let's hear a toast...

I've always been a lady of many opinions. Never one to shy away from telling just about anyone who would bother to listen how I felt about a given topic--a movie, book, album, TV show...what have you--it's clear to me that sometimes I can be kind of a D-bag. I would venture to say that I have in no way reached Kanye levels, but I'm the person who pushes it just a bit too far on occasion. Far enough that I can't escape having others take notice.

There are times when I use the justification that I tell it like I see it. Good old honestly, it never (almost always) fails. There's also that itch to call people out on their bs with a well-placed eye roll. Then there are moments when I think I'm just plain right (there, I said it). You know, sometimes I just can't help it. It's like I have no filter of decorum to mediate how people are perceiving me. Or maybe it's just that in a fleeting instant I don't have the will to care. Certainly, I've made some enemies and hurt some feelings along the way, all of which is hopefully outweighed by the redemptive efforts I've made to be an acceptable, decent person in this life. Somebody you could even like from time to time. But there's nothing mistaking the sideways gut-punch feeling of recognizing your own douchiness staring right at you, telling you what an asshole you can be.

It happened while I was reading I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley on the train the other week. Anticipating big things after a number of girlfriends chalked her up to being the female David Sedaris (no small feat), I eagerly set out to enjoy a dose of wit and happenings gone awry. To my astonishment, I found myself hating it. Loathing it. HATE LOATHING it. I couldn't stop getting pissed at her hackneyed single girl, big city, awkward situations surrounding dating and marriage backdrop. Her disastrous publishing job and run-ins with psycho brides-to-be. Didn't she know that hoards of people already sang that song? Did she not see "Bridget Jones' Diary"? [see also "Bridget Jones 2: Hugh Grant's Revenge]

Then I knew what had transpired. Amidst the dry humor and lady-situated comedic incidents, I hated her for writing things that I would probably have written about myself. My brain instantly started to disassemble her quips and tear them to tiny, insignificant fragments because, in my vainglorious and twisted mind, I wished I had beat her to it. Honestly, I was being a dick.

What does this say about me? Am I a jealous person? I'd like to think not, and that, overall, I can appreciate the fine work of other writers, especially young lady ones. It just so happens that every so often, I'd like to supplant my plot with that of another, and the chasm between me and them makes me want to lash out irrationally. It's part of who I am. It's part of who you are too. It's why we gossip about celebrities, and that skank-bot at the party getting all of the attention from a certain someone. I guess that's what happens when I'm being a jerk, I put my own desire to assert my opinion before checking it with sanity and an occasional dash of sobering humility.

Will I stop being opinionated? That's an emphatic no. Even though some people would like to have it outlawed. I will, however, own up to the fact that I let my douchiness run away with me from time to time. If you can accept that about me, then hey, I'll accept that about you. Because as Professor of Life Kanye so aptly tells us (and shows us), there are D-bags everywhere. It would be silly to deny it, so maybe we should just acknowledge it and I'll try to keep it in check. And to that, I raise my glass to all of you...assholes.

everything anywhere will kill you at any time

Deceit! Lies!! Fear mongering!!! LOUD NOISES!!!!

Apparently popular blog writers everywhere are taking a dump in a bag, handing it to us, and calling it critical social commentary, and sometimes, journalism. Why? Page views! [read: money] People want to turn a profit by igniting our pavlovian response to click away like jackrabbits. How? By making relatively mundane events or total non-issues into irrational, conspiratorially crafted pieces of yellow journalism, stoking the rage of the people like hot coals.

This piece of sage-like wisdom comes to us from none other than Emily Gould on Slate.com, in which said blogger rips a blog she has recently written for about skewing it's pro-feminist content to both annoying and needlessly reactionary effect to get more hits. In her post, Gould responds to Irin Carmon's Jezebel piece on The Daily Show and it's evil he-man woman haters club. In full discretion, I actually agree with Ms. Gould that the argument of the post was sloppily strung together and it's point poorly (and stupidly) made. But Gould goes further than that. She tears into Jezebel for amping up the tenor of their posts to get a rise out of readers, and in doing so, scrape the profit barrel with more page views, as Jezebel writers' jobs depend on readership. And all the while, Jezebel touts itself as a subversive force against corporate media- it's apparent basis for existing is a penchant for analyzing the practices of TV, mags, and movies in the way they portray and deal with women and their lady issues. Besides the fact that Emily Gould may have her own reasons to burn bridges at Jezebel, she fails to see the connection between Jezebel and nearly every blog out there, including all of the ones she will ever write for; they all have an audience and will invariably garner their content to it.

Has Jezebel gone too far? Have they muscled past the pseudo-journalistic ethical boundaries of a high-traffic site to manipulate the unassuming masses? To argue the journalistic ethics of pop culture commentary via blogs is as useless as making Lindsay Lohan wear an alcohol detection bracelet. If bloggers want to get boozey and wonk-eyed, they're going to do it. Who's to stop them?! And if Gould wants to criticize one site, she is, in effect, criticizing all. Whether considered a news aggregate or not, blogs can appear to hold themselves to a journalistic standard, but in the internet age, almost nothing is sacrosanct. Consider the recent slew of pieces on The Daily Beast letting you know that everything you eat will kill you, even salads! (Burgers will also kill you.) You're welcome.

It seems as if Gould may just be pissed about how much attention Irin Carmon's basically useless, half-baked post got. Jon Stewart got so jazzed up he mentioned it on air, and the female staff members wrote a scathingly funny response. Dear god it's in the Times!

If anything, I call this luck rather than a hostile takeover of media attention. Lots of stupid things get noticed on the internet and end up on the news. Welcome to the way we live now. But the main thing that's being overlooked here is not merely the fact the Gould is feeding off of and perpetuating chatter about Carmon's post, but that she neglects the reality that there are people capable of rational thought clicking on the other side of the screen.

Yellow journalism is not a new concept in American media, nor will accusations of it fail to plague "serious news outlets" trying to stay afloat in the "digital age." But just as Jon Stewart serves up fake news, blogs are free to bust out fake journalism, or as most would designate it, opinion and editorial content, with abandon. The true editors of online content will be the readers. If they get fed up with the content of Jezebel, or any site, that overreaches into the abyss of stupid and irritating content too often, it will eventually fade into irrelevancy. Sometimes this may be difficult to believe, maybe because Perezhilton.com is, inconceivably, still a "relevant" website. But everyone's day will come. The loudest voices may turn heads, but they are the first to burn out. The female Daily Show staffers' response to the Jezebel post makes Carmon's viewpoint look fairly idiotic. Thus, the ship seems to have righted itself from it's listing course on this one. But when the 24 hour news cycle or other newsmedia picks up a bag of turd like this and calls it news, it's on them, and we should hold those outlets accountable for that. Yay internet democracy! [Drew Curtis of Fark.com would fight me on that one]

In the meantime, everyone has to make a living, even people writing on blogs...even Emily Gould! So we're free to keep trying to make inane points and silly conversations matter to someone, anyone, anywhere, at any time. Like right now. Too bad I don't get paid for it...