That's a genuinely dickish review. Also, the reviewer misuses the word "trace," which is a pet peeve of mine. Finally, Kotsko is insanely prolific, a trait that I find quite creepy.
I probably won't read Creepiness and wouldn't have even if the review was glowing. Sorry, Kotsko, just doesn't seem up my alley. That being said, this bit jumped out at me:
the review author, Nathan Heller, seems like kind of a douchebag (defined upon request),
I agree, and would say that his style seems annoying in a way that a lot of New Yorker stuff is annoying, but even with that in mind, Kotsko seems pretty damn weird if I'm just judging him by the review of Creepiness and the Amazon page. This makes me think that it's hard for almost any writer to seem particularly personally likeable based on what they write. (For the record, as I've mentioned, I'm technically a writer myself and used to genuinely be one.) Likeable writers:
1. The authors of middle-to-lowbrow page-turners as discussed a couple days ago who seem to enjoy their jobs, are humble about how much it actually matters, and keep churning out the books without long hiatuses.
2. Journalists and political writers who cover issues I care about and seem enthusiastic about them and never make any errors of fact and agree with me about everything, or at least, who never happen to write about the points where we disagree.
Writers that are very hard to like:
1. Journalists who ever get anything wrong, especially anything that anyone else cares about. Literally Hitler.
2. Journalists who cover things I don't care about. They're all flacks, hacks, or inside baseball geeks.
3. Political writers who disagree with me. The question of whether they're evil or merely stupid is a riddle for the ages.
4. Literary writers who seem so full of themselves. I'm sorry that dealing with undergraduates sucks, but get over yourself.
5. Page-turner writers who obviously inject their crackpot opinions or personal dirty laundry into works and ruin the flow of it. Dude, I just want to read about vampires, stop making it about your ex-wife.
I think the most likable writers are middle-aged academics with minor disabilities who experienced some unexpected, undeserved, and almost certainly ephemeral success.
And I have no idea if Kotsko is weird. He's always seemed very smart and very intense to me, but not especially weird (except maybe in his choice of topics). Regardless, that review was a classic of the "I don't give a shit about this book; I'm just going to use it as an excuse to write about something that I think might provide grist for the New Yorker's mill; and along the way I'll probably be a complete dick about work that I haven't bothered to engage with seriously, because people think Anthony Lane is a great critic, and I'd like to be employed here regularly" genre.
New Yorker book reviews are generally not reviews of books, or worth reading.
I think bloggers are the most likable writers of all.
I think it's worse than that. Assistant prof at a college I haven't heard of? Watch me trash him!
That said, Adam's book sounds kind of annoying.
What even is that shit. I haven't read Creepiness but Kotsko is, what, 800x smarter than this fool? I'm not saying we need a Stalinist purge in which every other "smart" undergrad from a fancy school who becomes a journalist or an internet writer is sent to build a Road of Bones from Yakutsk to Magadan, but I'm not not saying it either.
3: You left out extraordinarily humble and extremely talented.
6 leads me nowhere. That's really deep, neb.
Assistant prof at a college I haven't heard of? Watch me trash him!
Unless the reviewer is someone important -- and though I've never heard of him before, he well might be -- I don't think the power dynamics are skewed in the way you seem to be suggesting. Kotsko has a tenure-track job, which journalists view a kind of real power (a steady pay check). Regardless, reviewers outside the academy shouldn't have to wear kid gloves because an author teaches at wherever Kotsko teaches rather than Harvard.
(Academic reviews are maybe different, I think.)
Kotsko really seems to wind people up - for someone who is clearly a mild-mannered, pleasant, well-meaning and thoughtful guy, he's managed to get more people really pissed off at him and his work in the time I've been paying attention than almost any other internet figure who isn't a woman in tech. What's more, he attracts a tremendous diversity of hatred.
I've been reading his blog pretty steadily for a couple of years and indeed, have read some excerpts from Creepiness there. I think it looks pretty good.
I think his enthusiasm for late Zizek is really....dudely, I guess, and I am not entirely sure about his confidence in certain aspects of Freud. But he's a very careful reader and I think that popular culture as a whole tends to assume that because Freud was wrong about some significant things, there's no use looking at even the more durable and interesting aspects of his work.
The review? Douche-y indeed, slick, not careful, elides important stuff as far as I can tell based on the bits on the blog.
It seems to me that the main problem with the review is that it is pretentious, makes no sense, and is really fucking stupid. Three main problems. Fuck the New Yorker.
18.1: To be fair, I believe he was a fairly active twitter troll for a while, although I think he gave it up, which was probably a wise move.
20: you're smart and write exceedingly well.
Page-turner writers who obviously inject their crackpot opinions or personal dirty laundry into works and ruin the flow of it. Dude, I just want to read about vampires, stop making it about your ex-wife.
Or, shudderingly worse, about the sort of person whom you find, or would like people to think well of you for finding,* sexually stimulating.
* "All the indistinguishable feisty women in my novels are tributes to my lovely, opinionated and irrepressible wife! Not the fat ones."
Can we sponsor a debate between Heller and Kotsko -- "Urkel: Creepy Psychotic or Self-Aware Nerd"? Perhaps Jaleel White can be persuaded to offer his insights as well.
24: If they'll take questions from the audience, I've been trying to figure out if I should feel creepy for trying to dissuade my daughter from tucking her shirts tightly into pants/skirts at Urkelish heights and also buttoning her polo shirts all the way to her neck. I've tried gentle social shaming about whether any of the other kids dress like her and was met with a very offended "No, because it's MY style!" that made me drop the issue even though it annoys me every day. Just not a good look. (I confess I'm pushing cardigans in this weather, with the bonus if hiding multitude of fashion sins. And heaven knows I have plenty of those myself.)
Have you considered buying her suspenders?
24 - Yes but if the only thing that happens is that every time one of them describes something happening Jaleel White interrupts with "Did I do that?"
26. Surely better than dressing as a "sexy vampire" or deciding to dispense with the shirt entirely or something? Probably not the best look in the world, but, you know...
29 and 27 are both prevented by the school dress code, and this does in fact postdate arguments about insufficient coverage/leggings as pants/etc. yet annoys me much more than those did. I hope I'm hiding it well, though.
also buttoning her polo shirts all the way to her neck.
My kid does this. Its terrible. But when I gently prod, it only hardens his resolve to keep doing it.
The kid two-straps his backpack, also, but I think that trend started with the Millennials, who know a thing or two about being complete dorks.
I do not wear polo shirts, but I do button my shirts to the top, because I am referencing a particular kind of late eighties gothy primness, the kind of queer masculinity that tends to be derided as prissy/fussy and a contemporary queer dapperness. Your child may be engaged in the same project, in which case I suggest ditching the polo shirts, are polo shirts are not goth.
About awkwardness: nice work, nosflow. I am intrigued by the Cora Diamond paper you reference, and also "Cora Diamond" would be, like, the best Belle Epoque children's book heroine name ever.
I do find myself wondering whether a lot of the awkwardness process isn't a kind of political struggle and an attempt to constitute community. I most often see things described as "awkward" in an attempt to assert norms - not just in a "that was weird, wasn't it" way, but in the tumblr formation of "that awkward moment when [something that we consider politically unacceptable happens but they do not realize it]. That is, there's really an argument going on over just what is awkward, and that's basically a political argument.
I haven't read Kotsko's book. My gut response to the "and then this woman started singing in a pub and it was awkward" thing is to remember the various "awkward" and usually temporary participants in a community ed SF class I run. Their "awkwardness" is generally, somehow, a cry to be recognized and included, and it highlights the insular nature of the group and its outward-turning aggression. The group usually wants to drive those people away, and it's a real struggle to forestall that. Very often, the group is motivated by age, race or class prejudice - they read the person as "awkward" because of social difference, and mobilize norms in order to expel that person.
If polo shirts aren't goth, then I don't want to be goth anymore.
in which case I suggest ditching the polo shirts, are polo shirts are not goth.
I'd love to, but its a school uniform.
I read "Awkwardness" but I didn't rate it on Amazon so I don't know if it is good or not.
not just in a "that was weird, wasn't it" way, but in the tumblr formation of "that awkward moment when [something that we consider politically unacceptable happens but they do not realize it]. That is, there's really an argument going on over just what is awkward, and that's basically a political argument.
This is interesting to me! I've been trying to revise my thing, because I would like it to actually be published somewhere, and I did get some useful feedback from an editor at LARB, who said (a) 30 pages on a 90 page book is maybe overkill, especially if 15–20 of them are about how the book is pretty sloppy; (b) the opening paragraphs don't create/sustain sufficient interest for the remainder (and some other things too). And so I've been trying to figure out how, basically, to get to the end without going through K's argument in quite so much detail: just straight to the good stuff, basically. And one of the approaches I considered but had ruled out was this sort of political, how do we constitute a life together question that's very à la mode in some circles these days. And the reason I ruled it out is that I think of the phenomenon of awkwardness as a basically occurring between intimates (or presumed, or would-be intimates)—not like romantic-partner level intimates, but between people who are more intimate than any two people who happen to have to share e.g. a campus and therefore need some kind of modus vivendi, which I would expect to be more the domain of overt and somewhat impersonal political discussion. Not that one couldn't have an awkward exchange with any old person but the presumption that the person would be relevantly like you in the first place would in many domains be absent.
I did get some useful feedback from an editor at LARB, who said (a) 30 pages on a 90 page book is maybe overkill
No, you don't say.
Also, OT, but wow. I've known a certain co-worker for seven years and he's always seemed boringly normal, but he just spent 40 minutes rambling about how a lot of details about the Paris attacks are suspicious and seem like a false flag operation and conspiracy theories in general. It was hard to characterize, mostly left-wing stuff but also the right-wing line about how mass shootings always seem to happen in gun-free zones. You think you know a guy... I mean, I'd agree with a lot of his little details and a few of his bigger ideas, but there was some stuff mixed in there I've never heard in real life.
No, you don't say.
I mean, how long is De Anima? And how many times longer is just a single reputable commentary on it?
33.first: That's a pretty good look, especially with a well starched collar, and if anything strikes me as retro at this point. I don't think it'd work so well with a polo shirt, though, but Spike's and Thorn's kids should do their thing. If at any point any part of your brain if focusing on whether your kid is dressing too dorkily, you're probably doing alright. And anyway this is the time to get photos to embarrass then for when they start bringing dates home.
39: the Paris attacks are suspicious and seem like a false flag operation
A false flag operation for what, or whom? I mean, I could make a bunch of guesses, but what's the theory in this case?
38 - I think there could still be something political about that, if in a more limited way. Awkward situations seem to me to usually be ones where someone violates some norm but where imposing sanctions (which usually we should) would also violate a norm, leaving everyone at a loss. So, if David Brent tells an offensive joke it's awkward because aggressively telling him off would also be rude or violate some general norm, but if your four year old child does (at home without other people around) it isn't awkward because you can just scold them. Or if someone at a dinner party spills wine on their shirt and just cheerfully takes it off and keeps eating/talking/etc. it's awkward. But if someone at that dinner party gets angry at someone else and they stab them to death it isn't awkward* because there's an easily applicable norm there (you call the police or whatever).
If so then it's both intimate in some general sense (because you're involved in the situation in a way where it's being structured by norms where there's a possibility of this conflict), and political (because it's about those norms). A stranger being rude somewhere else doesn't feel awkward because you're clearly not in a situation to intervene and it would be appropriate to do that. A stranger slapping someone else in the same room might be though because people would be trying to balance the norm of 'not interfering' with the norm of 'stepping in to prevent/punish harms'. Watching a television show like The Office feels awkward because it's very awkward for the people involved and we're empathizing with them in the normal way we do with fiction.
*So imagine someone who responded to a story where this happened with "Oh how awkward"**. I would feel uncomfortable around this person afterwards, unless they were very clearly referring to the situation after the murderer had been arrested, the body taken away, and everyone was sitting around looking at the food on their plates not sure if staying was a violation of a norm, leaving was a violation of a norm, or telling someone else to do one or the other was.
**Like Hannibal's amazing reaction shot in this clip. (This is from the show Hannibal so fair warning it's the sort of thing that was on the show Hannibal.) One of the youtube comments captures Hannibal's reaction perfectly with "OMG Will, you don't just ask people if their social worker is in that horse!"
I don't think that's a good general understanding of awkwardness, though.
43: He was vague. As best I can tell, he thought that someone wanted an excuse to start bombing ISIS. He brought up the fact that Obama was in Paris about a month before the attack, but wouldn't say exactly how that was relevant when I asked.
Well, I had a longer comment expanding on 45 but accidentally closed the tab and now it's gone. Oh well!
Parents with dedicated independent stylist children unite! There's a level of stubbornness that just can't and probably shouldn't be overcome. We've had some success working with the kids very strong sartorial inclinations to upgrade execution. If we tried to get him to conform it would be a rank disaster.
Hannibal was a well-executed show, but anyone who is a big fan of it should immediately be imprisoned. Will-Hannibal shippers should get the death penalty.
I generally think that the New Yorker sucks, so I'm not surprised by the hatchet job, but I did happen to read an article today that succinctly yet accurately summarized the plot of Bojack Horseman as "I can't go on. I'll go on."
Apparently the only thing I now have an opinion on is TV shows. I only hope terrorists or global warming don't kill me before May Sweeps.
I'm pretty sure that despite intending not to be Bryan Fuller was basically a Will-Hannibal shipper.
Also I think anyone who is a big fan of good horror movies would probably be a big fan of Hannibal as well, because it reaches a level of nightmarish imagery/horror/emotional intensity* that most horror movies don't even aspire to.
*Same warning, obviously.
44 misses those situations where you just have no idea what to do but no social norm has been violated. The flow of interaction is broken somehow, leaving you standing there wishing the floor would open up and swallow you. I have these interactions all the time where I just have nothing to say and the other person also doesn't so we just stand there. Awkwardly.
If someone tells a joke that falls flat, that isn't a violation of social norms and it doesn't call for sanctions. (You might violate a norm by not politely chuckling anyway, but I think the awkwardness is already on the scene and you're just covering it up at that point.) Adam refers, correctly, to "open and honest communication" as something that's awkward or can be, and that, while certainly not always called for, is something that we're often told is precisely what we should aspire to in many situations. That doesn't make it less awkward.
It seems to me that there's a decent norm in a lot (but not all) situations of maintaining that flow of interaction. But in that case (1) the flow has vanished and (2) it's also a minor norm of interacting with people to not just start talking about something (and if you're in a conversation already, without anything linking the two topics). A good way to resolve the awkwardness in these situations is to directly recognize the norm and, effectively, ask permission from the other person to violate it* ([with a slightly embarrassed look]"Ok, so I was wondering ..."), but it's difficult to do because it really is breaking a very small rule of talking to people. So, compare it to sitting next to someone on a plane something where it's basically fine for both people to stop talking to each other and settle back into staring out the windows wishing you weren't on a plane or whatever. Stopping there doesn't seem so bad because there's no real obligation to keep a conversation going until you both get off the plane.) Small norms are where awkwardness lives more than anywhere else, I think, because once you get to the big deal ethical norms it's way easier to tell that one thing overrides another thing. At the small scale the differences are smaller.
*Like how people start up conversations with strangers by apologizing to them or offering excuses for why they want to talk to them or something.
I guess what I tend to think is that "open and honest communication" is weasel words, and that communication is almost always about negotiating power relations. Sometimes shifting, intimate power relations rather than boss/subordinate power relations, but still.
I wonder if "awkwardness" is a phenomenon dependent on people believing that beneath our daily blah-blah there is open and honest communication to be had.
I think at least part of it - the "this person was just so rude, I don't know if I should say something" bit - has to do with the tension between desiring to keep the peace and desiring to impose moral sanctions. And then there's the risk of seeing something that you think is awkward, calling it out and then being called out in your turn as the real awkward one. Do you have the social power to be able to name something as awkward? Do you have the social power to name it later, on tumblr?
Awkward real life situation: A bunch of parents sitting around watching their children in a very boring elementary school sports league. Conversation turns to the parents' sports experiences in their childhoods. One mom volunteers how much she got out of competing in the Special Olympics, getting all the way to a regional or national event, it was a total confidence builder at a time in life when she was not having friends in school, as well as a way to learn ice skating, etc. All other parents concentrate on the field of play.
Also jokes tend to fall flat because of expectations not being lived up to, or because they violate norms but not in a way that the other person finds amusing, though. Just think about the difference between a joke that falls a little flat and one that falls really, really flat and the difference at least usually is the difference between the scale of the violation (which could in some cases be very small or very large). A joke that pokes at a minor norm or expects something of someone (like that they see one response as correct when they don't) falls a lot less flat than a directly racist joke when your black friend is standing next to you.
Also jokes tend to fall flat because of expectations not being lived up to, or because they violate norms but not in a way that the other person finds amusing, though
The first and second disjuncts here are quite different, and I think the second one is just wrong. I mean maybe jokes "tend to" fall flat that way as a statistical matter but there's plenty of humor that doesn't rely on norm-violation and jokes partaking of it can fall flat, too.
54.1 also seems very true to me. There's a tendency for people think that open/honest/etc. communication has to do with relaxing the rules of interaction, or not being constricted by them or whatever, but in practice it just means adopting a different set of rules. (If it was just abandoning norms that restrain people then someone could agree to do it but continue to act like they did before because they felt like it, but in practice this is very rude.) When people start to praise the idea of freer interactions and so on this is all that I can think of.
But those expectations are just as norm governed as anything, and especially in jokes which involve subverting them. The difference in scale can be really massive, sure, and to the point where some of them can manage to make it all the way up to illegal. It's hard for me to imagine anything more obviously norm governed than a shared system of expectations for how people will respond to things.
I guess what I tend to think is that "open and honest communication" is weasel words, and that communication is almost always about negotiating power relations
I guess I don't see that those are in conflict. Why not negotiate power relations … honestly? Like, if you want something, why not say "hey, I want blah"? Doing something like that, rather than attempting to maneuver your counterparty into offering blah, or insinuating that blah-ing might be nice, or something like that, is held up as something that it's good to do.
CONCRETE EXAMPLE: it is often considered better (nicer for all concerned in the long run, more respectable for yourself, better in many ways) to affirmatively break up with someone rather than just fading out or acting like a cad so that they break up with you. Initiating such a conversation is hard! And it seems hard, also, to pretend that ending a romantic relation has nothing to do with negotiating power relations. But one can affirm that and simultaneously affirm that it's best overall to be, well, open and honest about what one is up to (perhaps not best overall to be open and honest about why).
That "concrete example" was still pretty abstract, I guess.
But those expectations are just as norm governed as anything, and especially in jokes which involve subverting them.
My expectation that you will find something amusing is not something that my joke subverts when you don't find it amusing. And it seems as if you're coming close to the (correct!) observation that sociality is thoroughly suffused with normativity, and the correlative observation that awkwardness is a breakdown in the normal course of sociality, so some norm must be violated somewhere. But that doesn't mean that awkwardness is best analyzed in terms of norm violation.
Here actually is a concrete joke-like example. Here is the text of a "joke" in Pogo that, when I read it first, I found absolutely hilarious. Now, on the one hand, the expected form of a joke is therein subverted. And I might show or tell it to you, expecting that you will also be amused. You might find it baffling and unfunny (despite understanding it). I don't think a norm has been violated at all in our interaction, even though at the as it were object level the joke itself turns on the violation of a formal norm.
If I really thought that you and I had a similar sense of humor and hoped to reach you somehow through the joke, then that's an expectation I had which was frustrated and I might feel correspondingly distanced from you and slightly awkward in the immediate aftermath. But, again, I don't think your not having lived up to what I expected (which you weren't even trying to live up to) is the violation of a norm in any interesting sense.
61.2 might be better put by saying that while you may be able to find some norm-violation in any instance of awkwardness, it doesn't follow that awkwardness is best explained in terms of norm-violation. 44 started out with an analysis in terms of the violation of a norm and the holding back of reprisals lest a further norm be violated; that strikes me as substantive (and incorrect, but w/e). Just arguing that ubi awkwardness ibi a violated norm est doesn't amount to an analysis.
Mostly but not entirely on-topic, the comic in 58 reminded me that it seems like a neologism to use "drama" to mean "interpersonal conflict and angst." I mean, I don't remember hearing it used that way before 2005 or so. Maybe slang just hadn't got to my neck of the woods by then, but I think it's newish and something I'm vague inclined to push back on. I think saying "drama" when you mean "they're both acting like assholes" is... evasive, maybe? Overly non-judgmental? Kids these days...
People who dislike drama also dislike:
(a) games
(b) the bar scene
(c) both of the above
People who dislike drama do, however, like:
(a) going all fancy
(b) staying in with a movie
(c) both of the above
65: That's an even bigger and better complaint about the term than mine, thanks. It's never used positively or about oneself. Sure is funny how no one likes it and it just keeps happening somehow!
61.2* - No, but the fact that you don't find it amusing is based on the fact that there was an expectation I had of your behavior that wasn't fulfilled. I mean, I might have been wrong to expect it of you, especially but not limited to the racist joke cases, but jokes do depend on that kind of thing to work. When I've seen people try to salvage failed jokes they usually start with explaining what the person was supposed to think/assume/etc.. (Usually "no no the joke was really funny you're the one that was wrong here" is not a great tactic but I've absolutely seen it plenty of times.) Expecting something of someone** seems like exactly the kind of thing that's fundamentally normative - when it goes wrong one of the first things people try to figure out is which person was wrong.
If the idea is that awkwardness is that way but isn't usefully described that way then I can go along with it just fine, but that's going to depend a lot on what the use actually is.
*Lots of this response covered by/pre-emptively responded to/etc. by 62? I think so, but I'm posting it anyway.
**I mean, when it comes to someone's behavior and not stuff like "Oh, I thought you would fall from that plane at a might greater rate of acceleration" or something.
Perhaps there are multiple awkwardnesses rather than a single, unified awkwardness?
jokes do depend on that kind of thing to work
I honestly don't know what you mean by "that kind of thing", because in the immediately preceding sentence you're talking about the expectation that the teller had of the hearer. And jokes don't work because of that.
Expecting something of someone** seems like exactly the kind of thing that's fundamentally normative - when it goes wrong one of the first things people try to figure out is which person was wrong.
That doesn't mean that awkwardness occurs when there's a violation of "some norm". (A "norm" usually doesn't mean "anything with a normative component".) I expect that we will be alike in a certain way and it's the fact we aren't that makes for the awkwardness. I also think that the locution "expect something of someone" is deceptive; I can't expect something of, say, a table. ("I expected more of you", I don't say when the table wobbles.) I expect that something will turn out some way but I don't think I expect it of the other person in the right way. I'm not disappointed in them, though I may be disappointed that there turns out to be this difference between us.
I have, incidentally, written a fair amount about this, linked in comment six above.
63 - I thought it was more of the tension between the important norms involved Once someone either fully decides to hold back on whatever minor reprisals might be relevant, or goes ahead with them the awkwardness dissipates a lot. The tension leading up to it, especially if, like in The Office, it's maintained for a long period of time is where the awkwardness lives. And for any analysis of a particular situation, sure, that's at best the start of it and in some cases isn't useful for answering what questions people were asking (because it might be really, really obvious, or super minor and we want to know if someone was being too sensitive to it, or whatever). But if you want to look at small norms for the way people behave it's not a bad place to start from either - a lot of the Miss Manners stuff that I've read, mostly against my will, took the form of cases where there was that kind of awkwardness and people didn't know how to resolve the awkwardness. (Usually, I mean, in the "ok so this awkward thing happens a lot when I see Jane and seriously what way do I go here and how far?" way rather than emergency phone calls or something, but still.)
64 - Descended from "Drama queen" type uses?
Perhaps there are multiple awkwardnesses rather than a single, unified awkwardness?
I was about to say that (and, thanks to this thread, I have started reading the article linked in 6, which promises to elaborate on that point).
It seems like a neologism to use "drama" to mean "interpersonal conflict and angst."
It was being used with that meaning in my high school circles circa 1992. I would totally believe that it was regional/subcultural, though.
72: Now that I hear it so much from my tween daughter, I can't recall when I first heard it. Definitely not in HS in NJ in the late '80s.
64, 65: As it happens, my daughter has at times claimed to like drama, in part because she (sometimes) likes being "dramatic" and/or a drama queen. There's definitely some sense there that drama is part of teen life, and she wants in, even though in practice drama usually means one of her ostensibly good friends being a complete shit to her.
It occurs to me that I think she picked up drama as a positive term from those horrible Disney shows, and I wonder if that's what turned a regionalism into a ubiquitous term. If I get around to watching more "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch" (which totes holds up*), I'll let you know if the term was being used that way on TV in the, what, mid-'90s?
*for what it is; I'm not saying it's brilliant
How about this as a taxonomy of awkwardness:
A couple of different categories
1: Minor violations of norms: discussed above.
2: Embarrassment -- somebody says or does something embarrassing and everybody has to decide whether to acknowledge the fact or pretend to ignore it.
3: A visible gap between what somebody wants and their clearly inadequate attempts to achieve it. This would cover, for example, somebody who's hitting on somebody in a way that is transparent and obviously turning off the target of their affections. [most likely a sub-set of embarrassment, but a sufficiently distinct situation that it seems worth enumerating separately].
4: "Message: I Care" a related but slightly different case; one where somebody skips the social niceties and just alludes to what they would be expected to do without actually doing it. This is similar to (3) in the gap between goal and execution but different in that (3) implies sincere desire whereas (5) often feels rude or dismissive because it implies that the desire is not sincere and that the person being addressed isn't important enough to warrant attention.
5: "If I'd known that it was going to be this sort of party . . ." Situations in which something comes up unexpectedly and for which it would be normal or polite to give advance warning and give somebody an opportunity to decline to participate.
What else should be added?
Dictionaries cite "drama queen" used in this sense as early as 1992, attributing it to gay slang.
2 Live Crew's "Hoochie Mama" comes to mind, from 1995, including the line "save the drama for your mama".
Not causing drama is a major form of emotional labor!!!!
I feel like it went from "drama queen" (which I recall as common for a long time -- 1992 seems late but who knows) to "drama," with the major shift-point for the stand-alone use of "drama" being Mary J. Blige's "No More Drama."
Maybe "drama queen" went from a neutral term for actresses who act in dramas, to being an insult.
I've heard actresses described as "soap opera queens".
Surely "drama queen" started in the gay community?
Yeah, "drama queen" as a person seems much older than "drama" as an impersonal bad thing that just kind of happens. And of course I could be totally wrong about this; it wouldn't be the first time. I just have the impression that I first encountered it used like this after my teens, which is consistent with 75 and 77, considering that I grew up behind the times.
Hannibal was a well-executed show, but anyone who is a big fan of it should immediately be imprisoned.
:(
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My surgery was scheduled for Friday, and this afternoon they postponed it until Tuesday. I know objectively it doesn't matter but psychologically I was super invested in Friday. The waiting is awful.
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Whaaaaaaat, heebie, that sounds so frustrating. Poor you!
That's awful, heebie. Sorry to hear about the delay, that's super shitty.
I had an extra pre-op appointment this afternoon. About five minutes after I left the surgeon himself called me and said "I didn't realize you were scheduled for Friday when you were in just now. But I'm going out of town and I don't feel comfortable with the on-call surgeon doing your surgery." He implied that it was a last-minute unavoidable trip.
I can't tell if:
a) they were going to call Thursday to reschedule me?
b) they were going to call Thursday and tell me I was going to use the on-call doc, but something in the appointment made him change his mind?
c) I was just going to show up Friday without ever getting a call, and either go forward with a surprise doc or have it cancelled on me at the last minute?
Also he emphasized about a hundred times in the appointment that he never, ever, ever does this surgery because no one ever, ever, ever skips reconstruction. Except for old people who don't care what their scars look like. So that was confidence-inspiring.
(The reality is that corrective surgeries aren't the end of the world and the plastic surgeon can do it and do a good job. But still, it's pretty much the opposite of what is supposed to make you feel good when you evaluate a surgeon.)
Communication: We need to talk.
"Open and honest communication": We need to talk about the reasons I'm breaking up with you right now. Why are you getting mad? Didn't you say we should be honest with each other?
Heebie, is the rescheduled date too far away to have a plastic surgeon present? Like, you could call and ask his office for the top five plastic surgeons they recommend, then call to see if any of them are free on your new date/time.
That review came out while I was in the midst of the right-wing harrassment campaign that drove me from Twitter. It did not help my emotional state.
In retrospect, though, being considered worthy of notice by the New Yorker is of value regardless of the content, and a negative review written in such an obviously douchy manner may generate sympathy.
Plus, it doesn't matter because the book is getting absolutely no marketing or publicity due to an editorial changeover at the publisher!
I can never decide whether it's creepy or awkward when the subject of one of these threads shows up.
Seriously, though, 90.3 sucks. And in that context, 90.2 is all the more true: it seems almost impossible that the review won't generate some number of sales in excess of what you'd have gotten in its absence.
It's awkward, but if you keep talking about him as if he can't hear you, then it gets creepy.
Jesus, Heebie. You know what you shouldn't be worried about, two days prior to surgery? Lining up a surgeon.
You should only worry about preparing yourself and buying the traditional Wild Turkey for the anesthesiologist.
90.3 bites. You'd think they'd want to make a few sales.
90.2: Got you one sale anyway.
I don't know anything about this, but it seems like if you are interesting in generating some publicity, this does provide an opportunity.
90
I think 90.2 is true.
It is a shame that you were driven off of twitter because you were good on there and I am now addicted to twitter.
I enjoyed Twitter. I'm not sure it was the best use of my talents in the long run, though.
OT (even though obviously this is the correct thread for this announcement): has anyone mentioned that we 've got to stop masturbating to Scott Weiland?
I was looking to see whether someone had made the obligatory announcement. Thanks, urple!