It is (although it bothered my girlfriend enough that she turned it off within the first 30 seconds). It's also proof that every neat thing you find on the Internet today is a viral ad.
Yeah, I read the whole "But they're actors!" thing, which seems to assume weird things about actors; it's still awkward and sweet and hot.
When actors have sex it's so fake, all matte paintings and muppets and squibs and shit.
Hate it. I thought it was going to be Yes.
Well at least one person in the video has to be the owner of a lonely heart, right?
You should only use a squib if it's love.
10: Hey! Yes is responsible for a great deal more better than that.
Anyway, I thought ogged was an acoustic type.
I find this very sweet but I think a lot of it is the music. It also reminds me that in an intellectual way I totally get straight people's bewilderment/revulsion/whatever about gay sex because I find straight people kissing a little bit ludicrous looking (tempered by 40 years of cultural exposure) and lesbians kissing sort of like "wait, what are they doing and why?"
Anyone else's intimacy: it's just weird.
Seriously, that's all it takes to break the blog?
I was not as into this video as everyone else seems to be. Partly that was because I had read the link in 6 before watching it, so I knew I was watching actors in an ad rather than random people. But I also find the whole concept kind of creepy and ethically questionable in a way I have a hard time articulating. I'm sure everyone consented to everything, and at least some of them look genuinely into it (although, again, actors), but "kiss this stranger while we record you" still seems unsettling.
Huh. I'd do it. It sounds fun.
Hm, maybe my reaction says more about me than it does about the video. I would definitely not do this if the opportunity arose.
This would be better with 13-year-olds.
This would be better with 13-year-olds.
Probably the first time anyone's ever said this about anything.
The new tradition of "viral video" quickly followed by "article explaining why natural reaction to video is wrong/misguided" is just awful. What a terrible way to behave as a society: uppity and judgmental. Bah. (she says, judgmentally)
Reminds me of pornography, in that a) either there is not so much acting going on, which means a certain level or kinds of intimacy are easy to perform, or b) there is a whole lot more acting goin on in "RL" intimacy.
I mostly believe the former.
Question about alternative scenarios
Eat breakfast together as if you have done it with your partner for twenty years
Fake a knockdown dragout vicious argument that is convincing
My instinct is that the latter would be much harder for strangers to fake on short notice, and would be much more embarrassing. We are more comfortable showing our genitals than our rage.
Freud predicted this.
I'm sure someone will soon make this with actual strangers in protest of the fake version.
21.last: Plus, he discovered penis envy.
The video is quite fun, even if it is all professionals [although not all of them are actors]. The thing I was most fascinated by is the cinematography. Really shallow depth of field, so I kept trying to work out how they'd done it. It's not mysterious.* But quite well done, and even looks like they've used a little tilt and shift in places.
* presumably shot on a full-frame dSLR or RED or similar, with a very fast long lens.
which seems to assume weird things about actors
Well, actors and directors and film editors.
Viral video: 20 people kiss for the first time
Non-viral video: 24 people are paid to kiss on camera, 20 of whom we used and four of whom nailed it on the first take.
I know professional wrestling fans who understand that its acted but who protest that it's not fake. "You could easily get hurt doing that!"
The thing that stood out for me about the gay guys wasn't that they were gay but that they were the most timid. The others acted shy at first but jumped right in with the tongues, those guys seemed afraid to actually do anything.
28: I caught that, too. I took it to be the way they were directed.
28: I figured anything more intense got edited out. Wow, they got to give each other a peck on the lips and then hug. The guy with the neck tattoo whose kissing partner looked much older than he did seemed deeply uncomfortable with it and their kissing looked awkward as a result. I'm also not sure whether the people (women, mostly) who were moving a lot against their kissing partners' bodies and moving their hands were doing so to get in the mood or to enjoy the kiss more or to look like they were getting in the mood or look like they were enjoying the kissing more or what, and the aspect where all of this is not just a first kiss but a first kiss that's being captured on video seems different from if it had been still pictures or something. I don't know.
19: AU CONTRAIRE, MY FRIEND.
I used to play foursquare with Dami/n K/lash, and now he gets to kiss models in jeans ads. But at least people are judging him on the Internet!
32: We judge you too, snarkout!
Could this start a new trend? Kissing first-dates? Why waste time on small talk and getting to know each other? Just start making out and find out right away if you have chemistry.
re: 33.last
The British way, as per every dating thread ever. I don't think I've ever been on a date with someone I haven't already kissed. Kiss first, then decide if you want to do something 'date-like' together.
The British way, as per every dating thread ever. I don't think I've ever been on a date with someone I haven't already kissed. Kiss first, then decide if you want to do something 'date-like' together.
Does this also hold for people "dating" in their forties? Because it works that way in much of the US too, when you're twenty.
OT, but apparently something just blew up around 116th St.
21 sounds right.
I'm surprised so many people are linking a pornographic video at The Other Place and saying how great it is.
I found it excruciating to watch. Everyone looks so uncomfortable except for maybe one or two pairs who were either really acting or really into it.
38: I was just going to say how much it would suck to be the blonde actress or the older of the gay fellows, the only two who look like they were really freaked out and uncomfortable.
I liked it ok, but even before reading 6, I assumed the proposition by the director had included "I promise I'll match you with someone hot." In which case, sure, I'd have said yes.
39: A lot of the laughter was also ambiguous at best, and more plausibly out of nervousness, discomfort, or sheer terror than joy.
34: But that's with people you, at least sort of, know, right? I'm thinking of a dating service like "Just Lunch" except that this would be "Just Kissing".
40: Yeah, I'd have said yes too (haha just kidding, I wouldn't have been cast, or I would have said no out of ethical concerns, worrying about the other person's discomfort when they found out they had to either kiss *me* or awkwardly refuse. But if I were magically assured they were totally okay with it I'd say yes.)
The whole idea of putting people in a position where they have to either perform enjoyment or have a really awkward confrontation squicks me out unless everyone knows they're acting and it's their job and they're being properly paid.
43.2 is exactly what bothers me about fusion cuisine places. "great choice!! ^_^"
42 -- the "It's just a kiss!" dating service idea is great. You scroll through profiles, pick somebody, you agree to kiss for 30 seconds and then can decide go from there. I actually think that could kind of work.
You could also have more advanced levels like "It's just a hand job!"
The whole idea of putting people in a position where they have to either perform enjoyment or have a really awkward confrontation squicks me out
This basically describes much of my social life.
re: 35
I wouldn't know. I've not been single since I was 28. I expect wide-spread internet dating is changing norms.
The whole thing makes me mildly uncomfortable. I can't help but think that at least some of those people were desperately bringing their acting A-game in order to avoid letting the other person know they kiss like a frog or something.
50: they wouldn't bring their A-game to a real, unfilmed first kiss?
46: The trick is to somehow keep it wholesome -- not for people who just want to hook up -- but for people who are truly interested in a relationship, but that realize that chemistry is the most essential ingredient in any romantic relationship.
"Ah, ma chérie, I would kees you on your exquisite leeps, and zen insert my tongue, and zen zee oral sex!"
I actually misread 50 as "I'm going to bring my A-game so that you don't find out I kiss like a frog" as opposed to "...to conceal my opinion of your gross froggy style."
Froggy Style may be more for the "it's just anal!" crowd anyway.
Froggy style doesn't sound like much fun, or even possible. Aren't they in the lay it and spray it evolutionary branch?
51: It's still uncomfortable either way. First kisses are overrated. I don't think they tell you very much other than how the person kisses. Also you get a big dose of pheremones, so there's that, but that could be done just by sniffing. "It's just sniffing" is a lot less fraught as a dating system than "It's just a kiss." Even simpler would be to just exchange a well worn t-shirt or something. Like the smell? Go on a date.
Because it works that way in much of the US too, when you're twenty.
Not in MY experience!
There's also always the option of neither kissing nor dating, Neb.
"It's Just Laying and Spraying!"
Did not like and did not finish watching it. Everyone associated with it and those who liked it will perish in flames. Unloved and unmourned, and to the greater glory of the world.
There's also always the option of neither kissing nor dating Neb.
A few years ago I was in a grocery store (a Whole Foods, if you must know) and a person came up to me and said they were a photographer doing a project wherein they photographed random strangers kissing each other, and would I agree to participate? I thanked them for asking but but politely declined.
Against the cult of authenticity:
When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutored youth, Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? Oh, love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told. Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
whoops, just imagine that blockquote preserves linebreaks there.
63: You missed out on an opportunity to act in a soft-core porn short that gets linked all over Livre des Visages
My expertise on this topic comes from a vague memory of a Kate and Allie episode. Kate (or was it Allie?) is dating a great guy. He seems perfect in every way, except that she feels no chemistry. She agonizes over this for a bit, but then decides she has to break it off. She gives him one last chance -- they have what looks like a passionate kiss, but when it's over, Kate says, sorry, nothing doing, goodbye.
Wasn't there that study where they had pairs of randomly selected subjects look into each other's eyes intensely for a while and some insane proportion of them ended up marrying each other? I imagine Kissr would have a similar effect, if people could be induced to try it.
66: That possibility was chief among reasons for opting out. Mrs. E is the jealous type, and she would not have appreciated me becoming Internet-famous for kissing someone else.
I'm gonna disagree with Shakespeare on this one. Better to ignore something unfortunate than lie about it.
I dated someone once who I met in a threesome.
64, 70. I'm not sure what I think of 64, except that I admire it very much as a comment in this thread.
To what degree is Shakespeare inveighing against excessive authenticity, though? The behavior that he praises, it seems to me, can be reasonably described as "authentic." The video in the OP cannot.
A threesome involving more than kissing IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
73: I'm sure we all have absolutely no idea what you could be talking about.
Hm, maybe my reaction says more about me than it does about the video. I would definitely not do this if the opportunity arose.
Nor would I.
Having read the thread first and then watched the video I was conscious of both the acting and the editing in a way that I wouldn't have been if I'd seen it cold.
I had one sort of curious reaction, about a third of the way into it, that it made me dislike the global internet. I thought, if this was a student video which was seen by 20,000 people -- mostly other people in the school and some friends and family, I'd think it was great and a successful project. But knowing that it's become a thing on the internet and that millions of people have seen it I become cynical and wonder, "what's the angle? how am I getting played here?"
Is that reaction churlish? I could think about why I feel that way.
From the funcrushing links in 3 and 6:
. . . the cast includes . . . Damian Kulash of OK Go . . .
I did not care for the OP video, but a video of people kissing each other for the first time while doing an intricately-choreographed dance routine on a series of treadmills? That would be awesome.
I like it much less knowing it's actors. Also the gay guys, yeah, that now feels like someone's idea of tolerable gayness. Aw shucks you have pretty eyes. It'd have been better if they showed all the couples hesitating and oh-gosh-ing and then cut to the one guy enthusiastically blowing the other.
I have that same reaction, only I haven't watched the video yet, and probably will not. Not that curious. I liked the "Call Me Maybe" chatroulette video that was linked here a while ago, though.
77: you have a cameraphone, you have a lunch hour; be the change.
I went to a fundamentally fairly goofy party once that had a kissing booth. It was fun! On the other hand, everybody was waaaasted.
72. One of my favorites, glad to share.
The gal in the video (which I liked, naive response without reading the debunking) with the low backed dress with all the arm motion would understand the poet and he would understand her, I think.
The other thing the video brought to my mind was Egon Schiele-- shifty expoitative nude watercolors which are beautiful.
70. Disagree, but good luck with that vow of silence if you can swing it.
which seems to assume weird things about actors
Having known a bunch of actors* very well in college, I'd say that this one weird assumption is one that should be made. Free love was more or less a graduation requirement, and was generally considered to be quite relevant to the craft.
I can't even click on the video. Yuck.
*one of whom has won a Tony, not to name-drop or anything
73: I always have to remind myself which Hoover was Herbert and which was J. Edgar, so I appreciate your choice of president.
This seems like a variation on the Forty Days of Dating thing - "Instead of two friends, we'll get strangers. Instead of dating, we'll do kissing. And instead of one couple we'll get a bunch!"
Is that reaction churlish? I could think about why I feel that way.
This is so very Nick S of you, Nick S.
37: OT, but apparently something the store where I bought a piano seven years ago or so just blew up around 116th St.
Who knew pianos were explosive?
75.3 is interesting to talk about. I'm never sure how to think about artistic manipulation: when is a change to a major chord a legitimately thrilling moment, and when is it a cynical move by a hack? I'd generally be on Team No Authenticity here (if it feels good, hum it), but my sense of things is that serious critics, including ones who generally deride authenticity, draw a line there somewhere.
Reading SEK's visual rhetoric stuff, it's never clear to me whether he's describing manipulative directorial decisions normatively or descriptively. That is, how much does a certain type of framing result from a skilled director making intuitive decisions that result in that framing, which causes viewers to respond in Manner X, and how much does it result from the director thinking, I want the viewer to feel Manner X, therefore i will frame it this certain way?
One reason I struggle with this is that I'm in a semi-creative profession, and I don't personally feel in possession of a bag of manipulative tricks; most creative decisions I make are, in fact, intuitive, albeit formed by a certain level of training and expertise. Does Maya Lin have that bag? Gehry? Is the definition of artistic greatness that the artist knows all the tricks, or that they intuit them perfectly?
76.last and 77 are great, but I think I want to save my kickstarter funds for the video of togolosh surreptitiously (yet consensually!) sniffing people.
I'm sure someone will soon make this with actual strangers in protest of the fake version.
I think this project would have an adverse selection problem. Kissing a random person? Maybe. Kissing the type of person who would sign up to kiss random people? No thanks.
83: That was my impression of the theater crowd in college. They screwed each other with a wild abondon only exceeded by the SCAdians.
pairs of randomly selected subjects look into each other's eyes intensely for a while and some insane proportion of them ended up marrying each other
Marina Abramovic, serial bigamist.
Who knew pianos were explosive?
Didn't finish the video. It was kind of uncomfortable, but I have to admit my short attention span was a bigger reason.
About 21: first of all, this is why analogies are banned. Of course it's easier to fake eating breakfast with someone you've known for 20 years. Eating with someone you know well mostly involves eating, staring at our phones or magazines, and not talking. That's fairly easy to fake.
But second, "Eat breakfast together as if you have done it with your partner for twenty years... We are more comfortable showing our genitals?" Maybe I'm doing breakfast wrong.
I think 88.2 is going in the wrong direction. It's kind of interesting to ask whether directors have a deliberate process or go with feels right to them, but that doesn't have much to do with "real" "people" "authentically" kissing in what turns out to be a clothing ad.
And 40 and 43! It's like you wouldn't kiss anyone here.
Everyone say who from here you would kiss! And how much money you make.
I dated someone once who I met in a threesome.
I would spend the whole relationship feeling bad about the third participant feeling rejected. Which would pretty much wreck the relationship.
I read that and was completely psyched to find out that David Bowie comments here.
97. Presumably I'd make less money the more inclined I was to kiss the person for free. Who's the grossest looking person here after me?
Don't all pipe up at once, now.
This is so very Nick S of you, Nick S.
*grin*
What's the line? " . . . bloggers get the commenters they deserve." (though in this case I take it as a compliment)
Honestly I started to write up a longer response and then decided that I didn't have enough clarity, so I just left it at that.
My initial thought was that I was seeking "authenticity" in the way that JRoth mentions -- "it was great when I saw it in a small club with 50 people."
But, I think it's something more than that. Consider another example. A week ago Belle Waring wrote about an interesting video. Yesterday there was a long article on Grantland about the same video. When I saw the Grantland headline my heart sunk, slightly, and I was retroactively less excited about the Bell Waring post. Why? Because it loses the sense of the fortuitous.
I no longer felt like the Belle Waring post was introducing me to something that would otherwise have been invisible, instead it felt like I had gotten sucked into something that the internet was talking about. Similar to, but not nearly as bad, as the "featured posts" on G+.
I would spend the whole relationship feeling bad about the third participant feeling rejected.
Of course, she/he might have rejected the other two....
I have a great idea for the next meetup.
104. This is a group consisting mostly of introverted middle-aged men. Please proceed with your suggestion.
102: While I get what you're saying, I think I actually approach things from the opposite direction: especially with videos, my answer is almost always going to be "no." For whatever suite of reasons, I don't want to watch videos on the internet*. But once a video is "everywhere", I feel as if it's worth watching (or at least starting to), because A. it may actually be good, and B. at least I'll know what everyone's talking about.
That's not to say that I watch whatever shows up 4 times in my fb feed, but it certainly ups the odds. The chances of me clicking through to "You have to watch this awesome/beautiful/funny thing" is very close to zero on its first appearance.
*exceptions: Daily Show, sometimes Colbert, and music, duh
99 to 71, 73, and 98. Or am I misremembering? I thought Bowie had claimed to have met Angela while both in bed with Mick Jagger.
104: I await the reports from Boston with interest.
102: I kind of feel the same way. I think part of the problem is how the global internet transforms "sharing this cool piece of knowledge with my friends who otherwise would never have heard about it" into "rushing to be the first one in my social circles to demonstrate with-it-ness and collect likes by being the first to share this."
Spending time with people who don't live on the internet, or in the imagination of a 47-year-old mom's basement dweller, is a helpful corrective to this. I'll ask "do you already know about" some internet thing I figured had reached 100% saturation, and they'll say "never heard of it," and I'll have to suddenly switch gears and explain from the beginning.
Dinner table conversations get a little weird that way for us, because the kids live on the internet, and I do too -- not in exactly the same areas, but close enough that I'm familiar with a lot of what they're talking about -- while Buck just works here, and is completely unfamiliar with the recreational bits of the internet.
106: good point. We could all gaze deeply into our own eyes?
109.2: I made a very situationally-appropriate LOLcat t-shirt for someone's retirement but had to conclude my bombed presentation of it with, "Ask your kids when you get home."
Who will be the first to wear Google glass to a meetup?
109. Huh. Mostly I like and share things that other people ignore, my default is to stay quiet because nobody wants to look at contemporary Iranian watercolors or to know that I do.
I don't forward much, and think of my sense of humor as something to conceal in most circumstances.
97: I think I would kiss nearly anyone who asked, at least once. (Assuming it was for their own gratification and not for a joke or on a dare or for mugtome porn.) However, this willingness is related to the frequency with which I'm asked.
I made a cafepress shirt the other day in the attempt to capitalize on a meme, but missed what was probably a two hour window where anybody would have thought it was funny and/or bought it. It made me wonder how many other hyperspecialized-to-the-point-of-total-incomprehensibility t-shirts are out there at this point.
I put comment 117 on a shirt but it didn't sell.
117: I own a pair of shirts, one of which says "Vote No on Postulate 5," the other of which says, "Vote Yes on Postulate 5." This was comprehensible to a couple of thousand people for a brief part of 2008, and funny to even fewer. As far as I know they were not available on the internet at all.
"Several hundred strangers descended on Grand Central Terminal/a well-known plaza in Europe/some random mall, you won't believe what happened next!"
I mean, I have a shirt that says "SAVE THE PUB", which is incomprehensible in its particulars to almost everybody, but it has nice art and is also a sentiment most people can get behind in a general way.
I feel like my shirts, though, if anybody had bought one, would have been rendered not just incomprehensible but completely pointless by the time they arrived. That's the sort of thing I'm thinking of. A t-shirt with zero possible relevance at any point in its lifetime.
110: Do the kids know you are here? Will they start commenting one day?
Having people's kids show up would be even more exciting than having people's spouses. I think Asilon's eldest showed up once to ask a question about American politics, but didn't even stick around for the answer.
110: Do the kids know you are here? Will they start commenting one day?
Having people's kids show up would be even more exciting than having people's spouses. I think Asilon's eldest showed up once to ask a question about American politics, but didn't even stick around for the answer.
There goes old man helpy-chalk, repeating the same stories over and over.
123: They know about it; they've met a number of commenters. I don't think they're lurking, but I suppose they might be.
Imagine Rob Helpy-Chalk, repeating the same stories to a human face - forever.
IDP's daughter commented once or twice back in the day, and I think Di Kotimy's Rory did as well.
CCarp's son did a guest comment on dancing at high school dances. IIRC. My kids are certainly aware that I hang out here. I think one or two of them would even semi-fit in; but they certainly show no inclination to do so.
He did. And would fit in fine, I think. But much prefers Reddit.
I don't think my son has actually met anyone but read.
The youngsters need a spin-off blog of their own. Unfogged: The Next Generation
131: ???!!!???
131: Which explains why he doesn't want to meet any of the rest of us.
130: My daughter is also a big Reddit fan (only relatively recently, however). Claims everything else is too slow.
What about people's parents? I remember two -- L.s mom, way back when, and max's mom gave me advice about making Sally a Nausicaa costume for Halloween.
(I know that 133 is intended as a joke, but must say that there isn't even a scintilla of truth to it.)
Kids won't show up here. At some point you could have probably fit in OK at grandma's canasta club, but you still wouldn't feel comfortable there.
What about people's parents?
They get a prequel blog, which is delivered weekly via mail.
135 -- I see Messily's parents (mother and step-father) every now and then (including once at dinner at my house) and every day on FB. Once, at her family Xmas party, the step-father's boss expressed the opinion that my wife and I were Messily's parents. Embarrassing for the boss (if she's capable of such), and for Messily, but certainly not for us.
I haven't seen Oud's ex-boyfriend's* family since they were dating, but maybe I'll look them up if that court over near there gets off its butt and decides to have a hearing (or a ruling) on my motion that's been sitting fully briefed for more than a year now.
* Our foster child's brother's best friend, for those who don't have TFA memorized.
135: Someone's actual grandmother (or mother maybe?) showed up during the 2008 primaries to be enthusiastically opinionated in support of Hillary. Right? Or am I delusional?
140: If it was all spoofed it was well done. (And I'm not coming up with the right searches to find anything ... this is going to end in tears total embarrassment again, isn't it?)
Ugh, not finding, maybe I'm insane. Maybe none of you exist. Why isn't anyone commenting?
But I did find a classic* from the ouevre of ogged's FPP trolls--I Continue To Love Camille Paglia. You may now bore me with your Paglia hatred.
*Actually I think it suffered from being too obvious, as was sometimes the case from his latter-day overreach period.
140, 141: Katherine's mom, maybe redstocking or redstockings? Thought she sounded generally great, but she didn't stick around.
143: Whew ... right. Thought it might have been Katherine. She was quite feisty as I recall.
I recall someone noting that she was both opinionated and a grandmother.
||
I just checked the Veronica Mars fundraiser, and it looks like Halford is currently in 6th place, $120 behind #5, and $31 ahead of #7 (and 6th place may be the cut-off, since "Kristen Bell" is one of the top 5).
I just added $25 to my pledge.
|>
That other groups are passing us is fantastic from the point of view of raising money for the cause, that's 4K extra that other groups raised.
143: OK, that clue helped me find at least one thread (apparently the first). Redstockinggrandma was her blog. But commented under both redstocking and what may have been her name to start with.
Highlights:
First comment: I hope and pray that Kristol will marry Maureen Dowd and save her from the loony bin and save us from her ravings. It drives her insane that the Clinton, Dodd, and Edwards married brilliant women when Dowd had convinced herself that smart men only want bimbos. I understand. I once thought I had to choose between intellect and love and sexuality, but I outgrew that before I was 21.
Katherine after a number of comments: whoa, didn't expect that. hi mom. I didn't realize you even read this site.
Next comment was from ogged: MJK is Katherine's mom? And I was just about to ban her.
Later: It's been fun, but I have decided Unfogged is my daughers's playground, not mine. (Although she later came back for a dozen or more comments in that thread).
146 -- yes. The superfans are out in force. My plan is to wait until late Thursday and see where we are and how much extra we need to donate. But we really have probably forced several additional thousands of dollars in donations from other people, too.
I never designated my $50 match, Halford. You should add it to this fundraiser. I'll happily contribute again on Thursday.
Great! Maybe I'll fire a $50 warning shot across the bow of this 7th place loser.
117: I'm still getting Cafepress ads on Facebook telling me if I move now I can get 20% off on NERD OJ shirts. Your dumb joke has escaped and is now breeding in the wild.
Hah! There's still time to get in early!
Glad to see I wasn't the only person who didn't like the video.
Wasn't there that study where they had pairs of randomly selected subjects look into each other's eyes intensely for a while and some insane proportion of them ended up marrying each other?
I've been looking this up, and it seems to be just one pair, out of I'm not sure how many but this guy ran the experiment multiple times over the years with dozens of people each time. He did do followup checks in some cases, though, and it did seem to generally spur more interaction between each of the pairs in following months.
I think I was responsible for k-sky's $50 and I meant to tell you to donate it into this too.
And ditto to 152.
148 and previous: Aw. RedstockingGrandma was great. We need more of her around.
130, 134: Same here. It's not intentional, but if I'm looking for an argument, or if my mind is wandering when I should be working, reddit is a much more efficient time-waster.
Regarding the kids: I've told a handful of my classmates (ages of these specific people: 23-26) about Unfogged, and they get it, in that they understand what happens and why I'd hang out here, but also seem to find the whole thing kind of...quaint? One person in particular has zeroed in on the fact that me inserting somewhat obscure things into the conversation is usually a sign that it came from here, and she'll tease me a bit. But usually by then it's time to get everyone off my lawn, so.
Is it quaint because it seems slow, per 134? If it's slowness, I'd guess that that's because it's text-based (but so is Reddit, I thought); or because it's so insular, with fewer and fewer commenters, who often refer to their meet-ups and discussions off-blog and such, so that there's not a lot of new blood, as it were.
Or is it something else that's slow?
I think what I'm wondering is whether there's a notion of a home blog any more. I consider this my home blog, the place where people are generally familiar with my pseud and my past expressed views, so I'm not coming in blind or unknown.
Is that concept going the way of the dodo now? For the youth, I mean. (It should be clear that I have no good idea of the scene at reddit.)
162: For a while Pandagon was my home blog, but that was several moves ago.
I think for the kidzthesedays social media sites take the place that is occupied for us by the home blog.
163.last: But social media sites aren't really home blogs! I'm thinking, then, that there's no real home blog notion -- unless it's just your FB page, which in my experience is either really scattered or else piggy-backing off existing blog scenes anyway.
I mean a community. I've had previous home blogs before this one, though since I'm so ancient, they were actually listservs, and some of them are still around.
But social media sites aren't really home blogs!
This seems like an odd line to draw. Especially if the criteria is a sense of community.
165.last: Yeah, for a while my home blog(s) were a couple of Usenet newsgroups. I particularly miss talk.origins, which has long since moved on from my era. I still keep up with a mailing list from back in the day, but it's been years since I posted, and the social dynamic has changed appreciably.
There *must* be blog communities for the younger folks, similar to the ones we older folk know. Like: unfogged is a community, Balloon Juice is, Crooked Timber is, Obsidian Wings is (or used to be, haven't visited for a while), LGM is, Making Light is. Atrios's place too.
There must be such things for the younger generation.
Facebook groups, boards on Ravelry for the crafters, twitter....
166: I don't get what arrangement of social media site forms itself into an actual community without piggybacking off a community that already exists elsewhere. I guess I can see it with twitter, though people can't exactly say much beyond 140 characters, though they can link to longer things they've written elsewhere: twitter is like a set of footnotes or references.
169: Understood. I'll beg off now. I think I was considering a notion of home blog that's not necessarily topic specific. I'm active in bookselling discussion lists/groups, e.g., but they're not my home blog, and my remarks on them are necessarily circumscribed. Still, there's no reason a person can't piece together a bunch of those and not feel deprived or anything.
166: Aren't most peoples' fb feeds blends of various communities? It would be as if commenters from my preferred Pirates blog also showed up here, and then Unfogged people were CC'd on family email exchanges.
But anyway, I think that Parsi's home blog concept is real, I also think it only applies to a narrow slice of the people who spend time online, an intersection of age and socialization and tech inclination that made it a salient concept. Most people never had that sort of thing, and so they don't miss it.
Among tech bloggers, there was a big revolt against blog commenters a few years back, and the idea is that blogular communication should be either peer-to-peer (one blogger writing about another blogger's posts) or else social - using Twitter (or other things, maybe) to respond in a way that comments use to function. It seemed to come from a conviction that the downside of comment threads (spam, flamewars, n00bs) outweighed the upside of the community.
I'm having a hard time squaring "not necessarily topic specific" with the examples of Balloon Juice, Atrios, LGM, Pandagon, etc. Those places are pretty topic-specific, and were even more so back in the day.
from my preferred Pirates blog
It took my brain a few moments to process this and realize that you must be referring to a blog dedicated to Pittsburgh's MLB team, rather than a place to discuss the relative merits of various peg-legged seafarers.
I do get sad sometimes thinking that blog comment sections are a dying breed, and there's nothing that obviously replaces them that's exactly the same. Not that I knew it was something I wanted before they existed, but this is a kind of socializing I really enjoy (no, really? everyone thought that you've been commenting every six and a half minutes for a decade out of a sense of obligation), and I can't imagine what precisely I'd replace this place with.
Both have about the same chance of getting to the playoffs in any given year.
174: Oh, they were all always political, but not tightly so. Even Atrios had music and cats.
I can't imagine what precisely I'd replace this place with.
That's a depressing thought.
176.last: A partial solution would be to train the people you have face to face interactions with to run multiple, simultaneous conversations which you are allowed to pause so you can search wikipedia for supporting arguments or to alleviate boredom.
Well, kind of. I'm a pretty hard-core introvert: people are exhausting. On the other hand, I really like talking to them. As long as they're not in the same room with me, being exhausting. And so long as they're not consistently dull.
You guys are self-selected for being reasonably entertaining, you're consistently available, and you're not physically in the same location I am (which puts a damper on makeout videos, but is otherwise ideal). I can't quite see how a space like this would be likely to be generated, or how I'd find it, other than hanging off a blog.
176: I sort of thought that about BBSs and irc, at different times. Turns out there is a certain self-similarity to internet communities (although I have gone a couple of years here and there without a place I specifically hung out).
181 to 179. To 180, maybe food treats would work?
.. and, of course, most people's internet communities (even among the relatively small subset of people that have them) have never been blog comment threads. Forums have always been much more active and popular, and probably mailing lists held the title for a number of years.
True -- I used to hang out at an irritating forum that spun off from Salon's forums. Spent a lot of time getting sworn at about the Iraq war in '03-05 or so. I may discount them because that was such an annoying experience; very close to what I wanted, other than the sky-high levels of hostility.
184: Yeah, I guess you'd count Usenet as a kind of forum.
184: good point, and I think that is part of what makes unfogged feel like such an unusual space -- that it's just slightly out of sync with how most people use the internet.
184: Not sure how to classify DKos wich was my semi-home for a bit around 2004.
My internet "homes" have been (with various gaps between most)
alt.folklore.urban
Age of Empires Rise of Rome Online (I was in a clan!)
Dkos, sorta kinda, but not really
Michael Berube's blog + spinoff
Unfogged
* A lot of gamers "home" in gaming forums which discuss a broad range of topics.
I've hung out at a couple places that were very community like which were a cross between blog and forum. A lot like dKos except with a more manageable number of people and less focused, though still pretty political.
188: alt.folklore.urban was a favorite hangout of mine for a while. Didn't post much, but enjoyed the place nonetheless.
Here's the strangers giving each other handjobs for the first time video you all predicted.
Handjob is clearly the funniest sex act. Everyone agrees on that. But why? Is it the name? Is it the fact that you can give one fully clothed while holding someone at arm's length?
It's a sex act without intimacy and which people can do better on their own, i.e. rather pointless and sad.
192: It's because of Grease. Everyone's mind jumps to "Born to handjob, baby!"
It's also the most characteristically novice sex act -- something which a teenager with no idea what they're doing would be likeliest to engage in.
Making wacky hijinks plausibly likely to ensue.
My internet homes have included rec.music.opera and Parterre (also opera thing) and embarrassingly the lgb room or channel or whatever on irc in like 1993.
I think I strongly disagree with 193 but don't fully want to be the face of strongly disagreeing with 193.
There have been surprisingly strong antihandjob sentiments expressed on the blog before, which left me with the impression that lots of people view using ones hands during sex as cheating. As if it were bobbing for apples.
As if it were bobbing for apples.
Surely everyone, regardless of their opinion of handjobs, is pro-bobbing.
196, 197. I'm not anti-handjob. I just think they are funny. What sex act do you think is funnier?
195: I'VE INVENTED WHAT I BELIEVE IS A GENUINELY NOVEL HUMAN SEXUAL ACTIVITY.
199: The thing with the cup? I mean, there are all sorts of things that one could characterize as sex acts that I'd find funny. Mostly involving costumes or other props, admittedly.
Hands can be quite dextrous in my experience.
It is just a shame it is no longer called ducking for apples. One less opportunity to be the death of the party by making Dorothy Parker references.
204: I am actually somewhere in the archives awkwardly transitioning to that line from an initial reference to bobbing for apples.
Those are some damn fancy hands you have there, ma'am.
I was looking for this comment from that thread, but couldn't find it.
Gary Farber! Man, those comments are long.
207: Hmm, that's a pretty funny one. I'll have to think about this.
Ezra Klein really gets his wonk on in that thread.
Also, I feel like the breather handjob (you know, the one you give when you need a breather) should be classified as a different sex act than the regular handjob.
The attempt to classify into discrete sex acts and then judge is pretty stupid. Erotic context, sequentiality, and simultaneity are critical. But of course everyone knows this, it's just hard to talk about in a coherent fashion so you end up in the dumb conversation.
But not "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."
Someone must have hacked my account in 213.
Or else maybe I'm an utterly inconsistent and unreliable interlocutor ... hmm, must try to think.
"The Hold Steady" could be a novel but very boring sex act.
Stanley, the Jesus freaks are way ahead of you.
OK, so you've moved onto handjobs, but er, tumblr provides many people with an internet home. You can do your own thing, look at and comment on other people's, share other people's stuff, etc. It's easy to tap into whatever interests you, and easy to follow your friends. It's where pretty much all Kid A's internet friends live.
Froggy style doesn't sound like much fun, or even possible.
214: For the odd time signature fetishists, for whom the extra beat or three makes all the difference.
The kissing strangers are friends of Ms. Coker and Ms. Pilieva's. Many are musicians or models. All of them worked free.
Now I'm offended by the use of unpaid labor.
OT: my office stocks Halls cough drops, the wrappers of which are covered in inspirational slogans ("A Pep Talk in Every Drop"). I took them mostly to be exhortations to keep working instead of taking a sick day. The one that says "Turn 'Can Do' Into 'Can Did'!" cracked me up, though. In your Nyquil delirium, tell your boss what you really think of him!
The office also does have a bottle of Nyquil. I didn't check the bottle to see if it offers a pep talk as well. I think if I were taking Nyquil at work, I'd be pretty receptive to a pep talk.