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A Guide to Barack Obama's Coolness for Politicians and Journalists

Max Read · 05/02/12 02:05PM

Is Barack Obama cool? Anyone who is actually cool can tell you that no, the president is not cool. He is old, and he is a dad, and he is president. And yet here we have a political ad claiming the president is cool, and commentators nodding their heads in agreement. The New Yorker's John Cassidy cites the Washington Post, a Politico commenter, and Grantland to conclude that the president has a "dazzling hipness."

Hipster Racism Runoff And The Search for The Black Costanza

cord jefferson · 04/27/12 06:45PM

Another week, another episode of Girls with no black people, another Gawker Media piece about why it's fucked up to not include black people in your show about New York, another article from angry neocons attacking Gawker Media. The dust Lena Dunham's new HBO show has managed to kick up thus far is remarkable in light of its relatively average ratings. But it's also noteworthy because far fewer people seemed to care when the crimes of which the show is accused happened before—many times. Though it's taken on different iterations throughout the years, the white-ified TV New York City has served as a backdrop for lots of America's most beloved programs, and there is no sign that that trend is slowing. Hate Girls all you want, but recognize that Dunham is following a precedent that started even before she was born.

A Guide to Finding the G-Spot, Based Wholly On Songs About the G-Spot

Emma Carmichael · 04/26/12 03:32PM

Where is the G-spot? No one seems to know for sure, except for a gynecologist named Adam Ostrzenski, who examined a dead lady's vagina and found "grape-like clusters of erectile tissue" in a one-centimeter sac in between the fifth and the sixth layers of the dead lady's vaginal wall. This grape-like formation, Ostrzenski says, is the G-spot.

A Girls Writer's Ironic Racism And Other 'White People Problems'

Max Read · 04/20/12 05:08PM

This week, on the internet, we are talking about 25-year-old prodigy Lena Dunham's new HBO show Girls and race. (Girls and gender was last week's topic. Keep up.) On Monday, after the show's premiere, Jenna Wortham wrote on the Hairpin about her disappointment in the show's overwhelming whiteness: "[T]hese girls... are beautiful, they are ballsy, they are trying to figure it out... I just wish I saw a little more of myself on screen, right alongside them."

Winning the War Against Yesterday: Mike O'Hanlon's Afghan Mad Libs

Mobutu Sese Seko · 04/20/12 12:15PM

Eight days ago, the Wall Street Journal published another column promising a "stable Afghanistan" from the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon. It might as well have been assembled by playing Powerball. O'Hanlon cranks the hopper, opens the little cage and out comes another bromide: "Closer"! "Accomplishing"! "Goals"! "Exit Strategy"!

Chicken or the Gays: Make a Choice About Eating Chick-fil-A

cord jefferson · 04/19/12 02:45PM

If they gave a Pulitzer Prize for waffling, this piece from the Washington City Paper last week might have won it. In it, food editor Chris Shott spends several hundred words pondering whether a person who is not a homophobe can in good conscience eat at Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain and purveyor of those dumbass cow ads. Chick-fil-A's nonprofit arm, the WinShape Foundation, has for years donated millions to anti-gay Christian groups like Focus on the Family, which once warned Americans, "[T]he homosexual agenda is a beast."

Room For Debate: What Kind of Drug is Rihanna Doing On This Man's Head?

Gawker Staff · 04/19/12 02:04PM

The New York Times' "Room For Debate" is an entrancingly dumb recurring feature in which they get a handful of vaguely qualified people to opine on various important questions such as, "Is Veganism Good For Everyone?" As we have done before, we now offer our own perspectives on an issue of substance: "What Kind of Drugs Did Rihanna Pour on This Man's Head?" Please see this controversial photo of Rihanna preparing to do drugs off of a man's head at Coachella this week for reference.

So Where's That Occupy Wall Street Comeback?

Adrian Chen · 04/18/12 02:33PM

There were no drums when I visited Occupy Wall Street's small protest on the steps of Federal Hall on Wall Street Monday. It was in keeping with the current tenor of the movement, which seems dangerously quiet for what is supposed to be a massive spring resurgence.

Romney and Bibi: Middle East Policy By Two Best Buds Walkie-Talkiing After Bedtime

Mobutu Sese Seko · 04/17/12 02:38PM

Two Sundays ago, the New York Times ran an article about Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two have known each other for about 35 years. They went through Boston Consulting Group's "boot camp" together. They "can almost speak in shorthand." They finish each other's sentences and once accidentally ate from opposite ends of the same long strand of spaghetti. Their lives are an endless geopolitical meet-cute: Romney wants to run the nuclear big-box store of the United States, but he has enough love in his heart that he'd never crush the beautiful Middle Eastern shop around the corner.

Rick Santorum Drops Out of Race

Emma Carmichael · 04/10/12 01:19PM

The Washington Post reports that Rick Santorum has officially suspended his presidential campaign, which essentially concedes the GOP nomination to wealthy talking hairpiece Mitt Romney. Santorum lost to Romney in Wisconsin, Maryland, and D.C. over the past three weeks, and his campaign (as well as Romney's approach to his most formidable opponent) has shifted in recent weeks in the wake of his three-year-old daughter's illness.

'Three Amigos,' Trio of Public School Employees, Anonymously Claim Maryland's Mega Millions

Emma Carmichael · 04/10/12 12:40PM

It turns out that Maryland's Mega Millions winner is not the wonderful Mirlande Wilson, who is likely still looking for her pants, nor is it a single person—it's a trio of school employees who went in on lottery tickets together. They're attempting to remain anonymous and will be known simply as the "Three Amigos," which roughly translates to, "We Are Fucking Loaded Now."

Decoding the Beyoncé Tumblr

Anne Helen Petersen · 04/09/12 03:20PM

Earlier this week, The Beyoncé tumblr went live. And there was much rejoicing: across the web, gossip sites and news organizations alike trumpeted her decision to cultivate a web presence. Various articles figure the "release" of the site in vaguely mystical terms: Beyoncé celebrated her fourth anniversary with Jay-Z on April 4th (4/4); she was "born" onto the web on 4/5.