Confession: sometimes I read women’s magazines. They’re fun to make critique and laugh at. This time, though, I didn’t even get past the magazine’s front matter before finding something objectionable. In her opening letter for Elle magazine’s August issue, Editor-in-Chief Roberta Myers discusses the recent legislation in the U.K. that would require digitally altered photographs …
Category Archive: pop culture
Apr 03 2012
I Hope They Serve Beer in the Abortion Clinic: Tucker Max vs. Planned Parenthood
I feel bad for Planned Parenthood. Not only have they been facing attacks from conservative politicians and cancer charities, defunding threats, and–I kid you not–firebombs, but now they have to deal with the odious filth that is Tucker Max and his publicity machine. First, an aside–I’m not going to waste space here discussing who Tucker …
Jan 21 2012
Why I Don't Like "How I Met Your Mother"
Everybody seems to be obsessed with the CBS show How I Met Your Mother, so I decided to give it a try. I watched a few episodes, which I enjoyed to some extent. However, I soon found myself completely unwilling to keep going. The reason for my premature abandonment of the show is one of …
Jan 07 2012
"Shit Girls Say" Isn't Funny
Or, perhaps, it’s only funny if you don’t consider the context. Check it out: This is the first episode of the wildly popular web series Shit Girls Say, which draws its humor from portraying stereotypical (white) (middle-/upper class) women in quick bursts of cliched speech. And I can definitely see how many people, even many …
Jul 28 2011
Mental Illness as a Spectator Sport
Our culture seems to have three ways of relating to people with mental illnesses–either they’re pathetic losers who need to “snap out of it”, or they’re crazies who need to be locked away (think schizophrenia in popular culture), or they’re here for our pleasure and entertainment. That last one is a relative newcomer, and that’s …
Jul 15 2011
An Indictment of Party Pop
Just when you thought I was finally done writing about alcohol and partying, here I go with yet another post about it! Before I start talking about party pop, though, I need to clarify what exactly I’m talking about, because apparently some people still don’t get it. Every once in a while someone who doesn’t …
Apr 08 2011
On Apathy and Being Cool
[TMI Warning] I saw this on one of my favorite blogs, Thought Catalog, today. Sara David, the author of this post, uses American Apparel models (and models in general) to make a point about the aesthetics of indifference: Like, I get it. You want to represent the “cool you” on your blog. The you that’s …







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