Y’all, I’m saving this episode to listen to in the car later with the Zoomer for whom I’m currently legal guardian/surrogate auntie. She recently stopped using they/them pronouns and is back to being a regular gay, renounced cancel culture, and is sitting on my couch doing a deep dive into the Blocked and Reported back catalogue. She wrote her final paper for a college class last year about KiwiFarms and is a connoisseur of online bullshit and nuanced discourse. I think I’m gonna bring her with me to the Boston show. This is my peak proud pseudo-mom moment. Turns out I am one okay groomer, after all!
As the last problem submitter I really don't appreciate Katie mocking my problem and assuming it was a troll. I'm not the first member of my family to have a problem with an American wife (a great uncle even lost his job due to one) and divorces run through my family. A distant relative actually had 6 marriages and the problems this caused led him to leave the church! I had hoped you could engage sincerely with my recording and try to stop the cycle of pain in my family, but instead you chose to laugh #royallydissapointed
The last two listener advice questions (Life after Cringe and British Guy with Dramatic Wife) were Blocked and Reported classics and absolutely made my afternoon.
With the caveat that I can't possibly be nearly as delightful as the advice segment on the pod, I'm going to quibble with part of the advice J&K gave the 25yo man asking for dating advice (who sounds like a great guy all around). Katie says, and Jesse agrees, that you probably won't find the person you'll end up with at age 25 and that it's an age for having fun. This is a common belief among educated people—I used to hear people say it all the time when I was in my 20s—so I think it's at least worth noting that people who enter marriage in the 25–29 age bracket have the LOWEST divorce rates. Divorce rates are very high among people who marry in their teens, which probably gave rise to the generally sound "Wait till you're older" advice most of us got, but they also rise slightly among people who marry after 30, regardless of religious status. (See Figure 5 here: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-religious-marriage-paradox-younger-marriage-less-divorce. The researchers are personally moderately conservative, but their data and analysis are generally well respected.)
My take on this question is that you shouldn't rush into marriage in your 20s if you haven't found the right person, but if you have found a good potential spouse, you shouldn't let your age scare you away from marriage. The data suggest you aren't at elevated risk of divorce in your mid- to late 20s.
—I loved J&K's advice that you don't have to share all your interests in common with your partner and that you should just talk about what you want to do with your dating relationship. Good stuff.
When I saw Jesse's Prince Harry tweet, it took me a few seconds to put it together. Then I figured it was a clever, Jesse-style spin on current events. The replies were equally cryptic and clever, I thought. Most people seemed to get the joke. Now you're telling me that not even Jesse got it? Feigning ignorance is a BARpod tradition, so I suspect we're all being played here and I'm going to be embarrassed for even mentioning it.
Hi, I live near the neighborhood where the shop teacher works. My brother-in-law just told me a story about spotting this teacher's rack while driving a couple years ago, so unless this person has been at this anti-woke ruse for 2 years, or there is a second absurdly-chested person in Oakville, I'm not sure that Redditer's story can be trusted.
So... the Portland Women's March had a really fun 2017 as well. After a group of equally young and socially connected trans women & women of color took over the march from existing leadership, one of them literally tried to flee to Canada with the money (https://www.koin.com/news/crime/woman-admits-taking-10k-from-portland-womens-march/) Brewis took the fall and all the public blame but I was there and can tell you - it was a bunch of children horribly botching things from end to end.
Conveniently, no one remembers that. They remember a mean white woman (who is trans but don't mention that) stealing money from brown women. Not a group of rich, socially connected young activists forcibly taking over an event to grow their own "brands", alienating anyone who couldn't get with their particular race politics, and then botching the whole thing royally. Brewis, by the way, fled to Canada as a political refugee because Trump had just taken office and she would surely be in the first round of coming death camps. Canada declined.
Interesting that anti-Semitic black nationalism came up in the podcast in the context of the Women's March drama.
An anti-Semitic black nationalist has a trial due to start this Monday, Oct 3. I say he's a black nationalist because he has a social media history where he's praising and reposting Black Hebrew Israelite nonsense, including praise for Hitler. This is a copy/paste of my post in this week's open thread:
---
YouTube recommendations have clued me in that the trial of Darrel Brooks kicks off next Monday. This is the man accused of committing the Waukesha Parade Massacre.
He's been trying to represent himself and has appeared before the judge a few times. Today his motion was finally granted.
It turns out that Brooks is not merely horrible enough to run over 77 innocent people at a Christmas Parade, he is also a sovereign citizen. He and the judge have exhausting exchanges where he insists he's representing himself "pro pert" which to him means he's representing himself as a sovereign citizen, and the judge tells him that his status as a sovereign citizen isn't something she's going to rule on, she just needs to know if he's representing himself or not.
One of the videos is ten minutes of the judge explaining to Brooks that if he's going to represent himself then he's not entitled to have a public defender to advise him.
He also modified the forms that exist to be sure he understands the stupidity of his decision, crossing out the words "I understand" and replacing them with "I have been informed of." At first I thought this was a play at pretending like he's a dummy and later appealing on grounds of incompetent counsel, but a YouTube commenter clued me in that it's another sovereign citizen thing. Sovereign citizens think that to say "I understand" means that they acknowledge they "stand under" the authority of the court and have given up their sovereignty.
Tim Dillon has a great rant about Russian troll farms taking long lunches and breaks then coming In late and leaving early every day because they barely have to do anything to get Americans at each other’s throats.
I don't want to be a jerk but this advice column is pretty unlistenable. These are boring questions and the advice is like "get on dating apps?". Cool thanks. Nobody's love life is interesting to anyone but themselves. Cut it please
That last call made me realize that I'm just an older version of Harry: English ✓, In California ✓, American Wife that's a bit of a diva that my dad hated and caused a rift ✓, got back together with my English family and all sorts of problems ensue ✓. Which means that in about a decade or so, Meghan will dump Harry for a younger bloke, 'cause that's what happened to me!
As someone who is a Lolcow (very likely) I would say honesty is better. If someone came up to me and said they have laughed at me and mocked me online but now they see how dehumanizing and demoralizing that actually is -- I would have a forgiving heart. And so would this person. Lolcows are often people who are too sincere and empathetic and thus, can't play the online game of being a disconnected dick.
If we’re going by the hypothesis that soy consumption causes breast growth, as a tofu-loving vegetarian/member of the itty bitty titty committee, I’d love to know just how much flatter I’d be if I didn’t eat soy.
Okay, I wonder if I'm right about something with the first guy or if I'm totally off base. Circus guy, have you exhausted the dating potential in your (probably small) group of hardcore circus art friends? It sounded to me like you're potentially looking for someone who is a normie (or not already in to circus stuff and would try it out) but is down to come and cheer you on about circus stuff? And also doesn't mind that you don't have a ton of time to invest in a relationship? Did someone *call* you an asshole and that's why you brought it up?
It sounds like you wouldn't be a good fit for most people with a regular 9-5. Most people with extracurricular time and a significant other want to spend that time together, of course. It's probably not impossible to find other people to date who are really busy--but then they probably won't have too much time to come cheerlead you in your circus stuff. And if they DO carve time out of their super busy schedule to come to your weird hobby (at your request), you should also be carving time out of your super busy schedule to come to THEIR crossfit cult competitions or whatever. And (I'm not assuming anything, this could totally not be the case!) if, in a prior relationship, you wanted to spend your very limited extra time at your circus thing with your SO sitting on a bench and watching you, but you never went to her community theater production of Bat Boy the Musical . . . I wouldn't say she's totally wrong for calling you an asshole. Just IF that's the case, which I totally get it might not be.
And for the lolcow caller, not exactly the same, but I did make friends with someone who I had followed online and felt like a minor celebrity to me. (Similarly to you, I didn't seek out a friendship with her, we had mutuals who connected us because they thought we would be good friends. She knew I had read a few of her articles, so maybe tell your lolcow that you've seen a few of her youtube videos or something.) I didn't tell her until we had been friends for a while, and then I sort of slowly told her about it in an "isn't this funny, I used to be so nervous to talk to you" kind of way. Now we laugh about it. The truth is, who people are online is almost always different from who they are in person. I told her once I could say "now that I know you in person, I don't even think about your internet persona anymore" and it would be the truth, and also once she knew me well enough that she would know it was the truth. At first, it was really weird for me, but I think if I had told her it would have been weirder for her. I know it's not exactly the same as your situation, but I'm with Katie--if you really want to be friends with her, don't tell her until you know how she'll take it. If you get to know her and it seems like she would feel it's a betrayal that you didn't tell her or she'll laugh it off, tell her. If you get to know her and she's the type to generally turn a blind eye if it makes her happier, keep it to yourself.
Y’all, I’m saving this episode to listen to in the car later with the Zoomer for whom I’m currently legal guardian/surrogate auntie. She recently stopped using they/them pronouns and is back to being a regular gay, renounced cancel culture, and is sitting on my couch doing a deep dive into the Blocked and Reported back catalogue. She wrote her final paper for a college class last year about KiwiFarms and is a connoisseur of online bullshit and nuanced discourse. I think I’m gonna bring her with me to the Boston show. This is my peak proud pseudo-mom moment. Turns out I am one okay groomer, after all!
As the last problem submitter I really don't appreciate Katie mocking my problem and assuming it was a troll. I'm not the first member of my family to have a problem with an American wife (a great uncle even lost his job due to one) and divorces run through my family. A distant relative actually had 6 marriages and the problems this caused led him to leave the church! I had hoped you could engage sincerely with my recording and try to stop the cycle of pain in my family, but instead you chose to laugh #royallydissapointed
The last two listener advice questions (Life after Cringe and British Guy with Dramatic Wife) were Blocked and Reported classics and absolutely made my afternoon.
With the caveat that I can't possibly be nearly as delightful as the advice segment on the pod, I'm going to quibble with part of the advice J&K gave the 25yo man asking for dating advice (who sounds like a great guy all around). Katie says, and Jesse agrees, that you probably won't find the person you'll end up with at age 25 and that it's an age for having fun. This is a common belief among educated people—I used to hear people say it all the time when I was in my 20s—so I think it's at least worth noting that people who enter marriage in the 25–29 age bracket have the LOWEST divorce rates. Divorce rates are very high among people who marry in their teens, which probably gave rise to the generally sound "Wait till you're older" advice most of us got, but they also rise slightly among people who marry after 30, regardless of religious status. (See Figure 5 here: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-religious-marriage-paradox-younger-marriage-less-divorce. The researchers are personally moderately conservative, but their data and analysis are generally well respected.)
My take on this question is that you shouldn't rush into marriage in your 20s if you haven't found the right person, but if you have found a good potential spouse, you shouldn't let your age scare you away from marriage. The data suggest you aren't at elevated risk of divorce in your mid- to late 20s.
—I loved J&K's advice that you don't have to share all your interests in common with your partner and that you should just talk about what you want to do with your dating relationship. Good stuff.
When I saw Jesse's Prince Harry tweet, it took me a few seconds to put it together. Then I figured it was a clever, Jesse-style spin on current events. The replies were equally cryptic and clever, I thought. Most people seemed to get the joke. Now you're telling me that not even Jesse got it? Feigning ignorance is a BARpod tradition, so I suspect we're all being played here and I'm going to be embarrassed for even mentioning it.
Hi, I live near the neighborhood where the shop teacher works. My brother-in-law just told me a story about spotting this teacher's rack while driving a couple years ago, so unless this person has been at this anti-woke ruse for 2 years, or there is a second absurdly-chested person in Oakville, I'm not sure that Redditer's story can be trusted.
So... the Portland Women's March had a really fun 2017 as well. After a group of equally young and socially connected trans women & women of color took over the march from existing leadership, one of them literally tried to flee to Canada with the money (https://www.koin.com/news/crime/woman-admits-taking-10k-from-portland-womens-march/) Brewis took the fall and all the public blame but I was there and can tell you - it was a bunch of children horribly botching things from end to end.
Conveniently, no one remembers that. They remember a mean white woman (who is trans but don't mention that) stealing money from brown women. Not a group of rich, socially connected young activists forcibly taking over an event to grow their own "brands", alienating anyone who couldn't get with their particular race politics, and then botching the whole thing royally. Brewis, by the way, fled to Canada as a political refugee because Trump had just taken office and she would surely be in the first round of coming death camps. Canada declined.
Interesting that anti-Semitic black nationalism came up in the podcast in the context of the Women's March drama.
An anti-Semitic black nationalist has a trial due to start this Monday, Oct 3. I say he's a black nationalist because he has a social media history where he's praising and reposting Black Hebrew Israelite nonsense, including praise for Hitler. This is a copy/paste of my post in this week's open thread:
---
YouTube recommendations have clued me in that the trial of Darrel Brooks kicks off next Monday. This is the man accused of committing the Waukesha Parade Massacre.
He's been trying to represent himself and has appeared before the judge a few times. Today his motion was finally granted.
It turns out that Brooks is not merely horrible enough to run over 77 innocent people at a Christmas Parade, he is also a sovereign citizen. He and the judge have exhausting exchanges where he insists he's representing himself "pro pert" which to him means he's representing himself as a sovereign citizen, and the judge tells him that his status as a sovereign citizen isn't something she's going to rule on, she just needs to know if he's representing himself or not.
One of the videos is ten minutes of the judge explaining to Brooks that if he's going to represent himself then he's not entitled to have a public defender to advise him.
He also modified the forms that exist to be sure he understands the stupidity of his decision, crossing out the words "I understand" and replacing them with "I have been informed of." At first I thought this was a play at pretending like he's a dummy and later appealing on grounds of incompetent counsel, but a YouTube commenter clued me in that it's another sovereign citizen thing. Sovereign citizens think that to say "I understand" means that they acknowledge they "stand under" the authority of the court and have given up their sovereignty.
Here's a few of the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZVJxA8gnNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykLGNeY-X9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYPz2_BHsyY
I guess I'll end up glued to yet another trial in Wisconsin this fall.
Tim Dillon has a great rant about Russian troll farms taking long lunches and breaks then coming In late and leaving early every day because they barely have to do anything to get Americans at each other’s throats.
I really enjoyed the advice section, and not only because it didn’t involve prosthetics, pronouns or phalloplasty. Definitely do this again please.
I don't want to be a jerk but this advice column is pretty unlistenable. These are boring questions and the advice is like "get on dating apps?". Cool thanks. Nobody's love life is interesting to anyone but themselves. Cut it please
How can Jesse be so wrong a lot something that matters? Mr. Garrison was trying to get fired so he could sue. Katie, as usual, was correct.
The most bizarre person involved with the Women's March was probably Rasmea Odeh, a terrorist who bombed a grocery store, killed two people, served prison time, and illegally immigrated to the US: https://nypost.com/2017/02/25/the-next-womens-march-is-co-organized-by-a-terrorist/
The internet might have rotted my brain, but Linda's reference to Jihad is hilarious in retrospect.
That last call made me realize that I'm just an older version of Harry: English ✓, In California ✓, American Wife that's a bit of a diva that my dad hated and caused a rift ✓, got back together with my English family and all sorts of problems ensue ✓. Which means that in about a decade or so, Meghan will dump Harry for a younger bloke, 'cause that's what happened to me!
As someone who is a Lolcow (very likely) I would say honesty is better. If someone came up to me and said they have laughed at me and mocked me online but now they see how dehumanizing and demoralizing that actually is -- I would have a forgiving heart. And so would this person. Lolcows are often people who are too sincere and empathetic and thus, can't play the online game of being a disconnected dick.
If we’re going by the hypothesis that soy consumption causes breast growth, as a tofu-loving vegetarian/member of the itty bitty titty committee, I’d love to know just how much flatter I’d be if I didn’t eat soy.
Okay, I wonder if I'm right about something with the first guy or if I'm totally off base. Circus guy, have you exhausted the dating potential in your (probably small) group of hardcore circus art friends? It sounded to me like you're potentially looking for someone who is a normie (or not already in to circus stuff and would try it out) but is down to come and cheer you on about circus stuff? And also doesn't mind that you don't have a ton of time to invest in a relationship? Did someone *call* you an asshole and that's why you brought it up?
It sounds like you wouldn't be a good fit for most people with a regular 9-5. Most people with extracurricular time and a significant other want to spend that time together, of course. It's probably not impossible to find other people to date who are really busy--but then they probably won't have too much time to come cheerlead you in your circus stuff. And if they DO carve time out of their super busy schedule to come to your weird hobby (at your request), you should also be carving time out of your super busy schedule to come to THEIR crossfit cult competitions or whatever. And (I'm not assuming anything, this could totally not be the case!) if, in a prior relationship, you wanted to spend your very limited extra time at your circus thing with your SO sitting on a bench and watching you, but you never went to her community theater production of Bat Boy the Musical . . . I wouldn't say she's totally wrong for calling you an asshole. Just IF that's the case, which I totally get it might not be.
And for the lolcow caller, not exactly the same, but I did make friends with someone who I had followed online and felt like a minor celebrity to me. (Similarly to you, I didn't seek out a friendship with her, we had mutuals who connected us because they thought we would be good friends. She knew I had read a few of her articles, so maybe tell your lolcow that you've seen a few of her youtube videos or something.) I didn't tell her until we had been friends for a while, and then I sort of slowly told her about it in an "isn't this funny, I used to be so nervous to talk to you" kind of way. Now we laugh about it. The truth is, who people are online is almost always different from who they are in person. I told her once I could say "now that I know you in person, I don't even think about your internet persona anymore" and it would be the truth, and also once she knew me well enough that she would know it was the truth. At first, it was really weird for me, but I think if I had told her it would have been weirder for her. I know it's not exactly the same as your situation, but I'm with Katie--if you really want to be friends with her, don't tell her until you know how she'll take it. If you get to know her and it seems like she would feel it's a betrayal that you didn't tell her or she'll laugh it off, tell her. If you get to know her and she's the type to generally turn a blind eye if it makes her happier, keep it to yourself.