o rly idea of the day: women like vampires because they are gay

From the NYTimes "Idea of the Day" blog:

“Vampires have overwhelmed pop culture because young straight women want to have sex with gay men,” Stephen Marche writes in Esquire. “Not all young straight women, of course, but many, if not most, of them.”

Marche thinks today’s vampire stories — whether their gay themes are implied as in the “Twilight” series or explicit as in HBO’s “True Blood” — are “symptomatic of something much larger: a quiet but profound sexual revolution and a new acceptance of freakiness in mainstream American life.”

So that's why I don't like vampires!  Gee, Esquire, thanks!  I think Joseph Hale has the best comment:

I think it signals a widespread acceptance that people want to have sex with the dead.

I end this post with something completely unrelated - a German artist, Ottmar Hoerl, "is posing 1,250 garden gnomes with their arms outstretched in the stiff-armed Hitler salute in an installation that he calls a protest of lingering fascist tendencies in German society," even though Germany bans the display of Nazi symbols.  A court decided they were "clearly satire."  Hoerl says "the fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people ... is latently dangerous and remains present in our society."  To Hoerl:  you're absolutely right!  And it's not just Germany!

dude

Google Reader is amazing!  Thanks Lindsey!

oh man i wish i could write like KSK right now but I can't

This one has to be seen to be believed.  Oh the uproar this baby caused.  I'm not sure which part is the worst, but it's probably one of these lines [my comments in italics]:

1. Science fiction is a very male form of fiction.  Tell me ray guns and rockets aren't phallic.  I mean look at them.
2. The new [Battlestar Galactica] series instead had lots of relationship drama, men whining, and men generally unable to find their way out of a wet paper bag. So fuck you Adama, you useless sack of shit. Why don't you crawl back into your wet paper bag.
3. The Sci-Fi channel even changed its name to “Syfy”.  "Y"s are totally girly.  I mean look at them.
4. Given that this is the BBC, all of this nonsense that alienates men for the benefit of women shouldn’t be surprising.  Fuckin' Brits are all emasculated.
5. Minsky has said, “General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.” and “But aside from the science fiction, I find it tedious to read any ordinary writing at all. It all seems so conventional and repetitive.”  Gaaaaaawd so boreeddddd need spaceships.
6. However, many boys who would have gone on to make scientific discoveries and invent new technologies will not do so since they will never be inspired by science fiction as boys.  AND THEN WHERE WILL WE BE?

The thing is, I don't like "relationship drama" either.  And you could make the point that a lot of television "science fiction" isn't really science fiction at all (Abigail Nussbaum, who also hates relationship drama and is also female, has been making this argument for a while).  You could argue - and I wouldn't care and it would be a weak argument, but you could argue - that without hard SF children [not just boys!] won't be inspired to go into the sciences.  But you know that thing execution?  It's important.  Because now you're arguing, among other things, that all fiction that isn't science fiction - which is somehow not about problems? - is tedious and repetitive.  Do you really want to be arguing that? 

The other thing is, I hope this guy never finds out how many male fans of re-imagined BSG exist, because there are a lot.  I'd almost say more than women, because the women are all pissed off about how women are represented in it.  Except for me, of course.