Friday, October 19, 2007

Page Dicks

Who will gossip about the gossip columnists? Oh, wait, I will!

A number of people are offended by some idiotic comments made by the New York Post's Page Six writers in this piece. The writers here respond to criticisms from Vanessa Grigoriadis, whoever that is, by... well, threatening to gang-bang her.

Will media-people ever get over their love-affair with laddishness? It seems impossible to escape dude-speak and dude-thought anymore. It's totally unprofessional and it's psychological retroversion. I mean, it's understandable that young teenage boys will act like this- they're loaded with testosterone, and separating themselves from their parents; it's a part of individuation. However, when adult males act like 17-year-old versions of themselves, there's something wrong with them: the appropriate response is to cringe. But, for some misandrist reason, our culture treats regression as some innate aspect of masculinity. Well, and femininity too for that matter.

Anyway, the celebrity in question had been ridiculed for her "smug hipness". They offer this parenthetical explanation for that: (The couple attended the Burning Man festival, and he designs sets for photographer David LaChapelle.) In case you didn't know, as I didn't, anyone who either designs sets for David LaChapelle or goes to Burning Man is, ergo, a smug poseur. So, shut-up and get back on the couch, Dude!

Grigoridias angered Page Six by writing this in a cover story for New York Magazine about Gawker- the dark graveyard of the soul, online:
"With Gawker, there is now little need for the usual gossip players like... The New York Post's 'Page Six,' emasculated by the Murdoch hierarchy after the Jared Paul Stern Scandal."
The use of "emasculated" is kind of obnoxious in itself. Looking to prove their masculinity, Page Six responded with this gem:
Grigoriadis ignores that fact that half the Page Six staff is female. The male half might take her someplace private and disprove her theory, but we don't like a woman with a mustache.
Yeesh.
Dude, we'd totally rape that bitch, but she's way too ugly, bro. High five!

Cute. And it had the opposite result from what they intended: I'm now convinced that they're dickless little boys. Now, seriously, where is the Grown-ups' Table?

Update: Or, perhaps it's possible the writers are women, and they're trying to say, "well, sure, the men might rape her, but we women don't like women with mustaches"? It's not even a clear sentence really.

And, if it was written by women, I think that proves my point that laddish Dude-speak is becoming ubiquitous in American culture.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder what the fuck the writer said to the female half of the staff by way of explanation of that article. "Oh no, we wouldn't rape you 'cause you're one of us. Until you piss us off..."

Rufus said...

That's a good question. Supposedly, the bit was written by one of the Page Six editors, who has the impossibly appropriate name of Richard Johnson. And I was right- he looks like a little boy with grey hair.