mel thomas
@pagemelt.bsky.social
several possums in a trench coat and one of them learned how to read they/them https://pagemelt.zone/
gotta appreciate the evil genius of the atlantic's business model. if it was 100% trash nobody would read it. instead it's 95% trash with an outrageously good ted chiang essay every few years
reading Possession, a novel that won the Booker Prize in 1990 about the discovery of an extramarital affair between two Victorian poets, has made me realize how fuckin weird people have gotten about policing other people's marriages on the internet, even if they're fictional
one thing sci-fi authors from the '60s are gonna tell u (as the sky is raining fire and the surviving citizens of earth are evacuating to mars) is what the titties looked like
i read and occasionally talk about romance novels online, so i have a good sense of the landscape, and i think a lot of the thinkpieces agonizing over why women dominate mm readership are missing one big and obvious fact, which is that not a lot of men read genre romance, period
There's a part in the book "Careless People" where the author beats Zuck at Settlers of Catan, and he is absolutely wrecked by it. Someone pulls her aside to explain everyone else has been letting him win for years. I think about this a lot re: why tech bros think everyone will love AI chatbots.
Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social · last mo.People who spiral out overusing LLM chatbots are really just experiencing the kind of brain-damaging stream of unconditional validation that’s always been the norm for the hyper-wealthy, which explains a lot.
The idea that trans or nonbinary or third gender or queer people are somehow "hijacking" the "gay and lesbian movement" is shockingly ahistorical. The idea that sexual desire, gender, sex, the body, and identity are completely disconnected is a much more divisive and recent idea
With this privileged voice, I can help change the puppy killing industry from the inside
bijan@bijan.bsky.social · last mo.every job i see these days is like: LEAD CONTENT ANALYST, Puppy Killing Factory (remote). $350,000 - $500,000. You will edit our internal newsletter (circulation 500). Associate Editor, Nonprofits, Global Good Magazine (in office, NYC). $27,000 - $28,000. Lead ALL of our fundraising efforts!
i'm sympathetic to the argument that people are only interested in hockey romance because it's a white people sport. it observably IS (derogatory). but also... have you watched a hockey game? men punch each other in the face with knives strapped to their feet. the drama is begging for narrative
Where are all these modern mainstream movies with a bunch of gratuitous sex that people are wringing their hands over, asking for recreational purposes.
a pride month diptych for our age, presented with joy and delight: 1) the actor who plays THEE christopher "don't disrespect the pizza parlor" moltisanti unc posting a pride flag to his grid, and 2) naomi klein wearing a ball cap that says "I'm coming to the cottage"
‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios
![That’s probably the most famous scene in the movie, the campfire scene.
I know. He said, “You can’t punch a horse.” I said, “You’ll never see it again.” I kept saying, “You’re absolutely right. It’s out!” Then, when he left, I crumpled up all his notes, and I tossed it in the wastepaper basket. And John Calley, who was running [production at] Warner Bros. at the time, said, “Good filing.” That was the end of it. You say yes, and you never do it.
That’s great advice for life.
It is. Don’t fight them. Don’t waste your time struggling with them and trying to make sense to them. They’ll never understand.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yvbszlkc7d75ixkid5g2zmw7/bafkreiar4z6n6pfk7wob2gznv6l6euw7ltxbetgto5drfd4wqzjalldp5m)
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ One milkshake to rule the boys, one milkshake to find them, one milkshake to bring the boys and in my yard to bind them 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
My latest, in which I talk about wearable technology, Ring's fascist puppy ad, perv-maxxing, smart glasses psychosis, transhumanism, white supremacy, and a whole lot of other cheery topics! Featuring a wonderful convo w/ @hypervisible.blacksky.app
The Rise of the Perv Glasses
YouTube video by The Stories We Tell w/ Ryan Hodes
youtu.be
nothing but love and light to tom "spiderman" holland but for some reason the Algorithms That Be have decided that I care a LOT more about that time he lip synced to a rihanna song 10 years ago than I actually do
If you too want a connection between liminal spaces, Norman Rockwell, and Say Anything...(1989), this is the essay for you!
mel thomas@pagemelt.bsky.social · 2mo agoI just put out a new video 🙂. it's about American visual culture—where it's been (derogatory) and where it's going (vaguely ominous). viewable by tRUE PATRIOTS ONLY rAAHH 🦅🇺🇸 youtu.be/45ynsws5zVk
I just put out a new video 🙂. it's about American visual culture—where it's been (derogatory) and where it's going (vaguely ominous). viewable by tRUE PATRIOTS ONLY rAAHH 🦅🇺🇸 youtu.be/45ynsws5zVk
The New Americana
YouTube video by pagemelt
youtu.be
waiting for the podiatrist. nice young man got me checked in, gave me some helpful advice re: sleeping in a split, then glanced at my shirt and said, "I love that show"
i wont fw your book if it’s got higher than a 4.0 average on goodreads. u are simply not pissing enough people off to have anything cool to say
don't talk to me for the rest of the day. i'm grieving an unnameable loss. on a whim i just looked up the smartest girl i knew in high school and learned she became a prosecutor
idk but sunsan sontag said in 1963 that "[the novel] has sunk to the level of an art form deeply, if not irrevocably, compromised by philistinism" so I'm not sure how much we can really blame on booktok
if i’d gotten my MFA i’d probably write about writing, but i started in tech right after undergrad so i tend to write about people sending emails to each other
jeremy allen white as rotta the hutt is even more "zendaya as meechee" than zendaya as meechee
even if i didn't already know about the nazi connections, the way that substack notes won't let you add alt text to images but WILL let you "add a prediction market" to your post would have been a clue