Violence, Beauty, and Meaningless Fuckery.

literaryreference:

You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.

But then, then comes the fateful moment where you find out that all this time, he’s only seen you as a potential girlfriend. And then if you turn him down, he may never speak to you again. This has happened to me time after time: I hit it off with a guy, and, for all that I’ve been burned in the past, I start to think that this one might actually care about me as a person. And then he asks me on a date.

I tell him how much I enjoy his company, how much I value his friendship. I tell him that I really want to be his friend and to continue hanging out with him and talking about our favorite books or exploring new restaurants or making fun of avant-garde theatre productions. But he rejects me. He doesn’t answer my calls or e-mails; if we’d been making plans to do something before this fateful incident, these plans mysteriously fail to materialize. (This is why I never did get around to seeing the Hunger Games movie. Not to name any names, but thanks a lot, Tom.) Later, when I run into him at social events, our conversations are awkward and lukewarm. This is because the moment we met, he put me in the girlfriend-zone, and now he can’t see me as friend material.

I must say that I find this really unfair. I mean, I’m a nice girl. I have a lot to offer as a friend, like not being a douchebag and stuff. But males just don’t want to be friends with nice girls like me. They can’t help it, I guess; it’s just how they’re wired, biologically. Evolution conditioned our male hominid ancestors to seek nice girls as mates and form friendship bonds only with the other dudes that they hunted mammoths with. It’s true—I know this because I studied hominids in my fifth-grade science class.

So what’s the answer? Should I take up mammoth-hunting in an attempt to appeal to the friendship centers of men’s primal lizardbrains? Should I keep making guy “friends” and then prevent them from making a move on me by subtly undermining their self-confidence? Should I just give up on those manipulative, game-playing, two-faced bastards once and for all? I don’t know. I mean, I’d really like to have a true friendship with a guy someday, but it’s so hard to trust and respect them when they never say what they mean—and you never know when you might be relegated to the girlfriend-zone.

(via this--is--my--design)

wilwheaton:

Yesterday morning, I began skimming The Social Medias over coffee when an article titled “Against Hoppy Beers - Hops Enthusiasts Are Ruining Craft Beer for the Rest of Us” appeared on my Twitter doorstep like so much flaming poop in a paper bag. I knew it was going to be trollbait when I saw that headline, but the bait was too strong. I read it. And as I did, my blood pressure rose, the sarcastic quips and exasperated rebuttals soon piling up in my mind.

Normally, I just forget about this sort of click-bait “journalism” after a few minutes. The article — by Adrienne So, appearing on Slate.com — was intended to get people’s attention, to get people talking, and it succeeded at that. Here I am, hours later, taking the time to write out this rebuttal. But this particular article bugged me more than most of the sloppy beer journalism that’s sloughed off by big mainstream publications, who typically assign wine writers to elaborate on beer styles they don’t even enjoy. Maybe these lazy articles are just building up over time — a crust of stale, uniformed laments. But in this case, from an author who says that she likes hoppy beers herself, it’s not just the laziness or ignorance of brewing techniques that bothers me: it’s the missed opportunities. Where there was an chance to open dialogue about why people like what they like, Adrienne So’s Slate piece instead enters a bizarre, misguided blame game. It starts right there in the title: Hops Enthusiasts Are Ruining Craft Beer for the Rest of Us. And so the message seems to be: You should feel bad for liking what you like so much, because not everyone likes it. Sadly, this is the common thread with many of these articles. Rather than admit their tastes are simply different from others, writers too often try to cast their preferences as some fault of the thing they don’t enjoy. If only IPAs tasted more like fermented grapes…

Let’s peel back each layer of why this is so ridiculous, one by one.

Brilliant. Everything that I wanted to say in my own blog post, but didn’t have time to write.

wilwheaton:

section9:

sotheresthat:

YES. 

PREACH!

No. I’m sorry, but this is wrong.

Seven paragraphs into this poorly-researched article, the author says:

Let’s be clear: Not all craft beer is hoppy. There are many craft breweries that seek to create balanced, drinkable beers that aren’t very bitter at all, like Patrick Rue’s the Bruery in Placentia, Calif., and the Commons Brewery in Portland, Ore. Among the non-hoppy yet complex and delicious American craft beers available are Widmer’s hefeweizen, New Glarus’ cherry and raspberry beers, and Full Sail Brewing’s Session Lager (a beer specifically developed to serve as a refreshing counterpoint to overhopped beers). America’s independent breweries make beers to suit every palate, not just the ones that revel in bitterness.

Yeah, so the entire premise of the headline is disproven by the author, but somehow Slate thought this was still worth publishing. That’s lazy and should be an embarrassment for both writer and editor.

There are plenty of craft beers that aren’t hop-forward, like Mama’s Little Yella Pils from Oskar Blues, Lagunitas PILS, and Coney Island Lager. There are literally dozens of browns, stouts, and wheat beers that feature malt and yeast instead of hops. The first craft beer I ever had, when I was in college and convinced that all beer was Budweiser was St. Rogue’s Red Ale, from Rogue brewing.

A more accurate and actually useful article might be headlined Think All Craft Beer Is Too Hoppy? Think Again.

Also? Don’t insinuate that my IPAs are ruining craft beer. You don’t like them, fine, I don’t care. We all have different tastes, no one is inherently right or wrong, to each their own. Feel free not to buy IPAs or hoppy beer, and please feel free to enjoy the not-so-hoppy selections the article (and Wil) mentioned. I certainly will; my taste in beer includes but is not limited to the hoppy side.

But to say hoppiness is “ruining” craft beer? No. It’s not. Just because your taste is different from mine, doesn’t mean my type of beer is ruining all of it. Vilifying my tastes while insinuating it’s ruining all craft beer is disrespectful and wrong. “To each their own” goes both ways.