Urbzen

Recently, a colleague stopped following me on Twitter because, he says, keeping up with my feed is “emotionally exhausting.” Others have panned the practice as banal, self-indulgent, time-consuming or narcissistic. And then there’s this video, which successfully, and hilariously, paints Twitter as absurd in the extreme:

All of these folks make good points. And, as most who know me are aware, I am nothing if not banal, self-indulgent, time-consuming, narcissistic and otherwise emotionally exhausting—but that’s me, not Twitter. Twitter itself is nothing more than a medium I use to disseminate my narcissism, banality, etc., and like all other media, it can be used well or it can be used poorly.

When used poorly, you get the Twitter described above. But when you use it well, Twitter becomes something more than yet another social networking site; namely, a real-time, collaborative mental sketch pad that allows the user to take an idea, throw it in the hopper, and see what comes back. At it’s best, Twitter isn’t about getting to know each other so much as it is about sharing ideas, shaping a larger dialogue and watching the cultural zeitgeist develop in real time.

The beauty of Twitter, and what separates it from the navel-gazing echo chamber of social networking, is that Twitter relationships aren’t necessarily reciprocal. I follow plenty of people, from the actually famous (@clairecmc, @the_real_shaq) to the microfamous (@JessicaValenti, @AriMelber) to the not at all famous (@provenself, @WeeLaura), who don’t follow me back. That the relationship is one-sided isn’t any skin off my nose—I certainly don’t expect that every blogger I read logs on Urbzen.com. I follow them because I’m interested in what they have to say, not because I think we’re somehow going to become internet BFFs. Good content is good content, regardless of the medium.

Similarly, I don’t automatically follow everyone who follows me. I feel very fortunate that a relatively large number of people are interested enough in what I have to say to make it a part of their Twitter stream. But their decision to read my tweets doesn’t make me any more or less likely to want to read theirs.

The Current video makes a good point that Twitter opens the door for a lot of banality. “I just put my socks on.” “It’s raining.” “Ice cream is delicious.” and that’s where the nonreciprocal nature of Twitter shines—It’s an intellectual meritocracy. Good content is rewarded, while bad content is ignored. And everybody gets to define what good and bad means to them. It’s like a personalized RSS feed of other people’s brains.

Another advantage of the not-necessarily-reciprocal nature of Twitter is that it’s allowed me to build a much more interesting and diverse community than I have on, say, Facebook. The fact is that most of my friends—on Facebook and in “real life”—are a lot like me: youngish, professional, liberal, childless—which creates a sort of social echo chamber. On Twitter, by contrast, I can and do choose to follow and engage with people who have vastly different experiences and ideas than I do, which creates a much more invigorating conversation. I’m certainly not “friends” with a lot of these folks—many of them would probably like to throttle me, honestly—but the debate is interesting, and we keep each other sharp.

Maybe Twitter is a fad. Maybe it’s not. Either way, don’t use it and you’re missing out on one hell of a conversation.

No jokes, no commentary, just this guy:

So I was browsing through Oprah.com yesterday, for, uh, RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY, and I came across O’s interview with one of the original Kings of Comedy, Steve Harvey. Being someone who occasionally likes to “laugh” at “jokes,” I thought the Harvey piece would be right up my alley.

Oh, my.

Turns out our friend Steve fancies himself as something of a social commentator. And you know his favorite thing to offer commentary on? Women. Specifically, Steve was on Oprah to share with us his pearls of wisdom regarding how ladies ought to behave.

Harvey’s first book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man” currently tops the New York Times best seller list in the advice category, and Oprah, apparently, is lapping it up. According to Harvey, whenever a man approaches a woman, he knows what he wants from her and is trying to determine what it’s going to cost him—a premise that’s hardly revolutionary. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’ve heard it somewhere before.

The problem, Harvey says, is that modern women “have stopped setting the bar high.” You sluts are basically giving it away for free. And because, according to Harvey, a gal’s vagina is pretty much all she brings to the table, by giving it up, you’re giving away all your power. Steve is just looking out for you, see.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, though, Harvey isn’t comfortable calling sex sex. Instead, he calls it a “cookie”: “We’ve got to have a cookie. Everybody likes cookies. That’s the thing about a cookie. I like oatmeal raisin…but if you’ve got vanilla cream, I’ll eat that too.”

Honestly, I don’t even know what that means.

And how long does Harvey think a lady should wait before giving up her “cookie”? Three months. Months. Look, I’m all for taking things slow if that’s what you feel like you want to do. Fine. Good. But 90 days? I’m a lady, Steve, not a saint.

Of course, Harvey says, you can put out the cookie platter before then, but only at the risk of looking “desperate.” “You all keep changing the rules,” Harvey writes. “And men are aware of the fact that you are changing the rules. We’re aware of the fact that you act desperate. We’re aware of the fact that you think there’s a good shortage of good men out there.”

The flaws, insults and outright misogynies in Harvey’s argument are both too numerous and too obvious to outline here. But it all goes back to the idea that sex—I mean, the “cookie”—is the only thing a woman has to offer that a man could possibly be interested in. Which, when you think about it, is degrading to men maybe most of all.

Listen up, ladies! We might be in a recession, but everybody’s favorite shrieking loon Elisabeth Hasselbeck has come to our rescue with a new line of “pretty and polished separates” available for purchase via your very own tee vee machine!

Cut from fashionable polyester and starting at just $44, Elisabeth’s roomy tops and quirky capris are perfect for every occasion, from carpooling to Bunco night to restricting access to contraceptives.

Plus, because the line is only available via notorious crap-hawker QVC—shit, they let a drunken Paula Abdul on the air—you will have more adorably vacant Hasselbecky goodness beamed into your living room than ever before.

You’re welcome, America.

This commercial—originally aired during the 2004 Athens Olympics—would be tragic enough on its own. But I think the worst part about this entire AIG mess is that I just don’t feel like I can trust Abbey Bartlet anymore.

More fun AIG commercials after the jump for you to watch while you drink/cry/cut yourself. (All the videos are from YouTube; the page on AIG’s site where they were featured seems to have mysteriously disappeared.)

The vigilante crackdown on disgusting kitchen slobs continues. This is a bit hopey-er than my guillotine, but I feel like Barack’s expression is a bit menacing. As if he’s saying, ‘Don’t make me tell Michelle about this.’

As maybe you’ve noticed, I don’t post comments on my own blog. Sometimes I’d like to, to clarify a point I made, respond to another commenter or just verbally bitch-slap somebody who I feel like is being sort of a douchebucket, because, you know, I’m not above that. But I don’t because I feel like it’s not really fair. I have a lot of leverage here in my little corner of the internet: I can state my opinion, cherry-pick my facts, even delete comments if I want to (which I never have. Yet.). So I feel like sticking my nose into the comments section would be, forgive the expression, a sort of bitch-ass thing to do.

Which brings me to my question: Do you think bloggers should post comments on their own blogs? What makes it appropriate/inappropriate? Why?

*********************************************

Also! Did you know you can subscribe to Urbzen.com? That’s right! In pretty much any reader you want!

Never miss another scrap of self-important bananlity–Subscribe today.

Srsly, people, CLICKEY CLICKEY.

Well it looks like SOMEBODY is campaigning pretty hard for the Jim Bunning Outspoken Lunatic Award. Not 24 hours after calling on AIG execs to resign or commit suicide, Grampa Chuck has something to say about “sucking on the tit of the taxpayer.” As a taxpayer myself, let me be the first to say DO. NOT. WANT.

(Pro tip: If you’re looking for more on this story, DO NOT Google “Grassley tit.” Srsly.)

A Google News search for the phrase “victory garden” turns up 145 stories over the past month alone. Evidently, America’s intrepid Trend Journalists allege, the economic crisis has hit many families so hard that they are now cultivating their own fruits and veggies, as a way to “cut costs.” How compelling! How heart-warmingly American! I practically just Norman Rockwelled all over myself thinking about it.

Except, of course, that the entire concept of a “recession garden” is totally bogus. In purely economic terms, you could hardly make a worse investment than growing your own food. Even if you are blessed with a reasonably large yard full of rich, fertile soil, the cost of irrigation and basic gardening tools alone vastly outweighs the cost of buying a rutabaga at the supermarket, and that’s to say nothing of the often several-month delay between planting and harvest. Yes, it’s great that you’re expecting a fantastic crop of kale in June, but what are we having for dinner tonight?

Then, of course, there’s the cost of labor. Large-scale farming exists for a reason: It’s more efficient for a few people to devote 100 percent of their time to farming than for everybody to spend a little bit of time on it. That’s why we also don’t make our own soap, sew our own clothes or even change our own oil. It pays to specialize.

And spare me the bourgeois drivel about reconnecting with the earth and the spiritual value of growing your own food. You live on a cul-de-sac, for chrissake, you’re not Alexis de Tocqueville.

Thanks to advances in biotech and economies of scale, food—even fresh food—is cheaper than ever before. If you want to get your hands dirty cultivating your own beets, go right ahead, but save the piety. Any consumer really interested in cutting costs would trade the weekly trip to Whole Foods for one to Wal-Mart, or even 99 Cents Only.

Now THAT would be revolutionary.

Normally I just leave my nightly MSNBC liberal porn on as background noise in the apartment while I attend to more important things, but last night I couldn’t help but get drawn in to this mud-slinging deathmatch between adorably insane pumpkin-head Chris Matthews and GWB acolyte Ari “Under the Bus” Fleischer. I don’t think anybody expected it to be a love-fest, but I swear if they’d been in the same studio it would have come to blows. I haven’t seen hate this deliciously palpable in a while:

Enjoy.