Extremely Good Shit of January 2016
Ever look at your laptop and think “man, I know there’s some A+ content lurking somewhere in here, but how on earth do I know what to look for? Where is that sweet sweet 100 emoji content?”
Have no fear. I will be curating a monthly list of what is objectively Extremely Good Shit. Then, you will be reading this monthly list and checking out the Shit. If you don’t like the Shit, then you have bad taste, because I did say that it was objectively Extremely Good. The Shit is not ranked in any particular order; all you need to know is that it is Good and it originated during the month of January 2016. Next month’s edition will be the Extremely Good Shit of February 2016, and so on, and so forth, Shit Infinitum.
The Bachelor has finally returned, and Griffin McElroy from the My Brother, My Brother, and Me podcast and his wife Rachel have launched the Rose Buddies podcast to provide fantastic and hilarious commentary on Ben’s level of whiteness and Caila’s cyborg origins. While the podcast doesn’t really have any segments or a set structure, the McElroys always summarize the events of each episode in a cohesive and entertaining way. If you haven’t seen The Bachelor, listen to the first episode and be prepared to immigrate to Bachelor Nation.
If your consumption of The Bachelor hasn’t quite been sporty enough, it’s not too late to start your own Bachelor fantasy league. The rules are extensive and thorough, and it’s easy to forget that you can’t crack a 10-minute mile when your team is raking in the points thanks to some hot-tub makeouts.
K-pop girl group 4minute partnered with Skrillex to create “Hate.” While it doesn’t replicate the frenetic horns of previous single “Crazy,” it’s on a whole other level of bonkers. The chorus is blistering and bare: “I hate you / I don’t need you” repeated over a brutal bass line. “Hate” isn’t a sappy lost-love song or a sassy solo anthem, it’s post-breakup vitriol reduced to its purest, most furious form. Listen to this when you’re feeling like a boss ass bitch who’s also still maybe a little bit petty.
Ariana Grande did the Lord’s work on Twitter after Satan (JBiebs) tried to slither his way into the Garden of Eden (her Instagram comments).
Liam Payne, the other one from One Direction (no, not that one, the other other one) dropped the dopest 8-second single about threesomes and cars of 2016. Payne explains his grueling writing process with the in-depth caption ‘Little Song I wrote for fun yesterday.’ We can’t wait to hear the Big Songs you write for fun, Mr. Payne.
Gregory Erskine accomplished the impossible and didn’t eat any raw chicken for a month, and the results were surprisingly beneficial. If only I had the self-control to resist “nature’s big wet treat.”
Activist-entrepreneur-educator-comedian-author-hyphen collector Baratunde Thurston appeared on How to Be Amazing hosted by Michael Ian Black, and the result was an enlightening conversation about the intersection of technology, race, gentrification, and culture. The two men share stories of their personal backgrounds and discuss racial equality in America while also falling into an easy banter. The conversation feels productive, and Thurston dispenses accurate assessments of where the racial discussion in America tends to fail: “We’re all really scarred by our racial history. The oversimplified view of the well-intentioned white American is that ‘racism was really bad. Was really bad. For those people.’ …Let’s diagram that sentence.”
