New web series highlights history’s forgotten assholes

By Philip Cosores | May 1, 2015 | 5:31pm

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New web series highlights history’s forgotten assholes

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History is uncomfortably crowded with assholes. But while Adolf Hitler, Judas Iscariot, and Charles Manson are recalled vividly, and to a lesser degree, celebrities like Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, and Ted Nugent regularly cause outrage, memories of the greatest assholes from humanity’s past are often lost through time. No one remembers who came up with the idea of smallpox blankets or hydrogenated oils or leaded gasoline or Candy Crush Saga, but we can all agree that they were royal assholes.

A new web series on Above Average titled Forgotten Assholes of History shines a light on some of these jerks. In its first installment, host Siobhan Thompson introduces viewers to Herbert Kitchener, inventor of the concentration camp. The surprising thing about Kitchener is that he wasn’t a Nazi, but a British general that came up with the concept during the Boer War in South Africa. The video is equal parts history lesson and comedic diversion, and enough to raise interest as to who the series might highlight in coming weeks.