Man bravely captures other man saving child’s life on film

A local man is being hailed as a true hero this morning, after bravely capturing cellphone video footage of another man saving a child’s life.

According to eyewitnesses on the scene, when the 8-year-old Billy Thomson tumbled off the edge of Platform 18 at Kingscrossing Train station, closely followed by another man dashing down into the tracks of the oncoming train to grab the boy, 34-year-old bystander Eric Jackson immediately flew into action.

“I knew time was of the essence,” explained the brave soul modestly. “Precious seconds were ticking away - I had to act quickly. So I immediately whipped out my Samsung and started recording.”

Jackson’s actions have been praised by the Mayor as “an incredible show of quick-witted initiative”.

“Not only did he start recording from the moment little Billy tripped into the path of the roaring 10:41am Express Line, he also had the wits to film in landscape mode, where many would have unthinkingly done that irritating portrait stuff that leaves those big black bars on either side of the screen. I mean, he even went so far as to enable HD, full-res mode, zooming in with a still, unshaking hand to capture every moment of the near-tragedy in perfect clarity.”

Teary-eyed parents have lavished him with their deep and sincere thanks.

“If it weren’t for him, we would never ever be able to relive those special moments on Youtube where our boy’s life was pulled from the very jaws of death,” they said, expressing their undying gratitude. “Without Eric, it’s almost as if our son might as well have died.”

However, Eric remains humble and unassuming.

“I’m no hero. I’m just a guy who was in the right place at the right time, with the right HD-ready smartphone,” he said. “I just did what any other human being would do in such an awful situation.”

“Really, in moments like this, we should really be thanking guy who was instrumental and hands-on this awful close-call," he said. "That’s right: the nameless engineer-hero who made such an excellent camera. Without him… well, I’d hate to think what would have happened. Something awful probably, like a 4-megapixel camera without integrated shake-compensation.”

The guy in the background, who almost ruined Eric’s shot when he flung Timmy up and out of the train tracks, could not be reached for comment.

Study finds something that can’t be easily turned into clickbait

Confusion abounds today, after a ten-year scientific research program found something that can’t be oversimplified or easily turned into clickbait.

According to researchers at the Centre for Galactic Astrophysics, who have been looking into the nature of blackholes and how they interact with space-time, the results of their study, while incredibly important for the advancement of astrophysics as a science, cannot be easily turned into an image-heavy and arbitrarily-numbered list of things that will totally blow your mind or leave you speechless.

“We’ve been looking at the results, and we must say that we’re conflicted,” said Dr Theo Reece of the CGA. “I mean, the data really does change the way astrophysicists look at the complex equations and science of spatio-temporal interactions between objects of astounding mass, but when it comes to telling Buzzfeed readers that ‘These Scientists Have Been Researching Blackholes – And What They Found Will Completely Blow You Away’ we come up totally empty-handed. I mean, what good is scientific advancement if it can’t be completely reduced to an overly simplified misinterpretation for idiots to share on the ‘I Fucking Love Science’ Facebook page?”

CGA researchers now say that they are back at work searching for four more facts in their massive study that will fill a 10-item, 150-word listicle.

“It’s going to be a difficult task – like finding a needle in a haystack, or original content on Buzzfeed,” said Reece, “but we’re confident that, by early January at the latest, we’ll have found something dull and uninspired enough to get you through the last four points on the list so that you can read item 10 and do your obligatory reshare on Facebook and ‘lol’ comment.”

However, “writers” at the social media viral sites now say that they’ll probably just go ahead with the article anyway.

“We’ll just churn out the listicle anyway,” said Killean Jurnlizm, section editor for the sciences beat at the viral website. “I dunno, maybe there’s something on Reddit we can just steal and paste in… Besides, since when did our readers care about scientific accuracy anyway?”

Woman’s profile pic not fooling anyone

A woman was declared “obviously not attractive” today, after the internet came to a general consensus that her profile picture isn’t fooling anyone.

The black-and-white airbrushed image, which was carefully framed, lit and chosen out of four dozen other photos taken at around the same time, was uploaded yesterday evening to 26-year-old Megan Jenners’s Facebook profile – and all her friends agree that “this shit isn’t fooling anyone”.

“Yes, it’s a pretty photo. Yes, to the untrained eye that hasn’t seen her in real life, you might be fooled into thinking she’s attractive and then swiping right,” said the guy who follows her every update but hasn’t spoken to her in four years, Vuyo Rystic. “But let’s just admit the facts here: it’s a top-down, filter-heavy selfie that has clearly been put through the Instagram-photoshop wringer.”

Friends and followers of Jenners– even those on Twitter – have agreed.

“For me, my suspicions were raised when I saw the angle. I mean, it’s top-down and is filled with her face,” said one friend Jake Henderson shortly before liking it and commenting ‘omg so pretty u stuning babe’. “Why else would you want a full picture of your face as your profile picture unless you had a disgusting, corpulent and revoltingly grosteque mass underneath it that you wanted to hide no matter what?”

Others agree.

“No amount of BW correction and careful balancing of exposure and saturation can hide how much of a soulless, blackhearted skank Megan is,” said another friend, Erin Blakey, before hitting ‘like’. “I’ve read her statuses. She’s vapid and completely irritating and full of herself. Maybe I should post a passive-aggressive status about her?”

She followed this by adding “no, on second thoughts I shouldn’t” and “the two-faced bitch might realise who I was talking about.”

According to online researchers, much of the anger stems from its inherent insincere dishonesty.

“When it comes to Social Media, I think we can all agree that the most important, central tenet is honesty and truth,” said media analyst Eric Henderson. “So when she posted these quasi-blurry, pseudo-artistic selfies of herself and tried to pretend she was someone she wasn’t, she broke the cardinal rule of the internet: never lie to people.”

“In their eyes, this publication of a falsehood is a deep and hurtful mockery of the thought-provoking articles, provocative philosophical debates, and cat pictures they share,” he explained. “To the untrained eye, it might seem like all these people commenting on the picture think she is, quote, ‘gorjuz’ and ‘totes hawt girl’, but we all tacitly know what they’re really saying.”

However, not everyone agrees.

“Oh, I dunno, bro,” said one man. “I mean, I would still definitely bang her.”