#elon musk is a stupid little baby man who needs to die

[gaysetokaibas]

trust me when i say i hate ever acknowledging elon musk exists but this might be the most ridiculous tweet of his i've seen in recent memory. how much of a fucking baby do you have to be.

[nerdyenby]

Orange time :D I’m watching Joel

“I don’t support Elon Musk, I think he’s a weirdo, but his internet — I need it” based

My instinctual “don’t ask about ccs in other people’s chats >:(” but they’re asking about his wife lol

“I’ve not heard of anybody getting covid in ages, maybe it’s just cause I hang out with loads of losers who don’t leave the house”

Joel’s frickin’ voice when asked if he met Dream 😭😭😭😭

His reaction to Jimmy’s skin is priceless, oh my gosh

Sausage making lore and Joel just “…. What”

Owen sound so desperate to not be left alone with them, I’m dying

Rocket Spleef

“As long as none of us die in any of the games, we’ll be fine” so true

“Cmon Sausage, are you still in?” “No, I’m a dead man :D”

Grid Runners

They’re killing it!!

First in saw mill, we take it!!!

Battle Box

Oh that was so clean

“Those bows are killing me” literally

YESSSS SAUSAGE!!!!!

That sandwich of rounds if so satisfying actually

“Not last, yay” “What are you at?” “39th” Sausage my beloved

Sands skippers :((

Sands of Time

Dave finding the silver lining, as they should <33

Oh man that was such a tough word puzzle

Joel is getting so lucky with his pathing, what the heck??

Owen calling the gold chain parkour beautiful, he’s a different breed

Something about their comms are so natural and chill, it feels like they all have their ears open and are properly hearing each other, it’s so nice

THAT WAS SO STRESSFUL WHAT

There’s still sand in the lobby ;-;

That’s a solid score for only getting one(?) vault

2nd!!!!

Ace Race

They’re just a bunch of sweaty little guys, aren’t they /aff

Joel first!!!

Owen and Hoel holding hands :))

Joel figured out the ending and beat five people in the last checkpoint, we win these!!

He only cares about beating Jimmy lol

The “Well, that happened” energy they’re exuding is so freaking funny

“No one cares what we want, which is annoying” “no one cares about me” “why are we not the main characters” them!!

Dave is a prodigy, mhm, that’s definitely the right word for what he’s talking about mhm

“My wife texted me saying to stop throwing, so no I will stop throwing” “oh I didn’t realize you were doing that” “that was an hour ago”

Oh to be at an MCC watch party with Lizzie, Jojo, and Jack

Parkour Warrior

“Hey guys, love you wife” Joel is the wife guy of all time

Pkw when people don’t mute is just stretches of silence broken up with people complaining and I love it

Joel is killing it!!!

Owen and Dave holding hands <33

Dave losing her absolute mind lol

“This shhhhhhtuff is hard” nice save king 👍

Joel needs to not be so hard on himself, that’s an order

I think Dave might care, just a hunch

Sausage’s “angy” killed me

Hole in the Wall

Tom Holland as Dave Krtzyy in the film adaptation of the novel they will write about MCC32 Orange Ocelot’s comeback

Barbenheimer bois :))))

“I don’t know, even if Barbie dies, like, the atomic bomb killed way more than one person” DAVE 😭

Joel actually screaming then unmuting like nothing happened 😂

Yeah this event is crazy competitive

Dave is so funny and for what

I love the energy renewal after they accept they can’t close that gap

“If we’re not making it to dodgebolt, werymaking it on those gosh darn top 10 channels” real!!

Skybattle

“It was written in the stars, gentlemen, and the stars are saying slaughter them all” Dave my beloved

Dave been practicing his bomb making skills, good to know

“I know minecraft physics, baby” that’s my streamer

“Get down, I’m gonna do something stupid” we stan a humble king

Yeah I don’t feel like they did anything wrong, just nothing really lined up for them

Dodgebolt

Ye ol’ mcc1 alliance vs everyone wanting Ran to break their curse

“You better hotguy, you cowards!!”

Dave got a snack and raised a puppy

[dearyallfrommatt]

Alt-weeklies are dead. Blogs are dead. Bootlickers and the civility police won.

 The above story from The New Republic written by Alex Pareene was brought to my Twitter world by Radley Balko, superlative journalist and maybe the only self-described libertarian I’d let thrive after the Purge. In short, it discusses the recent emasculation of Deadspin and how it’s indicative of the death of the “rude press”. That is, the elimination of smaller, shall we say less respectful outlets like Splinter and Gawker, publications that would stick their fingers into they eyes of the rich and the very much richer.

 And it’s not just those web-based publications’ deaths that article warns of. It’s the slow extinction of the alt-weekly or alt-monthly, all to be replaced by boutique publications that won’t be so gauche as to upset their betters. In other words, they’ll be “civil” because “civility” might be the most important thing we’re missing in this cold, cruel world.

 The first writing gig I got out of college was at an alt-monthly and the only “regular job” I’ve ever had was with an alt-weekly, so I might be a bit biased on this matter. Twenty-some-odd years ago in Gainesville, FL, a pair of cats named Colin Whitworth and Mike Podalsky started MOON Magazine, maybe the altest alternative magazine that wasn’t a ‘zine that I’ve ever seen. I mostly wrote about music and Gainesville being what it was, there wasn’t much sticking-in-the-eye that needed doing.

 Though I do remember them pissing of a real estate guy so badly he started his own “alt-monthly” in competition. It lasted one issue as I recall. Every afternoon at 4:20, we'd have a “staff meeting” and the magazine run pieces from severely left-wing sources going after the destruction of the Everglades or the dangers of the Cassini probe. It was that kind of magazine.

 After I left Gainesville for Athens, I took up with Flagpole Magazine, a music/news/arts weekly in Michael Stipe’s hometown. Athens is a different town and publisher Pete McCommons was a different breed. An old school newspaper man contrasted to Mike and Colin’s “young upstarts”, Flagpole was a gentler poke that nevertheless contrasted well with the bought-and-owned-by-the-chamber-of-commerce local daily, The Athens Banner-Herald. He still gave a lot of room to his staff to go nuts, notably my direct editor Ballard Lesemann.

 When I left college in 1997, I had already worked in actual, for real newspapers for almost a decade. Furthermore, I’d grown my hair long and discovered Hunter Thompson, so I was by no means inclined to go back to covering school board meetings for some small town weekly. MOON went the way of the dodo sometime in 2001, and though I left in 2002, Flagpole’s still kicking.

 I rarely made anything close to a living at writing, but I’m thankful of my time with the alts and grateful to Colin, Mike, Pete and Ballard for letting me share the ride with them and have a little fun. So, again, grain of salt. One thing working on alternatives taught me was that “complete objectivity” was not only impossible but unnecessary so long as your cards are on the table, so I ain’t going to put no shuck on you.

 Now, I won’t summarize or really explore what the above-linked New Republic piece goes into. I highly recommend it be read and considered with much gravity. Even if you don’t agree with its conclusions - or even the need for the existence of “rude journalism” - do study on what it suggests. Do we really want a world where the extremely rich, either as individuals or as a group, can shut down publications that don’t show proper fealty and people who’re willing to tell the Boss Man to take this job and shove it?

 The responses to Radley’s retweet and others I’ve seen elsewhere are telling indeed, though. While there are plenty of sympathetic voices, not a few folks are saying “well, good, fuck ‘em”. There is a negative view of journalists, but if anyone suggests that it’s caused by recent events in the business are lying or stupid or ignorant or all three. For as long as there have been rich dudes willing to start wars for more wealth, there have been plenty of poor bastards willing to die for them. Nowadays, we have folks willing to pay Major League Baseball for what they used to get for free, and not even blink an eye.

 A lot of it’s political. Right-wing media doesn’t have the same problems in getting funding because, well, most rich people are quite fine with the nuts and bolts of conservative thought. The economic side, anyway, which spells less taxes or regulation; the social side, they have enough pull to not have to worry about anyone griping unless they piss off someone higher up the ladder.

 Which is extremely amusing, since these are the same folks who stay constantly stricken with the vapors about how much money Hillary Clinton (or Elizabeth Warren or Barrack Obama or Bernie Sanders or fill-in-the-blank-here) bring home. The “common people”, they’re saying, don’t need hoity-toity nerds who can string sentences together and count without taking off their shoes telling us that they’re favorite rich guy needs a kick in the nuts for being the type of bastard that needs kicking in the nuts on a regular basis. The hooting baboons that support digital frat houses like Barstool are happy to stick it to those PC creeps, man, rebelling in that way that hurts the actual elite not one tiny bit.

 They also hate the corporate media and social media sites, which they will tell you endlessly in the comments sections of corporate medias’ pages on social media while FOX and CNN have a special on it every other week. They hate “political correctness” trying to tell them that the “natural order” isn’t just boozy white dudes watching the Pats and gorging on chicken wings, making  cracks about the opposing quarterback being homosexual or making “hey-it’s-just-a-joke” jokes about Serena Williams or some WNBA playing being a “man, baby”.

 There is most definitely a place for big mainstream news sources like CNN or The New York Times or TIME Magazine. A professor of my in journalism school used to repeat the quote, paraphrased from memory, that “journalism is the first rough draft of history”. Despite what the right wing has been screaming for years, whoever the president is, the big papers are rarely out for his blood. Once you become president, you are a “Washington insider” and all the corporate media really cares about is making money. 

 Whatever he says about the “Washington Swamp” and “fake news”, Donald Trump’s been part of that world, as is every Washington politician or media figure. FOX News is the mainstream media and the Washington Examiner has plenty of backing to keep that so. Who funds The Federalist? That publication has its place but that question must be asked. To do otherwise is to tell the powerful that you’re just fine with them running things, thank you very much.

 But there needs to be a place for a small, scrappy paper speaking for the weird and shat-upon, flicking the earlobe of the rich and powerful and running ads for weekly drag shows. The dirtbag center - that’s what I’m calling the tedious middle-class bourgeoisie spawn that all voted for Trump because they hated Hillary but don’t want to admit it and were shocked as the rest of us, deal with it - wants to be kept fat and saucy while their kids joke about “learning to code” and they all grind themselves down in a miserable existence. Sticking it to the media and the elite, man, all up in the “intellectual dark web,” man, just like Peter Thiel or Bari Weiss, man.

 This is one of those things that shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does, because these people are that guy who started a one-run magazine to get back at Colin and Mike for saying hurtful things about them being crooked. In America, at least, there has always, always been a group of people who will kick down for the benefit of their upper-class betters and do it with a smile on their faces. It’s why dumbass country boys went to die for slavery and why thick-necked hardhats smashed picket lines and assassinated union leaders.

 Like the story notes, we all thought that blogs would be the new hotness, but that lasted just long enough for Google to deciding that “do no evil” was bad for the bottom line. People, especially wingnuts, boo-hoo about Facebook or Twitter without acknowledging or even recognizing that Mark Zuckerberg is a greedy little shit and Jack Dorsey is quite comfortable with cosplaying Nazis. Thanks to Ajit Pai’s bought-and-sold ass, Net Neutrality - about the only thing that keeps the internet from being anything other than a glorified Want Ads - is going to be that much harder to make reality.

A lot of this goes back to the “civility” thing, or lack thereof, NYT columnists bemoan whenever they get caught out being a dipstick. We’re too mean to each other, they say, we don’t know how to respect each other, they say. Rich people know how to run things better than the hoi polloi, so do sit down and be quiet like nice children. Or else. 

 Because here’s the thing, friends and neighbors: the rich, I mean really rich class in this country do not give a solid gold shit about you apart from how much more money they can squeeze out. Suck up to Elon Musk all you want and bemoan Bill Gates having to pay so much in taxes that he’s still a billionaire afterwards all you want. They are not going to let you on the space ship with them once they’re done fouling the waters and scouring the land.

 You can cheer the death of Deadspin all you want, hoot at the firings of journalist who say bad things about Trump or the cops or Tom Brady, and general be gleeful that the media all should “learn to code” to your heart’s content. Because it won’t end there. Conglomerations are already scooping up weekly and small town dailies, shuttering the superfluous and give everyone the same story in the same tone while kissing the proper butts.

 In the end, we need an antagonistic press. We need someone willing to piss off the deep pockets and old families and moneyed interests. We need someone that’ll give a voice to left-handed, bisexual, transvestite furries who love swing dancing. Or even just a little time, a slice of acknowledgement that the world isn’t just boozy obnoxious white dudes on barstools or bitter wine moms sniping on Facebook. You can cheer the downfall of such, but all you’re doing is putting the noose around your own throat and saving the Powers That Be a little time.

 You may not want to rock the boat, friends and neighbors, but have no illusions. When the rubber hits the road, the Wealthy Elite will throw you over. Don’t make it easier for them.