i always check on my updates to see what other users did whilst i was away :)

Since there are very clear reasons why content appears on the front page, there's not much of a reaction on my part. I know that the content - whatever it is - will be replaced shortly.

Images, picks and forum threads all appear on the front page when they are freshly updated (for picks, this includes someone voting on it), which often means that they will disappear as soon as you reload the page. Videos appear on the top page because people are viewing them (there is also a random element, I'm sure), so they can stay for a bit longer. The fanpop spotlight shows a random collection of five spots that aren't pending spots. The featured fans sections shows three random fans who have a minimum number of spots in their list (it has to fill or mostly fill three lines). The soapbox article is chosen by the fanpop staff from the most recent articles for a given day (in some rare cases an article may stay up for more than a day, but that's the exception).

Lately, I've been all about getting medals.

"Oh, wow, awesome! Wait, this was the best thing today? Impossible! I mean, choose someone else's article, ok? Something good?"

Everything else, I know is just whatever's most recent.