My Mum found my blog this week.
She called me from her work. “Jasmine and I completely balled out at Goodwill this afternoon” she said. “I didn’t know she was back on the scene?”
“Huh?”
“I’m reading your blog, I didn’t know you and her were talking again”.
My [expletive deleted] former romantic partner has a name very similar to Jasmine, so I understood her confusion, despite the fact that the photo on the post in question had arms far less hairy than my own, and I wish I owned a bomb-ass shirt like that. My Mum was confronting the most perplexing challenge faced by the “Reads, but aren’t users of, Tumblr blogs” demographic: The Reblog.
Typically, I treat my blog like Soderbergh with the Oceans series: I throw out Tumblr jargon without pausing to explain and expect the uninitiated to catch up later. This seems to have worked adequately with most of the IRL people I know, as they’re all “web-savvy”. After explaining that it wasn’t my post per se, she became disoriented and impatient, asking where she could read my posts (all the good ones are tagged here, by the way).
Half an hour later, she called me laughing, telling me how brilliant I am, and capped off the phone conversation by reminding me how I’m wasting my life and potential. Parents! Can’t live with ‘em, I can’t live without ‘em.
Suddenly, I felt incredibly exposed. I’ve written in great detail about matters that I don’t feel entirely comfortable conversing about face-to-face. I’ve known that my Dad reads my blog for a while (Hi, Dad!) but he lives elsewhere. The thought of someone I see every night knowing some fairly private things filled me with a sense of dread. Upon realising this, I had to ask myself: Why? Your mother should be someone you can trust with your darkest secrets, and growing up she was always adamant that when my friends abandon me, she’ll always be there (that seems rather harsh, but I’m paraphrasing). I’ve certainly told her things I haven’t told anybody else. Perhaps it’s the thought of her getting a glimpse at my internal logic and reasoning. There are a lot of things I talk about here that I don’t discuss with my Mum for fear that she doesn’t “get it”, a fear that’s been legitimized and confirmed many times, where “it” are the things that You Guys understand: Existential crises, popular culture and banging hot chicks.
Yes, I think that’s it. I’m worried that I’ll lose arbitrary units of respect with my Mum because she can’t understand the context of a lot of this blog. It’s scary to think of how complex this world has become, with our Insanity Wolves, Tumblarity and Zooey Deschanel. Looking at it objectively, it seems impenetrable, such that if I was just starting now I would find it completely off-putting. I could probably manage, because my input stream is not explicitly Tumblr, but if I didn’t read sites like Reddit daily, I imagine I’d be confused to the point of rejection. Especially when Tumblr is so horrible for news: Sometimes I’ll see a post titled “On that thing with that guy” and what follows is a vague commentary on whatever happened in the blogosphere, something that Common Folk would be completely unaware of e.g. the HarperStudio pandemic. I suppose it’s a shame that I feel concerned about opening my private life to my parents - shameful, even. At any rate, I’m glad I have you jerk-offs to circle-jerk with.
“That ain’t no Shepherd”. MOTHERFUCKER! WHAT WAS HE THEN?”
— Fifteen people agree: This is the most significant mystery in Western culture.
“Is it unpredictable that someone who buys into this kind of thinking - about how women owe men sex, about how women are worthless except for their ability to provide sex, about how force and cruelty can get you sex because women are “depraved” and only go for men who can hurt them - decided not to “pretend,” and actually just killed people? No. No, it’s not. Because the entire Game line, the entire Pick-Up Artist culture, is based on the idea that men are nothing unless they fuck, and women exist solely and entirely for the purpose of being fucked, and women matter so little that lying to them, coercing them into sex, or hurting them emotionally (or physically, apparently, in some cases) are actually good, desirable behaviors - behaviors women like, whether or not they’ll admit it, the lying whores - because they result in men getting to fuck and therefore feel powerful.
Of course some women got killed. Of course women get sexually assaulted. We can pretend that it’s “fringe” behavior, and yeah, maybe some people on the extreme fringes of that fringe will take it to a level where everyone can agree that it’s gone “too far” - like, for example, mass murder - but it’s not. It’s a bestselling book, and it’s a series on VH1, and it is totally acceptable within a misogynist culture. We only notice that something is up when there are bodies on the floor.
So, basically, if anyone ever asks you why you’re paying attention to this stuff, why you’re giving it so much focus, why it matters - why you talk about publicity-based monsters like Paul Janka or Tucker Max or Mystery or Roissy in DC, when that only makes them stronger - I have a suggestion for how to explain it to them. Tell them you’re afraid for your life.
”
—
Tiger Beatdown: And Amanda Hess Is Out Of Town This Week: ROISSY Makes It Big
(via nerdshares)
To the person whose career ambitions relate to this: Seeing as you asked, this basically summarises how I feel about that scene.
This post was reblogged from Nerdshares.
“Looks like Blizzard viral advertisement to me. Gaming naked isn’t even practical or comfortable, unless you enjoy smelly sticky chairs.”
— Reddit remains skeptical.
“The 40-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Superbad About It” Trailer
“A comedy of superbad proportions” indeed.
There's some sort of agenda here, right? Okay, who's going to start holding the FYeah Tumblrs to a higher journalistic standard?
Nick Douglas on “Get Off My Internets”:
“But paid gossip bloggers write stupid posts because they get paid. This is why we assume that anyone doing it for free must be truly obsessed.”
OBSESSED! I sort of touched on this when GofG interviewed partypants (Alice) a few months ago, but it’s worth restating: GOMI is not a professional enterprise. It does not claim to be a professional enterprise. It is a blog done on her free time. I find the fact that professional writers are passing judgment, and making completely unwarranted assumptions that have zero basis in fact, about what constitutes “obsession” to be offensive. Oh man, Faith posts a lot on her Tumblr blog LOLerature! She must be OBSESSED! Man, the way she misrepresents F. Scott and Zelda here is really irresponsible. Or remember that time I totally unfairly said that you can’t read Hegel while sober? Crazy! But who is going to hold us to a higher journalistic standard? No one, because we’re picking on people who are long dead, who don’t have other friends in the media champing at the bit to give us a stern wrist-slap for…(sometimes) saying things that are true. Critiquing what people do in their free time, whether it’s funny captions of intellectuals or insanity wolves with an uncanny understanding of continental philosophy or a gossip blog, is ridiculous. Trying to measure its usefulness by a professional standard is insane.
(This also assumes that no paid gossip blogger has ever enjoyed writing gossipy posts, which I do not believe.)
Douglas also says:
But every now and then, Gawker will link to their story, or the San Francisco Chronicle will profile them in a blog, and they’ll get a little more attention. Whether or not you try to take over the world, sometimes it gets handed to you. And at that point, if you haven’t been holding yourself to a journalistic standard, you probably should.
This is the real reason I decided to blog about this article. Right here. Douglas is making the argument that, hey, if Gawker links to you, you should probably shape up re: accuracy. What? Is this serious? If Gawker or the SF Chronicle or any other professional media outlet pulls facts from GOMI or any other non-professional blog (or any source, really!), it is their responsibility to fact-check. I cannot even fathom berating a source for not being accurate, especially one that repeatedly makes its disinterest in doing this “professionally” very, very clear. In fact, GOMI probably couldn’t exist as a professional enterprise because then it might be beholden to some of the people it ridicules. (And isn’t it kind of awesome, actually?)
The problem is that social media is too much social, not enough media, so many of GOMI’s targets are people whose identities are closely tied to their products (ugh), which is kind of the problem (and with all this “branding” ish, it might not go away any time soon). Also, the site picks on people who are used to having the media at their disposal and, shockingly, do not really enjoy being scrutinized! Because no one does! But we all do things worthy of mockery and maybe the responsibility should be to take whatever criticism is valid and move on. If you think they’re wrong about something, tell them so. But labeling Alice as a “pathetic obsessed cat lady” is a transparent attempt to dismiss any real insight she might convey. And, given the right subject matter, we all have a pathetic obsessed cat lady inside us anyway.
I feel like there’s a nerdshares train that I’m late to board, and if that’s the case, let me officially declare how regretful I am I didn’t get on sooner. I like the words Regina types.
This post was reblogged from Nerdshares.
Cookin’ by the Book ft. Lil Jon
This is the second song.
Ke$ha - Tik Tok
Two songs comprise the anthem of last week’s binge, though arguments could be made about a third (“Riverside” by Sidney Samson). This is the first. Despite her hideous attempt at whatever by substituting a dollar sign for the ‘s’, I can’t stop listening to this song. I absolutely refuse to apologise for liking something this good.
Girls & Boys: An Analysis
Girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls who like boys who like girls.
Another game banned in Australia due to a lack of an R18+ classification for video games
I’m mad as hell and I’m etc etc. Whatever, I’m moving to the Netherlands.
Rob Brydon does a perfect impression of Russell Brand. Another clip from Annually Retentive.
Almost as good as the time Simon Amstell called out Noel Fielding on Buzzcocks.
This post was reblogged from nostrich.
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