Today's Failbook fail: Uncle Frank's Opinion.
A guy is thinking about piercing his ears. His uncle says it will make him gay, or reveal that he's gay, or some such shit.
So let's go over the things that Failbook says will make you gay (if you're a man, naturally): ear piercing, eating meat, having a baby, reposting Facebook memes, having a job, liking male vocalists, and liking female vocalists.
Holy shit, you guys, EVERY MAN IS GAY. You'd have to be an unemployed, childless, vegetarian music-hater who doesn't use social networking sites! So . . . the only straight men are hikikomori. (As long as we go by the American defintion, whereby fish is not meat, Japan is a good population to draw from here.) The rest of you dudes? You're all queermos. Hope you've got plenty of lube.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
A Meditation on Blonde Jokes
Today's Failbook fail: Four Blondes.
What are blonde jokes "about," really? Other jokes that indict groups of people are usually pretty clearly racist, anti-Semitic, ablist, what have you. Blonde jokes are odd in that they target the most sexually desirable members of American society -- blonde women (who are presumably het/cis/thin/blah).
But I guess the message of blonde jokes is, Don't get too big for your britches, ladies. Don't let our desire of you ever distract you from the fact that you are a woman and therefore an idiot. In fact, the hotter you are, the dumber you must be. Ugly women are dyke feminists. Hot blonde women are morons who want nothing more than to trick some many into marrying and supporting them.
It's funny -- not funny ha-ha, more funny sad -- that jokes like this, which are, let us get one thing straight, written by het men, put on display the very real contempt so many men have for all women. These are people who are sexually attracted to a group of people that they loathe, fear, disdain. They believe terrible things about a group of people that they want to fuck, maybe even marry and procreate with.
This is why I never got this "battle of the sexes" shit. Most of us are attracted to people on the "other side." I do my best to believe nothing about men as a whole, and make my mind up about them individually. My father is a wonderful man. My fiancé means the world to me. I have tons of male friends at work. My mentor at work, with whom I'm very close, is a man. Some people want you to believe that feminists hate men. Nope. But plenty of men hate women. And that's just sad.
What are blonde jokes "about," really? Other jokes that indict groups of people are usually pretty clearly racist, anti-Semitic, ablist, what have you. Blonde jokes are odd in that they target the most sexually desirable members of American society -- blonde women (who are presumably het/cis/thin/blah).
But I guess the message of blonde jokes is, Don't get too big for your britches, ladies. Don't let our desire of you ever distract you from the fact that you are a woman and therefore an idiot. In fact, the hotter you are, the dumber you must be. Ugly women are dyke feminists. Hot blonde women are morons who want nothing more than to trick some many into marrying and supporting them.
It's funny -- not funny ha-ha, more funny sad -- that jokes like this, which are, let us get one thing straight, written by het men, put on display the very real contempt so many men have for all women. These are people who are sexually attracted to a group of people that they loathe, fear, disdain. They believe terrible things about a group of people that they want to fuck, maybe even marry and procreate with.
This is why I never got this "battle of the sexes" shit. Most of us are attracted to people on the "other side." I do my best to believe nothing about men as a whole, and make my mind up about them individually. My father is a wonderful man. My fiancé means the world to me. I have tons of male friends at work. My mentor at work, with whom I'm very close, is a man. Some people want you to believe that feminists hate men. Nope. But plenty of men hate women. And that's just sad.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Hope This Answers the OP's Question
Today's Failbook fail: Fact.
Someone observes that homeless people tend to be fat rather than skinny. Some jackass attributes this to "cannibalism."
Let's begin with the obvious fact that accusing the food-insecure of eating each other is simply heartless. Now let's move onto the question at hand of why homeless people are fat. Well, let's say you are living on the street. (This shouldn't be too much of a leap. First imagine your family has died. Now imagine that you have become mentally ill and thereby lost your job. Now that you have no job, you can't pay for rent or a mortgage, so you have no place to live -- and, oh, by the way, no health insurance to cover your illness, since you lost your job . . . because you're ill. Welcome to America.)
Maybe you're panhandling; maybe you're doing odd jobs; maybe you've been forced into sex work. Regardless, you're making a tiny percentage of what you used to make, say $10 a day. You don't know if you'll make $10 tomorrow. You don't want to save the money, because you have to sleep, right? You'll sleep in a parking garage or on a bench or under a bridge, and anyone could come by and take your money, maybe rough you up in the process. So there's no point in saving anything. It's too easy to lose what little you have.
What you need now is the maximum number of calories with that meager $10. Let's see -- a Big Mac is about $4, that's a good start. Maybe one for lunch and one for dinner. Now you have $2 left -- you might buy something like a box of Twinkies, high in calories, and it'll keep, too. Plus they're soft, which is nice because you don't have dental care anymore.
Now, a Big Mac is only 540 calories, so two in a day is just half your daily allowance of calories. Now, a 12-pack of 150-calorie Twinkies will put you over the 2000-calorie limit, but now it's time for us to think about what's been in our $10's worth of daily meals. Lots of saturated fat. Lots of sodium. Lots of sugar.
And finally, when it comes to surviving outside 24/7 in most of America, being skinny will get you killed, thanks to hypothermia, while being fat will stave that off somewhat.
I, as a privileged middle-class American, can afford to eat more or less whatever I want (I can't actually eat whatever I want, thanks to endocrine disorders, but I can afford to buy the food I need in any case). But because I don't have my head up my ass, I realize that this is not the case for everyone. And, therefore, I don't write Facebook statuses like that. Not having your head up your ass = not writing jackass Facebook status messages. Pretty simple, actually.
Someone observes that homeless people tend to be fat rather than skinny. Some jackass attributes this to "cannibalism."
Let's begin with the obvious fact that accusing the food-insecure of eating each other is simply heartless. Now let's move onto the question at hand of why homeless people are fat. Well, let's say you are living on the street. (This shouldn't be too much of a leap. First imagine your family has died. Now imagine that you have become mentally ill and thereby lost your job. Now that you have no job, you can't pay for rent or a mortgage, so you have no place to live -- and, oh, by the way, no health insurance to cover your illness, since you lost your job . . . because you're ill. Welcome to America.)
Maybe you're panhandling; maybe you're doing odd jobs; maybe you've been forced into sex work. Regardless, you're making a tiny percentage of what you used to make, say $10 a day. You don't know if you'll make $10 tomorrow. You don't want to save the money, because you have to sleep, right? You'll sleep in a parking garage or on a bench or under a bridge, and anyone could come by and take your money, maybe rough you up in the process. So there's no point in saving anything. It's too easy to lose what little you have.
What you need now is the maximum number of calories with that meager $10. Let's see -- a Big Mac is about $4, that's a good start. Maybe one for lunch and one for dinner. Now you have $2 left -- you might buy something like a box of Twinkies, high in calories, and it'll keep, too. Plus they're soft, which is nice because you don't have dental care anymore.
Now, a Big Mac is only 540 calories, so two in a day is just half your daily allowance of calories. Now, a 12-pack of 150-calorie Twinkies will put you over the 2000-calorie limit, but now it's time for us to think about what's been in our $10's worth of daily meals. Lots of saturated fat. Lots of sodium. Lots of sugar.
And finally, when it comes to surviving outside 24/7 in most of America, being skinny will get you killed, thanks to hypothermia, while being fat will stave that off somewhat.
I, as a privileged middle-class American, can afford to eat more or less whatever I want (I can't actually eat whatever I want, thanks to endocrine disorders, but I can afford to buy the food I need in any case). But because I don't have my head up my ass, I realize that this is not the case for everyone. And, therefore, I don't write Facebook statuses like that. Not having your head up your ass = not writing jackass Facebook status messages. Pretty simple, actually.
Monday, March 21, 2011
For All the Pastafarians in the House
Today's Failbook fail: 2 FAILs for the Price of 1.
It is a "FAIL" that a man's name is "Ram Amandeep."
I hope to the FSM that "John Smith" means "fondle a sheep while thinking about the Prime Minister in lacy underthings" in any number of languages that are not English. Please. speakers of English, get the fuck over yourselves. The combinations of phonemes you understand to mean certain things do not mean those things for everyone. Unless you are hopelessly ethnocentric, this shouldn't be funny so much as commonplace.
It is a "FAIL" that a man's name is "Ram Amandeep."
I hope to the FSM that "John Smith" means "fondle a sheep while thinking about the Prime Minister in lacy underthings" in any number of languages that are not English. Please. speakers of English, get the fuck over yourselves. The combinations of phonemes you understand to mean certain things do not mean those things for everyone. Unless you are hopelessly ethnocentric, this shouldn't be funny so much as commonplace.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
All My Trains of Thought Go to Rapetown!
Today's Failbook fail: Untitled.
I know I've neglected this blog this week. I'm sorry, nonexistent readers. When you're full-time in a job and half-time in higher ed, sometimes other things fall by the wayside for a while. But I'm back, have no fear.
Today's fail is short and whatever the opposite of sweet is. (Shitty?) Someone names a bunch of his/her friends, and follows it up with, "Need I say more?"
If I were to see that, I might think, "Ah, someone had a good part." But the jackass "friend" who comments says that more information is necessary, or all will assume it was a "gangbang," which is a lovely colloquialism for "a bunch of people raping other people."
Some will tell me I'm wrong. "No, ma'am, it means group sex!" Maybe that's your Urban Dictionary definition (I don't know; I refuse to expose myself to that guaranteed ticket to Vomitville), but get real. Group sex is referred to as an "orgy," or maybe a "sex party," if you're a little older. "Gangbang" is rapey. It's real, real rapey, and the fact that it was someone's first thought upon seeing a bunch of names together is just sick. Welcome to rape culture!
I know I've neglected this blog this week. I'm sorry, nonexistent readers. When you're full-time in a job and half-time in higher ed, sometimes other things fall by the wayside for a while. But I'm back, have no fear.
Today's fail is short and whatever the opposite of sweet is. (Shitty?) Someone names a bunch of his/her friends, and follows it up with, "Need I say more?"
If I were to see that, I might think, "Ah, someone had a good part." But the jackass "friend" who comments says that more information is necessary, or all will assume it was a "gangbang," which is a lovely colloquialism for "a bunch of people raping other people."
Some will tell me I'm wrong. "No, ma'am, it means group sex!" Maybe that's your Urban Dictionary definition (I don't know; I refuse to expose myself to that guaranteed ticket to Vomitville), but get real. Group sex is referred to as an "orgy," or maybe a "sex party," if you're a little older. "Gangbang" is rapey. It's real, real rapey, and the fact that it was someone's first thought upon seeing a bunch of names together is just sick. Welcome to rape culture!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
OMG There Are Fat People on the Internet!!
Today's Failbook fail: I'm Sure It Happens All the Time...
You know what the world needs more of? Hatred of fat people. Especially fat women. How dare they walk around with their fat, even post pictures of their fat online?!!? THE INTERNET IS FOR SKINNY PEOPLE, YOU FATTIE FAT FATSO!
And this girl has the temerity to say that people mistake her for Megan Fox! I mean, her face is blurred out of this post, so maybe there is a facial resemblance, but my stars, if you are fat you by definition cannot resemble anyone attractive!
The really sad thing is, this girl seems cool. She seems fun and funny -- I love her Simpsons shrt -- and by condemning her with no more than her own photos and one-line status update, I feel like Failbook just throws her into the garbage can without so much as a "buh-bye." Like, she's fat, so she's beneath even their assholish commentary. Oh, well, there is the title, as well as the hashtags: "facepalm," "image," and "really?"
The comments are a mix. There are some people saying, rightfully, "Don’t resort to making fun of somebody who made a self-deprecating joke and isn’t considered pretty because she’s heavy." And then there are people who are saying to man the harpoons, and furthermore, "I say we enact hunting to get the population under control." If that sounds eliminationist to you, it's because it fucking is.
Heads up, all: fat people have a right to exist. They are not a different species as thin people are. They have a right to be in the same spaces as you, whether that's Facebook, public transportation, a restaurant, or your workplace. Moreover, fat women can be pretty. Fat men can be hot. Stop acting like all these ideas are so friggin' radical. They're not. They're simple courtesy and recognition of reality.
You know what the world needs more of? Hatred of fat people. Especially fat women. How dare they walk around with their fat, even post pictures of their fat online?!!? THE INTERNET IS FOR SKINNY PEOPLE, YOU FATTIE FAT FATSO!
And this girl has the temerity to say that people mistake her for Megan Fox! I mean, her face is blurred out of this post, so maybe there is a facial resemblance, but my stars, if you are fat you by definition cannot resemble anyone attractive!
The really sad thing is, this girl seems cool. She seems fun and funny -- I love her Simpsons shrt -- and by condemning her with no more than her own photos and one-line status update, I feel like Failbook just throws her into the garbage can without so much as a "buh-bye." Like, she's fat, so she's beneath even their assholish commentary. Oh, well, there is the title, as well as the hashtags: "facepalm," "image," and "really?"
The comments are a mix. There are some people saying, rightfully, "Don’t resort to making fun of somebody who made a self-deprecating joke and isn’t considered pretty because she’s heavy." And then there are people who are saying to man the harpoons, and furthermore, "I say we enact hunting to get the population under control." If that sounds eliminationist to you, it's because it fucking is.
Heads up, all: fat people have a right to exist. They are not a different species as thin people are. They have a right to be in the same spaces as you, whether that's Facebook, public transportation, a restaurant, or your workplace. Moreover, fat women can be pretty. Fat men can be hot. Stop acting like all these ideas are so friggin' radical. They're not. They're simple courtesy and recognition of reality.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Win!
Had to do a win today, because it's such a perfect response to some random bashing of Hillary Clinton -- who, it must be stated, is awesome. There are probably some fail-y Failbook posts today, but this one wins more than any of them fail.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Thelma and Louise Notwithstanding
Today's Failbook fail: Bad Example.
Some jackass makes fun of women drivers. Someone (a woman, probably) reminds him that he is himself a shitty driver.
But she does it too nicely, frankly, with a little winky face and all that shit. Next time someone pulls this shit on you, say calmly, "Have you ever thought about why men's car insurance rates are higher than women's? It's because actuaries have crunched years' worth of data and determined that men are costlier to insure. Meaning, men are bigger insurance risks than women. Meaning, women are the better drivers."
I usually don't pull this actually-the-data-say-otherwise shit out unless people espouse something that's just completely the opposite of the truth. Like when assholes spout off about gay people turning their kids gay or abusing them or whatever. Actually, it's the opposite! Gays make better parents! Shut the fuck up!
Some jackass makes fun of women drivers. Someone (a woman, probably) reminds him that he is himself a shitty driver.
But she does it too nicely, frankly, with a little winky face and all that shit. Next time someone pulls this shit on you, say calmly, "Have you ever thought about why men's car insurance rates are higher than women's? It's because actuaries have crunched years' worth of data and determined that men are costlier to insure. Meaning, men are bigger insurance risks than women. Meaning, women are the better drivers."
I usually don't pull this actually-the-data-say-otherwise shit out unless people espouse something that's just completely the opposite of the truth. Like when assholes spout off about gay people turning their kids gay or abusing them or whatever. Actually, it's the opposite! Gays make better parents! Shut the fuck up!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Not Even Close
Today's Failbook fail: China = Japan.
Look, if you can't tell by looking at a Southeast Asian person which country their ancestors are from, you are not alone. And no one would fault you for not knowing.
But the damn video here is titled with the word "Chinese," and then the idiotic OP starts spouting off about Pearl Harbor. Jesus Christ Almighty. It just showcases your ignorance, pal. You really don't differentiate between those countries at all.
Also, I just have to say . . . the actual video is an ad for a torture device for women that will squeeze them in precisely the right excruciating way to give them video-game-woman-style cleavage. I'm calling sexism on this one for not even acknowledging that this ad is for something ridiculously awful for women.
Look, if you can't tell by looking at a Southeast Asian person which country their ancestors are from, you are not alone. And no one would fault you for not knowing.
But the damn video here is titled with the word "Chinese," and then the idiotic OP starts spouting off about Pearl Harbor. Jesus Christ Almighty. It just showcases your ignorance, pal. You really don't differentiate between those countries at all.
Also, I just have to say . . . the actual video is an ad for a torture device for women that will squeeze them in precisely the right excruciating way to give them video-game-woman-style cleavage. I'm calling sexism on this one for not even acknowledging that this ad is for something ridiculously awful for women.
Monday, March 7, 2011
The International Language of Idiots
Today's Failbook fail: English Please.
A non-white person says things in a language that is not English. An American guy, who by the looks of his blurred-out picture is probably white, demands the person speak only English. The OP tells him to shut up, and the American cracks wise.
Sweet sparkly vampires, does anyone really wonder where the stereotype of an "ugly American" comes from!?!? Dear all Americans: THE INTERNET IS NOT SOLELY AMERICAN. FACEBOOK, TOO, IS INTERNATIONAL. There will be people speaking in languages you don't speak! A person's Facebook status is not a road sign in Wichita! You have no right to see it in English! Just! Shut! Up!
A non-white person says things in a language that is not English. An American guy, who by the looks of his blurred-out picture is probably white, demands the person speak only English. The OP tells him to shut up, and the American cracks wise.
Sweet sparkly vampires, does anyone really wonder where the stereotype of an "ugly American" comes from!?!? Dear all Americans: THE INTERNET IS NOT SOLELY AMERICAN. FACEBOOK, TOO, IS INTERNATIONAL. There will be people speaking in languages you don't speak! A person's Facebook status is not a road sign in Wichita! You have no right to see it in English! Just! Shut! Up!
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