Comments on: What I Learned From Stereogum

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:38:39 +0000

This article was remotely interesting until it turned into (yet) another long, convoluted piece of crap. If you feel the need to jerk-off, why not write for a porn blog? See Brooklyn Vegan’s blog-roll for a list of eligible publishers…

By: dabug

dabug — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 03:48:55 +0000

Woops,

English: [web.archive.org]
Spanish: [www.literatura.us]

By: dabug

dabug — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 03:47:20 +0000

Think someone already said it, but the Borges reference on the heels of the Grad School comment came across as an “insert-literary-figure-some-people-have-maybe-heard-of” move — and anyway, BARTHES would have been funnier because it’s closer to Mike’s actual name. Roffles @ Barthe(l)s. (In the future, a handy http://www.english.swt.edu=“” cohen_p=”" avant-garde=”" literature=”" borges=”" menard.html=”">[www.english.swt.edu]“>LINK to the short story would probably get yer point across. Just think of how many Stereogum commenters would be converted into Borges fans!)

The Quixote story doesn’t really seem to resonate with Mike’s original post anyway, even if the link to cover versions might seem obvious — Mike is interested in highlighting all of the little but significant changes that totally transform the song, whereas such changes, in the Borges piece, would be a sign of a “failure” of the project, which (IIRC, haven’t read it in a few years) is to totally replicate, note for note, Don Quixote from the sensibility of someone who isn’t Cervantes (writing it to the word “as Menard.” The new meanings can’t come through stylistic changes in the text — the “new meanings” are everywhere BUT the text.

By: TheRunningboard7

TheRunningboard7 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:42:00 +0000

I was going to say "Be thankful this didn't happen with you and a sports blog, because you'd've just been called a fag," but I've seen it become popular around Chicago indie-kid groups for everyone to call everyone else a fag. I hope that's just the trust fund microcosm, as that's all I saw.

Are you owned by the same company yet? That's scary. I'll admit that I've had my share of issues with this site, but I think you've improved a lot since the Gawker thing was announced (and I always liked this better than stereogum).

By: westartedthis

westartedthis — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:14:02 +0000

i’m surprised Stosuy didn’t address the fact that this post (probably unintentionally) insinuates that he doesn’t like metal.

By: MTS

MTS — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:50:18 +0000

I don’t know what it says about when when I see “tl; dr” and mistake it for misplaced HTML.

By: brownham

brownham — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:34:21 +0000

blog fight between blogs owned by the same company.

clap clap, you ARE kinda a douche. it's ok

By: scott pgwp

scott pgwp — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:34:09 +0000

Just noticed that you can rate individual comments at Stereogum. Poor Mike got a -16. But that was only second-lowest. Some dude who said Creep sucks got -60. What a bizarre function to have in the comments…

By: Lucas Jensen

Lucas Jensen — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:05:25 +0000

@SomeSound-MostlyFury: None taken, I swear. I realized I came off snotty!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:46:29 +0000

Wait how is Stereogum indie again?

By: Dan Gibson

Dan Gibson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:44:30 +0000

@Kate Richardson: Would that require reading? If so, count me out.

By: SomeSound-MostlyFury

SomeSound-MostlyFury — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:27:23 +0000

@Kate Richardson: Only if its a blog where someone posts five words or less and we have to guess which Borges piece they are referring to.

Inaugural post: "Mirrors!"

By: anumberofnames

anumberofnames — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:02:51 +0000

I wouldn’t care about or even remember the name Brandon Stosuy were it not for his “Top 50 Singles of 2003″ synopsis of Missy Elliott’s “Gossip Folks,” in which he claims that “the use of invented language and implied meaning as a central hook is pretty radical in all senses,” yet he somehow fails to mention that the radical hook originates from Frankie Smith’s 1981 “Double Dutch Bus.” Stosuy was just so psyched to be living at the bloody cutting edge of the future that he couldn’t believe that the past ever existed.

By: Kate Richardson

Kate Richardson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:56:05 +0000

Let’s just start a blog about Borges.

By: scott pgwp

scott pgwp — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:45:14 +0000

Worth noting, I think, that while Stosuy’s post took Mike’s post out of context and had one or two lines of anti-intellectual snark (yet making a Borges reference so obscure it actually out-intelletualized the intellectual clip it was mocking!), it was the commenters who took it to the extreme of anti-intellectualism.

But really, turning this comments thread into a forum for bashing Stereogum–its writers or its readers/commenters–I think misses the point Mike is trying to make here. Which is, duh, peeps need to smarten up.

By: fac51x

fac51x — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:44:40 +0000

My favorite bit of this whole thing is the extraneous apostrophe in Stosuy's first paragraph:

"That said, it's been difficult finding reliable footage of the Purple One's take on the top of the Modern Rock 500, because Prince's NPG people are extremely thorough about removing the clips, including the one's we've tried linking."

Do they allow that in Grad School?

By: Lax Danja House

Lax Danja House — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:30:52 +0000

tl;dr is coming back, man.

By: phaballa

phaballa — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:06:08 +0000

I guess you're not "cool" enough to know that no one says tl;dr anymore. Now it's all about the teal deers.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed your original post, and I got what you were trying to say; people who quote things you've written and purposely misinterpret them (or try to interpret your intentions for writing them in the first place) are basically attention-seeking jerks who want to feel better than everyone else by being "cool" with their anti-intellectualism.

That's what fandom_wank is for. I think we don't need no hateration here.

By: NoOneCaresAboutYourFuckingBlog

NoOneCaresAboutYourFuckingBlog — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:05:48 +0000

What are you trying to say here? I don’t know. The post got a little too long and intellectual for me so I stopped reading about halfway through.

By: NeverEnough

NeverEnough — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:51:09 +0000

@SomeSound-MostlyFury: *fondly remembering the first time my husband and I engaged in "gentle ribbing"*