Via his Twitter, John Hodgman (yes, that “PC guy”) takes a stand against “meh” — calling it “…almost universally seems to signal: I am just interested enough to make one last joyless, nitpicky swipe and then disappear.” An official “meh” backlash? Is “meh” the new FAIL? How many joyless Twitterers do we think responded: “@hodgman meh”? Read More ›
(No that’s not a typo): Jimmy Fallon’s much-maligned web show is getting a second chance. Or maybe the internet is self-correcting for the first chance that Fallon never got, because he used to laugh during sketches at SNL. Laughing is in this year. Read More ›
The New York Times has joined the Gladwell backlash with a review calling his new book: “glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing”.
With his third book — Outliers — about to come out, the critics have sharpened their knives for the New Yorker staffer and his enormous afro. Has the superhero + free lunch model of success run its course for Gladwell? He says his new book is definitely not a self-help book. Read More ›
It seems the tide of public opinion around the ‘Queen of Quirk’ has changed and the inevitable backlash has begun. I think the think the tipping point may have been the ukelele. Oh Zooey, I will always remember you as you were in The Good Girl. Read More ›
The brewing discontent of the cupcake-haters. We’ve already seen them banned in schools. Will the expansion of Crumbs, a cupcake place that’s growing at a Krispy Kreme-like pace, turn more people against the lowly cupcake? Read More ›
After 8 golds, the internet begins wondering: Is Michael Phelps a douchebag? All he does is eat, sleep, and swim, but he still leaves just a little bit of time to be a douche. Read More ›
Bloggers and indie bands agree: They don’t love Radiohead’s music. Is this just the usual crowing of the less-talented, or the voice of the silent, Radiohead-hating majority? Read More ›
Julia Allison’s NonSociety project has inspired a wide variety of satire. The launch of the project — timed perfectly with Allison’s appearance on the cover of Wired — has stirred up the inevitable backlash from bloggers, who’re already tired of Allison’s particularly noxious strain of ubiquity (of course, they could always just not look). Read More ›
With falling ratings for her show and declining circulation numbers for her magazine, is the Oprah Empire entering its sunset phase? The New York Times reports on the fissures starting to show in the Queen of All Media’s façade. Read More ›
Enough with the brass tubes already! There’s a rising backlash against the sci-fi inspired, Victorian-flavored subculture and its love of all things Jules Verne. Read More ›
Everybody loves Tina Fey. Or do they? Yes, they do, mostly. Despite the delicious Schadenfreude a Tina Fey backlash might produce, one just doesn’t appear to be materializing, even though her new movie, Baby Mama, has been getting tepid early reviews. She’s still got that one funny show Read More ›
Angry journalists are circulating a petition calling out ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson for the crappy job they did at the last debate. Stephanopoulos was “somewhat taken aback” at first by the sustained furor sent his way. We can understand: We take a lot of email heat any time we post anything having to do with animals being harmed. We just report the facts, people! Read More ›
The introduction of Flickr video has unintended consequences: Angry Flickrites. Citing site slowdowns and a fear of an YouTuber influx, many long-time Flickr users are up in arms about the addition of Flickr Video. By up in arms, we mean they’ve started petitions and angry-sounding Flickr groups. Read More ›
Much disliked horror auteur Uwe Boll throws down the gauntlet: If 1 million people sign the petition against him, maybe he’ll quit. The director behind such stinkers as Bloodrayne and House of the Dead has dared the internet to end his career. Anti-Boll Blogs are trying to grow the cause: As of now, the signatures have jumped to over 53,000. Read More ›
Maxim gets flack for placing Sarah Jessica Parker at the top of the “unsexiest women” list, also for having an “unsexiest women” list in the first place, and also for generally being lame and shallow. Even the dudes we know who are the totally dudest of dudes don’t read this magazine. So why do we care? Read More ›
Daniel Day-Lewis may have just won his second Oscar for There Will Be Blood, but some have already begun challenging the praise he’s received for his scenery-chewing performance. They say that Day-Lewis’ motivations are unclear, that his acting is gimmicky, and that his histrionics take the viewer out of the action. In other words, they think he’s a ham. Of course, hamming it up has always been a pretty good way to win yourself a gold statue. Read More ›
New York sketch group Olde English pairs with comedienne Jackie Clarke to take us “behind the scenes” of surprise hit Juno with its attention-grabbing screenwriter. Hey, did you know Diablo Cody used to be a stripper? Seriously, she was a real, live stripper - naked and everything! Read More ›
“Eat, Pray, Love” is now tops on everybody’s list of books to bash. What’s with all the hate? Are people upset about the book’s self-absorbed cultural appropriation? Or are they mad because a female author is so successful? We’ll let the blogosphere attempt to figure it out. Read More ›
A viral, homemade campaign ad goes bad. There’s no doubt the song in this video is catchy. But that doesn’t make it good. Read More ›
With Juno a huge box office success and now a multiple Oscar nominee, the haters are out in full force. Among their chief complaints: the film’s treatment of pregnancy, its “horribly precious” soundtrack, and especially its arch lexicon. Seriously, honest to blog! But never fear, the backlash-to-the-backlash has already begun. Read More ›
Australian teen throws a massive party and is currently undergoing a major internet backlash. Or, you can sign up on Facebook to go to his next party. Hope to see you there! Read More ›
David Cross responds to online anger over his appearance in “Alvin and The Chipmunks.” It’s a tragic tale in which the word “sellout” is thrown around, Bill Hicks is invoked, and Cross reveals he used the money on a down payment for a country place, so suck it. Read More ›
Spencer Morgan of the New York Observer launches a campaign against Spanx. The New York media world asks the pertinent question: is girdlewear an erection killer? Read More ›
Facebook’s new advertising platform is getting folks all riled up. Invasion of privacy! Opt-out! User rights! There’s a lot of rhetoric flying over the issue of users having their info from third-party sites appear on Facebook. Read More ›
The heated response to Amazon’s Kindle has been immediate and…heated. Did we mention heated? And we thought only enraged animal lovers had this much misplaced anger in them. (Jokes! The Kindle hate is probably well-deserved.) Read More ›
MIT is suing Frank Gehry over an academic complex he designed for the school. Gehry famously likened the Stata Center to a “a party of drunken robots,” but forgot to mention they were leaky, mouldy, structurally unsound robots. The suit is the latest in a long line of problems with Gehry buildings. Read More ›
Whatever cultural credibility Jerry Seinfeld had post-“Seinfeld” seems lately to have run dry. Between the total media saturation of marketing for Bee Movie and his unseemly defense of his wife’s cookbook plagiarism charges, we’re hoping at least the writer’s strike will give us a break from all this Jerry. Read More ›
Media outlets are overburdened with the continual coverage of Stephen Colbert’s antics. Stephen Colbert this, Stephen Colbert that. God, we’re so sick of Stephen Colbert! We’re assuming this means there is such a thing as being too awesome. Read More ›
Marc Jacobs gets horrible reviews for his “quirky” fashion show; Atlantic Monthly publishes an article about how we’re all overdosing on quirkiness. Do you feel alienated because you’re the only person you know who finds Flight of the Conchords embarrassingly unfunny and Miranda July cloyingly annoying? You’re not alone. (Which means we anticipate an impending backlash to the quirk backlash.) Read More ›
