There is a certain Type of Guy. He has opinions. He has been told these opinions are good, that they matter. He has made a career out of sharing these opinions. He has sealed himself in a sweet little cocoon of wealth and also, crucially, sensitivity. He could simply remove himself from public ire, if he was smart. But he has a humiliation kink and wants—nay, needs—to be embarrassed publicly. He doesn’t know this, but it’s obvious.
If you tell him his opinions suck he will have a melt down and will do what any good, smart, opinion-having, middle-aged Type of Guy does: he will tweet. He will do the virtual version of punching his fist through a wall. He will wail and flail, and despite all this, demand everyone see him as someone decorous, someone smart. He will write an op-ed about being silenced and the terrors of cancel culture in the paper of record that helped start the Iraq War. He will rage against the machine. The machine is whatever he decides the machine is on a given day. It is not structural, but theoretical, deeply personal, solipsistic. The machine is a figment: it is not the pressing, visible sites of chaos evident on a daily basis around the world. It is not the mechanisms by which disaster unfolds. It is the unbearable reality that people don’t like his Dog Shit takes. The world burns and he cannot fathom being questioned.
Maybe deep down he knows some of his ideas are Dog Shit. But who cares. They get clicks. And clicks are more important than “truth.” We know this! Democracy dies in darkness, goes the slogan of the paper that one of the richest men in the world owns. But I’d wager he doesn’t think his ideas are Dog Shit, because they are generating “discourse.” Discourse is the measure of a good idea. Discourse is ephemeral, usually started by one or two tweets but then treated as a wholesale indictment of what people are talking about. “People” is not defined, not clarified. We do not question why we see what we see, how the nature of the algorithm is both invisible and subjective and also manufactured to disrupt, outrage, get eyeballs on the prize. Click the link. Engage, subscribe, lie down, sleep, start that car, dream about me. Discourse is often a miasma of the same few visible people who know each other in real life and depend on a thin veneer of pretending to like each other’s Dog Shit takes to remain relevant to each other and the people watching. A circle-jerk of people smearing the walls with their Dog Shit takes. But are we looking? Yes. Eyeballs on the prize.
Open letter to the NYT about their coverage of trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people. From the press release:
American policymakers have increasingly drawn on the Times’ coverage in order to justify enacting these draconian policies toward trans children and adults. “In two federal court cases last year, we saw legal briefs cite the Times’ reporting in order to defend these vile, reactionary, scientifically backwards bans on gender-affirming medical care,” Harron Walker, freelance journalist and letter co-author, said. “Not just its opinion pieces, though that happened, as well, but its purportedly objective editorial, too. If the Times’ reporting on trans issues can so easily be weaponized against trans people, diminishing our bodily autonomy off the page, the unethical bias could not be more clear.” This reporting also clearly plays into a broader and even more dangerous campaign by groups whose ultimate goal, according to the Times’ reporting, is to eliminate transition care for everyone.
Good context around the web:
The New York Times Continues to Make Its Priorities Clear: Defector
WHEN CIS WOMEN ATTACK TRANS RIGHTS, FASCISTS WIN, Hammer & Hope
Toxic Airborne Event (#1)
Also reading:
A FRAMEWORK TO HELP US UNDERSTAND THE WORLD, OLÚFẸ́MI O. TÁÍWÒ
Whatever They Decide These UFOs Are, The Answer Will Be More US Militarism
Tucker Carlson Called Trump a ‘Demonic Force’ and Other Wild Texts From the Dominion Lawsuit
Long COVID Now Looks like a Neurological Disease, Helping Doctors to Focus Treatments
Books that feel timely:
Ask me about the embarrassing essay I wrote in college about simulations, White Noise and Paul Auster. Don’t ask me actually. It’s fine! But yeah DeLillo the GOAT.
Do you think Barack Obama actually read this? Anyways. Love KSR. Relevant as always.
Penn Badgely:
Obviously the most pressing and urgent news is that Penn Badgely, of Gossip Girl and current stalker show I forget the name of fame, bravely declared he is not gonna do sex scenes because it uhhh it would mean cheating on his wife, or something. I can’t resist addressing the blatant, Classico Good Boy behavior of Mr. Badgely. It is absolutely bewitching! A Variety piece on it quotes him saying this on a pod:
“My fidelity in my relationship. It’s important to me. And actually, it was one of the reasons that I initially wanted to turn the role down. I didn’t tell anybody that. But that is why.”
There are so many layers. First of all, whatever you’re comfortable with and able to leverage in your job, cool. Great. But it’s hilarious to me that fidelity in his relationship is somehow threatened by playing pretend with other actors, which again, is the job of an actor. It sounds more like he’s got shit boundaries so abstaining on set is the only way to ensure he doesn’t actually cheat? What would actually be empowering, Penn, would be to give us full frontal dick and loving, intimate sex scenes with people of all genders. Right? Free idea for you Penn.
Treats:
Clem:
Lots of love, and thank you for sending me emails!
Shelby + Clem