The Last Mims

2007: Y2K?

This is why I blog: I don't gotta type. I can hit a thou writin' nuthin on the site.

Yes, friends and lurkers, it's true. My website now reaches A THOUSAND PLUS HITS A DAY almost exclusively through random google image searches. Unfortunately, I can't see what phrases these people are typing in to find said images, but I imagine the phrase "nip slip" is involved (since my hits went up about 200 per day when I used it the first time).

So Bedbug Fever has struck, it being unseasonably COLD and ANGSTY outside, and just about everybody round these parts is VENTING about STUPID PEOPLE they are READING on the INTERNET. And I wholly encourage this. However, I would actually like to link three pieces that I love love loved, because I love to love love, and the love that loves to love the love that loves to love the love that loves to love the love that loves also loves that love. Love love love.

1. Maybe the best general tween-TV piece I've read...like, ever. But certainly in the past year of post-HSM coverage. "Tween on the Screen," of course it's TIMES SELECTED (bastards), but I'll just go ahead and post the lines that Eppy already beat me to over on Clap Clap, which I was going to transcribe onto the teenpop thread 'til he helpfully did it first.

I watched in vain for any hint of cynicism on the...set, any trace of the corporate imperative to get these kids to simulate innocence no matter how miserable they were. Schneider’s prime directive — “Kids win” — is an element not just of the fictional Nick universe but of the real one as well. Not once in three days of taping did I encounter a pushy stage mom; nowhere did anyone break out in tears for any reason at all. Even the extras exhibited none of the restlessness or aspirational smart-mouthing you might expect. The crew didn’t grumble about the kids (they were busy passing around a Super Bowl betting sheet), and the kids were undemanding pros. A live goat was present in a house-party scene, and when, inevitably, it had an accident on the set, the kids cringed and screamed, but they did not leave their marks.

To which Eppy replied:

Professionalism exists so that, when a goat poops--and, as anyone who's worked a job can tell you, a goat always poops--everything doesn't break down.

And I'll go a step further and say that one thing this article does beautifully is sidestep the assumption that anything should break down (were it not for the Svengalis and parent-vultures and what-have-yous pulling the reins), implicitly arguing that this pervasive idea is much more arbitrary than it's widely perceived to be. It's, shock, a reasonable examination of a pretty interesting facet of popular culture. A reminder that journalism doesn't have to swing between seeming-neutrality and "gonzo" -- 'tis possible to challenge the STRUCTURAL NORM (1) in a mainstream venue, (2) without making a big deal about challenging it, so that the act of challenging itself doesn't overshadow the argument, (3) with humor.

2. And wait, there are more examples of this strange but exciting new trend that I've begun referring to as "good writing" or "goodrite," a neologism I hope will catch on. Here's Alex Macpherson's long interview with Ciara, which is generally engaging (and, get this, what he has to say is about as interesting as what she has to say!) and very funny without ever being at the expense of Ciara herself -- and without going to the other extreme and fawning, or putting her on a celeb pedestal (so the humor can be about her, like about the sort of pat self-affirming responses she has, but it's not at her expense, because his respect for her is never in question). However, I should point out that no American has ever used the word "mum," unless it's the word. (We say MIMS.)

3. And a less exciting but provocative recent goodrite, also from NYT Magazine, about collective tastemaking and why an emphasis on individual tastes will never reveal a hit-making formula (it's also kind of about internet hivemind, though it doesn't go into that so much, and doesn't really need to). So here we have three of my least favorite article formats: the thinly-camoflauged new media-product profile masquerading as a "bigger picture" thinkpiece, the long-ass interview [EDIT: actually it's not as long as I remember it being, maybe it was just the format -- article and not Q&A -- that gave me that initial impression...great read, regardless of length], and the boring-ass pseudoscience-y social experiment findings article...and I love all three of 'em pretty much without reservation. The product profile actually nails the bigger picture, the interview doesn't send me scouring for the one sentence I can use (provided I even like the artist at all), the experiment-findings aren't all that pseudo-scientific -- in fact the point is that we should be more skeptical of all generalized formulas for tastemaking, but that it certainly involves unpredictable groupthink and a complex set of broad social interactions dingdingding.

4. Fine, ONE gripe, eensy teensy minor one, and about Idolator so it barely counts anyway. But they put some dumbass random blogger (who is NOT hot, NOR fly, and therefore certainly NOT hot-because-fly) right there on the main page for making the connection between, get this, the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack and Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend." Search results for SKYE SWEETNAM on Idolator: 0. Except there's one mention in the comments section now because I couldn't help myself. The most glaring issue -- aside from linking to this idjit in the first place (and I won't link to it myself 'cuz I think twice and three times before I go around linking to kingdom come, y'know, since it might be nice if people actually read the links and didn't just click on them, gag a little, and compulsively check their email/swig some diet soda to get the taste outta their mouth) -- is NO MENTION of Dr. Luke, whose progress to "Girlfriend" has not gone entirely undocumented (and indeed, I will be very interested to know whether or not Avril pulled the rug under Skye before she got a chance to put out her Luke/Max HYPOCRITE ON STEROIDS, tho Skye'd already been there done that like four years ago, so I'm sure she's helping them cook up their next paradigm shift). I mentioned Dr. Luke my own darn self.