posts fictional articles related to world events. It is described by Snopes.com as a fake news site, by FactCheck.org as a satirical site, and by The Washington Post as part of a fake-news industry, making profits from "duping gullible Internet users with deceptively newsy headlines." The National Report describes itself as a "news and political satire web publication" and provides a disclaimer that "all news articles contained within National Report are fiction".

Elite Daily is an American online news platform founded by David Arabov, Jonathon Francis, and Gerard Adams. The site describes its target audience as millennials. In addition to general news and trending topics, the site offers feature stories and listicles covering politics, social justice, sex and dating, women's issues, and sports. Its slogan is "The Voice of Generation Y".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OppoSuits</span>

OppoSuits is a clothing company founded by Jasper Castelein, Jelle van der Zwet and Guus Bakker in 2012 in Amsterdam. With warehouses in Holland, UK and United States OppoSuits' products are shipped worldwide.

<i>Joe</i> (website) Irish website

JOE is a left-leaning distributed social media publisher aimed at young people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, with over 2 million unique visitors per month. It is owned by Greencastle Media Group, which is itself owned by David Sefton, John Quinlan and Paul O'Donohoe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LADbible Group</span> British digital youth publisher

LADbible Group Limited, part of LBG Media plc, is a British digital publisher. Its headquarters is in Manchester and it has offices in London, Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.

Mark Ian Hoyle, better known by his online pseudonym LadBaby, is an English YouTuber, musician, and blogger. His content focuses on his experiences as a father and is usually filmed in collaboration with his wife, Roxanne. The couple have had the Christmas No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart every year from 2018 to 2022 with the novelty songs "We Built This City", "I Love Sausage Rolls", "Don't Stop Me Eatin'", "Sausage Rolls for Everyone" and "Food Aid". This made them the first musical act in British history to secure five Christmas No. 1 hits, surpassing the record set by the Beatles, who had four Christmas No. 1 songs in 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1967.

SPORTbible

SPORTbible is a sports focused social media publisher. Their headquarters are based on Dale Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter, United Kingdom. SPORTbible is part of LADbible group and describes itself as "one of the largest communities for sports fans across the world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facebook content management controversies</span> Criticism of Facebooks content management

Facebook or Meta Platforms has been criticized for its management of various content on posts, photos and entire groups and profiles. This includes but is not limited to allowing violent content, including content related to war crimes, and not limiting the spread of fake news and COVID-19 misinformation on their platform, as well as allowing incitement of violence against multiple groups.

References

  1. ↑ "Unilad web publisher bought by LADbible". 16 October 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  2. ↑ "About & Contact". unilad.com. UNILAD. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
  3. ↑ "Unilad beats the Daily Mail and BuzzFeed's Tasty to become 2016's most popular Facebook publisher". The Drum.
  4. ↑ "Unilad is using Facebook Live to stream mixed martial arts". Digiday . 3 October 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Jackson, Jasper (31 January 2016). "Unilad's Liam Harrington: 'We are absolutely not a lads' mag'". The Guardian .
  6. 1 2 "Unilad Brings In Manifest London To Help Build More 'Mature' Brand". Holmes Report. 19 March 2017.
  7. 1 2 Sportelli, Natalie (19 March 2017). "How The 24-Year-Olds Behind UNILAD Reach Billions With Viral Online Videos". Forbes .
  8. ↑ Waterson, Jim. "LadBible takes over social media rival UniLad". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Uni Lad website creator 'appalled' over rape comment". BBC News. 2 February 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  10. ↑ "FAQ". Uni Lad. Archived from the original on 8 June 2010.
  11. ↑ "Uni Lad – Home". Uni Lad. Archived from the original on 1 February 2011.
  12. ↑ "UniLad Magazine Forced To Pull 'Surprise' Rape Article After Twitter Backlash". The Huffington Post UK. 31 January 2012. Retrieved 25 September 2022.
  13. ↑ "Uni Ladette". Uni Lad. Archived from the original on 8 June 2010.
  14. 1 2 "Twitter fury over 'surprise rape' article gets UniLad suspended". The Week. 1 February 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  15. 1 2 Kidson, Millie. "UniLad: When 'banter' becomes dangerous?". LSMedia. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  16. ↑ Morris, Rachel (2 February 2012). "UniLad shuts down over 'rape' article". TheNationalStudent. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  17. 1 2 3 McAlpine, Sarah (5 February 2012). "Unilad: an entire culture summed up in one hideous website". The F-Word. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  18. ↑ McAuliffe, Naomi (1 February 2012). "Slogan T-shirts that help you spot a moronic misogynist, from Uni Lad". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  19. 1 2 Bernhardt, Lisa (13 February 2012). "UniLad.com goes temporarily offline after public outrage over rape jokes and misogynistic humour". The Courier Online. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
  20. ↑ Burley, Patrick (20 February 2012). "Why UniLad wasn't just a problem for women". Epigram. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
  21. ↑ Balcombe, Alex (17 February 2012). "UniLad under scrutiny". Redbrick. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
  22. ↑ "Unilad and Lad's banter". Woman's Hour. BBC Radio 4. 21 February 2012. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
  23. ↑ Marshall, Gary (8 June 2012). "10 most hated websites of all time". TechRadar. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  24. ↑ "UPSU Uni Lad Statement". University of Plymouth Students' Union. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
  25. ↑ "Unilad viral publisher goes into administration". BBC News. 4 October 2018.
  26. ↑ "Unilad: Boss says the brand is 'doing better than ever'". BBC News. 5 October 2018.
  27. ↑ "Unilad web publisher bought by LADbible". BBC News. 16 October 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.