tired: military base prison camps for children taken from subaltern parents by the state

wired: Janissary academies

me: How do I best describe this dynamic where all the History that had been on pause my whole life happens at once and I alternate on a daily basis between certainty that all that is worthy will shortly come to ruin and certainty that all that is foul will shortly be swept away in glory?

Charles Dickens: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way

me: Nice

new regional second-person pluralization where instead of “y’all” or “youse” or “yinz” or Texas Spanglish, midwestern slaughterhouse townspeople just start saying “the fuck are usted doing?”

I’ve noticed this too. Culture war brides?

(They’re not imagining being 40, they’re imagining being 8 years on from their first kid)

Person I know through pinball was pushing us to go to the Jordan Peterson tour when it comes through in a month and a half, after bursting out in an impassioned and unexpected witnessing about free speech, and another I did not expect revealed they already had a ticket

This is exactly what a revival looks like, I’m at the point of counting left-collapse and right-backlash as priced in and worrying about right-overreach already

collapsedsquid:

Hellworld 2018: Play as your choice of factions including incels, berniebros, #resistance, and oligarchs as you struggle for hegemony in disintegrating Trump-era USA.

shieldfoss:

Something flipped in establishment media this week

The WHCD thing, the revelation major studios are pushing explicitly right-cultural media, NBC fighting back all “My hope is this is the moment that defuses #MeToo” over Brokaw, whatever’s up with MAGA Kanye, Douthat in the NYT saying the incels have a legitimate claim under modern rules

All of it signaling to anyone else that backlash is on the mainstream menu

NYMag/Tablet/Atlantic/NYTOpinion seem to have had a sense they need to step in to rescue the culture, this civic sense being tainted by dream of individual glory at the usual rate, more and more jumping on the bandwagon all the time

Now what I’m suspicious might be a cause, Gawker’s Children have been pushing newsmedia unionization for the last year or two, a few successes but even then the bossmen have pushed back more than you’d expect from the brands (exactly as much as you’d expect from bossmen)

But the unions of and by and for the kind of writers that write for Vox and Splinter and etc. have signaled that they want to aggressively move to control hiring and editorial lines, and also the uses to which they should be put (diversity! and fighting the patriarchy!, respectively!)

Which is to say they openly did the work of aligning the media capitalholders that’d been propping them up (since slate and Salon in the ‘90s, basically no online journalism makes money, it all runs off VC) with the reactionary grumbling audiences. In the face of industry contraction (coming after the Facebook realgorithmization, so many “pivot to video” failures, Buzzfeed missing revenue targets) they wrote their own damn Powell Memorandum, ain’t that something.

So this is something ridiculous I’m hearing: the CBS sitcom Kevin Can Wait, with Kevin “the guy from King of Queens” James?

That for Season One they had two separate writer rooms, one anti-Trump and one pro-Trump. For Season Two they fired the anti-Trumpers. Thoughts:

1) if true, that’s at least the second (Roseanne) network multi-camera sitcom explicitly crafted for Trumpist appeal

2) it’s a show about a retired cop on Long Island, how the hell would an anti-Trump version even work?

kontextmaschine:

At some level I think Kanye’s just amused to coopt a shift in white culture into his persona before Taylor Swift

So today Kanye West went on TMZ Live and delivered an oration to the newsroom to the effect that American slavery lasted so long blacks must have been complicit

“Like, you was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all? It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word ‘prison’ because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. It’s like slavery, Holocaust. Holocaust, Jews. Slavery is blacks. So, prison is something that unites us as one race. Blacks and whites being one race. We’re the human race,” he continued.

And a random staffer stood up to challenge him, and got feted around the internet, and then went on to discuss the incident on his galaxy-brain, racially aware podcast about culture and society for the non-ignorant, “The Red Pill Podcast”

Why is 2018 like this?

quoms:

just wanna give a shout out to algorithms, the real MVPs

evilwvergil:

“concept arts” : 
↳ DISHONORED® Death of the Outsider

“what if solemn post-Edwardian dads but one of us is a Negress” is 2018 as hell just saying

xhxhxhx:

me: my friends, today I am going to post about something I know it is a topic of great concern to you all, a topic that has never ceased to raise the passions of the crowd, a topic dear to my heart

me: my friends, I speak of gender

*gasps*

me: I know that this may be a controversial topic, but I want you to know that I am willing to speak plainly and forthrightly, to speak my mind, so that you may know where I stand

*shouting, angered shouting*

me: and I know that some may face terrible oppression for speaking about gender, and I will let you know: I do not fear them

me: and I will speak

*cries of ‘let him speak! let him speak!’ as the audience falls silent*

me: my friends … let me begin with the one topic, so fraught and so important, so dear to all of us, but one that I know is fraught and touched everywhere by the implications of my great subject

me: my friends, I speak of dating

*hushed murmurs*

me: I know that this is filled with controversy and dissent, with rage, with loathing, but let me speak my mind, and bear whatever anger you may direct towards me, yes, let me say this

me: dating is hard

*murmurs of approval*

me: oh, I know as you know, dating is hard! how hard it is to be alone!

*louder murmurs*

me: how many of us worry that we will not find a partner? and how many of us worry about our partners? 

*’I do!’ ‘I do!’*

me: how many of us are alone? how many among you tonight are alone?

*’I am alone!’*

me: my friends, I must be honest. I must tell you something I have carried with me all these years, so that you will believe me when I say I know this from the pit of my heart:

me: I was once alone

*audible gasps, cries of ‘No!’*

me: no, no, it’s true, it’s true

me: it is a terrible thing to be alone, I know, and it is terrible to worry, I know and you know, but we all worry, and we all feel pain

me: I know your pain, I have shared your pain, and I want you to know this: 

me: you are not alone

*tears, shouts*

me: and I feel your pain

*’I love you!’*

me: but I know that I cannot avoid controversy, so I must return to the topic that stirs such turmoil, the topic which is so fraught with questions of language and perception and equality, the topic which has made the personal political, and has pained us all

me: I must speak of gender

*boos*

me: no, no, I know, but I came here to say unpopular things, and I will

me: you and I both know that gender is complicated. there is so much difference between us – between the genders – and it is hard to understand, and to feel that we are loved, and capable of love, but let me say this

me: we are different, but we are also the same 

*cries, applause*

me: and let me say this: gender puts burdens on us all

me: men and women, boys and girls, no matter who we love, or who we are, gender is hard

me: and I know that we all know that with the enormous expectations of our peers we may never know what should we do

*‘It’s true!’ ‘It’s true!’*

me: and I must say – and not to court controversy, but because I believe it in my heart to be true – that sometimes it is hard to tell what gender we are, or whether we are true to ourselves

me: now let me be understood: it is hard to be a girl –

*scattered applause, shouts*

me: – and let me say, let me say – sometimes, and sometimes … it is hard to be a boy

*loud and thunderous applause, broken only by shouts*

me: gentlemen! gentlemen! – and ladies – please, let me say this

*applause dies out*

me: some among us – yes, some among us – also bear children

*audible gasps*

me: I know, I know, it is a terrible thing, and it is a terrible burden, but it a burden that some of us must bear … 

me: … if that is our choice

*heavy applause, whistles*

me: thank you, thank you, and I am glad I have been able to speak to you, to let you all know where I stand … on the internet, it is easy to find controversy, especially when one speaks on such a fraught topic, and let it be known: I do not fear controversy

me: no one ever became popular by posting about gender on the internet, I know, and I do not intend to become popular tonight, but I must also let it be known have never feared the storms of open and honest debate, and I have never been afraid of the anger of the crowd

me: I know that some may pillory me for what I have said here tonight, and I may be hounded, but I know that I have said my truth, and if I go into the darkness, I know that I have said nothing but what I believe

me: that is my stand. I will not retreat from it, and I will not compromise

me: thank you, gentlemen, for your time

*stormy and prolonged applause transforming itself into a standing ovation*

For 2 months Uber offered a deal where for $5/mo all your trips would have their cost between $5 and $25 waived

I took it, and now they’re not offering anymore and I could swear the regular prices have been cranked since I was last exposed but it’s not glaringly obvious to cut into my brand inertia yet

(it was starting to, but then yesterday they started running discounts for Visa cardholders and I’m good again)

The “This Free Life” initiative – a public health campaign with banner ads and billboards around the theme “Not Smoking: It’s Really Gay!” – is some underrated ‘10s environmental storytelling

JP Morgan Chase & Co encourages you to reconsider moving to a city, the taxes and cost of living would be too high