In last night’s episode of Broad City, Ilana, after she’s been fired from her job, panhandles in the subway, and briefly moonlights as a bike messenger—a “BM queen”—she somehow stumbles into the Brooklyn headquarters of the Hillary Clinton campaign and becomes a volunteer. She thinks it’s a paying job, but Cynthia Nixon—still playing Miranda Hobbes essentially—tells her otherwise.
The fact that Broad City, a show who has managed to introduce the spelling “KWEEN” and “YAS,” was able to bring in a politician guest spot, and Hillary Clinton at that, and not have it be completely transparent is a massive feat. Yes, obviously, they’re stanning for her, but in the reality of the show, it doesn’t feel unrealistic. I believe that Ilana would support Hillary. I believe that she thinks Hillary is for the “caramels” and the “queers.”
In a class this week, we analyzed the rhetoric of Donald Trump. Spoiler alert, it’s incendiary. But after two minutes of attempting to discuss his words, the conversation turned into all-out political free-for-all. And it made me think about what politics means for millennials.
We are often painted as lazy. Phone-obsessed. Babied. Immature. Unrealistic. Idealistic. Naïve. Our forefathers point to social media and iPhones and the Internet as making us soft. We live with our parents. we expect things. The “everyone gets a trophy” generation.
But I’ve seen how we actually are. We process information laterally. We are searchers. We are clever. We are made idealistic but we are also reacting to the grim reality of what our forefathers have left us. We live with our parents because jobs are scarce and rents are high. We expect a lot from people, but we expect more from ourselves.
And so politics is an interesting facet of our generation. It feels like the trappings of our parents. I think of Nixon and Watergate and ‘Nam and George W. Bush. This is the first election cycle where I am an adult and eligible to vote. And so this is the first election cycle where I have educated myself.
I think that people think that millennials don’t care about politics. Or that we don’t “get” how it actually is. But I think that the fact that Hillary agreed to guest on Broad City means that millennials are interested. We are growing up in the fragments of the housing market crash, the recession, the dissolution of the traditional workplace and the burgeoning presence of an Internet age. More than anyone else, we exist in an entirely new environment.
Politics in the millennial age is a nuanced thing. We are more concerned with social issues than I think previous generations have been. We’ve grown up learning about political correctness. We care about it. The Internet has brought us closer, and created a greater empathy. We are trying to get jobs in an evolving workplace. We care about taxes, because they will affect our trajectory. We care about the promises politicians make about college. We want people to succeed. We want to succeed.
And beyond that classroom where we had a passionate, intelligent debate, I see how my peers are talking about politics. We care. We see what older people have done and how they’ve fucked up. We don’t want to make those mistakes. And so we educate ourselves. We talk about social issues, we ask about healthcare, we question taxes. We inquire. We’re passionate. We’ve become empathetic, and we want to help. We want to make things better.
And so I think Hillary on Broad City succeeded infinitely more than Trump on SNL. It didn’t feel forced. It felt cool and funny and weird. It felt authentic. Because it was.
It’s Monday night. RuPaul’s Drag Race is airing the second episode of its eighth season, which is critically acclaimed by me, because I claim everything critically.
Side bar: Why don’t we use “disclaim” like we use “acclaim”? Or do we?
However, I don’t have a TV, and my “friends” with a “TV” are in “classes” or have “homework” so instead, we make a plan to watch RuPaul tomorrow, Tuesday, online.
Monday night, I’m already antsy. It’s officially past 10 p.m., so it’s officially past the airing of the episode, which means that all of my social media—Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr—are potentially flooded with spoilers (my social media accounts are extremely gay). So, like a monk, I take a vow of celibacy and instead read my book. every time I go to open the Twitter app—likely because there is a devil inside me—I flinch and avert my eyes, exiting the app before anything can be spoiled. I can’t scroll through Twitter. I can’t peruse Instagram. I can’t even watch YouTube in case I see any spoiler. It’s literally hell. I actually went on Tinder and started talking to boys because that was one place I was relatively certain I wouldn’t stumble upon a RPDR spoiler—unless, of course, you’re talking to a gay devil who loves spoiling TV shows.
Source: Reaction.Club
Side bar: I’m talking to a guy who knows a hot gay that I know, so he’s probably out of my league.
Tuesday, it’s almost 8 o’clock when I’m writing this, and I haven’t yet had anything spoiled. All I have is one more meeting, and then I’m going over to Marco and Mitchell’s and we can watch the episode and I can escape this circle of hell that not even f*cking Dante could cook up.
And during my twenty-four hours of self-induced celibacy—celebritacy?—I have learned something. The whole notion of “spoilers” is completely the trappings of a first-world 21st century millennial. Do you think our parents had to worry about spoilers? My parents had, like, ten channels and one house-phone. They didn’t have to worry about sh*t.
Even in the early ‘00s, when spoilers first started emerging, you didn’t have to worry in the same way. If you missed the last episode of Friends, all you had to do was avoid the water cooler at work. I’m not entirely sure, but I’m assuming the Internet wasn’t, like, a thing-thing in Friends’ hey-day. Now, if I want to avoid a TV spoiler, I have to avoid at least four people and six different social media, not to mention “recap” shows like The People’s Couch (wow, that’s my second mention of that show in as many posts).
I find it so fascinating that our generation can have such unique issues that no one else really had to deal with. Abstaining from social media to avoid spoilers is right up there next to having to change your Facebook profile picture but not having any solid choices, or trying to explain what a hashtag is to your mother while in a Panera Bread. We—the first-world millennials—are growing up in a unique bubble of child and adult.
The other day, I referred to the habit of watching television shows week-to-week, as opposed to binging on Netflix, as “the old way.” I have brainstorming sessions and poll focus groups before changing my social media handles—I’m now @dnnymccrthy on Instagram and Twitter if you want to follow me (dropping the a’s made it seem minimalist and Tumblr-y). I follow an Ina Garten parody account on Twitter. These are not things that have ever existed as problems before.
A more connected world is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because I can be across the Atlantic and still be annoyed by my family. It’s a curse because there are, at any given point, at least two ugly photos of me from the seventh grade circulating the Internet. It’s, like, a Catch-22—jk I’m not old enough to get/make that reference.
We’re more educated, more opinionated, and more babied. That’s resulted in an entire generation of weird f*cking people. Today I discussed the rhetoric of Donald Trump on his campaign in class and Ubered from Trader Joe’s because it was raining. We’re giant babies.
I’m okay with that though. Or, more truthfully, I’ll be okay with that if I can make it to tonight without some demon spoiling anything for me. Pray for me, guys.
I didn’t blog this week, and I feel its absence like a physical itch in the back of my head. I don’t think I realized how much I liked having that outlet; I would see something in the news, or think of something funny, and immediately think, “Oh, that would be a good post,” or “I should write that down.” But I forced myself to take a break, which was probably the best thing because now I’m ready to get back into blogging.
Spring break is over, and all of a sudden, the end of the semester seems impossibly close. It’s not fair—I just got back, and now it’s halfway done. When did I become the kind of nerd who wants more school? Or maybe I’m a self-preservationist who knows that after this semester, I only have a year left of being a literal child. It’s so weird—I bought pants (J.Crew) over the break and it struck me that I’ll probably have these pants well into my first working years. EWWWW.
Total side bar—I’m on the train coming back to school, and I’m using LTE because Amtrak Wi-Fi is a joke but the little “Are you sure you want to use up your data?” asshole pop-up keeps appearing every time I switch songs on Spotify. So, out of desperation, I decided to join the Amtrak Wi-Fi because I’m not really using data anyway. And now it’s taking forever to connect. Like, are you serious? You been begging me to use you and when I decided to throw you a bone, you’re slow?? Explain.
I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube tours of “tiny houses”—it’s more common than you might assume—and I’ve been really into this one particular channel—Nelson Tiny House. And I’m so over technology that I can’t even explain how appealing the daydream is of giving up everything, heading to British Columbia, and build some tiny f*cking houses. I could grow a beard, wear those cargo pants with the zip-away conversion to shorts, and use a—gulp—flip-phone.
What have I been doing this week? I watched some TV, and I read a book, and I edited articles, and I saw ppl I love, and some ppl I h8.
I’ve been in a very distinct music groove right now, very clean, a little Phoenix-inspired and an organic, early pop sound. I finally downloaded Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion album (I don’t know how to do the little dots to separate it like on the album, so I won’t) and that, combined with Foxes’s new album All I Need, Sia’s This Is Acting, and this new band that I’m very into, Cruisr—which gives me major Phoenix vibes, which is what I listened to when I was, like, fifteen and living for pop—has made me have the feels. That’s what I love most about music—it really affects me. It sinks into me and really shapes my mindset. So right now I’m feel a little early ‘00s hopeful and shiny, if that makes sense.
Also did you know that Elle King’s dad is Rob Schneider?? That’s completely unrelated to what I was talking about, but “America’s Sweetheart” was next on my Spotify and I remembered that I had looked her up and found that out. Kinda crazy, right? Definitely did not expect Elle King, who is so grungy and hot and cool, to have a dad like Rob Schneider. Fun!
I’m over Halsey at the moment. I was into her in the summer, but I’ve overplayed her music, and I’m not connecting with some of her album, so I’m gonna take a break from her. I hope she understands. I always do that with music. I play it ragged and then I toss it aside. Or I’m so impatient that I’ll skip through songs I like because I’m positive that there’s one song that perfectly fits my current mood if I could just find it.
Two questions:
One: Why did Snapchat change its font? I first read about it through an article, because I do not check Snapchat regularly, but then I did and I hate it. I shouldn’t have as extreme a reaction to it as I do, but here we are and there it is.
Two: Should I be watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta? I currently don’t, but I watch Beverly Hills and Potomac—idk, don’t ask me why—and when OC and New York come back, I’ll add those to the roster too. When did I become the kind of gay who watches four different versions of the Real Housewives? Anyway, Atlanta seems like it’s interesting, but I wonder if I’m too far gone already. Like, is it a waste to start now? Is the drama good now, or is there a backstory I’ll need to know to be interested? Like, I could never have started watching Beverly Hills this season if I didn’t know last season’s history, because this season is boring and no one has smashed a wine glass in a restaurant (yet).
Does anyone remember when Aviva Drescher threw her prosthetic leg across the table at Sonja Morgan’s “Team Sonja” party on RHONY? Even typing that out makes it seem fake, but that was so real.
Oh, there’s gonna be a Real Housewives of Dallas! Who wants to bet that someone will say, “Everything’s always bigger in Texas,” at least once every episode, and at least one Housewife will have some variation on “The higher the hair, the closer to God,” in her tagline? Anyone?
I’m on the train, and I’m afraid to check, but I think we still have more than an hour and a half left. So I’m literally just writing down anything that comes to my head. It’s a way of essentially writing Tweets without wasting data.
Would you rather have a ghost haunting your house or a human person stalker? There are obviously pros and cons to each, so I won’t rush you to any sort of decision right now. Get back to me. I think I would rather have a human stalker. At least he can be arrested. I’m not sure how I would get rid of a ghost, without having to find a medium, and who has séance-money these days? We’re coming out of a recession.
Side bar: do you ever get so bored of a song that you check and see that it’s only halfway through, and all you can think is, “What else could you possibly sing? I feel like you’re done?”
I really like reading reviews of TV shows. Before, I was like, “Ew why is this a thing?” but now it’s one of my favorite things to do. I follow a blogger who writes the most sickening reviews of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and even though some of her other stuff makes me cringe because she’s mean, I kind of adore her reviews. I think it’s fun because you get to see what other people think—it’s entering into a tacit dialogue.
Should I do more reviews of TV shows? Chic or not chic? I understand that it could be polarizing, but surprisingly my review of the Kocktails with Khloe premiere was one of my more popular posts. I’ve obviously since given up on Kocktails—as has most of America, I’m assuming—but there are other shows I could do.
Imagine this: I love this show called The People’s Couch. It features five-or-so “couches” (families or friends) who watch the most recent episodes of popular shows. It sounds so f*ckingboring, but the couches are so funny and it’s cool to see someone reacting to shows that you might not see otherwise. What if I did a review of that show? It would be a blog review of a show where people review and watch shows. Too meta? Probably.
I need to stop writing this ramble of a post, but I just have one more thing to say.
I find Daylight Savings so weird. The days were going to get longer again anyway, because, like, nature, so I just find it peculiar that the government decides to give Nature a little helpful shove by turning up the clocks. Or turning back the clocks? I can never get it straight. I think it’s turning up—heyoooo—so don’t bug me about it. I could do a full rant about Daylight Savings Time—am I even writing it correctly?—but I’ll spare you. Send your gratitude by way of some crisp twenty dollar bills; there are some shoes I want to buy.
Whew! It feels good to be back. I know that you missed me. We should get together sometime! You want to pick the date later? Okay, that’s fine. Just text me.
After I spent two hours writing vaguely pornographic essays about film theory—spoiler alert, everything is about manipulation and penis envy—I unfurled my pen-holding claw. The entire side of my hand was stained deep, sheeny cobalt from my pen. I had just used the word “edging” in an essay—yes, in that context—and couldn’t shake the feeling that I had either passed with flying colors as a pervert or failed miserably as a prude. Either way, I was proud of myself for refraining from using “blue balls” while discussing the culture industry. Small victories.
It was the kind of final where you are so unprepared that you’re almost excited to start it, where the only apt response you have to its eventual arrival is, “Alright, let’s see what you got! Hit me, bitch!” It was one of those.
I don’t know what it is, but I always feel the need to call my mom immediately after getting out of a big final or a test. I don’t think it’s because I think she cares; I think it’s just I have this deep desire to be like “Hi look at what I’m doing with the small fortune you’re spending on me! I’m taking tests!” And she’s like, “Good! You’re not squandering everything!”
After I finished having a conversation with my mother—which was five minutes of talking and five minutes of going, “Huh? What? No, I didn’t say anything.”—I met up with Shelby at Starbucks before my next class.
I’ve been slowly building up a relationship with the barista. She’s not always there, but she’s almost always there when I have my five-hour block of class. Sometimes I’ll go before the block. Sometimes I’ll go in the middle. We crack jokes, and I subtly push the limits and going right to the edge without actually asking, “So do I have to pay?” I know that I do, but I always have to test that boundary.
We’re so close that she already began to write up my order before I even got to the register. Granted, it was on a cup for iced coffee, when I only order hot coffee, but still the thought was there. Frankly, she’s one latte away from being my emergency contact.
Our relationship is exactly the amount of intimacy that I want. We don’t know each other’s names—we exchanged them once, but they didn’t stick—and she’s learning my coffee order and I break up the monotony of her day. After I got my latte and put an unhealthy amount of sugar into and settled back down into a conversation with Shelby, who was drinking Dunkin Donuts in a Holy Place, I realized that Barista had written “Friend” on my cup. Babe!
I didn’t write a post on Tuesday. I don’t feel bad. I was completely drained of ideas, and I had gone from gym to class to interview to editing and uploading that interview to library to event to home at 10. So I forwent—forwent doesn’t seem like it should be a word—writing a post. But now, two days later, I feel a little guilty. Not majorly guilty. It’s on par with what I imagine the guilt of a mother who accidentally leaves her kid at a WalMart but realizes before he does because he’s engrossed in looking at toys. A silent, niggling, not-really-there guilt. But still, a little guilt.
Now I’m on a train going home for spring break. Midterm week was so crazy-hectic and gross, that I’m so excited to be a vegetable floating for a week. I’m currently sitting alone in the “Quiet” car—my seatmate left at Providence—and I’m praying to whatever god I haven’t offended yet to let my solitude last all the way to New York. With my luck, it won’t happen. But I’m manspreading and keeping my fingers crossed. Every time someone passes by me, I involuntarily clench up.
I worked out three times this week instead of five—gasp—but every single time I was at the gym, I saw the same guy. Okay, so I, like, “know” him but he definitely wouldn’t know me. I’m the friend of his (ex?)-girlfriend’s costar and I saw them all in a play once. He’s hot in a skinny, straight, Patrick Bateman kind of way—which is to say that he’s hot but I could totally see him skinning someone and wearing it as a cape. Is that weird? Anyway, he’s strong, but wiry, but has a head of hair that’s very “hottest kid in Calculus in 1998.” Which—if you know me at all—isn’t not my aesthetic.
We seem to be on the same cycle when it comes to working out, so whatever I’m doing, he’s doing, but because I’m lazy, he’s usually doing it with more intensity and a higher weight. So not only am I at the gym, but now I’m at the gym and being intimidated by hot scarecrows.
Anyway, in my Wednesday night class, I was sitting waiting for everything to begin—and by “sitting waiting for everything to begin” I mean “screenshotting Kris Jenner’s Instagram”—and suddenly Patrick Bateman walked into class.
“Is there a class in here?” he asked me, and I just stared at his sexy mouth. Time stretched into taffy, and then it snapped back together.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“And there’s not any extra computers?”
And I said, “No…” because I was like, ‘Scuse?
He gave a half-smirk that I later described to my friend Mitchell as “the half-smirk, half-smile, half-laugh that is born out of a confidence where you have never had to worry about discrimination” because he was a straight, white male. It’s the kind of confidence that only straight white males and cats seem to possess—pure, unadulterated confidence that the world was built exclusively for you. Patrick Bateman left the class, and I immediately told Mitchell about it.
And so on this train, I’m trying to recuperate from a week of pyschotties, pervy film theory, and the struggle of trying to word something that I’ve already said slightly differently to beef up my word count. I overpacked for spring break. I know that I’ll be wearing exactly the same outfit every day—lethargy and track pants—but somehow I’ve crammed an entire Fashion Week into one small suitcase. I’m ¼ into a book that I Amazon Primed this week, but forced myself to abstain from until the work was done. Usually that doesn’t work—usually I’m super-shitty at restraining myself. I have poor impulse control and a knack for rationalizing a lifestyle of “Netflix now and stress later.” But I managed to do it and now I’m reading it. It’s I’m Special (And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves) by Ryan O’Connell who is sort of my writing role model. But it’s actually kind of dark because he’s talking about “getting a job” and maybe it’s the millennial in me, but I’ve just always kind of run on the assumption that I’m hot shit and everyone will want me to write pieces about stalking hot boys in CVS and pay me handsomely.
So I decided to take a break and write a blog post. I was going to give myself some time off, but then I remembered that death is inevitable and I might as well write before arthritis sets in from chronic knuckle-cracking (my mother swears it’s going to happen to me). The train is either still in Rhode Island or Connecticut, but either way it’s way depressing. Once, going home for Thanksgiving, the train broke down in the backwoods of Connecticut and I swear to God I thought we were going to be Walking Dead-ed. Gilmore Girls taught me that Connecticut was charming and winsome, and being white taught me that Rhode Island was the chic, New England equivalent to the Hamptons. But three years of riding back and forth and all I’ve gathered is that they seem like prime locales for dropping a body sans questions or making citizen arrests.
“Also, I was fat this week, and that really sucks.”
It’s minute 42 on what should have been a thirty-minute meeting with my psychiatrist, where we would ideally—like, idk—talk about my medication and stress levels. Instead, with the blind ambition of Donald Trump, I barreled on through a hefty dissection of what had happened to me in the two weeks since we last met.
I’m a relatively busy person—I write for this old whore of a blog, I contribute to an online publication, I’m an editor for a campus magazine, I work out five times a week, I am taking classes, I have a job, and I try to find time to watch Netflix because god knows I’m still only human. So, all in all, that really does actually take up quite a lot of time to relay.
I’ve been taking meetings this week with a couple of new writers for my section, which requires me to meet them and talk about what we “do” and what I’m “expecting” from them, and I’m not sure if it’s the stress getting to me, or if I’m actually turning to wax, but my mouth kept doing this odd, robotic twitching—almost a lock-jaw—because I was so hyper-aware of how I was talking. So with my weird mouth and my penchant for talking, the roof of my mouth has become that sick mixture of too dry but also too saliva-y after yammering on for 42 minutes.
And at the end of a long diatribe about housing for next year, I decide to tack on the sentence about feeling fat.
An acute dislike for my body—body “issues”—has always been a facet of my personality, long before I realized that it wasn’t normal to hate your body and think that you look like a troll baby. Apparently I’m dumb as rocks, because it also took me 18 years to realize that being super depressed and constantly bottling up one long scream isn’t normal either. But there’s a learning curve. And with my psychiatrist, the ideas of dating and body are always intertwined.
And because I felt fat, I felt undeserving of even thinking about other guys. There was this guy at the gym who is a total LA beach Ken-doll twink (not exactly my type but I’m mesmerized by his bleach-blond tips) and I was like, “Who do you think you are, you Joey Fatone, looking at him?” Which is absolutely the most fucked up thing that I think. Because I’m not nearly as judgmental of other people as I am of myself. And even the guy that I’ve liked the most, even though he was so cute—omg, you guys would dieeee—it was his humor and how smart he was and his ambition that made me interested.
And I went to lunch with a friend after the meeting—well, first, I went to the gym—and I ate a salad. I hate eating salads. I like salads with attitude, with panache—a little smattering of caramelized pecans or a slab of goat cheese or a sick dressing—but dining hall salads only serve to make me feel like I’m gnawing on a piece of Astro-Turf. And so when I was thinking of stuff to cook for dinner, I was kicking myself for not defrosting a chicken. And I thought to myself, “Well you can’t have pasta, you little tubby Howard Taft” and then I got mad at myself and said, “Fuck that,” and I ate pasta.
(Actually, hold on, I’m going to defrost a chicken cutlet right now.)
(I put it in the refrigerator to defrost; the cutlets were all frozen together so I had to 127 Hours one away from the rest.)
I think that this casual disdain I have for my body is almost as negative as me outright protesting against it. Because this way, this subtle “fuck you” thinking, sinks into my skin and my brain and my way of processing. And I want to get to a place where I can eat pasta and work out and not feel guilty or stressed or vile for having done one and not the other.
And so I’m going to type this out because Lord fucking knows that I don’t believe it. But sometimes writing out positive things helps to balance out the Macarena of Negativity in my head—also that’s totally the next big dance craze. So I’ll say this: you’re never really, really, really that ugly. You’re never unworthy of talking to someone or looking at someone. And you’re 1000x harsher on yourself than you are on anyone else or than anyone else would be on you, aside from if you were a contestant in that beauty pageant in the “Pretty Hurts” music video. But regular life isn’t like that.
Like yourself even when you don’t love yourself. Find one positive thing to say about that old burlap sack of meat you call your body. And maybe start by not calling your body an “old burlap sack of meat.” Call it a “human clothes hanger” or “a moving mannequin” or something funny. Respect your body because it’s how you interact in this world. Acknowledge the fact that millions of years of evolution—yeah, I went there—have coalesced into a four-limbed, fragile, resilient human body with the capability for love and hate and passion and fear and bravery—respect that your body is the product of a billion years of test-drives until you arrived on the scene.
Don’t treat yourself like a test-drive or a crash course. Treat yourself like a Mercedes G-Wagon—beloved, cherished, and competitively stalked by me from the sidewalk.
And, I think, cherish things beyond your body. Because when you acknowledge how amazing you are—inside—it becomes easier to accept your outside. Think of yourself like how I thought of that boy—smart and clever and yeah, maybe his cuteness was an added bonus, but his substance was infinitely more enticing—and treat yourself like a g*ddamn queen.
The other day, I was put in the position of having to explain what The Wunderkindof was to someone who had never read any of my work (also “work” is purposefully vague, since most of my posts consist of me transcribing my word vomit). If you’ve ever had to advocate yourself to someone who doesn’t know you, the act is masturbatory narcissism.
“It’s…funny…? It’s like…politics…and pop culture…and my thoughts…?” I said, like I was waiting for her to tell me what my blog was. Our mutual friend stepped in and described it as a sort of “flamboyant Jon Stewart.”
The second half of that compliment almost made me forget the first, because being compared to a late night host is as close to me weeping of happiness as I’ll probably get. But the first half of the compliment made me uncomfortable, as the word “flamboyant” always does.
Flamboyant. It’s been frequently assigned to me. When you have a voice that increases iN VOLUME AS YOU GET MORE EXCITED, and know anything about fashion, and you are a guy who’s into guys, then you run into this term often.
I actually Googled it before starting this post, because I’m not pulling a Michael Scott (get that reference?). “Flamboyant: tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness; (especially of clothing) noticeable because brightly colored, highly patterned, or unusual in style.” Sure; I get why it’s associated with gay people; if you’ve seen pictures of me in high school, then you know that I was the pinnacle of “brightly colored” and “unusual in style.” The unusual part was that I didn’t have any style (drum and cymbal noise).
And I don’t even blame my friend for using that word. Because I don’t think she knows why it would be offensive. And truly, I didn’t know until I had really thought about it. Why it rubbed me so the wrong way. But I did. And now I know.
I make no attempt to disguise being gay. I regularly discuss boys and liking boys and being a boy. This isn’t “gotcha” journalism. It’s “duh” journalism. Imagine if I were straight. Just for a second.
Imagine a straight me, writing about politics and pop culture and music and—and this is important—dating relationship perils with girls. He wouldn’t be called “flamboyantly straight.” It wouldn’t even be noteworthy. But the fact that I am outwardly myself, and that being “myself” means being gay, it implies that being outward is somehow being flamboyant. But if I were straight, those same blog posts replacing a “he” with a “she” would never be called “flamboyant.”
And so the thread comes back to societal internalized homophobia. This notion that being openly gay is being “flamboyant” when being straight is just being normal. Not even noteworthy. And that’s why it’s so offensive. Why it’s so perverse. And it’s hard to stomach that even now, that me being outward and unapologetic is somehow being confused with a brash flamboyance. But if I were straight, would I be classified like that? If I were straight and wrote about dates with girls, would I have to weigh the pros of starting a dialogue versus the cons of being too open with my identity?
And the very use of “flamboyant,” this “showcasing my sexuality” implies that my sexuality is something abnormal and that me putting it forward is somehow impetuous and unusual and bold.
I’m tired of this double-standard. I’m tired of the fact that in equal situations, gay people are persecuted in a way that their heterosexual counterparts are not. Yes, my sexuality is an integral part of my identity. Just as a straight person’s is. That’s not a gay thing—it’s a person thing. Calling me “flamboyant” when what I’m doing is something that every writer does, just because I’m gay is problematic. So the fact that I was described as a “flamboyant Jon Stewart” proves that above all, my worth is placed in my sexuality. That my defining characteristic is not in my cleverness, or my comedy, or my cultural discussions. It is in who I am attracted to. And that is something that would not happen if I were straight. I would not have to defend myself, or correct people, or deal with the effects of “being open,” if I were straight.
It is so ingrained in our heads—to other and to categorize. We as writers put ourselves out there as a part of the deal. But we as queer writers deal with unnecessary and unwarranted speculation and analysis; what is unremarked-upon for a straight writer because “flamboyant” for a gay writer in the same way that what is “ambitious” for a man is “aggressive” in a woman.
It’s as simple as this. If I become a Pulitzer Prize winner—lol—I don’t want to be “that gay Pulitzer Prize winner.” I want to be “that Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote on LGBTQ issues, politics and pop culture” or “that Pulitzer Prize winner who faked his death by diving out of his private helicopter.”
Don’t let a facet of someone eclipse their entirety.
So I’m stressed to impress right now. It’s a combination of lots of homework, the vague impending threat of midterms, personal ish, a lot of writing but little of me, and just the general state of the world. And usually when I’m stressed, it’s reflected in my writing. I focus on more negative topics, or I write about being stressed. Spoiler alert: that was going to be my topic for today. But I’m over feeling this way, and I know that if I write something negative, rather than have it be cathartic, it’ll just make me feel more stressed.
So I’m doing the opposite. Instead of focusing on the things in my life that could easily make me want to pull my hair out, I’ll focus on the good things; the things that I’m excited about.
Things I’m Completely Jazzed About:
1). RuPaul’s Drag Race: This season (season 8) will mark the second time I’ve watched a RPDR season while it’s current. I watched last season while it aired, and then caught up with seasons four, five and six over the summer. But there’s something I love about watching a show week-to-week. Bingeing is amazing, but it can’t account for the fun of counting down days or making time in a hectic schedule to sit down, unwind, and indulge for an hour.
2). Broad City: I love Broad City and the new season has aired. The premiere episode wasn’t, for me, something to write home about, but I can’t wait to see what they do with the rest of the season. Abbi and Ilana are so funny and sharp and clever, and I think that they’re going to completely add to the pop culture landscape this season.
3). The Amazing Race: I’ve never watched The Amazing Race before, but this season is “Internet Influencers” and I love me some digital peeps. Again, I’m very into episodic TV-watching, and even though I hate waiting a week in between, it makes each episode more rewarding.
4). The spring: Usually, I find spring boring. It takes too long, and it’s unsatisfying, and it just feels like one long waiting game. Also I’ve never been completely secure with my body—actually I’m actively insecure about my body—so I normally hate any season where it means I have less fabric to wear. But I’ve become less and less in love with winter the older I get, so I’m actually looking forward to spring. Also, I’ve been getting more into fashion lately—like, actual fashion, and studying trends—and I want to implement what I’ve seen online in an actual springy reality. Also I want to wear shorts. And I want to be okay with my body. And I want to wear these really cute J.Crew olive green shorts with an oversized denim shirt and my sick white Stan Smiths. It’ll be so cute, with my hair (hopefully) grown back to a sweet swoop and some metallic sunnies.
5). Smoothies: Warmer weather makes me think of icy fruit smoothies after workouts with my sisters. I don’t really do smoothies at any other time of the year, but something about the summer, and the free time, and the indulgence of preparing a smoothie and enjoying makes me feel happy. And it’s relatively healthy. Plus most fruit skeeves me out, so I try to make up for that with smoothies.
6). This trash heap blog: It’s not really a trash heap. I just don’t know how to express affection. But I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with different styles and topics—did y’all notice how I talk about politics now??—and I think it’s help me to rebrand the blog, at least in my mind. But I think I want to reincorporate some personal essays like I used to. I’ve laid off a bit partially so that I could store up some life experience and partially because I wanted to try other things, like What Happening RN and such.
7). Finding new Spotify playlists: Spotify does a pretty decent job of coalescing artists I might like into those “Discover Weekly” playlists. I’m listening to one right now, and I don’t think there’s anything quite like discovering a song that you didn’t know but really loving it. I’ve also been branching out into different genres, specifically rap, which are excellent for working out to. Plus they’re insanely clever. Childish Gambino is wicked smart. And Kanye, for all his ego faults, knows his stuff. I would’ve said “s***” but I’m trying to curse less. It really puts me in a bad state; it primes me for negativity.
8). Not needing a number 8: I really like doing things in eights now; 10 is usually the number we strive for but I like the roundness of 8. So this number 8 is a non-number, because I want to have 8 points but I couldn’t think of an actual 8th thing. I have tricked you.
*****
This actually helped a little. Do you ever watch those YouTube gurus who do Q&A’s? they always get a question about how they stay so positive, and their answer is always, “It’s definitely work. But you just have to work at it.” And you’re gripping your screen, thinking, “What an asshole.” Because that’s actually the most unhelpful advice ever. But there is something to the madness. I didn’t give in to my stress and focused on the positives. And that made writing this post really fun. Because at the end of the day, this blog isn’t supposed to be work. It’s supposed to be pleasure and creative and my outlet. It shouldn’t feel like a job.
I want to thank Marco. For texting and being there; and I love you. This is our little can-and-string moment. 😉
This week has been somehow slow on news and heavy on bad news. Also I’m fairly certain I’ve blocked out this entire week from my memory for no reason, because I don’t know anything that happened. Why did I do this? Trauma? Drama? Llama? I don’t know if we’ll ever figure it out. But anyway, here’s your lookback and roundup of what you might’ve missed while you were trapped in that bathtub a la Howard Taft.
WHAT’S HAPPENING RN:
1). #FreeKesha: This is honestly heartbreaking. On Friday, a New York Supreme Court Justice moved to uphold Kesha’s deal with Sony Records for an additional six records. Kesha was asking to have the contract broken amid her allegations that her producer, Dr. Luke, sexually and emotionally abused her for years. She claims he drugged and raped her after her 18th birthday and bullied her so severely that she developed an eating disorder, for which she entered rehab in January 2014.
I think what I find most upsetting is the fact that Kesha, in this case, wasn’t even asking the judge to send Dr. Luke to jail. She just wanted to get out of her contract, because she’s legally obligated to make another six albums with him, which she won’t, and because she won’t, her career and livelihood will falter. Apparently Sony offered Kesha a deal to work with another Sony producer, but she says that that is a placation and that they will not promote her music unless it is made with Dr. Luke. Not to mention, that if she is mired down by lawsuits, her career is effectively over without the opportunity to record, produce and distribute music.
The Justice, Shirley Kornreich, said Sony would suffer irreparable harm if Kesha were allowed to break her contract. But what about the irreparable harm caused to Kesha? What about the irreparable harm of telling a rape victim that she is legally bound to her rapist? That her career, her everything, depends on a man who emotionally abused her to the brink?
Fans and celebrities alike are gathering around Kesha. Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, Janelle Monae, and Kelly Clarkson have thrown their support behind her. And we should all step behind Kesha. This is tragic and scary and heartbreaking, that we could live in such a barbaric world. Because it is barbaric. It is fucking barbaric that we could allow this to happen. I hope that somehow Kesha will get out of her contract, because I know that if she cannot, then the subtle endorsement of rape will have won. And it can’t win.
I can’t say that I’m sad to see Bush go, but I’m sad for what it means for the GOP race. Bush provided a somewhat tempering, if passive, presence, and in the last Republican debate, relatively held his own against Donald Trump. Now, the race is largely split between Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. Rubio is expected to pick up a lot of dejected Bush supporters, which may turn the tides in his favor, since he’s largely competing with Cruz. But the scariest part is that veritable politicians are dropping out one by one, and Trump is steamrolling his way forward. The hope that he would burn out has faded and soured into a fear that he might be unstoppable. It’s like when Phi Phi O’Hara made it into the top three of RuPaul’s Drag Race, even though she was literally the devil incarnate that season. Somehow, good things are happening to bad people.
3). Hillary Clinton Wins Nevada: More political news, because now I’m a political junkie. Hillary won the Nevada caucuses after losing New Hampshire to Bernie. The votes were split pretty evenly, with Hillary getting almost 53% to Bernie’s 47%. However, while this is a victory to Hillary, it also is kinda of not. Nevada was supposed to be an easy sweep, but with Bernie nipping at her heels, it’s proving that he’s picking up steam.
But what’s the most interesting is Kanye’s Twitter. Apparently, he’s $53 million dollars in debt, and is asking for loans to produce his “art.” And I say “art” in quotes because it’s not music he’s looking to produce, but the jury’s out on what he actually intends to do with the money. Anyway, he reached out to Mark Zuckerberg for a $1 billion investment, claiming that he needs the money more than “a school in Africa” and, frankly, that’s some bad karma. But he wants to lower the prices of textbooks, which I can get behind. He says that he needs the money to provide for his family, but, like, his wife is Kim Kardashian West, who is worth allegedly over $145 million, I don’t think they’re hurting. Also he’s like “I can afford to keep my family in furs, but I still need the money.”
But, to be honest, I really like The Life of Pablo. PUT IT ON ITUNES SO I CAN BUY IT AFTER MY FREE 90-DAY TIDAL TRIAL IS OVER. Pls. I’m ultralight-beaming for your help, Kanye.
5). Deadpool: I don’t know what this is, but everyone’s talking about it. Apparently he’s omnisexual, which is cool, and breaks the fourth wall, which is cool. Also Ryan Reynolds is behind the project, which is cool. What if Deadpool was just a really long, convoluted fever dream sequel to The Proposal? Could that be real?
6). An Apple A Day Keeps the FBI Away: So here’s the hot gossip. The FBI is asking Apple to create a back door—dirty—into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, after they accidentally reset the password to the shooter’s iCloud. This means that the normal way Apple accesses data, which they’ve done in past investigations, has been blocked for them. Additionally, the iPhone was set with a special precaution by the shooter Syed Farook’s government employers to self-destruct after ten failed attempts at guessing the password.
7). Big Ang Dies: Big Ang died on Thursday. She was previously diagnosed with Stage IV brain and lung cancer, and after a false alarm earlier in the night, Big Ang passed away. This honestly hit me so hard, and I think it hit the world hard. Love her or hate her, Big Ang was vibrant and shocking and bold and funny. She was the breakout star of Mob Wives, she became a household phenomenon, and she was the icon of my senior year in high school. I’m sad that she had to go so soon, and that her decline was so rapid. I think we can only pray that it was quick and painless and that her family will, someday, be okay.
Side bar: I went digging through my old blog and the archives of old photos, until I found a cartoon I had drawn of Big Ang my senior year. I’ve been a Big Ang stan since 2013.
Rest in peace.
*****
This has been sort of a heavy news week, but it sometimes can’t be avoided. The world can be a really tough place, and not even I can spin it into something with levity all the time. But I think that that’s a good thing—that some things aren’t meant to be touched by comedy. Some things are just sad. Singularly heartbreakingly sad.
I hope that everyone who reads my blog has a nice week coming up. I hope everyone who doesn’t read my blog burns their tongues on a really hot Starbucks latte. But they won’t even know it’s coming because they don’t read my blog.
Also, to end things on a nostalgic, lighter note, here are some photos I found while digging through my past. Revel in High School Me. Also I’ve been looking through the photos and there are an uncomfortable amount of photos of hot guys that I’ve just saved to my computer. What was I saving them for?
Growing up as a millennial can be a unique experience. You have the constant fear of someone bringing up a bad photo of you from seventh grade, or your mom trying to friend you—my mom does not because she “doesn’t want to see what’s on my page”—or your crush reading a message you sent but not responding.
There’s a lot of articles online about dating in the digital age, or doing your taxes in the digital age, or applying for jobs in the digital age. But there’s really nothing dedicated to being friends with someone in the digital age. And not capital-f Friends. We’re not talking Facebook friends—the idea of Facebook friends overlapping with your actual friends is basically an urban myth.
So since I have to guide you into the light—not in an angel-y way, but in a cool way—on other issues—race, gender, what to order at McDonald’s—then it’s only fitting that I guide you through this process. So are you ready? Are you ready? Let’s go!
Here’s rule number one, right off the bat. Group chats are literally Satan’s asshole, but they’re a necessary evil. Just, for the love of all things holy, put it in Facebook so I can at least mute the conversation. I’ve turned a deaf ear to at least half of the groups I’m in.
Rule number two: Do your civilian duty and take yourself off “private” in your social media. The very fact that you’re on social media implies, at least a little bit, that you’re a fame monster (Buy ARTPOP on iTunes). We live in the age of media-stalking, so just assume that someone wants to get a cute look at you.
In fact, the Golden Rule of Social Media: Do unto your social media as you would wish others to do unto theirs. I.e. if you’re stalking, you better open up the digital gates so people can return the favor.
Rule number three: Follow people back on Twitter and Instagram. The only time it is acceptable to not follow people back is if they’re strangers or if you’re a celebrity. If you’re not a celebrity, and I follow you, it’s because I know you. Don’t throw shade and not follow me back. That happened to me once. I met a really cool girl, had a good conversation with her, and then followed her on Twitter. She didn’t follow me back, and now she is on my List. You’re not Madonna. You can afford to alter your ratio. I’m stretching out an olive branch.
Rule number four: But conversely, don’t feel obliged to Favorite, Like, or Retweet everything I do. Sometimes I have an off day and my tweet is a little sloppily crafted. You don’t have to placate me with a flurry of Likes. Save those for when I’m really funny (which is 99 times out of 100).
Note: This does not apply to Instagram. Like my Instagram or I will hunt you down and gut you like a fish.
Rule number five: I will allow you to crop me out of photos if you look really good. I don’t anticipate it happening often, and be careful how you crop. If it’s a simple group chat, go nuts. But if we’re entwined in some sort of gymnastics, and you crop the living sh*t out of the photo to the point where if you click on the photo, it’s just a small square of your face surrounded by black, then we have a problem. I understand that good photos are like shooting stars—they happen only ever so often. But have some sense of decorum.
Rule number six: Landscape, never portrait. Don’t play with fire.
And because I need to preserve my sanity, rule number seven: keep conversations to one medium. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a conversation with a friend in Facebook, and had a separate, distinct conversation with the same friend over text. Okay, it’s only happened twice. But still, it’s a thing.
Rule number eight: Ghost with integrity. If and when you decide to stop being friends with someone, it’s a little harder than just ducking or avoiding them on the street. No. Now that we’re living in an age where nothing ever dies online, you need to learn how to ghost with grace. Ghosting is basically—it’s a trend, and I’m hopping on the trend—when you slowly slip out of someone’s life. You take longer to answer texts. You can’t FaceTime anymore. You “forget” to tag them in your popular blog posts that everyone loves but is too afraid to say that they love, so they ask things like “What’s the Wunderkindof?” and “Oh, I didn’t know you blogged” and—oh, I’m projecting. It’s fine when you want to ditch people. We’ve all done it. Just be smart about it.
Rule number nine: Tag me, but don’t drag me. I look good from approximately two angles. So I can’t tell you how visceral the fear is when I see that little notification pop up in the “Photos of You” tab in Instagram. You can tag me in your photos—actually, please do—but realize that if it’s an unflattering angle or me doing something “hilarious,” that you are putting your life, the lives of your future children, and the life of your iPhone at risk.
Also side bar: No one ever looks good in “funny photos.”
And lastly, rule number ten: social media isn’t a substitute for quality time. Yes, I love tagging Jenny in funny Instagrams, or texting Shelby whenever something salacious happens in the celebrity world, or g-chatting (gay-chatting) with Marco, or sending ambiguous emojis to Mitchell. But that is just a complement to being with them. So rule number ten-b: don’t let social media rule your life. Let me rule your life. Through social media. I understand how confusing this might be. Just give me your Social Security number and everything will be okay.
Living in the digital age is hard; everything should be quicker and more immediate, but it often ends up lost in a haze of misinterpretation. Did he mean to send me that winky emoji? How long is too long for me to return someone’s text? What is “fam” and how is it being used in the vernacular? All of these things are questions that I know that I have.
I realized, looking through the last few posts of my blog, that I’ve done a lot of promo for other people. And if you know me, you know that I like attention. So instead of giving more blog-space to any of those wannabes, I figured you could use some catch-up on the haute-dog of my life. Because I’m the real queen bee.
Today I woke up before 10:30 in the morning, and as such, I am exhausted and it’s only 7:30 p.m. My sleep schedule has become so erratic that the Courts are considering taking me out of its custody. There, I did a bad joke. See? I’m so reliable. I went to meet people at the gym at 9:15, rolled in at a hard 9:20 and realized that no one was there and I had gotten up for nothing. I did fifteen minutes each on two different types of elliptical machines before chatting for twenty minutes with my friend Thea while she exercised and I lounged on the machine.
All in all, I was at the gym for almost two hours, and did approximately 35 minutes of cardio in that time. I think that’s an improvement. My ratio is getting much better.
My family was over this weekend, which meant that my sisters nosily poked around my stuff and noisily made comments about the décor and size of my apartment. I decided to order two tapestries off Amazon—I lied before—and some of that colorful washi tape to get all DIY. I’m thinking of putting “FUCK OFF” in washi tape over my toilet. Also how many washi tape demonic pentagrams is too many washi tape demonic pentagrams for a space? I feel like, just in case I’m not in good with God, I might try to hedge my bets and get in Satan’s good graces too. My mom told me it’s never bad to be over prepared. She wasn’t speaking specifically about devil worship, but I’d like to think that her sentiments still apply.
These last four days have been a whirlwind of weather. The weekend was into the double-digit negatives, then it snowed yesterday, and today it was 45 degrees and rainy. My body doesn’t know how to cope, and my wardrobe is suffering. There is only a limited number of times I can wear L.L.Bean boots before the Lumberati—the outdoorsy cousins to the Illuminati—convert me to a full-time heterosexual. Lately I’ve taken to putting a picture of Lady Gaga in a locket and wearing it close to my heart. Wearing lockets is very gay, so I think at the very least, the two extremes will balance me into a mellow bisexual.
I’ve already tweeted about this (follow me on Twitter, you peasants), but I downloaded Tidal. I didn’t really mean to, and I don’t really actually know how it happened. I heard, through the Tumblr grapevine, that Beyonce was releasing her song for free. I Googled it, followed a trail of links and somehow tumbled down the rabbit-hole. Suddenly, I had the Tidal app on my phone. I got the Beyonce song and 90 days of free Tidal, but I worry. I worry that, somehow, since Tidal now has access to my Facebook, that they now have access to my entire life. It’s only a matter of time before they trap my soul using old profile photos and some serious Picture of Dorian Gray-voodoo magic.
I’ve listened to Kanye’s new album, and I like it, but I don’t know if it’s worthy of his accolades. Also, accolades tend to not mean anything when you give them to yourself. It’s like being valedictorian of your home-school; it doesn’t really count. Also I’m not sure if you guys are following him on Twitter, but he’s saying some crazy stuff. Treat yourself.
Somehow I’ve slipped into the pop culture promo, so I’ll stop. I’ve started writing for The Odyssey Online again, so click here for a link to my author page. Y’all, I’m like famous.
Side bar: my last few articles for the Wunderkindof were more like “legit” so I couldn’t use wacky gifs, so I’m making a promise to myself that when I format this post (I write in Word, not online, if you cared at all) I’ll use ~~wACkY~~ gifs.
The Wunderkindof 