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 commentaries on cultural appropriation, consumerism, and internet advice columns. Plus, as an extra treat, a timely throwback to the newspaper story that inspired an Oscar winning film.
After American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis said that the modern-day Patrick Bateman would be “wearing a Yeezy hoodie and teasing girls on Tinder” (and apparently singing show tunes) Racked extrapolated a short scene depicting a slice of the modern serial killer’s inner life:
“I scroll through the most recent pictures on my phone: Thirty of them were almost perfectly identical selfies to the one I had just taken, eight were taken from the front row of the recent Calvin Klein show featuring singer Lady Gaga, while 12 others depicted unspeakable horrors.”
Pacific Standard explores how crowdsourced advice from social networks like Reddit may (or may not) compete with professional advice columns:
“Those who write about their problems in long letters directed toward the advice columnist seek to legitimize their worries in a public forum (such as a newspaper, magazine, or blog), the researchers wrote. Those who post online seek advice from a jury of their peers, instead of the singular, authoritative columnist.”
In reviewing Macklemore’s This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, The New Yorker ‘s Hua Hsu contemplates how Macklemore has become a poster boy for cultural appropriation, despite doing everything he can to make explicit his awareness of it:
There is something absorbing about its messiness, particularly in the way it manages to sample voices from across white America’s ideological spectrum, with a self-doubting Macklemore in the middle. He wonders about his place at a Black Lives Matter rally and asks his predominantly white fans to do the same: “We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?”
Lastly, in honor of Spotlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture Sunday night, we have the 2002 story written by The Boston Globe ‘s “Spotlight” team after the year-long investigation into the Catholic Church’s systematic protection of abusive priests:
For decades, within the US Catholic Church, sexual misbehavior by priests was shrouded in secrecy – at every level. Abusive priests – Geoghan among them – often instructed traumatized youngsters to say nothing about what had been done to them. Parents who learned of the abuse, often wracked by shame, guilt, and denial, tried to forget what the church had done. The few who complained were invariably urged to keep silent. And pastors and bishops, meanwhile, viewed the abuse as a sin for which priests could repent rather than as a compulsion they might be unable to control.