This website is designed as a social mirror to show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society. Words and phrases like “faggot,” “dyke,” “no homo,” and “so gay” are used casually in everyday language, despite promoting the continued alienation, isolation and — in some tragic cases — suicide of sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ) youth.
Stacey May Fowles: What can’t be published (National Post)
The idea of it — their liberty vs. my need to be gratefully, soberly escorted by virtue of my sex — enraged me. In fact, we should all be enraged, every moment of every day, in a way that words can never express.
Eric Harvey: What’s the best way to fight cynicism, or at least escape it? (Applies to dealing with other people’s cynicism and/or one’s own encroaching fears of giving into it.) (marathonpacks Tumblr)
Cynicism is more or less the act of giving in to one’s basest insecurities and fears—or buying into those of others, it’s inherently dialogical, as is everything IMO—and letting them guide your actions. In other words, everything gets filtered through the “ugh” and “siiiigh” filters, and it’s impossible for one to do most anything productive when buried waist-deep in that sort of shit. You’re consistently pushing outward at ostensibly negative forces that are collapsing in on you, and you’re wiring your brain to think that this is the only way of doing things. Everything is always already bad.
Sabrina Velazquez: Scene+Heard: Clones of the Queen get ‘Braided’ (Honolulu Pulse)
I have wanted to write about the dream pop trio Clones of the Queen for a while now, but have purposefully held off until their next album release. With their new EP, “Braided,” out now, it is by far high time.
EVERYONE has a lot of stuff to do because there IS a lot of stuff to do. Some of it is work. Some of it is hanging out with your family. Some of it is just laying on the couch reading a book.
Eric Harvey: Paper Trail: ‘MP3: The Meaning of a Format’ (Pitchfork)
In his new book, Mp3: The Meaning of a Format, McGill University professor Jonathan Sterne exhaustively and eloquently traces the history of the mp3 from the initial hearing model developed in Bell Labs to the current debates about piracy. As the author argues, each time we rip a CD to our hard drives, we're not only saving space in our living rooms or ensuring we have the appropriate gym soundtrack, but also reaffirming a fundamental idea about the limits of human perception.
Eric Harvey: More from my interview with Jonathan Sterne.
I interviewed Jonathan Sterne for Pitchfork about his new book. While conducting the interview, I thought Pitchfork readers would like to know about how AT&T’s capitalistic policies in the 1910s and 1920s laid the groundwork for those compressed bits of data currently clogging their hard drives, and other gentle, science-laden facts about the mp3’s history. I was wrong. But not to worry! Here are the cut bits.
Randy Cohen: If Kant Were a New York Cyclist (NYTimes.com)
Why he runs red lights.
I choose my riding style mindful of my own safety and that of my neighbors, but also in pursuit of happiness. Uninterrupted motion, gliding silently and swiftly, is a joy.
From Honolulu’s Department of Information Technology, city/government data made publicly available for citizens to use and build apps around. Collaboration with Code for America in some cases.
‘Citizens Analyzing Numbers Discover Opportunity’
Matt Lemay: On being both a critic and a musician.
This is a thing I read at (and wrote specifically for) the Pitchfork Music Festival’s amazing Book Fort on Sunday. It is about being both a writer and a musician, and the overlapping attendant neuroses of both.
My excursions make me better because it’s the only time I stop to really examine my process.
I’m an adult with responsibilities, but fiddling will always be a priority.
Sean Oliver: I agree with the cacophony of criticism about Apple’s latest round of TV ads
They don’t show the product.
They don’t explain the product.
They make the target audience feel stupid.
They make the Geniuses look like unsupportive know-it-alls.
There’s no clear call to action.
Laura Franz: Avoiding Faux Weights And Styles With Google Web Fonts (Smashing Magazine)
If you’re using Google Web Fonts on your websites, then there’s a very good chance that 1 in 5 visitors are seeing faux bold and italic versions of your fonts — even if you correctly selected and used all of the weights and styles. That’s because the implementation method recommended by Google Web Fonts doesn’t work with Internet Explorer 7 or 8.
Richard Lawson: Is There a Right Way to Come Out? (The Atlantic Wire)
Ultimately this is a question of what means more right now: The shoulder-shrug of indifference or the clarion announcement. Both have their value, but in the famous person/regular person conversation, we'd argue that the script has been incorrectly flipped. For many (lucky) young people (and older) the case may be that they can just be gay and, whatever, nobody really cares. And good for them. In high schools all across America that is probably the case, that's all that it takes. But for many people that is not the case. And those are the kids (and older) who most need to see examples of gay champions beaming down at them from the hallowed halls of celebrity Valhalla. The brighter the flash from above, the more light might get down to them. There is no right way to come out — you do you, Anderson — but there are ways that are more beneficial, more productive than others. We're happy to hear the news from Mr. Cooper. We just wish he'd said it a little louder. And a lot sooner.
Tiger Beatdown: People in Glass Closets: Anderson Cooper and Straight Responses to Coming Out
When someone like Anderson Cooper comes out, it changes things, just a little bit. There’s one less glass closet in this world, one more tiny shift in the public sphere. So as a queer woman, I find cynicism and snark from heterosexual people who’ve never experienced the pressure of either the closet or outness just a little much. It’s not the sign of your comfort with queer culture that you might think it is, and it’s not particularly supportive. We still face immense pressure, and that requires your empathy and compassion, not your judgment.
We need not give in to sorrow, or feel disgust, or take action, because our brave clown princes have the tonic for what ails the national spirit. Their clever brand of pseudo-subversion guarantees a jolt of righteous mirth to the viewer, a feeling that evaporates the moment their shows end. At which point we return to our given role as citizens: consuming whatever the quacks serve up next.