The Hater’s Code of Conduct

We can’t all be cultural critics.

18 Jan

Aléna Muir on minding other people's business.

My friend Larissa and I used to go dancing at establishments on Long Street in Cape Town when we were undergrads. We’d aim to let loose, and perhaps catch the eye of a man who’d spot us and think, Wow, look at this carefree gal who manages to look ethereal dancing to a Drake song. I must introduce myself and ask her to dinner at a restaurant on (trendy!) Kloof Street. 

Here was the problem: we didn’t exude “carefree.” We brought a My friend and I saw you from across the bar and hated your vibe! energy to the function that miscreant men didn’t really appreciate. If someone acted inappropriately and/or inconsiderately, we couldn’t let it slide. We aggressively shrugged off and side-eyed those who held our waists as they passed by on the dancefloor, elbowed the human bumper cars invading our personal space because who raised you?, and then—always—the outfits: if you decided to expose the rest of us to the sight of your toes at 11 P.M., you ended up on our list. We smoked our irritants, first with violent eye contact, later with eloquent but scathing remarks in our debriefs. One night, as the last song ended and the lights brightened to reveal our crowd of victims, a man walked over and bravely pitched us. 

“Look,” he said, “I can see you two are very judgmental. But we’re having some drinks after this…”

THE SHORT STORY EDIT

Our favorite short fiction from around the web.

MIXTAPE

  • “It’s not just the language, the banal descriptions and the metaphors that aren’t metaphors and the similes that don’t make sense. Isaacson’s whole project is weird.” Sam Kriss on Walter Isaacson’s Musk biography. (The Point)

  • The trials of trucking school. (Harper’s)

  • Confirming what we all knew: Google search is getting worse. (404 Media)

  • Apple changed the way it reports podcast downloads, causing alarm in the already shrinking podcast bubble. (Semafor) 

  • “The Tool discography is austere and sublime: five full-length albums over thirty or so years, full of thunderous, complex riffs that resemble elegant mathematical equations.” (The New Yorker)

  • Care about the future of music journalism in a post-Pitchfork world? Want to join a Discord of people tackling the same problem? DM Emilie Friedlander. (Twitter)