...And That Too Shall Pass...

Seth MacFarlane needs to stop. I understand his appeal. I don’t want to, but I do. Shows like Family Guy and movies like Ted have their place—it’s a filthy, sticky basement of a fraternity house, but it’s a place nonetheless. There is nothing wrong with smoking too much pot and chugging Natty Light while watching a stupid television show. But there is something wrong with this disgusting Cult of MacFarlane that just keeps helping him get more work. It’s a cult that finds nothing funnier than “black Stewie” Twitter parody accounts, that asks Yahoo! Answers questions like, “What pills does Quagmire use on women in Family Guy?”, and that sits in front of the television every Sunday to clap and cheer on a showrunner who often resorts to the same old “women belong in the kitchen” joke. Listen, if you want to be sexist/racist/homophobic or whatever, I can’t stop you, but for the love of God, MacFarlane, at least introduce some originality into your hatred. It’s so bland. You know what’s worse than being one of those “don’t watch my act if you can’t handle it” self-proclaimed offensive shock comics? Being a boring self-proclaimed offensive shock comic. That’s essentially what MacFarlane is. He’s gotten to the point where it’s hard to be offended by him, not because he’s isn’t offensive, but because everything he thinks is edgy has been done a million times before. I want to yell about his racism, but I can’t stop yawning.

Take the new show he’s co-producing, Dads, set to air Tuesdays this fall. It’s a FOX multi-camera comedy about two guys (perpetual manchild Seth Green and a slumming GiovanniRibisi) whose lives are totally changed when their fathers move in with them. It’s not the most interesting premise (and if MacFarlane wasn’t FOX’s baby, I could easily see it in the middle of a CBS comedy lineup). The preview was released yesterday and oh boy, it’s about as awful as you’d expect from the three men who last teamed up to bring us a movie featuring a stoned teddy bear who fucks hookers. For the most part, it’s all the expected jokes about deadbeat, cheap, and old fathers. But, because this is MacFarlane, we also get some truly lazy racism: Chinese people are distrustful! They hit their children with math books! The most cringeworthy moment features a “joke” about how Brenda Song (oh, honey, what are you doing?) should dress up as a “sexy Asian schoolgirl” to impress some investors. And you know what the hilarious payoff is? She dresses up as a sexy Asian schoolgirl. That’s it. That’s the joke. It makes you want to flip the channel to view the less subtle racism of a 2 Broke Girls episode. It’s stupid and it’s lazy. I know that no one is watching a MacFarlane penned sitcom in hopes of enjoying some high-brow, subversive, and wholly originally comedy. They’re watching it for cheap laughs, cutaway gags, outdated references. Not all television shows have to be intelligent, or even great, but at least give us something interesting to hate-watch, you know?

Kill it. Kill it with fire…

humansofnewyork: “Why were you homeless?” “It just got to a...

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:43:39 -0400

humansofnewyork:

“Why were you homeless?”

“It just got to a point where my mom couldn’t maintain anymore. The sad part was that it was during high school. So I had to keep it a secret. Cause, you know, it’s high school.”

dreeastwood: Something has clicked. I’ve reached a certain...

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:50:43 -0400

dreeastwood:

Something has clicked. I’ve reached a certain point in my life where I can truly see reality. Let me explain. A lot of things are pure bullshit. I see a lot of ignorance and mediocrity on a daily basis. Television, music, social media all that shit is flat out stupid. I don’t understand society’s obsession with other people’s lives. People have become so focused on the fake identities people portray on the Internet rather than the reality going on in their own lives. People aren’t “human” anymore. They are a thumbnail and random text. A person’s worth is based how they look, how much money they have, or on their follower count on twitter. That’s stupid to me man. A person should be judged based on their actions and morals rather than how many likes they get on Instagram. The human element of social living has been taken out. I’m over it man. I’ve realized what’s truly important and what matters in my life. I feel like I’ve matured tremendously. Not only as a man but as a human being period. It’s a beautiful feeling man.

gradientlair: You MUST watch this hilariously cute Black couple...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:37:16 -0400

gradientlair:

You MUST watch this hilariously cute Black couple on The Tonight Show during the gas pump news segment. I was in tears laughing. Adorable and funny.

Photo

Sat, 11 May 2013 08:13:09 -0400

gaywrites: Sick of stereotypical Mother’s Day cards? Mama’s Day...

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:50:43 -0400

gaywrites:

Sick of stereotypical Mother’s Day cards? Mama’s Day highlights the families who are sometimes forgotten in the celebration — “low-income moms, young moms, immigrant moms, single moms, incarcerated moms, queer moms, and moms struggling with substance abuse, among others.” (via Mama’s Day)

*sobbing*

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:32:59 -0400

kateoplis: Bulletproof Whiteboards and the Marketing of School...

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:49:51 -0400

kateoplis:

Bulletproof Whiteboards and the Marketing of School Safety | NPR

Because an individual 18-by-20-inch ‘shield’ is better protection than revised gun safety laws.

Because American ‘solutions’ must always involve commerce.

Because our national persona is a superhero.

People are always trying to make money off tragedies, smh

humansofnewyork: “I never married.” “Why not?” “Because you...

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:19:21 -0400

humansofnewyork:

“I never married.”
“Why not?”
“Because you didn’t come along until today.”

Gradient Lair: When A College Degree Isn't A Ticket To The Middle Class For Black People

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:54:06 -0400

Gradient Lair: When A College Degree Isn't A Ticket To The Middle Class For Black People:

gradientlair:

While over 80% of the people in the world are considered literate, literacy privilege coupled with educational privilege through formal education at a post-secondary institution includes only 1% of the world’s population. In America, roughly 30% of adults have bachelors degrees. Master’s…

“The college degree is clearly no longer a magic ticket into the shrinking middle class for Americans. The difference is it never completely was that ticket for Black people.”

What a closer…

afternoonsnoozebutton: thepeoplesrecord: The troubling viral...

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:47 -0400

afternoonsnoozebutton:

thepeoplesrecord:

The troubling viral trend of the “hilarious” Black poor person
May 7, 2013

Charles Ramsey, the man who helped rescue three Cleveland women presumed dead after going missing a decade ago, has become an instant Internet meme. It’s hardly surprising—the interviews he gave yesterday provide plenty of fodder for a viral video, including memorable soundbites (“I was eatin’ my McDonald’s”) and lots of enthusiastic gestures. But as Miles Klee and Connor Simpson have noted, Ramsey’s heroism is quickly being overshadowed by the public’s desire to laugh at and autotune his story, and that’s a shame. Ramsey has become the latest in a fairly recent trend of “hilarious” black neighbors, unwitting Internet celebrities whose appeal seems rooted in a “colorful” style that is always immediately recognizable as poor or working-class.

Before Ramsey, there was Antoine Dodson, who saved his younger sister from an intruder, only to wind up famous for his flamboyant recounting of the story to a reporter. Since Dodson’s rise to fame, there have been others: Sweet Brown, a woman who barely escaped her apartment complex during a fire last year, and Michelle Clarke, who couldn’t fathom the hailstorm that rained down in her hometown of Houston, and in turn became “the next Sweet Brown.”

Granted, the buzzworthy tactic of reporters interviewing the most loquacious witnesses to a crime or other event is nothing new, and YouTube has countless examples of people of all ethnicities saying ridiculous things. One woman, for instance, saw fit to casually mention her breasts while discussing a local accident, while another man described a car crash with theatrical flair. Earlier this year, a “hatchet-wielding hitchhiker” named Kai matched Dodson’s fame with his astonishing account of rescuing a woman from a racist attacker. But none of those people have been subjected to quite the same level of derisive memeification as Brown, Clark, and now, perhaps, Ramsey—the inescapable echoes of “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife!” and “Kabooyaw,” the tens of millions of YouTube hits and cameos in other viral videos, even commercials.

It’s difficult to watch these videos and not sense that their popularity has something to do with a persistent, if unconscious, desire to see black people perform. Even before the genuinely heroic Ramsey came along, some viewers had expressed concern that the laughter directed at people like Sweet Brown plays into the most basic stereotyping of blacks as simple-minded ramblers living in the “ghetto,” socially out of step with the rest of educated America. Black or white, seeing Clark and Dodson merely as funny instances of random poor people talking nonsense is disrespectful at best. And shushing away the question of race seems like wishful thinking.

Ramsey is particularly striking in this regard, since, for a moment at least, he put the issue of race front and center himself. Describing the rescue of Amanda Berry and her fellow captives, he says, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”

The candid statement seems to catch the reporter off guard; he ends the interview shortly afterward. And it’s notable that among the many memorable things Ramsey said on camera, this one has gotten less meme-attention than most. Those who are simply having fun with the footage of Ramsey might pause for a second to actually listen to the man. He clearly knows a thing or two about the way racism prevents us from seeing each other as people.

Source

Now that you know this is a thing, please stop sharing these memes. Poor Black people speaking candidly about various serious incidents isn’t a hilarious joke.

^Valid point