NYT Fail

In the NY Times Book Review tomorrow, a review of the book "Digital Barbarism" begins as follows:

One of the more trenchant cartoons of the Internet era features a stick-figure man typing furiously at his keyboard. From somewhere beyond the panel floats the irritated voice of his wife.

“Are you coming to bed?”

“I can’t,” he replies. “This is important.”

“What?”

“Someone is wrong on the Internet.”

Anyone familiar with, well, the internet will immediately recognize this as the work of everyone's internet crush Randall Munroe, in xkcd #386.


But uncredited.

The article in question, which can be found here, is about copyright in the internet age, fair use, and outraged internet denizens. Fail.

Also note the interesting assumptions the article's author makes about the relationship and gender of the xkcd characters.

Jenny noted that the article was written by a Ross Douthat, which must clearly be the pseudonym of xkcd's black hat guy. Douthat is pretty much as close to douche-hat as one can print in the NY Times, so I'm gonna go with this explanation. Stay tuned to next week's book review for an extended series on velociraptors.


Major fail, NYT.

Unpopular Opinion Monday

Susan Boyle ain't much of a singer.

I enjoyed the clip from "Britain's Got Talent" as much as anyone. It was a fabulous five minutes of television.

But you know who deserves credit for that excellent video? It ain't Susan Boyle. I'm sorry, internet hordes, but she's just not much of a singer. Strong voice, but untrained and with no range (can *you* hear the "but the tigers come at night" low note? which isn't low at all?). She is no different than anyone else on these Idol shows - she's just uglier.

The people who really deserve credit for the Susan Boyle video are the people who put it together - the director and editors who took the raw footage and made it heart-tugging. In fact, I just spent ten minutes trying to find the program's credits, to give the crew some truly deserved props by name, but even ITV's website snubs them.

Congratulations to the crew of Britain's Got Talent - your video went viral. Congratulations to Susan Boyle - you lucked out, big time.

And for the rest of you... You can stop patting yourselves on the back. It is no different and no better to be wowed by Susan Boyle because she sang better than you expected, than it was to expect a joke in the first place.



...Plus I've had Les Miz stuck in my head for a week now and it's really not okay.

Follow-up: my response

Follow-up to people over thirty shouldn't be allowed on facebook:

I decided that I want to try to bait Eric into saying even more ridiculous things. I drafted a couple replies that were sarcastic "what a great suggestion!" things, and a few attempts to scam him out of money. But I have decided to go the "willful misunderstanding" route, and respond as an Angry Feminist... while getting completely wrong what type of plastic surgery he meant. Hopefully this will both thoroughly embarrass him and force him into awkwardly clarifying. Props to Ben for the concept.

Eric,

That was really out of line.

First of all, I have met you exactly once. You may have a reputation for extreme "honesty" among your friends, but I don't think you quite have the right to count me among them - we just don't know each other very well. And there is no way for a mere acquaintance to justify offering such drastic advice, completely unsolicited.

Secondly, you are a married man. A married man with a baby! I really find it unacceptable and more than a little bit creepy that you have been so closely examining my appearance in my facebook pictures. If you don't like what you see, don't look at it. In fact, just don't look. It's bad enough when men objectify women for their body - you take it to a whole new level by telling me I'm not good enough to be an object.

And the latent anti-Semitism of your remarks is horrifying. You are criticizing my appearance on the basis of it being too Jewish. You latched on to a single joke in my profile - yes, my religious views are listed as "look at me" because I know I have very traditionally Jewish features - and interpreted it as dissatisfaction with my body. What, exactly, makes you think that I'm not perfectly happy with my appearance the way it is? I assure you that most men are quite approving of my figure - and Ashkenazi Jews certainly do not have a monopoly on large busts!

You have issued an unsolicited and completely inappropriate recommendation for a cosmetic, elective version of a procedure that for some people is legitimately medical. You have no way of knowing if I have back pain and the assorted other health problems that sometimes accompany my body type. But your advice was based not on a concern for my health or comfort, but for some imaginary version of my social life. Oh yes, by all means, I should undergo elective surgery to conform with mainstream standards of beauty, within which a b-cup is a small chest and a c-cup is a large one and all other sizes are abnormal. Perhaps if I artificially manipulate my body to look like everyone else's - the way you made your wife and will no doubt make your daughter some day! - then perhaps I will have a chance at a life full of success, happiness, and multiple sexual partners.

I have a fantastic rack, and it ain't going nowhere.

-Liz-

people over thirty shouldn't be allowed on facebook: a case study

An email I received from the founder of the Harvard Pops Orchestra , of which I was the president in college. Eric is mid-30s, married with a kid, and I have met him only once, several years ago.

From: Eric D.
Subject: a random thought

Liz--I'm a very honest and open person, and it takes people a little aback at first, but in the end they accept it about me.

I was looking at your pictures, and, you know something? You're pretty cute. You really are. And you know something else? (Here comes the honesty:) You would look even cuter with just a touch of plastic surgery. My wife had it done, and she's never looked back. Your twenties is a period where you should be dating like crazy, figuring out exactly the type of individual you want to spend the rest of your life with. You deserve to feel self-confident about your looks, not listing yourself in your profile as "Jewish...look at me." I personally think you're an amazing person, so I really do hope you take this the right way. Just know you've got a fan and friend in your corner...you can hit me later.

Sincerely,
Eric


It's like a checklist of offensiveness. Bonus points for anti-Semitism and insulting your own wife!

Any ideas how I can make this guy into one of those internet micro-celebrity douchebags?

Follow-up: my response