#there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with pointing out the flaws of ai art and how to spot them. it's a good thing to do! do it!!!

[anti-transphobia]

Twitter users have learned the term "weaponized incompetence" and of course are using it wrong and it's pissing me off. The latest example of "weaponized incompetence" is a husband who decided to make crescent rolls but didn't realize he needed to roll them up so he made large crescent chips instead. Literally just a mistake. Y'know. Those things people make?

Another recent example is someone's fiance being asked to clean up hot sauce. Now this could certainly more likely actually be weaponized incompetence! The very slow movements very much says "look at me do this and fail. You should just do it next time, it's easier." But you know what it also very much says, something that is just as likely? The movements are slow because it's more than he expected and he's trying to figure it out. I struggle with this, and have gotten better with practice, but what else are you supposed to do? Sometimes there's a puddle of something and you put a paper towel on it and it absorbs but is not nearly enough. He specifically examines how full of hot sauce it is after the first soak and how much more there is. And when he starts smearing it around...how else are you supposed to avoid that? It's still cleaning it so long as the smears aren't left behind

As I said, weaponized incompetence or someone genuinely trying are both likely there. The thing is, I'm not making assumptions about it. And neither should other people. Those types of slow, unsteady movements as I figure things out are extremely common for me. I am autistic and have struggled to process physical tasks (how to accomplish things that require my body to move in a certain way, including running and jump roping etc. didn't learn how to jump rope until I was 18) my entire life. This is how I figure shit out. If someone assumed me literally doing my best to complete a task was weaponized incompetence, I'd be pissed. In fact, that happens all the time!

My mother, while I was growing up, pretty much weaponized weaponized incompetence, without using those words. She would ask me to do something. I, being an autistic child, would try my best. I'd fail or do a poor job because I'm a child. She might try a few more times with me but because I didn't get it instantly or it struggled to click she'd visibly get mad at me and tell me not to bother and that she'd just do it instead. As I got into my teens she accused me of doing things badly on purpose so I wouldn't have to do it, when the reality is she just gave up on me and asked me to do things less and less frequently with age. Then at around 16, and ESPECIALLY 18+, she started expecting me to do ALL kinds of things. Saying "you're an adult, you should know this". How? Adults know the things they do because they have experience. I don't. I've had to play such hard catch up for everything I've missed because people (not just my mom) find it easier to not bother with the disabled child.

I'm not saying the man in that video is autistic, or anything else! But what I said brings another point into play: he's an adult and simply doesn't know how to do it. That's a problem! Now why would he be an adult incapable of doing what should be a simple task he should have already learned? He wasn't taught. It reminds me of the guy who got a ton of shit online because his mom did his laundry for him all his life so when he first lived out of the house (I think with a roommate) he had to learn how to do his laundry. He wasn't refusing to do his laundry, he wasn't whining and complaining about it, he was just texting a friend about it. It would be a problem if he didn't bother to learn. If someone is LITERALLY TRYING TO LEARN HOW TO DO SOMETHING it's not weaponized incompetence! I don't care how old they are!

And honestly it does play into the whole "the patriarchy is bad for men too" situation. If a man doesn't know how to do something, such as laundry or cleaning up spills, as an adult because those jobs were always deferred to women, he is now incapable of caring for himself when alone. And then when with someone else, accused of weaponized incompetence when trying to learn by people learning new words to run into the ground. Or once again, maybe it's not a situation where he didn't learn because the women specifically always did the cleaning, he just generally might not have been taught. I don't know!

The very point I'm trying to make is that you can't make those kind of assumptions based off of a short clip, or a picture, of someone doing something poorly. Even if there's a CHANCE it could be weaponized incompetence, it is so BEYOND horrible to go on and on about how it HAS to be weaponized incompetence because no one could be that stupid. It feels awful to be a disabled person seeing people being mocked and called abusers for making the same kind of mistakes you've made. It feels awful to see something, think "oh I've messed that up too", and then see 50 different comments about how it has to be weaponized incompetence because no one could be THAT stupid

Can we please stop forgetting the existence of disabled people and people with generally different life experiences than you, thanks. There's a huge difference between weaponized incompetence and learning (or someone doing the best they can and being physically unable to do things more efficiently because of being disabled)

[jaywhitecotton]

Fuck Elvis

I used to play this terrible game with some monstrous friends at karaoke shows. It was all based on how Michael Jackson died at the right time and if he molested just one more kid we’d be screwed out of decades of music and nostalgia.

We’d then apply other artists to this molestation scale. Like if MJ set the standard at say 7 known kids we’re pretty sure he finger banged, how many could say Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler get away with?

Turns out - it’s one. One for sure, but I’m pretty sure there would have to be at least three before we as a society are willing to let go of Dream On or Bruce Willis’s meteor sacrifice.

Bob Dylan? So hard. Old white NPR people would blame the motorcycle accident and give up everything after to protect his earlier legacy, but comparing Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan’s importance? He’s got to be able to molest as many - if not three more kids - than the King of Pop, right? I mean Jewish or not, he is still white so that has to give him the edge over Jacko in what he can get away with.

Anyhoo

Comics have been acting like comedy has been bringing “truth to power!” and patting themselves on the back, but thirty years of Michael Jackson jokes couldn’t do what one documentary has done.

Proving if you really want any justice these days, you need to first invest in some production value and an editor who knows how to make criminal acts look especially bad.

The reactions are pouring in and people are very conflicted. Many questioning whether or not it’s ok to like an artist because of their lurid personal life.

Look, can we come to a consensus on just one thing?

Human beings have been giant flesh bags of hot garbage since the very beginning of our upright existence. We started out so bad, we’re not even sure of what are real beginnings were actually like.

And its not even people that are the worst either. Look at life itself.

Nature is gruesome and horrifying! Every nature documentary is inherently a horror movie missing the scary cello mood music. If you knew how much ducks gang-raped in real life you would burn any remanence of all those duck-themed shows from the 90’s.

Even the creation of space and time was the result of a destructive explosion that shit us out into the nothingness of space.

Disagree? Thinks humans are great? Cool. Keep in mind a lot of people watched a movie about a guy who sexually abused children and their first thought was “Can I still grab my dick and effeminately scream ‘ohhhhh’ whenever it gets super windy? Because I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t do that!”

To me anytime a person does something exceptional - THAT should be the thing that is celebrated. Like “Wow, you overcame being a piece of shit and had a moment of triumph for our species, well done ya piece of shit!”

Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, Beethoven’s 9th have all stood the test of time and those acts are worthy of praise.

Are we going to really miss Ignition (remix)?

I’m not saying any of these people’s flaws should be ignored, but seriously - there were plenty of slave fuckers, wife abusers, and piss-on-tweeners out there who not only did that shit - but didn’t even have the decency to form an experimental democratic republic placing power in the hands of the people, much less write a catchy tune.

We have got to start holding a higher standard for what we consider legit and meaningful art.

Is Trapped in the Closet really an achievement for humanity? Is the cinematic legacy of Space Jam ruined by the tainting of I Believe I Can Fly?

Was American Beauty and House of Cards our civilization’s finest cinematic moments? Has there been nothing else to watch?

Can we no longer backwards slide dance at house parties because a guy who dressed like a sequined private eye slept with kids?

I’m not saying you can’t still enjoy those things, or even question your feelings about them. I’m saying don’t make those things more important than they actually are. You can both think an actor should be castrated and get lost in visualized fiction.

Just as easily as you can decide to never watch again. It’s all disposable.

To me the real crime is needing a movie like American Beauty to be the pinnacle of human achievement because you got your first handy in the theater when it came out or whatever.

Not that anyone is exactly saying that, but you big bad wolves get my straw house point.

What is the value of achievement? How do we measure what’s important? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s what the consensus decides should stay. Maybe it’s the individual.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of our general arguments are between the perspectives of group thinking socialists versus self-motivated libertarians. Maybe they’re both right, I guess it depends on the situation.

Personally I think most the arguments about entertainers matters most to the people who have a vested interest in brands and making it in the ‘look at me’ industry.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the thick of it having done music and standup most of my life and have the same guttural need for a stranger’s approval, but sometimes I feel surrounded by people who treat every moment of their lives like a biopic. Selling themselves on social media as if they’re the subject of their own Rolling Stone exposé.

People who define themselves by the most disposable of expressions and since trying to be good and known is so difficult, decided it’s easier to just simulate success instead of working harder on the mediums.

You know, frauds.

I’m surrounded by a generation of ‘fake it til you make it’ personalities who thrive on all the shit I find utterly useless, meaningless and the worst crime - boring.

Entrepreneurs in narcissism who communicate through gossip and trade in brand expression, littering the artistic landscape with recycled lateral thinking dog turds.

It’s exhausting,debilitating, and absolutely the future as AI replaces our normal careers, forcing all of us into becoming Instagram models and Influencers.

And everyday I have to have deep sobering introspection trying to figure out if I’m not equally culpable in this terrible trap of meaningless thinking.

Not that there’s anything wrong with meaningless. Not everything has to have as everlasting an impact as Ode to Joy.

I mean really, what actually matters if we all die and whatever impact we had becomes erased regardless of whether or not it takes years, months, days or even minutes after we are laid into the ground?

Most of everyone who has been born has meant nothing and left no trace or measurement that they even existed at all. Think of all the stillborn babies who didn’t even get the chance.

Nature the cold hearted bitch strikes again!

People call me jaded and bitter for these thoughts, but I promise you - I hold no anger or selfish need to compensate my own lacking by exclaiming ‘people are mostly shit and none of this will stand the test of time’. I’m very fun at parties.

It’s just the people desperate to matter that think reality is inherently mean.

Celebrate the achievement not the person, but also - let’s not over inflate the achievement to validate our own petty need for someone to hear our folk song about getting a handy while watching American Beauty or whatever.

A quick story.

One of the most talented people I ever met was a dude from Philly named Perone.

Perone played bass and was known across the city as being this incredible player who for some reason just never found a project he clicked with.

I met him when I was 18 and homeless, living in a 24 hour diner he waited tables at. Everyone loved this dude and for some reason he took care of me. Hooking up free salads, sodas, bread. He was the coolest dude I ever met.

I was learning guitar and we both loved 70’s soul and blues music so we’d jam together which in hindsight was wild.

I had no fucking idea what I was doing and yet here was this genius jamming patiently along.

Teaching me without putting in a show that he was actually teaching me, if that makes sense?

Was he perfect? No. Not at all. He was charismatic as fuck, but obviously weighted down with some demons.

The weirdest thing I could say about him - and I don’t know how to even properly frame this was - he used to draw on bed sheets.

For years he had a dream about a woman he never met and would paint her face on the bed sheets and attach lyrics to songs he was writing next to her face. These sheets hung all over his walls.

Keep in mind he was living with a girl at the time. He had a kid, yet here were all these sheets dedicated to a fictional white woman he was obsessed with, hung like championship banners across his entire two bedroom apartment.

My last conversation with Perone was perfect. I sat strumming his guitar while he smoked meth out of a can of Pepsi, telling me how Michael Jackson was the King.

Every click of the lighter, every inhale and exhale would punctuate just how much Michael Jackson meant to the world and music.

How Motown celebrated their 25th anniversary with a tv special and Michael Jackson came out and destroyed with the moonwalk.

“Dude, (click) black people loved Michael (inhale). White people loved Michael. (exhale)Young people loved Michael. (cough) Old people loved Michael. (click) None of this race or generation shit mattered. (inhale) It was because of the music and HE did that. (exhale) He bridged everything together in that one moment. (violent cough) Michael Jackson is and will always be the King. (click) Fuck Elvis.”

That was twenty years ago. I have no idea if he’s still alive, earned a living with his music or met the woman he’d dreamt and painted for years. Or if instead he succumbed to meth, took his own life and or manages an Olive Garden.

I don’t know and I don’t have to. I miss him and appreciate the things we shared that mattered and helped me grow as a person, but that’s all it ever will be.

Let justice be done and handled by those involved in their situation and value only the things and constructs that have some permanence or growth in your own life.

Either way you will still die, and wether it’s alone and forgotten or if it takes centuries for people to forget you were a miserable deaf cunt who wrote some sweet jams - you’ll eventually be nothing.

Fuck Elvis.