5 things worth sharing this weekend
end of brat summer, the zynternet, straight men & novels + notes on what i've been reading & watching
1. Brat summer and the millennial imagination by
“Things start, people feel special for understanding them, too many people understand them, and then the early adopters pronounce them dead. These cycles happen.”
So it goes.
2. Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet by
yeah ok, the brat summer piece above mentioned this post from a few weeks ago
but zynternet is a great term
and it specifically references southern frat boys. I’m not part of that species, but I grew up directly next door to that kind
From the Max Read piece: To get a sense of the kind of cultural network I’m talking about, consider that someone yelled “HAWK TUAH!” after a nice Bryson DeChambeau drive at LIV Nashville over the weekend. That is: the Zynternet is made up of the kind of guys, and I say this without judgment, who have a favorite professional golfer, and moreover the kind of guys whose favorite pro golfer is Bryson DeChambeau, and moreover the kind of guys who would go to a LIV golf event, in Nashville, to see Bryson DeChambeau hit, and most of all, the kind of guys who would loudly shout a three-day-old meme about oral sex to celebrate their favorite pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau at the LIV golf event in Nashville.
I mean, I understand where that quote is coming from, my old nextdoor neighbor (Auburn grad, big Auburn football fan, gets drunk almost every weekend, but couldn’t afford a fraternity I don’t think) IG’d me from the LIV tournament in Nashville
3. Why don’t straight men read novels? At Dazed
Lot of self-help stuff spurred on by Twitter, it seems
but reading fiction has been seem as “pointless” since the Victorian era
they take in lots of fiction, on twitter, living in the immersive world of self-help bros, those who "made" it, rent a lambo, stand outside of private planes, AI themselves w/ an attractive woman, & then make up details on a livestream
“A cult of productivity is still imposed more on men than women,” says Dr Alistair Brown, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Modern Literature at Durham University. “[Non-fiction] seems to have more immediate or meaningful returns on the investment of time.” Consequently, men buy more: in 2023, men accounted for 55 per cent of non-fiction book sales, Nielsen BookData tells Dazed.
4. What A Century (Plus a Pandemic) Does to Moviegoing and Why It Matters by Matthew Ball
a very technical in-depth essay about moviegoing, if you’re into that thing
main takeaway: sequels and franchises aren’t killing movies
ticket sales were actually up with adults in 2019 before the pandemic. kids not going to the movies is causing the lost revenue
COVID hastened the drop in movie admissions
5. When the Olympics gave medals to artists by
“If you haven’t heard of these contests, I’m not surprised. Hardly anyone mentions them anymore. But arts were part of the Olympics for forty years, from 1912 to 1952.”
“Although the idea of artists competing for gold medals may seem bizarre, the practice actually goes back to the ancient Olympics. Sports competitions in ancient Greece always involved music. Sometimes it was integrated into the athletic competitions.”
From the archive:
Notes on reading/watching/listening
Finished reading: “Foster Dade Explores The Cosmos”
Reading: “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension” by Hanif Abdurraqib
He grew up in Ohio when LeBron was in high school in Ohio and he talks about that proximity
But also the local players
A lot that’s not about basketball—like Hanif losing his jobs, being homeless for awhile, and other meditative prose on the day-to-day
Not the strongest narrative book, but Hanif is one of the best at writing great sentences, a top-notch stylist
Watched: “Presumed Innocent” on Apple TV+
This ended. Twist!
Like another twist than the 35 year-old movie
This was probably an episode or 2 too long, but the actors were amazing
Started “Stranger Things 4” on Netflix
This is 2 years old!
I watched the first 3 seasons and then I think I was tired of their schtick but now I’m back in for it, at least for 3 episodes
I’ll probably watch The Olympics
I like track, basketball and handball. And gymnastics with my daughters. I’m not a big swim guy.
Saw: “Twisters”
Yes the new movie
What an awful movie
Very bad
Lots of country music songs
A random mention of a tornado in Brooklyn for some reason?
The Glen Powell has a huge crew that I doubt that he can afford to pay
Too many tornados?
Like, why did they choose themselves to help several times, where were the local policemen?
Last Thing
From The New Yorker. Yes, I took a picture of the print magazine.
The painting is “Introducing John L. Sullivan” by George Bellows, 1923.
I may write a semi-political essay, not really my opinion on any one candidate, but about how I view politics as literature and some personal history. We’ll see.
Keep going-
Josh Spilker