Here at Flavorwire, we pride ourselves on not only writing some of the best content on the Internet, but keeping an eye on all of the great writing that other folks on the ‘Net are doing, too. Today, we have a guide to writing an autobiographical novel, examinations of white privilege and the male fuccboi, and an argument for the first non-human president.
Racked examines (and rages against) the female fuccboi, which could mean a lot of different things, I think, but in this case served a catch-all for women who stay fashionable by following trends without developing their own sense of style.
“Fuccboiism is the opposite of the Byblos jacket. The Byblos jacket is the ASCII shrug of outwear. On the other end of the spectrum is this dressing to an algorithm, ascribing only to fashion tropes. I’ve long scoffed at the notion that the internet has the capacity to ruin anything: attention spans, music, meaningful relationships, manners. It seemed too hoary and click-bait alarmist for that to be true. But — and maybe this is proof that I’ve edged into my Eileen Fisher years — I’m starting to think it has ruined style.”
Quartz reported on the joke campaign trying to drag IBM super-computer and Jeopardy champion Watson into 2016 presidential race.
“Watson could be the centrist candidate that the polarized race has been searching for. Unlike most of the candidates running, Watson has no emotions, basing its decisions entirely on being able to parse every fact it can find out about a topic and choosing the most logical answer in minutes.”
Buzzfeed Books published Alexander Chee’s lyric poem advising aspiring authors how to write a novel that is inspired by, but not the literal stories of, their lives.
You must invent something that fits the shape of what you know. To do this you must use the situations but not the events of your life. You must invent a character like you but not you. You, in the forest of yourself with the axe, building the house, sealing yourself in its walls. You are the ghost of the house. You will never live in this house you make of your life.
Vulture‘s Rembert Browne cited Hilary Clinton and Macklemore’s “White Privilege II” in his assessment of White Privilege’s current cultural moment.
Naturally, all of this leads to the question: What, in practice, is a white person actually supposed to do, and how are nonwhite people supposed to respond? So many of these moments, these conversations, these dialogues are important, are inspirational, and can make it feel like we’re headed in the right direction. But then what? If there were a simple answer, we might already have a better, more just society. But that’s not how it is, mainly because the way forward requires everyone to give something up if they want to gain something in the distant, uncertain future.