Extremely Good Shit of June 2016
A lot of Extremely Bad Shit happened in June. Events occurred that were violent and heartbreaking. I do not possess the gravitas to discuss these events in a fittingly respectful manner, so let’s talk about The Bachelorette, shall we?
Kaitlyn Tiffany is The Verge’s resident Bachelorette correspondent, which means she’s the only writer on that website that I pay attention to. She did a little digging and found out that the vast majority of the ratbags competing for JoJo’s heart are actually in it for the wrong reasons: aspirations of modeling, music, and acting careers abound.
It turns out Chase possesses no such aspirations, which makes sense, since he’s the Ann Veal of this season. It’s only fitting that he’ll probably end up in third place this season behind army werewolf Luke and Aaron Rodgers’ brother.
The Ringer is my new favorite Medium publication because they aren’t afraid to get deep and answer the tough questions that have plagued me since 2011. Sam Donsky investigates the comparative merits of each film and constructs the Rom-Com Genre Approval Matrix, a metric by which I will measure all of my favorite gooey trash films from now on. This is worth a read if you’re the kind of person who has seen Knight and Day, or This Means War, or literally any Freddie Prinze Jr. movie.
Please stop sleeping on SVĒ! She is literally giving you flawless pop disco vocals and a ricocheting chorus and you repay her with a measly 1.4k YouTube views??? Unacceptable. I want you to go home and think about what you’ve done. Then put on “Paint a Picture” while you dye your tips pink and dance in a crushed velvet dress, you wild child of the night.
Listen to me. Remember Nelly? Remember “Ride Wit Me”? Remember how that was the goddamn Best Shit you had ever heard in your eighth grade life, and how you still get excited when you hear the phrase “ay, must be the money”?
Okay, now add a pulsing beat and a hypnotic sing-songy hook and the line “she gon’ make you pay to see her work it / she only twerkin’ for a Birkin” and just a splash of tropical house AND WELCOME YOUR EIGHTH GRADE SELF TO 2016, BABY. DAN SAVAGE WAS RIGHT. IT REALLY DOES GET BETTER.
Ellie Guzman is amazing and I would totally blow her, in like a respectful platonic feminist way.
You’ve probably been hearing a lot about Caity Weaver’s recent GQ profile of Kim Kardashian. During the interview process, Weaver brought up Taylor Swift, and you probably know the rest of the story by now already (it’s like they always say — the revolution will be Snapchatted). They touch on other topics rocketing through the Kardashian stratosphere: Rob & Chyna, the O.J. Simpson trial, KIMOJI, George W. Bush. Kim is the peach-shaped sun around which these collected trending topics orbit, and it’s not difficult to imagine a world in which everything is tied back to her. Sure, Kanye’s controversial “Famous” line — “I made that bitch famous” — may be written about Taylor Swift, but Kim could say the same thing about the entire Kardashian-Jenner dynasty.
I can pinpoint the exact moment in Shrill, Jezebel writer Lindy West’s new collection of essays, when a small, sharp part of me shattered into a million pieces. It wasn’t her abortion narrative, it wasn’t her stories about struggling with body image, and it wasn’t the chapter about an internet troll pretending to be her dead father. It was this line:
“Feminism is really just the long slow realization that the things you love hate you.”
Upsetting, yes? Fortunately, West makes sure the reader finds love in a hopeless place. Her essays are deeply hilarious, infinitely relatable, and paging through the book as a fellow fat funny girl feels like embracing a ride-or-die best friend. Please read Shrill if you are a woman (likely), know a woman (very likely), or you just like reading about menstruation tents (extremely likely).
One of my favorite Tumblr users Sashayed has created a very compelling conspiracy theory about Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (Alternate caption: I relate a lot to Steve Rogers because I too am a bisexual disaster who lives in DC and can’t resist following every attractive man I see.)
And finally, let’s end on me, my favorite Shit of all:
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