This is extremely important. Whether you think it is “bad art” or not this is fucking important. When a rape victim story is ever put out for public consumption the general consensus is that people feel like they have a right to know exactly what happened, that if they could they should basically have video access to…

Yes to all of this. She obscures her own (not very rhetorically coherent) point behind layers of strawman and polemic arguments. It reads very much like a defense of professor/student relationships because they have value as a “learning tool,” and it does nothing but flippantly dismiss all of the bad things (for…

I think you’re reacting pretty fairly. I was lied to about the alcohol content of a beverage, and had too much and passed out. Then the man who raped me did just that. He had planned that. He knew I had said that I only wanted to have X drinks because I had taken medicine for menstrual cramps, and that I didn’t want…

How? She basically waxes nostalgically about student/teacher relationships:

I’m 46, a research prof, and not at NU, but I found Kipnis’ article off-putting. Faculty, really, it’s not that difficult - don’t fuck undergrads and do not fuck grad students in your department. We had a similar referendum at my university recently and it prompted absolutely zero discussion because it’s absolutely a…

With the risk of doxxing myself, I go to NU and am a grad student. I think her essay is in extremely poor taste since the “great prohibition” came out of a professor being a complete fucking creep (Peter Ludlow). Yes, it’s messed up to prohibit people from loving each other, but it hasn’t been socially acceptable for…

Searching for meaning is fine. Searching for this type of symbolism or allegory, which is a very specific type of rhetorical structure, is often dumb and shallow. Meaning is in place all the time, often accidentally, but not all fictional elements in a story are correlated to other fictional elements in the same story.

When straight characters express love/sexuality, it’s normal! When gay characters express love/sexuality, it’s pandering!

Not a Thicke fan, but his song sounds NOTHING like Gayes'. It shares only three basic SECONDARY concepts: falsetto vocals, a bouncy bass line, and a similar tempo. These (concepts) are not things you can copyright. The most important tangible element, the MELODY, is not even vaguely similar. Even the chord…

Also unusual in that in a trial for murder, arson, armed robbery etc, it's (generally, there are obviously excrptions) not in dispute that someone was stabbed to death, or a warehouse was destroyed, or a gas station clerk was held up at gunpoint. What's in dispute is the involvement of the accused. A finding of not…

Yes. It is, actually. But you're too busy trying to find ways that feminists hate men to realize that's a central tenant of feminism - that the patriarchy hurts everyone.

Or, "there is no evidence of rape!" As a lawyer this boggles the mind. Testimony is evidence. If she testifies that he did it, that's evidence. Just like if he testifies he didn't, that is also evidence. What people are really saying is that men are more trustworthy than women, at all times.

You make so many excellent points in this piece Jia, but this one stands out;

can you read

i love the incredibly predictable gizmodo wave of hot takes when it comes to gimmicky consumer electronics

-announcement day: AMAZING LIFE CHANGING its still a prototype BUT THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME
-launch day: doesnt quite deliver what we thought it would, dont buy it yet. maybe someday they will iron it out!…

Marvel has been developing Psychohistory for years.

Why would I want to play games with anyone who thinks game reviews are more important than people being terrorized out of their homes?

Well you're awfully sensitive.

Technically, no business needs to make a profit to exist, so long as it tallies up all the costs of existing as expenses. You need a profit to grow, but not to exist.

Sounds like someone gets yelled at online a lot for being a jerk.