Yeah so this place has outlived its usefulness, and i'm moving away from it. trying to consolidate yada yada yada.
if anyone is still here (they aren't), you can find me;
byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Monday, January 1, 2024
Saturday, April 1, 2023
CRINGE MYTHOS NFT POG COLLECTION LAUNCHED
if none of those links led anywhere, please return here and accept my apology. this one should work.
Thursday, March 16, 2023
GO. OUT. SIDE. vol. 89
What would rejecting this helplessness look like? The right see adulthood as a process of settling down, getting married and having children; in effect, conforming to conventional gender roles and being productive members of the workforce. We obviously don’t have to buy into that, at any age. But we can aspire towards a different form of maturity: looking after ourselves, treating other people with care, being invested in something beyond our own immediate satisfaction. Infantilising yourself can often seem like a plea for diminished responsibility. Most of us will have encountered someone who, when criticised for behaving badly, appeals to their own vulnerability as a way of letting themselves off the hook. No matter what they do or the harm they cause, it’s never fair to criticise them, because there’s always some reason – often framed through therapy jargon or the language of social justice – why it isn’t their fault. Childishness grants them a perpetual innocence; they are constitutionally incapable of being in the wrong.
But we will never make the world better if we act like this. Thinking of yourself as a smol bean baby is a way of tapping out and expecting other people to fight on your behalf. It also makes you a more pliant consumer. Social media is awash with the idea that ‘it’s valid not to be productive’, as though productivity were the only manifestation of capitalism and streaming Disney+ all day is a form of resistance. It’s much rarer to encounter the idea that we have a responsibility about what we consume, or that satisfying our own desires whenever we want is not always a good thing: “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” has morphed into “there is no unethical consumption under capitalism”.
Although it’s mostly just annoying, self-infantilisation’s pervasive existence in the culture could also be the harbinger of something more sinister. Last year, the comic book author Alan Moore suggested that the popularity of superhero films represents an “infantilisation that can very often be a precursor to fascism”. This might sound hyperbolic, but it’s true that a certain kind of kitsch infantilism was always a feature of Nazi art, which was hostile to moral ambiguity and formal complexity. Hitler himself was a Disney adult. If the desire to relinquish responsibility for your own life can be considered an infantile trait, it’s easy to see why this would make you more susceptible to authoritarianism. Today’s white nationalists – with their cartoon Pepes and their ‘frens’ – are as smooth-brain and babyish as any online community, while right-wing reactionaries have recently taken to eulogising 90s video games, Blockbuster and Toys R Us – a glorious past that has been robbed from us by wokeness.
In a more subtle way, conservatives self-infantilise by denying their own agency: faced with the supposed “excesses” of the movements for LGTBQ+ rights and racial justice, they see themselves as being pushed towards extremism. But categorising other people as children – who can be overruled in their own best interests – forms part of the same project: in recent years, there has been a concerted effort to raise the age at which trans people can access gender-affirming care. Legislators in at least three states in the US are currently moving to deny this treatment to adults up to the age of 25, on the basis that they are not yet mature enough to provide informed consent. Oppressed groups aren’t always infantilised – in a process known as ‘adultification’, children from racialised minorities are typically viewed as having more agency, which makes them more likely to be criminalised– but the right is happy to deploy a diversity of tactics. Just as it’s a common behaviour in abusive relationships, infantilisation can be a mechanism for political domination and control.
As such, the struggle against infantilisation has always formed a part of feminist, anti-racist, disability justice and anti-colonial movements, which recognised that there is no better way to rob people of agency than treating them as something lesser than an adult. This is all the more reason not to indulge it ourselves. Even if infantilisation is being pushed upon us, even if the helplessness we feel has a tangible basis in reality, even if adulting really does suck, we can still choose to see ourselves as capable of changing our own lives and the world around us. “The harms are undeniable,” says Cohen. “Bottom line: it’s a way of learning to love your oppressor. It takes an acute loss of agency and control and transforms it into a state to be desired and enjoyed. Once you embrace this way of being, the demands and rewards of adult life are going to seem all the more remote and all the more forbidding and unpleasurable.”
Everyone needs to grow up
Whether it’s people who mention their Hogwarts house on their Hinge profile or literal white supremacists, culture is awash with adult babies
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
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Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Monday, March 13, 2023
Awwwwww Yeah vol. 263
The New Yorker report, based on the complaint and interviews with sources, said that the assistant's allegations included that she was frequently made to work from Guilfoyle's apartment while the Fox host "displayed herself naked" and that Guilfoyle showed her photographs of the genitalia of men she'd had sexual relations with.
Rupert Murdoch appears to confirm that Kimberly Guilfoyle left Fox News due to 'inappropriate' behavior, after reports claimed she faced a sexual harassment accusation
Friday, March 10, 2023
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Thursday, March 9, 2023
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Friday, March 3, 2023
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
We Are The Sprocket Holes vol. 571
For many, Falling Down became a cinematic litmus test, with viewers seeing D-FENS as a villain, a hero, or sometimes both. His extreme responses to everyday aggravations, marital failures, and various confrontations were derided by some critics, and hailed by others. While some characterizations in the film have not aged well (like the stereotypical Latino gangbangers), the story did manage to capture, as Newsweek declared in a 1993 cover story, “White Male Paranoia.”
Today, in our increasingly fragmented and uncivil society, Falling Down still feels relevant. Scenarios that seemed outrageous then—D-FENS making his fast food complaints while wielding a gun; a young kid showing him how to use a bazooka; the rants of the cartoonish white supremacist store owner—are now reflected in our strange modern reality. Smith’s screenplay was not just of its time; it showed us where we were headed.
As Falling Down turns 30, Michael Douglas reflects on one of his most controversial roles
Awwwwww Yeah vol. 262 / #truecrimepowerelectronics vol. 76
“At various points, Levinson’s scripts contained disturbing sexual and physically violent scenes between [Lily Rose] Depp and Tesfaye’s characters, three sources familiar with the matter claim. In one draft episode, there allegedly was a scene where Tesfaye bashes in Depp’s face, and her character smiles and asks to be beaten more, giving Tesfaye an erection. (This scene was never shot, the source says.) Another proposed scenario was for Depp to carry an egg in her vagina and if she dropped or cracked the egg, Tesfaye’s character would refuse to “rape” her — which sent Depp’s character into a spiral, begging him to ‘rape’ her because she believed he was the key to her success. (This scene also was not filmed because production couldn’t find a way to realistically shoot the scene without having Depp physically insert the egg, another source explains.)”
Leaked Scripts For HBO’s ‘The Idol’ Reportedly Feature The Weeknd’s Character Doing Some Disturbingly Violent And Sexual Things
Books... are FUN vol. 47
In a meticulously researched new book, the lives of five literary wives are examined and the often abusive relationships they found themselves in
Booker Man is the Bastard vol. 59 / U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 302
What shall we call contemporary Republican ideology? Is it conservatism? Libertarianism? Authoritarianism? Trumpism? Fascism?
How about kayfabe?
Old kayfabe was built on the solid, flat foundation of one big lie: that wrestling was real. Neokayfabe, on the other hand, rests on a slippery, ever-wobbling jumble of truths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, all delivered with the utmost passion and commitment. After a while, the producers and the consumers of neokayfabe tend to lose the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. Wrestlers can become their characters; fans can become deluded obsessives who get off on arguing or total cynics who gobble it all up for the thrills, truth be damned.
Does all that remind you of anything?
Neokayfabe is the essence of the Republican strategy for campaigning and governance today. That’s no surprise, given Mr. McMahon’s influence on G.O.P. politics. His product, filled with bigotry and malevolence, was a primary cultural influence on countless millennials, especially during the W.W.F.’s late-century peak (in 1999, Gallup estimated that 18 percent of Americans, roughly 50 million people, counted themselves as pro wrestling fans), and those millennials have entered the Beltway — and the voting booth. Ms. McMahon has become a major Republican fund-raiser, candidate and official. And, most important of all, there’s the Trump connection.
Mr. McMahon and Donald Trump have been close friends for nearly 40 years. Even before he met Mr. McMahon, Mr. Trump had been a lifelong fan of pro wrestling — as well as a chronic dissembler — but it was Mr. McMahon who ushered Mr. Trump into the world of neokayfabe. Mr. Trump acted as the “host” of two installments of “WrestleMania.” Most spectacularly, Mr. Trump performed as himself in a story line where he and Mr. McMahon pretended to be bitter enemies, sending proxy wrestlers to engage in trial by combat at 2007’s “WrestleMania 23.” Mr. Trump is the first — though possibly not the last — member of the W.W.E. Hall of Fame to occupy the Oval Office.
Before he met Mr. McMahon, Mr. Trump had probably never worked a rowdy arena into a bitter, liberated frenzy by feeding it a mix of verboten truths and outrageous lies. But that skill, so essential in wrestling, would become Mr. Trump’s world-changing trademark.
We’re being too generous to other industries if we single out politics as the only place where neokayfabe has taken over, whether through wrestling’s influence or by convergent evolution. Think of entertainment: Some pop stars’ massive success largely rests on fans’ assumption that carefully choreographed “behind the scenes” hints about inspiration and heartbreak are legit. Or finance: Many C.E.O.s speak with blinding optimism about their companies because they cannot distinguish between their own truths and falsehoods anymore. Or, dare I say it, the news media: Pundits compete for attention, and nothing grabs outraged clicks quite like planting a ludicrous argument in the soil of an inarguable truth.
In May of 1999, when Mr. McMahon was approaching the peak of his cultural influence, a wrestler named Owen Hart fell more than 70 feet during a failed zip-line stunt at a wrestling show. He hit the ring. The fall killed him. Thousands of people in the live audience saw it happen, and at least some weren’t sure if what they were seeing was real. An ambulance, used for Mr. McMahon as part of a set piece involving a fake injury earlier in the show, took Mr. Hart to the hospital, where he was declared dead. But the event continued, and eventually the crowd was able to cheer along. In the world of neokayfabe, even something as real as death seemed like it could be fake.
I love pro wrestling, but I fear neokayfabe. It turns the world into a hall of mirrors from which it is nearly impossible to escape. It rots the mind and eats the soul. And yet, we cannot return to the world of old kayfabe, either — we know too much. Perhaps the only antidote to neokayfabe is radical honesty. It’s less fun, but it tends to do less material harm, in the long run.
The Best
Way to
Explain
the G.O.P.
Is Found
in the
W.W.E.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD! vol. 212
Jason Eisener, director of Hobo With a Shotgun and the recently released
Kids vs. Aliens, revealed as such via Twitter on Friday. He claimed that back in 2018, he pitched a standalone film to Paramount focused on Casey. That movie would’ve featured Shredder’s daughter Karai and eventually Raphael, who Eisener said would’ve taken visual inspiration from the 1990 film. What’s more, the director released a tone reel for the hypothetical film, set to “I” by Dio and featuring footage from The Raid 2, Stranger Things, Goon, and the original TMNT movie.
Ninja Turtles' Casey Jones Almost Had His Own Solo Film
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Bury All vol. 5
"That's where I draw the line": David Cross has words for comics who moan about cancel culture
Cross talks to Salon about his stand-up tour, capitalism, rejecting theocracy and how a fan once changed his mind
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