Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports or the entertainment industry, their position as a political figure, or even from their connection to another celebrity. 'Celebrity' usually implies a favorable public image, as opposed to the neutrals 'famous' or 'notable', or the negatives 'infamous' and 'notorious'.
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. Since October 12, 1931, The New York Times Book Review has published the list weekly. In the 21st century, it has evolved into multiple lists, grouped by genre and format, including fiction and nonfiction, hardcover, paperback and electronic.
Survivalism is a social movement of individuals or groups who proactively prepare for emergencies, such as natural disasters, as well as other disasters causing disruption to social order caused by political or economic crises. Preparations may anticipate short-term scenarios or long-term, on scales ranging from personal adversity, to local disruption of services, to international or global catastrophe. There is no bright line dividing general emergency preparedness from prepping in the form of survivalism, but a qualitative distinction is often recognized whereby preppers/survivalists prepare especially extensively because they have higher estimations of the risk (odds) of catastrophes happening. Nonetheless, prepping can be as limited as preparing for a personal emergency, or it can be as extensive as a personal identity or collective identity with a devoted lifestyle.
Cracked was an American humor magazine. Founded in 1958, Cracked proved to be the most durable of the many publications to be launched in the wake of Mad magazine.
"Zombie" is a protest song by Irish alternative rock band the Cranberries, written by the band's lead singer Dolores O'Riordan in memory of Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry, who were killed in the 1993 Warrington bombings. It was released on 19 September 1994 as the lead single from their second studio album, No Need to Argue, two weeks ahead of the album's release. Music critics have long recognised "Zombie" as "a masterpiece of alternative rock", as well as a grunge number uncharacteristic of the band's other work.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a 2004 action horror film directed by Alexander Witt and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. A direct sequel to Resident Evil (2002), it is the second installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name. The film marks Witt's feature directorial debut; Anderson, the director of the first film, turned down the job due to other commitments, though stayed on as one of its producers. Milla Jovovich reprises her role as Alice, and is joined by Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine and Oded Fehr as Carlos Olivera.
Sean Patrick Reiley, better known as Seanbaby, is an American writer and video-game designer best known for his comedy website and frequent contributions to video game media outlets Electronic Gaming Monthly and 1UP.com, as well as the humor website Cracked.com.
Maximillian Michael Brooks is an American actor and author. He is the son of comedy filmmaker Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He is a senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York.
Cracked.com is a website based on the humorous Cracked magazine, which dates back to 1958. It was founded in 2005 by Jack O'Brien.
A zombie is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic like voodoo. Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as carriers, radiation, mental diseases, vectors, pathogens, parasites, scientific accidents, etc.
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack humans is unknown, in others, a parasite or infection is the cause, framing events much like a plague. Some stories have every corpse rise, regardless of the cause of death, whereas others require exposure to the infection.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a 2009 parody novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It is a mashup combining Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice with elements of modern zombie fiction, crediting Austen as co-author. It was first published in April 2009 by Quirk Books and in October 2009 a Deluxe Edition was released, containing full-color images and additional zombie scenes. The novel was adapted into a 2016 film starring Lily James and Sam Riley.
Michael Swaim is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian, and podcaster. While attending the University of California, San Diego, he became a columnist for the humor website Cracked.com, and after graduating from college in 2007, he joined with Abe Epperson to co-found the internet sketch comedy troupe Those Aren't Muskets. Along with Epperson and another frequent collaborator, Daniel O'Brien, he spent the late 2000s establishing a video department for Cracked. His subsequent tenure as Head of Video for the website produced several viral web series that he and O'Brien often starred in; these include the Webby Award-winning After Hours and the Streamy Award-winning Agents of Cracked.
Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation is a book written by Jason Mattera. Published in 2010 by Simon & Schuster, the book purports to reveal methods that Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign used to organize or mislead young voters.
Daniel O'Brien, also known as "DOB", is an American humorist, author, writer, comedian and songwriter; formerly for Cracked.com. Since August 2018, O'Brien works as a staff writer on the HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 he was part of the writing team that won four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing on a Variety Series.
"Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse" is a blog post by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that uses a zombie apocalypse to raise public awareness of emergency preparedness. In a blog post titled "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse", the director of the CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan writes: "Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That's right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you'll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency." Comparing the upcoming hurricane season and possible pandemics to "flesh-eating zombies" from the horror film Night of the Living Dead and the video game series Resident Evil, Khan recommends Americans prepare for natural disasters as they would have prepared for "ravenous monsters".
Jason Pargin, known by his former pen name David Wong, is an American humor writer. He is the former executive editor of humor website Cracked.com, a recurring guest in the Cracked Podcast, and has written six novels: John Dies at the End (2007), This Book Is Full of Spiders (2012), Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (2015), What the Hell Did I Just Read (2017), Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (2020) and If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe (2022). John Dies at the End was adapted into a film of the same name in 2012.
Cracked After Hours was a comedy web series hosted on the website Cracked.com, and produced by Cracked and its parent company The E. W. Scripps Company.
The Last Kids on Earth is a children's animation streaming television series, based on the book series of the same name by Max Brallier, that premiered on Netflix on September 17, 2019 with a one-hour first season. A ten-episode second season, or "Book 2", titled The Last Kids on Earth and the Zombie Parade, premiered on April 17, 2020. The third season also known as "Book 3", was released on October 16, 2020, which left the show on a cliffhanger. An interactive special, subtitled Happy Apocalypse to You, was released on April 6, 2021.
Martin O’Brien is a contemporary artist who lives and works in London, U.K.
