2.2
Agrarianism
Despite my best intentions, all the content I consumed this week was surprisingly decent. However, you don’t pay $0[1] a month just for me to slack off on my trash consumption! I’m forced to look farther afield. Which brings me to my next point: I disagree with fields in general. I mean, why should we plant all our food in big blocks like that – terrible aesthetic. Honestly, grain just kind of sucks. Flavorless bags of sustenance. Grain is like if you could eat the idea of suburbia. "But Emannep," I hear you say “what do you have against grain! Industrial farming supports my way of life!” To which I say that your way of life sucks! I, for one, am thoroughly sick of agrarianism. I vote that we revert to living in small groups and eating whatever we can find ourselves! Down with the machine! Of course, by “the machine,” I mean combine harvesters. Have you ever actually seen a combine harvester? No, of course you haven’t — I’ve yet to meet someone who’s lived to tell the tale. So, what dark path did we travel down to arrive at such a bleak age of consumerism and potatoes the size of our heads? If there’s anything history proves it’s that there's a slippery slope between the start of small villages and soggy calamari[2]. You start by domesticating a few cows, and then before you know it, it’s world wars and wet socks. Like many, I long for a simpler time — join me in my quest to end agrarianism and revert the world to how it once was and CAN be AGAIN! Sign my change.org petition.
[1] Not including sales tax
[2] I asked a few people what the worst thing they could think of off the top of their heads was, and this was the first and best response I got.
[1] Not including sales tax
[2] I asked a few people what the worst thing they could think of off the top of their heads was, and this was the first and best response I got.
Leave me a comment with Crappy Content to review!
2.1
Bridgerton: Gossip Girl as a Period Piece
This show has 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, which can only be explained by very low standards. Over break, I had the utter horror of watching Bridgerton with my parents, which was maybe the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Anyhow, as far as I can tell, the only appeal of Bridgerton are the costumes and the scenery.[1] Set in a loosely historical regency England, the show follows a young debutante, Daphne, who has several extremely contrived (yet also utterly predictable) disputes with her love interest, Simon. Her siblings[2] also have various slow-moving plots. What irked me about the show is that, while it was certainly graphic to point of being rather uncomfortable, it was somehow still boring. There was maybe one scandal the entire season! Each episode was like three hours long and included about two plot points. I was super hyped about the diverse (ish) cast, but then bewildered when they spent exactly one sentence talking about how racism had ended (spoiler: it was through the power of love[3]). If you’re going to write a fictional England, why not just make it originally diverse? What is the point of this contrived story that seems to devalue the serious real-life struggle to end racism? It was not very sexist, which I can appreciate, at least. I give it 5/10 stars. I advise the next season focus slightly more on character development and slightly less on closeups of people’s abs.
[1] By which I mean the actor of Simon, obviously.
[2] Who are ALPHABETIZED. Imagine having so many children you have to use the Dewey Decimal System.
[3] I would do alternating caps on this, but that feels too ~TwEnTy-TeN TuMbLr~
[1] By which I mean the actor of Simon, obviously.
[2] Who are ALPHABETIZED. Imagine having so many children you have to use the Dewey Decimal System.
[3] I would do alternating caps on this, but that feels too ~TwEnTy-TeN TuMbLr~
1.8
The Year 2020: Crappiest Content We've Reviewed to Date
“But wait!” you might say –- “hasn’t this joke already been made like 30 thousand times?” To which I would answer, “absolutely, but that isn’t going to stop me!” To start out, it’s just been plain and simple too long. At some point viewers simply lose interest, having forgotten all the thousand plotlines that happened earlier in the year[1]. And frankly, it’s simply not believable –- who thought a mix between several disaster movies, a civil rights drama, and The Martian would be a good idea?? Plague movies are supposed to have tragic love and those scary/hot (I’ve heard a lot of different opinions about these, so I’m hedging my bets) bird mask doctors. But instead, it’s some kind of absurdist comedy that is somehow both very boring and ends with everyone dying. The story makes no narrative sense at all –- while it briefly flirted with coherency when the president contracted COVID-19[2], it generally just seemed like word salad. I give this year zero stars and would not recommend it to my worst enemy’s fish (or anyone else for that matter). I wouldn’t see this year in theaters even if I could still imagine going to a theater,[3] and I wouldn’t even watch it if the only other option were Tall Girl.
[1] Remember the impeachment? That was THIS year! I think?
[2] This is not a political statement –- it could be interpreted either way![4]
[3] Those sweaty fuzzy seats covered with popcorn crumbs sound almost inviting now. Almost.
[4] If you try hard enough. My statements are not affiliated with Thursday Detention as an organization, even though I am[5] on the Editorial Board.
[5] Possibly! It’s anonymous, so you never know! I could be Queen Victoria, returned from the grave to spread weak chins and hemophilia anew!
[1] Remember the impeachment? That was THIS year! I think?
[2] This is not a political statement –- it could be interpreted either way![4]
[3] Those sweaty fuzzy seats covered with popcorn crumbs sound almost inviting now. Almost.
[4] If you try hard enough. My statements are not affiliated with Thursday Detention as an organization, even though I am[5] on the Editorial Board.
[5] Possibly! It’s anonymous, so you never know! I could be Queen Victoria, returned from the grave to spread weak chins and hemophilia anew!
1.7
Brutalist Architecture: The Ultimate Super Villain Lairs
I acknowledge that the world was going through some things when it was invented. I acknowledge that its recent surge in popularity is likely because the world is going through some things. But I will not EVER consider these plain grey, Times New Roman, melancholy inducing cinderblocks of buildings to be beautiful! If you looked a brutalist building in the eye and asked if it hated joy, it would look right back at you and say “absolutely.” (In a monotone voice). We worked for thousands of years to understand domes, and towers, and swooping cathedrals, and then one day someone looked up from their desk and said, “what if we built a high-rise, but instead of windows, it had sadness?” and everyone for some reason went along with it. I suppose I am not qualified to have this opinion, but I frankly think that buildings should not look like DIY “minimalist” planters. I simply think that one should not have to feel claustrophobic while outside a building, just from looking at it. There’s a reason that literally every dystopian YA film has brutalist architecture, and it’s not because it’s so ethereal and bright. It’s true – brutalist buildings have never hurt me, my mother, or even my cow, but for some reason they fill me with a righteous rage. I suppose that was probably the intent.
1.6
Books (in General)
These fools (books) expect you to spend hours reading five minutes of material. To MOVE your ARMS just to consume some media. C’mon! As if, at this point, anyone could read more than a few paragraphs. Books also expect readers to “read between the lines” – such a bad user interface that anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon a “book” even has to read where nothing is printed. They’re also designed extremely confusingly – they’re four different orientations it might be opened in, and no clear instructions about which way to open them! They should include a (video) user manual. And so flimsy! Imagine writing immortal knowledge on PAPER, the material known mostly for its brittleness[1].
Beyond their labor-intensive consuming strategy and bad physical design, whatever imbecile designed these things also added all kinds of weird conventions that are applied inconsistently. Punctuation, capitalization, and spacing all vary widely across different books. If you’re going to have rules, at least pretend to follow them! Also, how are you supposed to pirate physical objects? Maybe some old-fashioned piracy is warranted – breaking into a bookstore, stealing their goods, and selling them in a foreign port. But honestly that sounds like a lot of work – most “readers,” as book enthusiasts are often called, instead pay actual money for “intellectual property.” Fooles. Anyhow, I would give them 0 stars[2].
[1] It’s also good for crafts and homework – I do most of my math assignments in sharpie on an old copy of Anna Karenina.
[2] Vromans, the best store maybe in the entire world, is having troubles due to the pandemic – when you’re next buying a book (should you stoop so low), consider supporting a local business.
Beyond their labor-intensive consuming strategy and bad physical design, whatever imbecile designed these things also added all kinds of weird conventions that are applied inconsistently. Punctuation, capitalization, and spacing all vary widely across different books. If you’re going to have rules, at least pretend to follow them! Also, how are you supposed to pirate physical objects? Maybe some old-fashioned piracy is warranted – breaking into a bookstore, stealing their goods, and selling them in a foreign port. But honestly that sounds like a lot of work – most “readers,” as book enthusiasts are often called, instead pay actual money for “intellectual property.” Fooles. Anyhow, I would give them 0 stars[2].
[1] It’s also good for crafts and homework – I do most of my math assignments in sharpie on an old copy of Anna Karenina.
[2] Vromans, the best store maybe in the entire world, is having troubles due to the pandemic – when you’re next buying a book (should you stoop so low), consider supporting a local business.
1.5
The Scarlet Letter: Try to Spot the Subtle Metaphor
Ah, The Scarlet Letter. Oft hailed a classic, the literary community is too afraid to admit it was terrible. Many books weave intricate webs of metaphor – subtext that you can read if you look closer. Good ole’ Nathaniel Hawthorne does one better – The Scarlet Letter uses metaphors that sneak up behind you and then beat you over the head with the sacred club of figurative language. With characters that you’d better avoid getting too near lest their thinly veiled symbolism attack you and sentences so long you’ll have to take notes, what’s not to love? I assume it keeps getting taught because it is so relevant to the modern era: it’s a touching narrative about why the devil doesn’t actually live in the woods, how to raise your children to be creeps, and some very questionable views about race.[1] I have read at least three books about Puritan Salem at Westridge, and I am beginning to wonder what’s so fantastically interesting about it compared to all the other periods in time. Maybe, instead of this book that is so formulaic and so boring, we might instead read a book that is not written by a white man. Just a thought. Honestly, if we have to read something from the “Western Literary Canon,” we ought to read Shakespeare – I do enjoy a good Elizabethan fart joke.
[1] If I’m being completely honest though, inconsistent moral absolutism, corrupt authority figures, and ostracized women sound eerily familiar.
[1] If I’m being completely honest though, inconsistent moral absolutism, corrupt authority figures, and ostracized women sound eerily familiar.
1.4
The Justin Trudeau Fan Fiction You Didn't Know You Needed
When Justin Trudeau Fanfic crossed my metaphorical desk, I was prepared for an easy week. Yet, I was blinded by hubris! For how can I review crappy content that is not, in fact, crappy? From the very start, I could tell Justin Trudeau Fanfic was different. For one thing, look at the title – so evocative! Almost poetic: “Justin Trudeau Fanfic” rolls off the tongue like butter off a duck’s back. Was I aware Justin Trudeau Fanfiction existed? No. But was I surprised? Also no. The true brilliance of the story lies in the relatable narrator, who, I can say with confidence, ranks among the great protagonists of history – Hamlet, Ishmael, The Unnamed Narrator in Justin Trudeau Fanfic. Like a true American, she fakes her own death and commits election fraud to become a member of Parliament. She might be an alien? But through it all, she is charming, witty, and utterly original. You might think it’s impossible to be original in the same way through an entire five-chapter work. You might think it would get boring to hear about the narrator’s habit of eating lots of hotdogs and inability to see coats; indeed, you might even think it was a lazy ploy to avoid describing things in a coherent way. But not in Justin Trudeau Fanfic. Justin Trudeau Fanfic weaves a complex character like a sweater[1] – they speak to the chaotic-chaotic in all of us. As the narrator gets trapped in an elevator with Justin Trudeau, agrees to become his fake girlfriend, and starts to inexplicably fall in love with this especially powerful, especially basic basic-white-guy, we fall in love, too. An epic love story for the ages, I give Justin Trudeau Fanfic 20/5 stars and a rating of “Fantastic. Life-changing.”[2]
[1] Overly warm, chafing, and for sure not woven.
[2] In all honesty this actually was a pretty decent fanfic, against all reason.
1.2
Tall Girl: A Terrible Movie, Which I Have Watched Twice
Spoilers to follow (although, honestly, this movie is already rotten):
Tall Girl is without question the worst romcom I have ever watched, and that’s saying something: I’ve seen Mulan II. The movie is so long, so boring, and so predictable. I was so uninvested in the characters that I would have been perfectly fine if it turned out to be a tragedy and they were all eaten by crocodiles, or something. It had no soul – it ran like a neural net’s impression of a high school movie, having been trained entirely from someone’s complete list of tropes in high school movies. I imagine some Netflix official said “Hey, you know what kids love? High School movies. You might think that that they like the cute love stories and interesting/relatable characters, but what they actually like is the format! If we just fill out this checklist, we should be good!” Here is the checklist I imagine they used:
- Plot of a book read in the movie (loosely) describes plot of the movie
- Beautiful white woman overcomes body issues and bullying; become cool and popular
- Protagonist chases love interest; ends up with uncool guy who was there all along
- Quirky best friend
- Generic White Guys™
- Goofy parents who were “just trying to help”
- Makeover to get the guy
- Suburban high school with weird stuff
- Motivational speech with piano noises in the background
- Eating lunch in the bathroom
- Romantic piano duet
- Supposedly sickrad love interest loves musical theater
- I should note that he was in Cats. I hate him.
- Touching sisterly love
- Touching motherly love
- Touching fatherly love
- Protagonist loses all her friends in search for popularity
- Kissing someone to make someone else jealous
- Corrupted by popularity
- Dramatic homecoming speech in which protagonist embraces self
- At least one montage
- Guy gets in fight to defend girl’s honor
- Voiceover monologue at the beginning and end