Tag Archives: Reddit

October 14, 2012 · 10:28 pm

Sunday Scraps 78

1. FRISK: A 17-year-old in New York City secretly recorded two cops harassing him for his race and appearance and threatening to beat him, all part of the legal policy known as “Stop and Frisk” (The Atlantic).

2. WEIGHT: Roxane Gay writes for the Wall Street Journal on how, despite the recent rash of plus-sized women on  screen, their weight is still the punch line to a joke instead of just one feature of many.

3. KISS: You know that famous VJ Day kiss photo? Turns out that the story isn’t quite what we thought it was, and a whole lot less romantic (Mother Jones).

4. INTERWEBZ: Reddit’s #1 creeper (creator of such subreddits as “jailbait” and “creeshots”) was recently outed by Gawker. Given the guy has made his name posting other people’s photos and claiming “if they didn’t want us to see it, they wouldn’t have put it on Facebook,” it seems ironic that he’s so pissed about being exposed. Dude, if you didn’t want people to know you’re a creeper, don’t be a creeper.

5. GIRLS: This week’s International Day of the Girl had the likes of Melinda Gates, Christiane Amanpour and Oprah offering advice to their 15-year-old selves.

6. INIGO: Homeland standout Mandy Patinkin was interviewed by NPR about the 25th anniversary of The Princess Bride. He said, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed…”

Related Post: Sunday 77 – the worst bride ever, Urban Cusp, replacement refs

Related Post: Sunday 76 – Zadie Smith, xkcd founder, Vice 

2 Comments

Filed under Body Image, Hollywood, Media, Politics, Really Good Writing by Other People

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 3, 2012 · 7:49 pm

How Does the Arc Bend?

Back in 2008, in a speech commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, President Obama elaborated on his famous “arc of justice” quote:

“Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice….”

My best friend and I find ourselves gchatting the same thing to each other at least once a week: “people are the worst.” It might be in response to a political ad, or a terrible headline, or a horrific crime, or just the way the world seems to be behaving at the particular moment in time. It seems a lot less common that we get to say the phrase I infinitely prefer, “people are the best.”

The photo of Balpreet posted on Reddit

So this was a special week when twice–twice!–I got to crow about the goodness in people, the badass-ery of people, the decency and strength of people. First, you may have read about a Sikh woman whose picture was posted on Reddit and then insulted by a bunch of ignoramuses. Some people would cry (and maybe she did, I probably would have), some people would rant and rave (I definitely would), and some people write extremely eloquent, articulate explanations and seek to educate instead of judge. This woman, Balpreet Kaur, is one of those. Read her letter and then response and you will find yourself thinking, for once, people really are the best.

Then, yesterday, a story broke about a Wisconsin anchorwoman who took the uneducated, rude, hurtful words of a viewer and made the story not about her weight, as he would have liked her to do, but about bullying. Jennifer Livingston, like Balpreet, just calmly explains exactly why this approach to her is disrespectful, damaging, and unwarranted. The viewer accuses her of being a poor role model for girls because she is overweight, when in fact Livingston’s response shows she is exactly the kind of role model I would want for my children.

Seriously, you guys, sometime people are just the coolest.

Related Post: Just another horrible story I’ve been ignoring…

Related Post: Thumbs up for the 6 billion

6 Comments

Filed under Body Image, Gender, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 9, 2012 · 4:41 pm

Just Another Story I’ve Been Ignoring

The internet is a strange and sometimes scary place.

I don’t really have a conclusion for today’s post, and you should know that up front. I’ve written before about how the assault on women and their rights, both here and abroad, has created in me a certain inability to process the newest of the horrible.

Just another state wanting to strip women of the right control their own bodies. Just another politician huffing on about delicate ladies who need protection from their own emotions. Just Pat Buchanan chuckling about how he hopes we won’t have a female president until long after he’s dead. Just another transvaginal this, conscience clause that, LGBTQ hating pundit hoping the gays die of AIDS. Just another, just another, just another.

There’s a story I’ve been ignoring as Just Another. It’s about a woman only a few years older than me, who runs a blog, Feminist Frequency, about feminism and media and gender and sexuality (which has been on the blog roll on the right of this page for ages). I saw her name in headlines about online harassment, and I shrugged at Just Another example of women being targeted by Reddit douchebags who are irrationally upset that women don’t fawn over them as something (video games? rap music? reality TV? I really don’t know who to blame, here) told them we would.

I finally read the whole sordid story last night, the one I bypassed out of anomie, and I couldn’t sleep. The harassment she has endured is not limited to name-calling, a tactic most vocal, feminist, sexually confident women on the internet have suffered (I’ve even been told I “must have herpes”), but includes targeting her home phone number and address, hacking her website and wikipedia page, sharing violent drawings of her being raped or assaulted, and a video game in which users can punch her in the face and watch her bruises spread:

An image from the game Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian (via The New Statesman)

I just don’t know what to do or say. Donate to her KickStarter? She already met her goal of $6000 (and raised a whopping total of $150,000)*. Write a blogpost to publicize the incident? Done. Cry a little and worry about the future of humanity? Pshaw, I do that every day. Try to understand that the men that created this game and harassed this woman are coming from a place of fear and insecurity? Fuck that shit, they belong in jail.

*You can still donate to Feminist Frequency. I donate to other causes I believe in, right? Why not a blog?

Related Post: Why I believe men belong in the feminist movement.

Related Post: Sex talk in the modern workplace? Banter or harassment?

8 Comments

Filed under Gender, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

April 1, 2012 · 12:51 pm

Sunday Scraps 53

1. BEAUTY: One mom, Eleni Gage, writes about how she pierced her infant’s ears and wound up on the receiving end of a whole slew of comments ranging from “female genital mutilation!” to accusations of class warfare.

2. REDDIT: Pretty fascinating account from Wired of how a rampant Reddit thread about a hypothetical Romans vs. United States military battle became a sensation, a screenplay, and a soon-to-be-released blockbuster.

3. GROCERY: Ever been to the Bi-Rite in the Mission in San Francisco? How did the store on the corner become the little grocery nobody can shut up about?

4. ORIENTATION: From Salon, one story about how San Francisco’s sexual fluidity pushed Anna Pulley away from her lesbian history towards conventional hetero sex.

5. BLOOD: Incredible, moving, beautifully-written piece in The Atlantic by John Fram on the course of his relationship after his boyfriend’s HIV status is revealed.

6. ART: Artist Andrew Myers creates 3D portraits out of screws, a drill, and paint.

Related Post: Sunday 52 = Advice for black children, Southerners deserve more, SATs at 35

Related Post: Sunday 51 = Rooming with Gloria, Bruni on double standards, A League of Their Own

2 Comments

Filed under Body Image, Sex, Gender, Really Good Writing by Other People, Food, Hollywood, Art

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 11, 2011 · 4:03 pm

On Toothpaste

Image from CopyRanter

I’ve never really messed around with Reddit before, but the comments on this toothpaste image-of-the-day make me think I need to go back there:

“When I’m bored, I definitely just start cutting things open.” Response: “Please don’t get a pet.”

“I’ve always wondered what the inside of a potato looked like.”

“You’re a bold, bold man. Despite my curiosity, I never had the courage to waste a full tube of toothpaste like that. Bravo, good sir.”

“Man who rubbed toothpaste on his genitals reporting in. Do not rub toothpaste on your penis.”
klj
And then, predictably, the whole thing devolved into a conversation about things to rub, or not rub, on one’s penis. Apparently, toothpastes is in the “No” column.
kj
Related Post: Fun stuff from copyranter, like Legos! and “accidental sex!”
sdf
Related Post: Less fun stuff from copyranter, like beautiful ads about domestic violence.


Leave a Comment

Filed under Advertising, Art

Tagged as , , , ,