When done right though...

For me, learning about the history of cigarettes, I was surprised to learn that before the 1930s, first off, tobacco consumption was very rare, but when people did consume tobacco, it wasn’t in a cigarette. It was as chewing tobacco, or in a pipe, or if you’re a corporate bigwig, maybe you nursed a cigar. But for the…

Is the vape pen, just the born again cigarette in a sleeker, sexier, techy package? 

I’m fascinated by the role of cigarettes in wartime, especially WWII. I did a study of my grandfather’s experiences as a veteran of the ETO, and POW as well. He was on the absolute edge of the Allied front lines, where food was scarce, and the soldiers relied for weeks on K-rations, which were basically crackers and,…

I’ve noticed a weird version of this in some online forums I'm in. Someone will post a question, and people will respond with "I don't have to do the emotional labor of answering this for you!" which is like... yeah, you can just not answer? You could completely ignore the post, but you did this instead??

This, so much this.

“ In the past few years, the concept of emotional labor has gone mainstream on social media and in articles that revive and expand the idea, with the term moving out of the workplace and insidiously into our homes.”

Yes, that sometimes happens with words in a language. A word that started with a particular definition…

I appreciate Hochschild’s precise definition of the word emotional labor—the labor of managing one’s emotions as well as others. But it seems like people are trying to make a problem when there isn’t one necessarily.

they had to get their take in while the discourse was still fresh

‘“sorry, I’m at capacity” like they’re some shitty nightclub.’ lol. How hard is it to write “thank you for telling me. I’m kind of busy right now, let me get back to you later.” This is why I love texting – you can put it aside for a few hours until you’ve (i.e., me) replenished your energy meter like a Sim in the…

Relationships ARE work and require open communication and boundaries.  There is nothing wrong with using dialogue to respect boundaries.  And the meaning of the phrase has evolved as society has.  Not sure why that is an issue.  This whole post is bizarre and doesn’t seem in line with the article.

idk people do this all the time, they just word it more tactfully. I’m having financial/housing drama and texting my dad for advice and he texted ‘I’ll read and respond to this on my way home’. He’s going to help me and talk me through it, he’s just working and getting his degree, and doing a crazy commute right now.…

This article is resonating with me in a way. I am personally going through an extremely hard time right now (terminally ill parent) and I am leaning on my friends more than I ever have before. However, I have an awareness of my extra neediness and am also trying to balance my friend’s needs from me with their lives…

That’s not the point at all. It’s that all of us are already carrying a certain amount of emotional burden on any given day. There is nothing narcissistic to recognize their are moments in which we don’t have the bandwidth to safely carry other people’s.

I think you’re a grown-up finally when friends feel like work. That “have to go because I committed” feeling is true adulthood. I remember my parents dragging out the door to an obligation while I got to lay on the livingroom floor and watch “Small Wonder” (while making tall stacks out folded Kraft singles, doesn’t…

It sounds like the original term might have been more precise if it were “emotional capitalism,” because that makes it clear that it refers to the emotional labor that is performed for money. The terminology wasn’t right from the beginning and it makes a lot more sense in its broad application now. The idea that you…

Ehh, I find the term useful in exactly the texting scenario you describe, in consciously using it to decide if I’m genuinely friends with a person or not. If my reaction to a given person is, like yours, “YES!!!!!” then it means I do want to be friends with that person and it’s probably a case of equal footing and…

I love Banks as an actress, but I really wished Pitch Perfect 2 were better, and I’m only mildly interested in Charlie’s Angels because it looks like it won’t be very good, I didn’t like the earlier reboot, and my expectations are low because of Pitch Perfect 2 (sample of 1). But I do think women directors should be…

You mean someone who made his whole career extrapolating anecdotes did lazy work vetting his resources? Say it isn’t so! He’s a hack and I’m not at all surprised that he didn’t think for one second about these victims as anything but fodder for a story. 

I’m going to miss Drew Magary’s Hater’s Guide to the William Sonoma Catalogue.