Category Archives: On the (Rest of the) Net

On the (Rest of the) Net: Short & Sweet Edition.

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I’ve been a little too busy this week to do much blog reading but, alas, here are my picks of the week.

Can you like fashion and, like, be smart? That is the debate circulating around the blogosphere of late, and Jezebel sums up its instigation by Paper editor Kim Hastreiter and The New York Times: T editor Sally Singer. You can contribute to the discussion at fashademic (combining the words “fashion” and “academic” is so, like, smart!).

Mia Freedman imparts more of her wisdom, this time on the Stephanie Rice/Twitter incident. She writes: “I have long had a massive problem with the way we elevate sports stars to be heroes… But surely it’s time to stop raising these individuals to the heights of real heroes. Because surely when they disappoint us and show their ordinariness or, in some cases, their prejudices, it’s a very long way to fall.” Indeed.

The Onion has a satirical take on the “cult” (my emphasis) of New York City. In a faux-news story, in which the entire population of NYC stages a mass exodus, “at press time, some 10 million Los Angeles-area residents… had already begun repopulating the city.”

In the latest season of Jersey Shore, Sammi and Ronnie seem to break up and get back together at least once every episode (so what’s the difference between season one and season two, then?). In between that, Ronnie goes to the club, “creeps on girls”, gets wasted, and calls Sammi “a c*nt or a bitch directly to her face”. If they were your friends, what would you do?

“How to Get a Raise At Work? Clean Your Vagina.” The title says it all.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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In the vein of “What’s the use of being Supergirl if I can’t even get a date?”, comes the perils of being a 1940s boy in the dating world.

Feminist commentator Greta Christina muses on the appeal of Don Draper and the bad boy fantasy:

“Why are so many women hot for Don Draper? The lying, philandering, self-absorbed, work-obsessed, emotionally-warped, goes-through-mistresses-like-cigarettes, sexist prick of a lead character, Don Draper?” It’s because he “isn’t a standard bad boy… And look at his taste in women. Every woman Don cheats on his wife with is intelligent, independent, unconventional, and in some way defiant of gender roles… (In fact, I’m wondering now if part of the Don Draper fantasy has to do with wanting to be one of the strong, edgy, fascinating women he gets the hots for.)”

She then goes on to defend the bad boy fantasy: “… when women fantasise about bad boy rogues who treat women like dirt, the bad boys almost never treat us badly. They’re fascinated with us. They find us hauntingly compelling: so hauntingly compelling that, even though they usually use women and toss them aside, they somehow can’t tear themselves away from us… I think that’s something people forget about bad boy fantasies. Much of the time, they’re not about bad boys. They’re about bad boys going good because of us.”

“When did men in America go from being masculine steak-eating, plaid shirt wearing, Old Spice smelling, cigar smoking cowboys who like football, hunting and Clint Eastwood movies to skinny jean wearing, satchel carrying, pierced ear heterosexuals who like chick flicks, The View, and Bath & Bodyworks? The American man is an endangered species due in large part to the over-feminisation of society.” That’s right, blame it on the feminists!

Brush up on your Muppet who’s who with this Muppet Name Etymology chart.

Your permission slip from the universe allows you to walk out of movies that suck, quit your job, and fail, amongst many others.

The great Photoshop debate continues, with Jezebel’s article about Jennifer Aniston’s un-Photoshopped pictures, followed by Mia Freedman and Erica Bartle’s takes on the issue.

Gala Darling republished this fantastic response to a whale versus mermaid gym advertisement. Gorgeous!

Check out Nubby Twiglet’s quirky photo dairy of her trip to L.A. and Disneyland.

Anyone who watched The City or The Hills will remember People’s Revolution boss and mentor to Lauren and Whitney, Kelly Cutrone, and her hilariously truthful insights. Now, you can brush up on all your favourite Kelly quotes here. My favourites? “I don’t need to defend my company against a girl who wears pink!” and “You know where nice people end up? On welfare”, the latter of which I have used as a Facebook status!

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Frock & Roll asks “What Makes a Compelling Website?” Frequent updates, a unique writing style, an interesting story to tell and expertise (on things like “how to make a pillowcase from a DVD player”). Also, the final instalment of “The Blogger’s Guide to Hustling” is now online.

Darling of the magazine world, Frankie, is profiled on Pedestrian.TV.

A pro-hunting friend of mine put me on to this article featured in The Age, entitled “Men Who Kill”. The provocative title certainly reflects what a lot of animal-loving, vegetarian Greenies think about hunters (I, myself, have conflicting feelings about being a meat-eating, leather-wearing, zoo-goer versus being staunchly against animal cruelty, puppy mills/pet shops, fur, whaling etc.), but one quote from the article is particularly thought-provoking: “It’s [the rabbit] out and about and ‘bang’, the next thing it knows is nothing. It’s not tormented by a slaughter yard or fed hormones.”

In other Barbie news, Chloë Browne, guest blogging at Em & Lo, asserts that you can be a feminine feminist… and a Barbie connoisseur. Amen.

To celebrate season two of Jersey Shore, The Atlantic thinks that “We Are All Snooki”, the undisputed breakout star of the show, in terms of “crafting public selves”. Only Snooki’s public self is a whole lot more outrageous and famous than most of ours.

Bret Easton Ellis does The Babysitters Club? WTF? But he does it oh so well. For example, Kristy says, “Like, sorry that you have diabetes Stacey, but do we have to spend half the afternoon discussing it? And yeah, it really bums me out to watch Claudia snort up half those Pixie Stix when she is so blatantly trying to get attention to her sugar problem…” Speaking of Claudia, her chapter is far better; very passive aggressive, in the vein of BEE:

“We were going 30 in a 25 mph Stoneybrook crossing lane, my dad’s hands clenched white against the wheel while I could practically hear him grinding his teeth all the way in the backseat. I was sitting next to my older sister Janine, who had spent the last three days on some sort of cleanse diet because she was, in her words, ‘packing on the pounds like I was the one eating all the junk food.’ Or because someone had switched out her carefully hidden birth control pills with orange Tic Tacs last month. Either one.”

Sometimes it seems my sister and I are the only ones on the face of the earth who have seen/remember/love the ’80s teen movie, Teen Witch. Until Jezebel profiled it! Above, a choice rap clip from the film!

Erica Bartle has a discusses the perils of committing to a comprehensive review of all the September issues and promotes blog loving on Girl with a Satchel.

An oldie but a goodie: “The Self-Manufacture of Megan Fox” at The New York Times.

We can’t have “On the (Rest of the) Net” without the requisite Mad Men link. This week it’s “Mad Men’s Very Modern Sexism Problem” at The Atlantic.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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It’s hard out there for a pimp male model. MamaMia profiles “Male Models. Inside Their Straaaange World”, and how images of “buffed” and “ripped” men on magazine covers might affect male body image.

Hannah Montana is the superhero of the modern generation.

“Freelancing means being so poor and so hungry for so long that you ‘eat’ a bowl of soup that’s just hot water, crushed-up multivitamins and half your spice rack…”—according to Richard Morgan, in “Seven Years as a Freelance Writer, or How to Make Vitamin Soup”.

Sex in the Digital City writer, Kitty Tonkin, details how she unplugged her iPod on public transport and had a good, old-fashioned conversation with an elderly man on the train. He talked about the old days, and the kinds of values they had back then. While some of his views were certainly outdated (“women need to learn and remember that it’s a man’s role to fish”), Mystery Train Man did drop such gems of wisdom as “feminism has warped views in society” and “romance is so cheap [wine, fish and chips overlooking the ocean] people have no excuse”.

Rachel Zoe literally “dies” for US Harper’s Bazaar. Death by Marc Jacobs? Yes please!

Tiger Beatdown has some interesting views on the “Love The Way You Lie” video. While I think both the song and the film clip accurately portray the cycle of domestic violence, author Garland Grey asserts that both glamorise the situation. View the video and the article, and you be the judge.

Any LOSTies out there still mourning the end of the series? io9 hits it right on the head in “12 Theories About Lost That Were Better Than the Actual Show”, acknowledging that half the fun of watching the show was formulating our own hypotheses about its mysteries.

The Thought Experiment writes about “the cinematic discourse established by director Rob Luketic employs the consistent rhetorical metonymical device of synecdoche to psychologically reinforce the theme of a woman’s appearance…” in Legally Blonde. Or, in layman terms, the film deals with “the constant breaking of the women down in to digestible parts when they are focussed on Warner. This is important because, to a man like that character, taken as a whole, what are we ladies? Too much to chew on, it seems.” Great article.

While our country might be in the midst of a hung parliament, Mia Freedman exerts her feminist stance on the issue in her profile of Julia Gillard: “Would she describe herself as a feminist? ‘I would. All my life I’ve believed that men and women have equal capacities and talents. That means that there are as many smart women as there are smart men and it means there are as many dumb women as there are dumb men. So we’re equal and consequently there should be equality in life’s chances.” Now go bag that Prime Ministership, Julia! (You can also read Freedman’s journey to interview Gillard here.)

Jezebel loves herself some Mad Men. This time around, the feminist blog profiles the show’s stance on “The Psychology of Women”.

Elsewhere, on the “psychology of men” stratosphere, “Can Superheroes Hurt Boys’ Mental Health?” When I said to a male friend that I wasn’t really into superheroes, he said I mustn’t have any daddy issues, ’cause people with daddy issues love superheroes. Well, I have no shortage of daddy issues, and I am dressing as Cat Woman for my Halloween/birthday party, so I guess that proves his point. And so does the article.

Johnny Depp has pulled of many a character, which is no mean feat. The fact that he’s managed to be “doable in pretty much every role is an even bigger accomplishment”.

Once again, women just can’t win. The latest study to prove this shows that “men whose wives make more money than they do are more likely to cheat”. Take a bow, Jesse James, Ryan Phillippe et al.

On the (Rest of the Net).

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If you’re into music, especially the live Melbourne scene, make sure you check out my friend Linzie Meager’s newly launched blog, What Are You Listening To?

Lena Chen says “fuck feminism”. I have to say I agree with most of her statements, and sometimes I get sick of talking about gender politics. Her argument is that feminism doesn’t represent all females equally, especially women of colour and those who belong to the LGBT community.

If only we could all look this chic and quirky at the airport. Gala Darling pairs combat boots with an electric blue knit by Betsey Johnson “En Route to San Francisco”.

Who’s sick of Lady Gaga? Not me, but apparently Gawker is. I do agree that Gaga needs to lay off the reinvention shtick, however. The article also argues that she needs to churn out some new music ASAP.

Still with Gawker, they assert that “Starlets Need to Stop Dressing Up Like Other Starlets for Photo Shoots”, with an impressive roll call that includes Lindsay Lohan as everyone, everyone as Marilyn Monroe and Jennifer Aniston as Barbra Streisand on the most recent cover of US Harper’s Bazaar.

I think the burqa debate is an interesting one; one I don’t necessarily agree with. I don’t think that Islamic women should be forced to wear them, but it is certainly not the government of the Western world’s place to ban them. MamaMia brings light to the subject, asking if the “Burqa is as ‘Confronting’ as Leggings Worn as Pants”? Certainly not! Nor is it more confronting than (Prime Minister come tomorrow night?) Tony Abbott in budgie smugglers!

Meanjin’s blog Spike features a post “On Writing and Running”… or blogging and jogging, as I like to call it. Guess I’m on the right track, then. (Geddit?!)

“Like, OMG, you guys!” Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a product of my generation (or the generation below me, perhaps?). But Jezebel reasons that those who favour “like”, “you know” and “whatever” picked up such fetching colloquialisms from ’90s teen angst drama, My So-Called Life. If you haven’t heard of it, you should so, like, research it, you know? If not, whatever.

Here with more Daria goodness, The Paris Review asks “Are We Afraid of Daria?”

All the single ladies men, take note: there’s a difference between “nice guys” and “total creeps”. (Double standards?) For example, nice guys will pay you “a normal compliment” like, “You look great today”. Creeps will say “things like, ‘You look imaginary’… Did he mean to say something else? Does he know what ‘imaginary’ means?” Gold!

Continuing on from the Facebook versus women issue, Psychology Today ran a great article entitled “Cutting Off Your Vagina to Spite Your Face(book)”. Aside from the genius title, it deals with the deletion of a sexual education Facebook page about female genital mutilation.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Taking inspiration from Gala Darling: These stunning pictures make me nostalgic for summer days at the fairground… oh, that’s right, I never spent summer days at the fairground. And certainly not in a playsuit with balloons. Via The Cherry Blossom Girl.

Jezebel really has it in for Facebook, doesn’t she? My favourite anti-FB post from the site this week is “When it Comes to Women’s Issues, Facebook Still Hasn’t Figured Out How to Play Fair”.

I absolutely LOVED Through a New Lens‘s post on “How Your Audience is Like the Mogwai”! While I’m certainly not a Gremlins fan, Joey Strawn draws some good points from the film and how they relate to blog audiences. Will be keeping his thoughts in mind.

More Gala goodness; it’s an oldie but a goodie. Gala counts down her “Top 5 Fictional Female Style Icons”. I have to confess, I’ve never seen The L Word or Henry & June, so I’ll have to take her word for it. However, I am totes down with Cher Horowitz, Blair Waldorf and Carrie Bradshaw as 3, 2 and 1, respectively.

Following in the vein of her workaholism posts, Rachel Hills uses Zen Habits’ assertion “that, instead of scheduling our days and weeks and months with small tasks that eventually lead us to whatever place we’re trying to get to, we should just go with wherever our will takes us on any given day.” Like going to bed at 8 o’clock on a Monday night, sleeping through til 8 o’clock the following morning, doing a spot of blogging, and watching 90210 for the rest of the day? Definitely worth a look.

Also at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman, Hills looks at the Kyle & Jackie O rape scandal, as well as the Matthew Johns group sex scandal (which continues to get my goat), and the issue of “grey rape”.

In other GG news, this circa-season one post perfectly encapsulates the addiction to the show its audience faces. Admitting it is the first step, right? More on this post here.

Styleite lists “6 Things Elle Magazine is Doing Right”, three being their heavy online and television presences, and their intelligence section, which I couldn’t agree with more. Half the reason (okay, more than half) I continually buy Elle is because of their great articles and book reviews, and their book blog Lit Life is on my blogroll.. “Think Vogue meets Vanity Fair“.

Still with magazines on reality TV, The New York Times profiled Teen Vogue, which you may remember from (other than the newsstand/agency) The Hills.

Postcards to Alphaville “is a project dedicated to film characters featured in guest-made illustrations”. Below, my favourites.

Finally, try an enlightening personality test this weekend, with the Myers-Briggs test. I got an INFJ result, which means I’m Introverted and expend energy in social situations; iNtuitive and focus on the bigger picture and the possibilities; prefer Feeling to thinking and give more weight to emotions than logic; and I’m Judgemental and like to have my plans made well in advance. Oh, how accurate!

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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Frock & Roll has some poignant points on how to “network, promote and get your blog out there” aka “hustle”. I’ve only read part one of the series, but you can find part two here, with part three on its way.

Who do you write like? Apparently, from the sample I typed in to the analyzer, I write like David Foster Wallace, author of one of Time magazine’s All-Time Greatest Novels, Infinite Jest! Not too shabby!

It’s no secret Prince is one of my favourite musicians, but according to Fajr Muhammad of Stylish Thought, he’s also a style icon, assless pants and all!

Edward Cullen sparkles, but feminism certainly doesn’t. Amplify Your Voice discusses “What Twilight Teaches Young Girls”.

Author Marketing Experts suggest “Seven Powerful Ways to Find New Readers For Your Blog” (there’re actually eight!).

An oldie but a goody: Inappropriate Woman Rachel Hills muses on “Gossip Girl, Serena & Effortless Perfection”.

In the vein of last week’s “In Defence of Taylor Momsen” comes the case for Lindsay Lohan as she is released from jail and shipped off to rehab for the umpteenth time.

On Tuesday night, “I Went to See Killers, and It’s All Your Fault”, Jezebel!

Girl with a Satchel has two (here and here) fab pictorials up of this year’s September issues. Here’s just a little taste…

On the (Rest of the) Net.

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It’s shocking to know there are other blogs out there on the net besides this one! So I urge you to check out my favourite posts this week (and in the case of some, this year!). I hope you likey:

While I can’t exactly understand this site (it’s written in Dutch!), it’s oh-so-pretty to look at. And I love blogger Nenz’s links to other quirky sites. Below, she lists blogging as one of her fave pastimes (duh!) and THX THX THX blog for its sweet notes. More on this one coming soon!

“In Defence of Taylor Momsen”, over at Jezebel, tells us why we should just leave the 17-year-old the bloody well alone!

Jersey Shore’s Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is subjected to a scathing profile by The New York Times.

I’ve been humming and hawing over whether to write a blog response to this article, but instead, check out Mark Sarvas’ blog, The Elegant Variation, and this article, “Advice for the Lovelorn… I Mean Writers”.

In other Momsen news, Jezebel reports on “the biggest feud of our time week” with Miley Cyrus.

One of my favourite bloggers, Rachel Hills, struggles to marry who she feels she is with who people perceive her to be. I feel ya, sister!

There’s been a bit of unrest in the Facebook ranks of late, and this Jezebel post—“Why People Really Hate Facebook: It’s Complicated”—asserts why it generates so much hate.

Sex & the City permeated the zeitgeist and defined a television-watching generation. Can Mad Men do the same?

US Vogue worked very hard in 2009 trying to boost its image, what with The September Issue and Fashion’s Night Out. Maybe “Vogue just might be culturally relevant” again?

Sarah Ayoub interviews impending Cleo editor, Gemma Crisp, about where she intends to steer the mag. Exciting!

And everybody’s been raving about Fashematics, which has been around for over a year, but is somehow only just coming to my attention now.