I agree that Current Thing articles aren't that interesting. I've also lost a lot of interest in FdB's writing recently. I've never read a Person Guy article, so I'm guessing it's some Twitter discourse thing that doesn't matter. That seems to cover a lot of his articles as well as a lot of Substack. Then there's his latest piece on "prescriptivism." I find this sort of crap unreadable because I have a deeper understanding of the history of English than 99% of the population. Someone referring to "traditional" language as the type spoken 30 years ago is pretty silly. It would be like referring to Obama as a founding father and presuming North America was uninhabited before then.
I dropped FdB from my media consumption at the same time as a lot of writers and podcasters who cover similar beats as him for a simple reason. The entire time it felt like I was sight-seeing in a world I do not inhabit. This hit me when I heard someone else say "Everyone is talking about [Controversy X]" and I thought "wait, no one I know is talking about this." I don't live in New York. I am not active in the same spaces these writers are. It just lost its appeal to me.
I don't know if I've ever read a Person Guy essay. I'm vaguely familiar with the concept of a Lit Bro. So yeah, none of this stuff really exists in my world.
It's not worth responding to although I might write about the baffling "Indigenous languages death" article in the NY Times. What the heck is an "indigenous" language? How do know we know that more are dying today than, say, 500 AD? How many died in pre-history? What is the value in a language being indigenous? Would England be better if they spoke Bretonic? Would they be even better off if they spoke the language(s) of the Anatolian Farmers?
Just empathy towards minorities (a good thing) turned into brain mush
Hey from a reader … I’m diving in and ran across a typo and the blessing of low readership is, you and I can TALK! Anyway, because you will see this and because you care, you wrote “I don’t see you shitting the woods” without the important IN to clarify the picture you intended to paint for me. Okay back to reading
Thank you. Although I considered leaving it as is - a delightful throwback for long time readers to my infamous "INSERT THIRD THING" error - I felt this was minor enough to change. This is the problem when I don't spend months working on them!
I enjoyed the whole essay, but really I had to express my gratitude for providing a snappy comeback to those sociobiologists who justify cheating on their wives with a kind of gleeful helplessness. “What can we do?” they say. “It’s how we men evolved!” But, as you note, we also evolved without indoor plumbing, and somehow these guys never feel the same evolutionary pull for defecating outdoors as they do for cheating on their wives. Funny, that.
Awesome article! I person guy all the time both directions … it is against human nature to interact this way the majority of time. It cannot be good!
Thank you, and I agree exactly. We're all going to Person Guy and be Person Guyed, but the less, the better!
I agree that Current Thing articles aren't that interesting. I've also lost a lot of interest in FdB's writing recently. I've never read a Person Guy article, so I'm guessing it's some Twitter discourse thing that doesn't matter. That seems to cover a lot of his articles as well as a lot of Substack. Then there's his latest piece on "prescriptivism." I find this sort of crap unreadable because I have a deeper understanding of the history of English than 99% of the population. Someone referring to "traditional" language as the type spoken 30 years ago is pretty silly. It would be like referring to Obama as a founding father and presuming North America was uninhabited before then.
I dropped FdB from my media consumption at the same time as a lot of writers and podcasters who cover similar beats as him for a simple reason. The entire time it felt like I was sight-seeing in a world I do not inhabit. This hit me when I heard someone else say "Everyone is talking about [Controversy X]" and I thought "wait, no one I know is talking about this." I don't live in New York. I am not active in the same spaces these writers are. It just lost its appeal to me.
I don't know if I've ever read a Person Guy essay. I'm vaguely familiar with the concept of a Lit Bro. So yeah, none of this stuff really exists in my world.
The whole time I was reading Freddie’s article, I was hoping you could comment and bring some actual knowledge to the conversation, Klaus!
It's not worth responding to although I might write about the baffling "Indigenous languages death" article in the NY Times. What the heck is an "indigenous" language? How do know we know that more are dying today than, say, 500 AD? How many died in pre-history? What is the value in a language being indigenous? Would England be better if they spoke Bretonic? Would they be even better off if they spoke the language(s) of the Anatolian Farmers?
Just empathy towards minorities (a good thing) turned into brain mush
HI!
Hey from a reader … I’m diving in and ran across a typo and the blessing of low readership is, you and I can TALK! Anyway, because you will see this and because you care, you wrote “I don’t see you shitting the woods” without the important IN to clarify the picture you intended to paint for me. Okay back to reading
Thank you. Although I considered leaving it as is - a delightful throwback for long time readers to my infamous "INSERT THIRD THING" error - I felt this was minor enough to change. This is the problem when I don't spend months working on them!
Another banger. Can’t wait to hear the shoutouts and if anyone I know is in them. 👀
I enjoyed the whole essay, but really I had to express my gratitude for providing a snappy comeback to those sociobiologists who justify cheating on their wives with a kind of gleeful helplessness. “What can we do?” they say. “It’s how we men evolved!” But, as you note, we also evolved without indoor plumbing, and somehow these guys never feel the same evolutionary pull for defecating outdoors as they do for cheating on their wives. Funny, that.