Network Awesome
Expert video curators deliver a week of design inspiration and more
Network Awesome is a website where you can easily lose track of time and yet never feel like time is being wasted. Living up to its name, the Berlin-based site is brimming with utterly curious content which is curated by a team of cultivated film and video buffs, and turned into organized weekly programming. From women of punk to cat videos, a wide range of topics are made way more interesting under the Network Awesome watch.
The site’s boundless energy for bizarre but informative videos is matched by its animated founder Jason Forrest, a prominent electronic DJ and “laptop rocker” who, in 2011, shifted much of his focus to television. “I wanted to get involved in TV but before I did I took a few weeks to research what TV is now,” Forrest tells us. “What I determined is that I wanted to start a TV network and after a talk with my wife, I decided to go for it. I think the conditions are actually similar to the dawning of the cable broadcast era and I feel passionately that we have a mission to preserve, re-present and produce content that is entertaining, intelligent and fascinating.”
Forrest’s determination to create a network that makes sense of the insane number of videos posted to YouTube has led to both a cult following and an extensive archive filled with content of various lengths and subject matter. “We’re actually the largest curated video site in the world with over 70,000 tagged and collected YouTube videos making up about 7,000 shows. For example, we have over 1,000 full-length movies in our archive and another 800 documentaries,” explains Forrest.
With so many videos and even their own original Network Awesome variety-style show, one of the easiest ways to enjoy the site is simply to log on and start clicking—you won’t be disappointed by any random selection. But to really see the moving world through their expert eyes, tune into their weekly broadcast, which features six shows a day centered around a particular theme.
We’re excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with Forrest and his team for this week’s programming, which is inspired by the city’s upcoming NYCxDesign events. The schedule will include 30 videos that correlate with design—from an old-school, five-minute Q&A with Charles Eames to longer documentaries like The World of Buckminster Fuller to a segment on plastic and clips on psychedelic advertising, as well as some of our own Cool Hunting videos.
Check out the bounty of creative design videos all week long on Network Awesome, where you’ll be sure to learn something new while having a lot of fun as you get sucked into their enlightening internet video k-hole.
