It started – as it so often does – with a DM. “I’m assuming you’re already 15 paragraphs deep on an article Kanye’s behavior…” wrote my good friend Squirrel. Squirrel has long been a sounding board, supplier of memes, Reddit links for column material, and choice, sweet yet devastating dunks delivered in the way that…
Men Behaving Badly
The Trouble With Defending Jeffrey Toobin
Every once in a while, the universe throws a curveball at us. We think that — even allowing for the stress of a global pandemic, a presidential election that seems to be the last stand between democracy and fascism, right-wing and white supremacist terrorist groups threatening violence on election night and politicians openly embracing gonzo…
On Finding Out Your Heroes are Monsters (Or: Detoxifying A Culture)
Warren Ellis is someone who could be credibly referred to as a genius. Transmetropolitan — a futuristic riff on Hunter S. Thompson — has never felt more relevant than in the era of Trump and the nationwide Black Lives Matters protests. The Marvel cinematic universe exists in no small part because of his Iron Man comic…
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Understanding the Hot/Creepy Matrix (Or: The Hot Celebrity Exception)
Everyone has their guilty pleasures: things that they do that they would probably refuse to admit to in public. I mean, I don’t, but that’s mostly because I had my sense of guilt surgically removed in 2006, but, y’know. Everyone else does. One of the closest things I have to a guilty pleasure is the relationships.txt twitter…
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No, Gillette Didn’t Declare War on Masculinity…
Recently, I released a video where I touched on the fact that Gillette released a new commercial that directly addressed toxic masculinity, asking men to do better and the reaction that a lot of people, mostly men, had to it. As it turns out, I have a lot more to say about it because, well,…
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Post Mortem – Textual Harassment
On occasion, I’ll get a request for advice on a situation that’s more layered and complex than a typical Ask Dr. NerdLove question. These questions typically need a deeper dive into just what went wrong, a sort of exploratory emotional surgury – a dating Post-Mortem if you will. On other occasions, the circumstances require more than just…