I think we're talking about a silly trend in a silly place. Tweets worth taking seriously are needles in a self-satisfied haystack, and the people quoted in this article aren't inherently any worse than people taking to Twitter like they're the pro commentators on a game that everyone else can just tune in to to see…

Sports fans are catered to to a ridiculous extent in America.

Yes. I'm pretty heavily invested in the idea of the Cubs winning the World Series, but I have very little doubt that sports fandom is 99% escapism and time that could be much better spent.

There is definitely something compelling about an argument that online communication somehow breeds and encourages total douchiness.

The last tweet in particular, from the Ph.D, was completely valid and understandable self-expression.

If I ran a performance venue, I'd take out a patent on Having Vinnie And Sal Come Out And Take That Shit Out Of Your Hands.

This is the best conversation I've ever seen here.

If you're trying to offer a better analogy, it wouldn't hurt to explain in what relevant sense the EU is like the Fed.

Play me Dylan all day and I'll never give a thought to what I might be missing from any of the stuff in this article.

That may have been the whole point. Starwipe wasn't actually covering them.

In this case that reads as something of an endorsement.

I think it's worth noting that, as good as Samantha Bee's show has been, what she does is not "hosting" in any traditional talk show sense, and it's pretty hard to imagine her doing that on the Late Show any less awkwardly than Colbert has been doing it.

The clip didn't really make me feel like Dave was expressing strong opinion on the matter one way or the other. I think "Dave couldn't care less about it" could just as well have been the headline.

Thank you. I too have known someone very like that, and not only was she, in the first place, far more annoying than "charming" or "delightful," but her apparent outgoing behavior was very obviously rooted in need for constant attention. Just an awful person to be around.

Well put.

There was a season of MLB during WWII that's famous for having virtually no talented players left, even on the teams that played in the Series.

It makes no sense, but the official spelling is with an i.

I wasn't out to define the mountain goats any one way or another; rather to express more allegiance with the "barely watched adult cartoon." I'm familiar with Darnielle, I respect him but am not really a fan, and you're right that my post was somewhat silly. I think the whole conversation is silly, though…

I do know who they are. And I don't actively dislike them.
It's an interesting question to me — though I know it's effectively anathema on a pop culture web site — whether "broader [pop] cultural literacy" actually has any particular value. It certainly isn't the case that one has any meaningful duty to care about…

I agree, but the size of the following is pretty trivial so far as deciding what you like, no?