Ok, sorry. I am moving at the end of the month. So I've been packing boxes and rummaging around my apartment, the one I've lived in for over five years, running into mementos and hidden notebooks and ugly clothes and lost postcards and mysterious furniture stains and wondering what exactly I've been doing for the last half decade of my life.
You can forgive me, then, for being easily annoyed, especially when public figures lately seem to have dedicated themselves to annoying me, specifically.
Let's discuss.
Harrison Butker
I made a little video about this man earlier this week, and everyone else on Substack has written about him, which is almost funny because I can't imagine a single person less worthy of attention. An embarrassment to the Kansas City Chiefs (lol) and, most importantly, to the kicker position so honored by Landry Clarke (as played by Jesse Plemons, he of "how could that be profitable for Frito Lay?" fame) in Friday Night Lights.
Tl;dr: Butker delivered a commencement speech at a Catholic university (critically: not a Jesuit one) disparaging women and pretty much every minority and marginalized group.
Here's a little snippet:
To the gentlemen here today: Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in.
I love delusion about masculinity, especially from a 28-year-old man with Problematic Youth Pastor hair. If you want to read more about Butker, you can literally just open any tab on the Internet and he will show up, but I enjoyed both
's take as well as 's write-up.Men in my mentions have been super quick to tell me that Butker's football jersey is now the fastest-selling in the NFL. And like, that doesn't surprise me. Firstly, the baseline must've been low to start with — apologies to kickers everywhere, but they don't seem like the players likely to engage the most fervent fans. And secondly, yeah: a lot of people are sexist. It does not shock me that someone publicly espousing some of the most misogynistic words I've heard in a hot minute would find a home in the NFL and adjacent circles. That's what he's betting on, after all. Men who feel like they're losing the patriarchal society that has historically elevated them will hold on tightly to anyone who tells them they're right to mourn the loss.
The man v bear discourse
A few weeks ago, an innocent tweet about how bears kill less women than men do (I couldn’t find the original tweet, but here’s the website with the relevant statistic) prompted discourse that has yet to die down, in which women claim that they would rather face a bear than a man, because they're less likely to have a fatal encounter.
And listen, I am super willing to discuss men's violence and aggression and the danger men pose to women, because it’s very much a serious and rampant issue, but this entire man v. bear discourse hinges on a frankly insane interpretation of the aforementioned statistic that fails to take into account how few bears women run into on an annual basis. Like. Why must we memeify violence to make it feel real?
Because I feel deranged every time someone is like "I'll take the bear." We don't need to compare the danger of men to the danger of bears to criticize the former, do we? There’s no comparison to be had, because they’re wholly unrelated. Lions “only” kill 250 people every year; hippos 500. Do you know why? Because the vast majority of people do not encounter lions, hippos, or bears in their daily lives.
We don't have to do little gimmicks to talk about men and the very real threat of male violence. I get that it's fun to call men more dangerous than bears, that we can shoot off a little tweet about it, maybe even make men understand how terrified women are of gender-based violence. I understand. But to be honest, we're doing ourselves a disservice by shaping every issue into Discourse: not everything can be addressed via faux wit on Twitter.
John Fetterman
Every week, the junior Senator from the great state of Pennsylvania finds a way to embarrass me further. He positioned himself as a progressive to get elected in PA in 2022, and today 71% of the words coming out of his mouth could be mistaken for Glenn Beck's. It's ridiculous, and I feel bamboozled by his entire schtick.
On Friday morning, following a House committee hearing during which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), a person I would be predisposed to abhor (she does Crossfit) even if she weren't a far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist, cast some pretty despicable remarks bathed in racist micro-aggressions at Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX). AOC, present at the hearing, spoke up to defend fellow Democrat Crockett and call out Greene's personal attacks as unacceptable.
Fetterman, who was not at the hearing, reacted as follows:
I'm tired of the trolly humor. You're a 54-year-old U.S. Senator. Act like it. Look around and find some dignity, if not for you then for the people you represent. The hoodies and shorts in the Capitol? I pretended they were fine (not charming, but fine) when he was still pretending to be a progressive (a label he now eschews), but now I can be honest: it's disrespectful. He is getting paid by taxpayers to be a sitting member of the Senate, the least he could do is dress the part.
How few people have seen LA CHIMERA (2023)
Too many stones can't be cast from my house because until last week, I was one of you. I had not yet experienced the perfection that is La Chimera, a mostly Italian film directed by Alice Rohrwacher and starring Josh O'Connor, the man currently featuring in every other Challengers (2024) fancam on my Twitter feed.
Wednesday morning, I watched it while sitting on the floor wrapping dishes in bubblewrap, and on Thursday night, deciding I hadn't paid enough attention, I watched it again. I hate to be dramatic, but it feels like a miracle that this movie got made, and that it stars one of my generation's rising stars embodying the sort of deep, lonely, wistful melancholy that makes for an instantly unforgettable performance.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8c56c38b-6a75-479f-9e47-1448a79754ca_2240x1363.jpeg)
Set in 1980s Tuscany (although with its ruggedness and rocky landscapes, you'd be forgiven for thinking Naples), La Chimera follows O'Connor's Arthur, an Englishman with an unusual talent for discovery who, along with his cohort of Italian neighbors/collaborators/coworkers/accomplices, robs graves and finds ancient treasures to sell to the highest bidder.
There was something beautifully dreamy, hazy, and vague about this film — who the characters are, alone and to each other; what they want, if anything at all beyond to live in the present as they search for things lost in the past; the meaning of time; the weight of history; the deeply personal value of art.
You should watch it so we can discuss it and so you can feel it. I saw La Chimera on Apple, but it's streaming in a bunch of places and it deserves to be seen, and not just because I want to dedicate a newsletter to it.
I promise to be back with a more positive newsletter on the next turn. Wherever you are, I hope you’re having a better May than the KC City Chiefs’ PR team. :)
Thank you for reading! As always, you can find me on twitter, instagram, and tiktok. This newsletter is my pride and joy, with issues on topics like the celebrity apology industrial complex, Barbie’s Oscar noms, debriefing the Bezos’ fake normalcy, the week when everyone was deranged, and Stanley cups and hyperconsumerism.
P.S. If you share the post or a snippet on social media (thank you!), please tag me (I love to see it!), and include a link when possible. x
I wanna know where the jersey sales figures came from. I’ve never received inventory figures that quickly! And speaking of which, how many were there to begin with? 12? Selling out don’t mean much with actual figures. And who bought them all? His agent? Is this like the scammer who bought all those books to get onto the NYT list a few years ago? How do we know this figure wasn’t manipulated? I USED TO WORK IN SUPPLY CHAIN FOR GLOBAL MERCH COMPANIES AND I HAVE QUESTIONS.
Also- “problematic youth pastor hair” earned your subscription fee for the duration of 2024!