CROSSPOST: Danhausen Gorilla-Press Slams An Increasingly Ridiculous Series Of Things

 https://www.oldnerd.net/2023/02/fig-photo-series-danhausen-gorilla.html

Dys Track

 Dystopia feeling a little extra dystopic this week.

You Got Rowled

“I want to have a serious, important conversation about the difficult topics. Topics on which I have been misunderstood. I never meant to upset anyone. And I’m calling the place I have those conversations ‘The Witch Trials Of JK Rowling because I think it exemplifies how much I down’t want to upset anyone.”

I mean, I knew when I clicked through headlines that sounded like someone was maybe either reconsidering, or, more likely, reframing and retreating in the face of  all the negative press about a video game, that it would be Some Bullshit, but I’m a bit disappointedåå it was That Much Bullshit.

Current Environment

Just saying, if I were piloting the Goodyear Blimp today, I’d see if it had any chaff launchers. 

Carl Fredricksen already learned this lesson the hard way.

Oldnerd On Instagram

It wouldn't work at all for YAD, and it’s deeply suboptimal even for Oldnerd, but in the post-Twitter social media hellscape, Instagram is the most viable home for the promotion/following of the other blog, Oldnerd. 

You’ll notice new links on the left to the Mastodon (ugh) and Post (double ugh) accounts for this site, and also a link to Oldnerd, which then has a link to the Instagram account where I’ll be promoting new stuff that goes up there. Us it if you find it helpful.

It’s amazing to me that in every single way except the ethics of using it, every single social media alternative to Twitter is somehow worse than Twitter.

Fucking Buffoonery

Marjorie Taylor Greene, sneering and giving a thumbs down, in what can only be described as an Apartheid Cruella DeVille coat, during the State of the Union address, is now normal behavior. It's fucking buffoonery, but fucking buffoonery is normal.

This all started 14 years ago, when Joe Wilson shouted "YOU LIE" at Obama during that State of the Union address. It's no surprise that the first major crack in this particular decorum dam involved a white dude yelling at a black dude.

Wilson suffered no consequences for his outburst, got a lot of attention for it, and after that, it was that thing that's played out over and over again. Republicans break an unwritten or unenforced rule. Democrats try to bring the rule back by... still following it even though breaking it gets rewarded and also wagging their fingers and sighing. And so, here we are. Non-stop fucking buffoonery where we used to have nice things. Well, OK. Fucking boring pointless things, but fucking boring pointless things where it was generally considered gauche to make an ass of yourself. 

The honesty would be refreshing, except that the system once again has been gamed and eroded into a raw exercise of numerical power where boorishness, stupidity, sex crimes, and a literal entire fabricated life prior to winning election are all acceptable as long as it means they have one more Aye or Nay button to push than the other guys.

The honesty would be refreshing, except that no amount of boorishness, stupidity, sex crimes, and literal fabricated lives will stop the political press from pretending the system is the same one we all learned about in Schoolhouse Rock and everything is totally fine and none of this is a problem.

And thus, an ever-deeper shit-show of non-stop Fucking Buffoonery.

Algorithmic Warmongering

Look, obviously, algorithmic-driven content and decision-making has done nothing but improve our lives since it’s been implemented. 

But goddammit, Google News, I need a better way to tell you I DO NOT GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT A CHINESE SPY BALLOON STOP SUMMER OF THE SHARKING ME IN WINTER.