I know I keep circling back to this, but I don't think k a lot of well-meaning people realise how much it rankles when the response to Harry Potter funding trans genocide is a focus on "what to read instead to be a Good Person" rather than, I dunno, more directly helping combat the trans genocide.

you see me wearing this shit you should chop my head clean off like a samurai

"Fun" day to be working on the anti-Harry Potter (specifically anti-HP *fandom*) piece that will be a part of @fansplaining.bsky.social's relaunch, but kudos to Warner Bros for managing to make what looks like a shit live-action remake of your own live-action property. 🙂

imagine everyone around you like constantly and casually talked about how attached they were to jerry falwell’s childrens book and its movie adaptations

I suppose we are left with the mainstream culture coverage our current culture deserves.

Everyone is celebrating this because it's good. But it’s important to remember it's also funny.

sometimes it really feels like a whole bunch of (mostly rich and powerful) people have completely given up on culture. which makes the average person’s resistance to slop even more compelling.

going back reading some of the stated uses for this tech is such a trip

Dept of Homeroom Security over here.

I can't recall a time when more talented reporters and writers on movies and culture who have real skill and knowledge are struggling to find a foothold. We live in an "Everyone's an expert" era. But everyone isn't. Editors: Please take a chance on folks you haven't tried before. Read their clips!

My son, Gaston, is so based when we went to dinner he asked for four dozen eggs to help him get large. Then he asked for five dozen eggs to become roughly the size of the barge. The LA waitstaff was stunned

I got to preach at Trans Day of Visibility at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I think it worked out. I'm so grateful to Dean Varghese and Bishop Heyd (and the rest of Dio NY) for standing in solidarity with trans folks. ⚓️

michaelangelo didn't spend three years lying on a scaffold fifty feet in the air painting dicks for you to not look at them!

watching a youtube video where they had to blur out adam's dick on the goddamned sistine chapel ceiling and thinking this is a great world the tech industry has built us huh

the proliferation of bad-faith literary and film criticism designed not to analyze or seriously engage work but to find the first available handhold for moral outrage has had disastrous consequences for all involved

Eid Mubarak, New York.

between grok and the alexa+ ads where the alexa is being kind of mean to the celebs, what the fuck is this obsession with getting "roasted" by a chatbot??? why are we under the thumb of the fucking friendless!!!!!!!!

~in case you missed it~ the lovely hosts of @mindthetagspod.bsky.social had me on this week to talk about the seven-figure deal to to pull to publish the AO3's most popular fanfic, the 500K-word Remus/Sirius (Harry Potter) story All The Young Dudes. As you could guess, my feelings were...negative. 😌

WELL! Shortly after I posted this, @mindthetagspod.bsky.social invited me back to air some of said thoughts. 😇 All my hot takes, from the relentless strip mining of fic to every mainstream pub under the sun writing a terrible "why slash" article: mindthetagsofficial.podbean.com/e/wtf-is-up-...

I think this story is helping me understand why the generation Dolores Huerta inspired was so strongly tied to the idea that activism should be intersectional before anything else. It's not a buzzword, it's about keeping abusers out of your movement

ME: oh a little Zohran video for St Patrick's Day, probably just celebrating Irish culture, maybe a few green beer jokes ZOHRAN (2 minutes in): ...and that's why King Leopold I of Belgium is a big wet bitch. Furthermore...

The Grolier Club has digitized the meeting minutes of the Hroswitha Club! The Hroswithians were a group of women collectors not allowed in the Grolier Club. These minutes are a treasure trove, and Im thrilled to see them digitized and not in my phone anymore! www.grolierclub.org/Default.aspx...

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

billionaire being interviewed: i havent listened to a single note of music in 27 years. think about it, music was basically invented, what, maybe 50 years ago? interviewer: this is really interesting

Screaming

re: The Oscars I am seeing a lot of people worked up over the tensions between art, commerce, and ideology. Fortunately I think we're going to solve it today

I bet this hits so hard if you’ve never read a book before

‘Good Oscars, Good Oscars,’ Repeat Nominees In Forced Post-Ceremony Handshake Line

"But I don't know what to nomi—" Let me stop you there. We built an entire resource for this! It's free and operates as both a rec list and a second brain for remembering stuff you read/watched/played a year ago. #HugoAwards

I just googled to see if a public figure was gay, as one does. The third result was an AI-generated article saying she has in fact been married to a woman for years—"Anne Morrow Lindbergh." Yes, the novelist and wife of Charles Lindbergh (who died in 2001). 💀

I wrote about a company that had bad vibes from the jump defector.com/vindicated-a...

this is one of my favorite things on the planet and i will watch it every time it pops up

I am harping on this because it is astounding how many people are saying this shit. Antisemitism is a centuries-old form of hate. Blood libel conspiracy theories predate the creation of a Jewish state by hundreds of years. I am not a Zionist, but this is a profoundly naive and ahistorical view.

Finally got around to reading this piece and I'm baffled by the bit about fic ("fan fic"), from the suggestion that a good portion of fic is first-person—while talking about famously second-person self-inserts—and then suggesting fic is driving the first-person turn in romance??

In many ways, as a fandom journalist and longtime youthful Remus/Sirius shipper, I'm the perfect person to write substantively (critically) about the 7-figure deal for the viral Marauders fic All The Young Dudes. But alas, I will instead be in the corner whispering "Wolf Boy" over and over again.

I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out: www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

I don't think grammarly should just get to do "sorry deleting now" after ventriloquizing living and dead people without their consent to make money

Most accurate portrait of modern culture currently available

If you, too, think it's absurd that the Times put a developer in this position, you can stick it to them by subscribing to the new Gourmet AND you'll get the bonus of fantastic food writing in your inbox every week: gourmetmagazine.net

Iftar, Day 19

Love the glimpse into the beautiful mind that notated this used copy of Moby Dick I got

Very impressed that someone else's inane annotations in a used book have historically led me to think "ugh I can't believe I paid $3 for this," but on BookTok/Etsy people are paying $100+ for the experience.

So Philip Glass just joined TikTok. He only has like 4 posts and they’re simply him in what I assume is his living room playing the piano. First comment on one I saw was “your piano is too close to the fireplace, you’ll dry it out” and if that’s not the internet in a nutshell I don’t know what is.

Former LA Times managing editor @sarayasin.bsky.social launches The Key, a new publication about Palestine that will be "a home for journalists who have had their stories spiked in mainstream outlets." Her opening essay is worth every second of your time: www.thekeymagazine.com/p/western-jo...

Couple things here: 1. What the fuck 2. I am allllllmost more offended by the suggestion that I would give this shitbox edit than having my identity stolen 3. The CEO is scheduled to be on Decoder soon and we will see if they back out! www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Hello I am very excited about this

Lots to agree with, argue over, and think about here. (Definitely agree the idea "universal" characteristic of literary fiction is a powerless character on an internal journey is... not accurate. And very much agree with disdaining the "us vs. them" sports mentality) reactormag.com/unfortunatel...

he genuinely posts about Zohran as if he's his Marxist son

One second every day, February ☃️

I can’t recall another politician ever expressing this direct of a sentiment before. (depressing! it’s so simple!) it’s difficult to explain how it feels to wake up and find your country is bombing the place your family grew up. again