Author Archives: Evan

Shame Day: Taylor Swift, Charles Z., and The Internet

Posted on July 23, 2013 | 6 comments

Exactly one week ago I was browsing imgur and saw that 4chan was up to its old tricks again. To break this down and provide some context as quickly as possible, 4chan, as defined by Urban Dictionary:

you have just entered the very heart, soul, and life force of the internet. this is a place beyond sanity, wild and untamed. there is nothing new here. “new” content on 4chan is not found; it is created from old material. every interesting, offensive, shocking, or debate inspiring topic youve seen elsewhere has been posted here ad infinitum. we are the reason for “not safe for work”. we are the anonymous army. cross us and you will fail. anonymous is everywhere. you depend on us every day. we bag your groceries, we fix your computers. anonymous sees you before you see him. sitting at desks around the world right now is a nameless, faceless, unforgiving mafia composed of the best of the best.

For anyone who doubts the ability of the users of this site to get things done, allow me to direct you to the winner of TIME Magazine‘s  2009 Most Influential Person of the Year, Christopher Poole, a.k.a. moot, a.k.a. the founder of 4chan. As a little icing on the cake, you can check out what happened to nominees 2 to 21. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, internet, music, sex, Shame Day, Youth

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A Kiss With A Fist Is Better When Dealing With Giant Monsters

Posted on July 19, 2013 | 2 comments

Turning the clock back to this past Tuesday, days before I fell down with this cold and what feels like years ago, I saw Pacific Rim with a friend and then got steak. When it comes down to pure quality alone I may shock you by saying that the steak was much, much better than the film. I wanted to hold every bite of that steak in my mouth for an eternity.

My love for food aside, there was something that I really, really enjoyed about Pacific Rim, and to set aside the obvious it was not robots and giant monsters throwing down.

I’m not gonna lie, I did enjoy that immensely.

Reading on will spoil parts of this movie, which I actually think you should go out and see. It also spoils parts of Man of Steel, which you know my opinion of. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, film, media, sex, writing

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Talking About Celebrities Talking To People

Posted on July 12, 2013 | 1 comment

I’m going to start out with a few fun facts for readers both old and new alike.

At the time of this writing our blog has approximately 85,750 views. We have been averaging roughly 175 hits per day ever since the very talented Kat came aboard, and she’s largely the reason we’re almost at 200 on a Friday evening in spite of my not having posted yet. As is the norm, far too many of the search terms used to find this site have been people looking for porn; we began catering to fans of a particular sub-genre once Gordon wrote that one post about the hijab.

The most hits we have ever gotten was a result of massive Facebook sharing of a post I wrote about the bombing that happened in Boston. That all-time high was 562 views.

Last week Kanye West tweeted about Pacific Rim, praising it for being “easily one of [his] favorite movies of all time.” That first tweet was retweeted 8,853 times, and memorialized 5,177 times by all his twitter followers who chose to favourite it. To put that into context, Kanye West has about 9.7 million people following him on Twitter.

Kan-Jaeger West

Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, celebrity, environmentalism, film, media, music, news, politics, television

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Fame Day: CONvergence and Generally Respecting Others

Posted on July 11, 2013 | 4 comments

This may shock you, but I’ve only ever been to one “comic-con.” I’m not counting the three or so times I attended the Toronto Comic and Arts Festival, since it doesn’t really adhere as much to the stereotype of what such conventions typically are [or at the very least what people imagine them to be]. Namely: cosplayers as far as the eye can see.

cosplay [October 31, 2006 Urban Word of the Day]: Literally “Costume Play.” Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character).

And people are going to dress up like whatever characters they want, like Power Girl and Lady Deadpool, seen below:

The girl on the left is cosplayer Ardella, and this image was taken from her Facebook page.

Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, Fame Day, feminism, morality, sex

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Offensiveness and Oversensitivity

Posted on July 5, 2013 | 10 comments

It should be no mystery to you that the writers here at Culture War Reporters are not afraid to call out people, industries, or even activities when they’re clearly in the wrong. Heck, we have an entire Shame Day feature dedicated to that very idea.

They typically feature this little guy yelling at people.

In this age of internet anonymity I believe that it is especially important to call attention to people who are being sexist, racist, and just generally bigoted. Too often we forget that what we say online [or anywhere, really] is able to be recorded, and that we can be held accountable to those words. It’s part of the reason I dedicated a Fame Day post to a tumblr called Public Shaming, run by a man who screenshots particularly egregious tweets to showcase how truly reprehensible some people can be. Just one example:

I was going to embed the least offensive one, but seriously, they’re all pretty much equally offensive.

Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in bizarreness, internet, language, lgbt, race, Shame Day

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Evan and Gordon Interview: Kat, Our Newest CWR!

Posted on July 3, 2013 | 4 comments

EVAN: Ladies and gentlemen, it brings me the greatest sort of joy to announce that we will be announcing a third Culture War Reporter to our blog. Ever since Elisa’s departure I have long wished to have a female perspective, and after a little bit of searching I was connected to Kat via one of my many, many cousins-

This edition of E&GT will consist of both Gordon and me asking Kat ten questions apiece, to present to all of you nice people a greater picture of who she is. At the end she’ll have the opportunity to ask each of us five questions, just to be fair.

You can of course find out more about her by reading her bio. Now, without further ado, I’m going to let Gordon start us off-

GORDON: You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and you see a tortoise, Kat. You reach down and flip the tortoise over on it’s back, Kat. The tortoise lays on its back, it’s belly baking in the hot sun, beating it’s legs, trying to turn itself over but it can’t. Not without your help.  But you’re not helping. Why is that, Kat?

KAT: Because I’m hungry and I plan to eat it?

GORDON: Well, we’ve determined she’s not a replicant. That’s progress, at least.

EVAN: Gordon, you are a huge nerd. Continue reading →

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Posted in blog news, comics, Evan and Gordon Talk, feminism, interview, literature, money, music, sex

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