hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

her husband learned to make… spaghetti? jfc

I'm the one to say this because no one else is going to say it because it's just not something you're allowed to say. But I'll say it for your sake. This was hard on your marriage V pic.twitter.com/ZLhVUhpFi9

— cai (@AnneNotation) February 15, 2024

her husband learned to make… spaghetti? jfc

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, February 16, 2024 5:12 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

hmm I don’t know if this is really a fair one line takeaway lol

xp yeah. the loud people on the internet being critical are completely tone deaf to the deliberate understatements and tongue-in-cheek sections. everyone needs to have one literate friend in the group to explain things, apparently

The kid (only one is described in the book) seems fine at book length and certainly no worse than my kids. I think that review is summarizing one of the more comic chapters of an entire book.

But yes kids are hard on a marriage. The description of parenting in New York in the pandemic is horrifying.

sorry to derail but where are we talking about the CIA taking $50k from the cut's financial advice columnist for safekeeping?

yes that one was far more unhinged but also doesn’t seem like there’s much to really talk about

lol the cut’s essays editor must be celebrating

meanwhile cf literary clusterfucks thread

god I love writer drama. this woman’s book about her divorce was mentioned totally neutrally in another writer’s essay about her marriage and she’s has been vigorously subtweeting her all day because she didn’t also get divorced pic.twitter.com/gDtugi4zlm

— katie (@focusfronting) February 15, 2024

re: the financial advice columnist getting scammed, this woman went on an absolute tear yesterday about how anyone can be scammed (no doubt true!) and do we really think we're smarter than andy cohen (actually, yes!)

Yup, you're smarter than her. And smarter than Andy Cohen, who fell victim to a phone scam. https://t.co/BWoBobztOz

— Jessica Roy (@jessica_roy) February 15, 2024

I just can’t believe there are people who still answer the phone

i find it wild that people answer their phones for someone/thing that is not in their phones' phonebook (this does not apply to old ppl w only land lines)

oh lol big doubleup there

I have the same reaction that I always do to these stories of marriage/kids/books -- I feel bad for Raffi. Being exploited like that, for his parents' benefit. I also did not know that Keith was Masha Gessen's brother. Does he not have anything else to write about?!

lol mookie

I think if you have a reason to take random phone calls part of your regular set of tools needs to be specific things to ask to determine if any call is legit or total bullshit, where total bullshit is the default. I found out some coworkers were responding to direct solicitation from salespeople in their work email and WHY? if you have no need for this product or service just ignore it. anything else is “this guy responds to email, I could have a live one on the line”

I was talking to a guy from a biometric security company a couple of days ago who reckons that we are about a year away from the kind of tech currently being used to, for example, create live deepfakes of CEOs with meticulously constructed VR spoofs of their homes and offices capable of fooling their employees and banks, being accessible to more or less anyone who wants to use it. Not sure how any of these people are going to survive.

the corporate threat simulations for these things have gotten a little better but are still pretty funny. oh, the ceo of my employer wants me to open this dropbox link? I totally talk to him all the time, makes sense. they’ll have to catch up further, but the limiting factor is going to be whether people high up in enough in companies will be able to take the ego hit if any of the deepfakes or spam calls actually fool them. some real thin skin in those upper echelons, sometimes

I get what you’re saying LL but I think some parenting writing avoids that by being about parenting rather than about the kid. The specifics are about the parent rather than the kid. The specifics are specific to the parent and their relationship with their partner, the kid could be any kid. (This obviously isn’t true of all parenting memories). Parenting becomes such a big part of your life (especially the mother) that they are left with nothing personal to write about if they don’t address it. Rachel cusk is good on this.

(I’m not saying this defence applies to raising raffi in particular. There are a couple of chapters in there with the stated goal of memorializing raffi the toddler, which describe him in some detail.)

i'd love to punch my hologram CEO

-KRS One

“All parenting memoirs”

man the emily gould piece made me financially anxious. until it mentioned the in-laws live in cape cod. later it's revealed to be falmouth. i went on zillow to see what houses there sell for. i think they'll be fine!

I get what you’re saying LL but I think some parenting writing avoids that by being about parenting rather than about the kid. The specifics are about the parent rather than the kid. The specifics are specific to the parent and their relationship with their partner, the kid could be any kid. (This obviously isn’t true of all parenting memories). Parenting becomes such a big part of your life (especially the mother) that they are left with nothing personal to write about if they don’t address it. Rachel cusk is good on this.

(I’m not saying this defence applies to raising raffi in particular. There are a couple of chapters in there with the stated goal of memorializing raffi the toddler, which describe him in some detail.)

I hear you and don't think I will personally ever be ok with putting a young person's life on display in this way. I have very personal reasons for feeling this way and I don't see any situation in which I would feel differently. Being fully aware of the rigors of parenting (though I admittedly haven't done it myself) is not new to me. I am fully aware that in the modern world, parents become consumed by their children and have little room in their lives for much else, at least for a time. None of this is novel information, if we're being honest.

Neither that knowledge nor the centering of the parental experience changes my belief that knowingly putting a young person's life on display without their consent is not good for the young person's life experience. Whether the output centers the parental experience or is more egregiously exploitative of the child, mining one's child's life for material is just not something I am ok with. I expressed myself above and continue to feel that way. I don't actually think you got what I was saying bc if you did, you wouldn't have tried to change my mind.

sorry for derailing

i find it wild that people answer their phones for someone/thing that is not in their phones' phonebook (this does not apply to old ppl w only land lines)

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Friday, February 16, 2024 9:47 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

when my kids were in day care I had to! they always called from their personal phones to say hey, your kid puked, go pick 'em up

LL: I wasn’t trying to change your mind, but fair enough.

sorry to derail but where are we talking about the CIA taking $50k from the cut's financial advice columnist for safekeeping?

The bit (assuming the whole thing isn't a bit, so to speak) where the CIA dude gives her a nine-digit case number and she thinks "Hmm, I should check this is on the up-and-up" and googles the case number is amazing.

rip vichy deadspin

congrats Cord Jefferson!

Good riddance

https://www.sportico.com/law/analysis/2024/deadspin-defamation-lawsuit-chiefs-fan-1234765929/

Just amazing seeing the reactions on Twitter. Literally nobody is shedding a tear for these writers.

what is happening

people who complain about sports media are generally one of the worst segments of the internet

I have no idea what's up at deadspin since all the people whose work I liked reading left, but it sucks to be a writer and get laid off! Maybe having little to no budget had a lot to do with that article getting published without editorial oversight or a second person saying "hey, maybe leave this bit out" but I'm sure sports dorks are going to talk about it forever

local sports fans are still weird about some young writer for the paper who got thrown under the bus after a misconstrued interaction with someone he interviewed