Daily Archives: July 8, 2008

A generic headline about a Yahoo! article

Posted by Benjamin Light on

 

Yahoo! Front page wants to reveal to us a diet secret that will double the weight loss, but you have to click on their link to find out. I clicked. I’m still trying to decide if the caption on this photo is intentional or not.



Logic would suggest it’s placeholder text that someone forgot to delete, but my gut is saying someone wrote that on purpose and then maybe a dim editor failed to remedy it. It’s weird to think that somewhere out there, some bastard is getting paid to write these captions.

These shoes cost 300 fucking dollars

Posted by Benjamin Light on

 

Cougars on the prowl

Cougars on the prowl

Somewhere along the way, the main page of Yahoo! changed from a bunch of portal links and AP news headlines into a weird internet version of TV soft news morning shows. Witness today’s featured column “10 Love Lessons From ‘Sex and the City’” by Valerie Reiss. I didn’t think it was possible to distill everything I find repellent about SATC into a few paragraphs, but the writer did a pretty good job with her first “lesson”:

1. Single is Not a Dirty Word

The SATC gals transformed “single”–”spinster”‘s more evolved cousin–from being a hole to a presence; they made singledom cool. Even when it hurt.

One of my favorite moments is when Carrie’s silver Manolos get swiped from a smug-married’s apartment and the friend refuses to reimburse her. She lectures Carrie about spending too much on shoes and not enough on family, playing right in to her singleton’s shame.

This, after Carrie has bought engagement, wedding, shower, and baby gifts for her. In a genius move, Carrie registers herself at Manolo Blahnik just for those shoes, single “bride” that she is, forcing the friend to pay up. To me this said the single life is just as valid as the married. We deserve as many gifts and even blessings from our friends and society, regardless of what others might think of our struggles and choices.

Jennifer Hudson, airbrushed out extra 10 pounds per cougar, shame

*not pictured: reason, accountability, Jennifer Hudson

Oh Carrie! You go, girl! What’s amazing is that I don’t think Ms. Reiss was going for even a hint of irony when she wrote this. “To me, this said the single life is just as valid as the married.” Really? Catty pranking to get the overpriced shoes you want is how you validate, nay, empower yourself? I mean, it’s not like anyone has ever accused SATC of being shallow and materialistic before. Oh, wait, that’s what everyone criticizes the show for.

Maybe she has a point about SATC making singledom cool. I disagree, but it’s a position one can at least take. But backing it up by pointing out the time Carrie stuck it to her married friend over some shoes can’t be the best example of it. Or like the 50th best. But still you’ve got to hand it to the “Sex” writers; not only did they manage to fetishize female singledom into a thin metaphor for a very specific kind of male otherness, they’ve spawned a whole generation of otherwise lovely women who believe that Chris Noth A) possesses a penis, and B) is something to pine for.