All Thoughts Being Equal

So the lots of people (especially on the Internet) got mad at a video advertisement recently. Fair enough; I watched the ad in question and it's cringe-inducing, clearly the product of too many marketing meetings and too many focus groups from not the right demographics. But almost immediately after seeing the first think-piece headlines, a more troubling question came to my mind. See, the narrative was overwhelmingly "the company really dropped the ball with this ad," "the company totally misunderstood the current political climate with this ad"... generally this ad was disappointing . But unspoken seemed to be an  agreement that there is a hypothetical "good advertisement." The question, then, that came to mind: Do people actually see advertising as a worthwhile element of their lives? Apparently, yes; they jump at the chance to extol the virtues of "radvertising" but are just as quick to shame "badvertising." From the Gawke...

I attended my first community meeting today. Or rather, a "homeowners heckle a City representative" meeting, but I suppose that's par for the course. But what was the stated root of all this anger? Homelessness. And drugs. And drug-addicted homeless people coming for your children and valuables. You see, the City is proposing to lease a privately-owned lot for 1-2 years as a site for up to 50 "tiny houses," which will then be used as "low-barrier" housing for up to 70 homeless people who maybe can't get into a traditional shelter; one such "barrier" is drug use. In other words the City is shoving down the throats of the homeowners dozens of drug-maddened freaks not two blocks from a school (no, five schools!) where they can abduct, chop up and eat, fuck to death, experiment on, sew together into a second-grade-centipede, feed to their chained beasts, sacrifice to the Old Gods... our children! -- I may seem hyperbolic and s...

A dive into the inexcusable vitriol burbling up through social media and message boards over the WWU Viking mascot controversy. 4chan and Yik Yak are the main cesspools here, although Breitbart and Twitter make appearances. I. I wish the previous post had been the end of it, me making some criticism at the WWU AS for being silly about social media nonsense, then ending with a half-joking, half-serious suggestion that WWU change its mascot to the Viking... landers. Tee hee!  Or, you know, some fucking asswipes could ruin everything. That could happen, too. What... the... Are you... fucking... kidding... And that's just about when Western Washington University, for the first time in decades, decided to cancel classes on Tuesday, 24 November . Now, these are just the things that were publicly available to me [NB: The 4chan thread has since been deleted] , so there could very well have been additional private threats, emails, or deleted Yik Yak posts that I...

This post is a follow up to the AS Elections series: Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3 . This post series of posts is going to be a rather odd one. The first few sections I wrote under the intended title of "AS Elections 2015: Representation Without Representation," addressing the initial mascot stupidity and the messaging of the WWU Associated Students. Then some shit went down, and things became, well, problematic . I can't in good conscience keep the rest of my thoughts under the same title, so I'm adding this intro by way of disclaimer. Yes , I have another post about the racist pricks who decided it would be "top kek" to "joke" on anonymous social media about lynching people. I also have some criticism of the WWU AS, though, and more importantly I don't want one criticism obscuring the other. Since the AS did some questionable things first (and I'll make a hub post with a timeline, maybe) this critique comes first. Here we go: I. ...

Can't remember how I came across this post— We Are Not Things: Mad Max versus Game of Thrones —but I think it's worth talking about at some length, if not a full post length. Two portrayals of a world where women hold dubious power and are seen as “things.” One of these is roundly criticized for it. One of them is roundly celebrated for it. Game of Thrones catches hell for its portrayal of women and this subject. Mad Max is wreathed in a garland of bike chains and hubcabs for it. What, then, is the difference? Here we go. I'll just come out and say that I think the article misunderstands how the themes of Mad Max and Game of Thrones are different: Max Max is about liberation , while Game of Thrones is about the nature and abuse of power. The article focuses on frequency and point-of-view as two points of contrast between MM and GoT . I'm not sure of the author believes that sexual assault should never be depicted, or if depicted, only once? Frequ...

This post is a follow-up to Diagnosis of an overwhelming fear, pt. 2 , and a partial-follow up to Rhetorical imperialism I. The new hotness in this micro-epoch of the Age of Outrage is at Vox, where a pseudonymous professor touts his liberality but claims that his liberal students are terrifying . "I'm a liberal college professor," cries the headline, "and my liberal students terrify me": I'm a professor at a midsize state school. I have been teaching college classes for nine years now. I have won (minor) teaching awards, studied pedagogy extensively, and almost always score highly on my student evaluations. I am not a world-class teacher by any means, but I am conscientious; I attempt to put teaching ahead of research, and I take a healthy emotional stake in the well-being and growth of my students. Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes s...