It’s still Monday somewhere, right?
Noah Brand
Stuff at the GMP: (Trigger warning for discussion of rape) On Missoula, Montana, the rape capital of the US; why hipsters do not suck as much as you think; a rerun of everyone’s favorite weird porn article ETA: which also got reprinted on Jezebel; the New York Post is a bunch of racist buttheads.
Also, Noah gets interviewed by The Jane Dough and is his snarky-ass self. Why doesn’t anyone ever want to interview me? (pouts) ETA: Noah also gets interviewed over here because no one loves me.
Ozy Frantz
At the Good Men Project: (trigger warning for brief mentions of rape) Rerun of my takedown of a crappy-ass Cracked article; (trigger warning for discussion of rape) rerun of my post defining rape culture. Newer readers, you should really check that one out; I’m very proud of it.
At Role/Reboot: The aptly named I’m Bored With Sex. No, I don’t want sex. Yes, I am still a sex-positive feminist. No, I don’t find that remotely contradictory.
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
Nice interview with Noah!
I’ve always meant to ask you guys (and it seems pertinent now that Noah is editor), what do you think of the title, ‘The Good Men Project’? I’ve always been uncomfortable with its implication that there is a way of being a ‘good man,’ and that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ways of defining your own experiences as a man.
Ozy, I’m so glad you wrote a takedown of that Cracked article. A feminist friend of mine who I greatly respect linked it recently on facebook in a positive context, so I thought it might be on to something so I read it and….I had sooooo many problems with it. I wasn’t sure if it was just me. I HATED the part where he implies that teaching little boys they shouldn’t pee in public is somehow suppressing their masculinity instead of teaching them how to behave in society, and how he didn’t seem to acknowledge that sometimes little girls might also jump off high things or hit someone or show their bits to someone and get told off. I think that was the section where Darth Penis was mentioned too. ^^ But what I primarily noticed, as you also highlight, was the erasure of any experience of being male that was not the writer’s experience. Generalising is sometimes necessary for humour, but this article wasn’t funny, nor was it goodnatured. I honestly felt a bit bad for having breasts by the end of it.
Video games as a treatment method for depression?
(http://dannyscorneroftheuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/05/video-games-as-therapy.html)
@gillianlove,
I don’t like it, but not exactly for that reason. I don’t like it for the same reason one wouldn’t like a “Society for Law-Abiding Black People”. The title implies that most men/the typical man isn’t good.
As for the actual site itself, I’m indifferent to it. I don’t read it myself; I hear a lot of it, and from what I can garner it used to be an anti-male echo chamber that nowadays has come closer to representing the actual voices of men. It’s probably a lot more feminist-leaning than I am, but whatever.
@the hipster article,
The “I was into X before it became mainstream” was simply the most visible, lampoonable target that people latched onto to mock a group that people on the whole don’t like – for some very good reasons. It’s not itself the reason why people don’t like hipsters. The main reason is their coming from wealth and privilege and being blind to it. Others include a consumptive approach to creativity, being culturally appropriative while all-white themselves, a generally cliquish, catty, or social-climbing atmosphere to their social circles, and an annoying inferiority complex relative to the more traditionally social apex jocks/cheerleaders/frat boys/sorority girls that makes them absorb many of the worst characteristics of these groups while none of their redeeming qualities.
Lest anyone think I’m being harsh, a lot of people would qualify me as a hipster once they got to know me. Really, where I come from, those of us who didn’t obviously fit into one of the more obvious labels of “jock”, “stoner”, “nerd”, etc. just naturally gravitated towards hipster-ishness. (Go to Stuff White People Like; that was the norm in every school I’ve been to.) I am also extremely critical of this same culture.
Also, anti-intellectualism has nothing to do with discouraging knowledge of obscure topics. It’s discouraging knowledge of traditional academic topics, and enmity toward experts in those fields.
I think that the distinction between hipsters and nerds/geeks/(maybe even punks? not sure what a punk even is) is important. Nerds adhere to a subculture proudly; it’s not the mainstream itself but is accepted and liked by the mainstream. Hipsters on the other hand are often defined by their recursive ‘regimented individuality’ and a culture which claims to be much more cutting-edge and individualistic than it actually is. They seem to be like the massive growth of the ‘showing my individuality like everyone else’ crowd
I think. Not really sure. I stayed away from those people. Some of my friends had some possible hipster qualities, but they liked things that they liked and I don’t recall them ever doing appropriation or the like.
Personally, I just wish I could construct a culture that would have the awesome traditions of my own culture’s history (there’s plenty of it, no need to appropriate!) but not all the problems. And then find enough followers that people could live in it full time. Unfortunately, you cannot buy Noble and Most Ancient History in a can.
Way I see it, “punk” these days is kind of an umbrella term for a variety of subcultures that have some overlap and similarities, but most of which have very little to do with the original movement from the 70:s-80:s.
Yeah, and I’m not sure how steampunk and cyberpunk really fit with the broader apparently mostly modern and stylistically contrarian movement.