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A cell phone novel, or mobile phone novel (Japanese: 携帯小説, keitai shousetsu; traditional Chinese: 手機小說, shŏujī xiǎoshuō), is a literary work originally written on a cellular phone via text messaging. This type of literature originated in Japan, where it has become a popular literary genre. However, its popularity has also spread to other countries internationally, especially to China, Germany, and South Africa. Chapters usually consist of about 70-100 words each due to character limitations on cell phones.

Phone novels started out primarily read and authored by young women on the subject of romantic fiction such as relationships, lovers, rape, love triangles, and pregnancy. However, mobile phone novels are gaining worldwide popularity on broader subjects. Rather than appearing in printed form, the literature is typically sent directly to the reader via SMS text message, chapter by chapter. Japanese ethos of the Internet regarding mobile phone novels are dominated by false names and forged identities. Therefore, identities of the Japanese authors of mobile phone novels are rarely disclosed.

Cell phone novels are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications on a mobile phone. Cell phone novels often appear in three different formats: WMLD, JAVA and TXT. Maho i-Land is the largest cell phone novel site that carries more than a million titles, mainly novice writers, all which are available for free. Maho iLand provides templates for blogs and homepages. It is visited 3.5 billion times each month. In 2007, 98 cell phone novels were published into books. “Love Sky,” a popular phone novel written by “Mika” with approximately 12 million views online, has been turned into a movie. Five out of the ten best selling novels in Japan in 2007 were originally cell phone novels.

So-called Block ASCII (or High ASCII) art uses the extended characters of the 8-bit code page 437, which is a proprietary standard introduced by IBM in 1979 (ANSI Standard x3.16) for the IBM PC and MS DOS operating system. Block ASCIIs were widely used on the PC during the 1990s until the Internet replaced BBSes as the main communication platform. Before then, Block ASCIIs dominated the PC text art scene.

There is some debate between ASCII and Block ASCII artists, with Hardcore ASCII artists maintaining that Block ASCII art is, in fact, not ASCII art, because it does not use the 128 characters of the original ASCII standard. On the other hand, Block ASCII artists argue that, if their art uses only characters of the computer’s character set, then it can be called ASCII, regardless if the character set is proprietary or not.

Bassmint Productions, later known as Soul Intent, was an American record label and hip hop group. As Bassmint Productions didn’t have enough money for studio time, they started their own label, which lasted from 1988 to 1995.

Bassmint Productions consisted of rappers Eminem (then known as M&M), Proof, Chaos Kid, Mannix, and DJ Buttafingas. The group released several demo tapes, including Steppin’ onto the Scene, Still in the Bassmint, and Soul Intent.

Eminem would later release The Slim Shady EP, which would lead to him being signed and achieving celebrity status. After gaining popularity, Eminem would create D12, a hip hop group which would include Proof, and it would be successful. Proof would later die from a shooting in 2006. In 2011, Chaos Kid would commit suicide.