Made Fun!

Hey, have you seen ‘Who Is That Hot Girl?’ on Tumblr? On the surface, it’s another site about hot women. On the other hand, it’s a blog that dedicated to giving names and quick backgrounds to generally unknown actresses in the industry. Also, I support attractive ladies doing their thing, so I’m cool with seeing more of them. 

For example:

Q: Who is the cute girl/actress in the Apple Facetime Haircut commercial?

A: Kether Donohue. She is a 25 year old actress who also does voice work. She is best known for the voice of the temperamental divaesque Lily on the Nicktoons Network “anime” series Kappa Mikey, Luna & Angela Rains on Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, and Zoe on Dinosaur King. Donahue was also featured in the video for “Coder Girl” by Dale Chase. Thanks Wikipedia.

Now where’s the blog about hot dudes? Because I also support them.

Have you heard the song “Page Rank” by Chuck? It’s about good SEO practices. I would just like to thank Schoolhouse Rock, the entire hip-hop generation, and the Internet for leading us to this glorious 21st century moment:

I don’t teach any best practices for SEO seminars, but if I ever do, I’m recreating this whole experience.

(Source: videogum.com)

Hello people.  I’m Clea, and I’m the latest newbie writer for this website.  Okay then, here I go. 

I have something of a love/annoyed-by relationship with Pitchfork.  My musical roots are very pop-oriented, and it used to be that lots of folks’ guilty pleasure bands were just my straight-up favorites. But in the past couple of years my tastes have started to lean more towards the indie than they have in the past—these days, Pitchfork’s album reviews are generally my go-to when I’m looking for new tunes.   But my musical journey of magical discovery isn’t solely to blame for this.  I think it’s coincided with Pitchfork generally becoming more receptive of musicians that might be associated more with pop culture, rather than indie culture.  Either way, the fact that I can no longer assume that their reviewers are gonna hate everything I love is a very strange feeling.    

However, it’s usually still safe for me to assume that my tastes are nowhere near hip enough to jive with Pitchfork’s year-end Best Of lists.  This assumption is almost always correct, but for the first time this year, the album they chose as their favorite album of 2010 was also my favorite album of the year.  That would be Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, of course.  It’s not surprising in the least, or at least it shouldn’t be—I’m sure that lots of people with ears liked  this album more than they liked anything else this year.  Honestly, what can I say about its greatness that thousands of music journalists and bloggers haven’t already said? My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the shit.  It speaks to me, I can’t stop listening to it, I adore pretty much every second on it, etc.  

So why am I surprised at Pitchfork’s choice?  I’m surprised at my surprise that they failed to surprise me!  The thing is though, while Kanye was totally the obvious choice this year (I believe that his album was the only one that got a rating of 10.0 this year), I half-expected them to pick something else just to be purposefully indier-than-thou.  I was half-expecting a repeat performance of the 2005 brouhaha that occurred when they chose Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise over Kanye’s Late Registration for album of the year.  That choice inspired a myriad of accusations that no matter how much they claimed to enjoy Clipse, Pitchfork was and always would be hopelessly biased towards white dudes with guitars playing indie rock.  

Five years later, they’re giving Kanye his due, and whether or not the staff at Pitchfork intended it to be, of course it seems like some kind of statement.  It seems to mark a shift for the website, and for indie culture in general.  Just as mainstream pop culture has embraced indie music (see: the mainstream popularity of Modest Mouse , Kings of Leon, Phoenix, and more bands than I could possibly list), indie culture—and, I feel, high-brow artsy fartsy culture in general—has been less and less disdainful of pop culture.  The December 6 issue of The New Yorker profiled Kanye West, and a focus on pop music in general is no longer unusual for a magazine that is still the most recognized hallmark of highbrow culture.  Wherever you look, it seems pop culture’s being taken more and more seriously.  

I can’t help but think that the internet has a lot to do with this, if only because it’s making more stuff from all over the cultural spectrum available to more people.  My generation is maturing to the tunes of Lady Gaga and Animal Collective at the same time, and we’re paying close attention to both Mad Men and Jersey Shore.  I know that some mourn the death of subcultures that used to mark new musical movements (punks listening to punk music, ravers listening to house music, etc.), but I think that it has resulted in a music scene that is more diverse and more creative, not less.  

Personally, I’m super pleased that Kanye is getting props from such high-minded establishments.  I love it!  More of that, please!  It’s exciting to see the critics acknowledging the shifts in our cultural landscape.  Thanks, Pitchfork; maybe I won’t mock you so much now.