n+1 posts several amusing excerpts from their “What Was The Hipster?: A Sociological Investigation” piece to be released in full later this month: “Like ‘douchebag,’ ‘hipster’ was a name that no one could apply to oneself. But the opportunity to call someone else a ‘douchebag’: that offered the would-be hipster a means of self-identification by a name one could say, looking outward. In the douchebag, the hipster had found its Other.”
What Was the Hipster?
Simpsons Did It
Nearly proven: The Infinite Monkey Theorem. The theorem, popularized by “The Simpsons”, posits “that an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters would eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare by chance.”
●
●
Bloggers Sue Huffington Post
A group of bloggers led by Jonathan Tasini have filed a class-action lawsuit against Huffington Post for $105 million, claiming a lack of compensation for their contributions. Tasini hopes to set a precedent for content creators in the digital age.
Capitalism Is Not About Equality
Check out this interview with Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement. “Capitalism, ultimately, it’s not about equality, it’s not about social justice. It doesn’t care about fixing fundamentally unequal systems that impact humans on an everyday level. Critical thinking is the really important skill, to [ask], does it seem like this is a company or a brand that really cares about women?” Our own Edan Lepucki’s piece on feminist anthems complements the interview nicely.
●
●
Thursday Links
Google has added a Worldcat search to Google Books, allowing readers to look for books in their local libraries as well as on online bookstore sites. (via)From the Department of Clever Book Promotions: Random House is using a text-based (or interactive fiction) game to promote the release of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist.Steven Johnson’s forthcoming book The Ghost Map, “a thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London,” sounds pretty terrific. To whet the appetite, he provides a brief list of the “best” plague books to the Wall Street Journal. (via).Just in time for Banned Books Week, check out some very cool banned books jewelry.
How ethical are cocoa puffs?
There’s a new Ethicist in town. Chuck Klosterman is taking over the NYT advice column, and I’m thinking, gee, I wonder what the author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs knows about ethics. His first column seems pretty legit, but I can’t wait for him to introduce time-travel [pdf] and other hypotheticals.
“So, what’s your story?”
As if you weren’t in love with Augustus Waters already, the first official trailer from The Fault in Our Stars film is out, and Ansel Elgort is quite the charmer. The film releases on June 6th, but if you still haven’t read the book, here’s our own Janet Potter’s review.