Ah, placing the blame elsewhere — as American a tradition as…oh, I don’t know…teens having sex. Remember Grease? Remember Hair? Teens have been having sex for as long as hormones have begun to rage at puberty. Sexting is just an example of them using technology to do it.

In an interview at MomLogic, writer Rosalind Wiseman, who penned the book “Queen Bees & Wannabes,” talks about the work she’s doing with LG to educate parents on the inherent dangers of texting, text bullying and sexting.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I know that the problem with sexting is that the pictures can be forwarded around more easily than, say, a young boy’s memory of having seen boobs. And so, yes — there needs to be more education around it, and more conversations with teens. But appealing to cell phone companies is a great way for parents who feel like they don’t understand their kids, or who are too nervous to directly address the issue, to avoid having any meaningful conversations with their teens about sex, to figure out why their kids might be sexting (which, in terms of decision-making, is probably akin to having unprotected sex), and to accept the fact that sexuality is a part of being a teenager. Addressing it from a technological point of view — kind of like trying to keep kids from boning by not telling them anything about sex — is only circumventing the real issue, which is that most teens don’t know what the fuck they’re doing when it comes to sex. And when they see their parents point fingers in every other direction, it teaches them to do the same.

I also take issue with a part of this interview in which author Kate Tuttle comments that this is a problem that “our generation never had to deal with.” The motives underlying text bullying and sexting are ones that every generation has had to deal with. Girls have always had their reputations ruined for all of time. To say that this is some sort of new phenomenon because it uses new technology is to unnecessarily create a divide between us (the grown-ups) and them (the kids), and it simultaneously demonizes the kids and turns them into something that adults can’t possibly understand — and so, have to turn to other adults (i.e., cell phone companies!) to “fix.”

Damaging all around, if you ask me.

Post from: TheGloss

Listen, I like Ellen. What’s not to like? She’s funny, she dances, she asks the tough questions to people like John McCain and all the while, she maintains her likability. But she SUCKED as an American Idol judge. I mean, there’s just no nice way to put it. She loved everyone, and it was clear that it pained her to have to dole out any criticism. The look in her eyes when someone was bad and she knew she might have to say something less than kindly to them was just…well, it was like watching someone who had been forced to kick a puppy. Or like when Lorena finally let the werewolves to suck all the blood out of Bill Compton last week.

That’s the kind of judge Ellen was. And so my guess is that she’ll be happier being a fan, which is a win-win for everyone.

Post from: TheGloss

Why, just this week I had hair removed from my person in two entirely different ways, both of which hurt like hell. And as I was lying there today, under the searing laser of the hair-removal machine, I was wondering — why the fuck am I doing this?

I didn’t come up with a good answer, other than that excess body hair makes me really self-conscious (yes, because of unfair beauty standards, the pressure of which I have yet to figure out how to buck), but I did come up with the idea to take a look at the amount of money and pain that we (OK…I) go through in an average year to meet American standards of beauty. Prices include tip, and the pain scale that I made up for this exercise is from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most painful. (Relatively. Not as compared to, say, having a limb cut off.)

Eyebrow Maintenance
Cost: $15 every three weeks for threading
Pain Level: 4

Pedicures
Cost: $25 a month (slacker)
Pain Level: 1

Exercise
Cost: $59 a month
Pain Level: 3

Makeup
Cost: $25 a month
Pain Level: 1, barring an accident

Hair Cut and Color
Cost: $160 every three months 640
Pain Level: 1

Laser Hair Removal
Cost: $150 a session, 4 sessions = $600
Pain Level: 5

Beauty Products, i.e. lotions, scrubs, cleansers, toners, etc.
Cost: $40 a month (approximately)
Pain Level: 1

Total Cost: $3,323
Pain Average: 2.29

So there you have it. I could put down a payment on a car, or I could continue my beauty rituals, none of which are a necessity but rather a result of my cowtowing to fashion.

I wish that I could say that this little exercise will change my behavior, but I doubt it will. I think that’s in part because some of these beauty rituals, like pedicures, have become equated with “fun” in my mind, and are likely to stay that way. Also, it’s really, really, really hard to figure out a way to have body hair in places you don’t want it and a unibrow, as a woman, and still feel good about yourself when you’re likely to be mocked as a hippie/radical feminist, and would be seen as sloppy and not keeping up.

What do you think? Are these rituals just part of basic hygiene and grooming, like shaving for men, or are they opressive standards?

Post from: TheGloss

I mean, seriously, Obama?? Don’t you have people who brief you on what’s important in the world today? Don’t you have two daughters? And most importantly, aren’t you worried about public opinion polls? Let’s not forget that more people voted in American Idol than voted in the presidential election, which leads me to believe that more people know who Snooki is than have any idea who Shirley Sherrod is, the firing of whom was apparently a hot topic during his unprecedented (haha….sorry) visit. That said, the American people want a President they can sit down and have a beer with…and talk about why Snooki should totally break up with her new juicehead this season, because she’s too young and wild to settle down!

Honestly, if you can’t have that conversation with me, give me one good reason why I should help make you the leader of the free world.

Post from: TheGloss

Post from: TheGloss

Thanks muchly to all of you who come here, read stuff, leave comments, and generally make it fun for us to come into work every day.

Post from: TheGloss

In 1910, William Jennings Bryan used the famous whistle-stop train to campaign for a proposed Constitutional amendment against special interests. That is: to spread a message, he literally spoke out of the back of a train, after which more coal was shoveled into the firebox and they hurried on to the next town, where he could do it again. (Here’s a photo of Gerald and Betty Ford doing a whistle-stop tour in 1976, just to be cute). So, sure, when train travel was a good way of getting your message out, (almost) any publicity was good publicity. It really depended on whether you were running for office or selling a new brand of girdle.

Even once television took hold, publicity was hard to come by. My mom, who is in her early fifties, often told me stories about having “only three channels” on television, and how if someone was on Johnny Carson, basically every single person in America had seen it or at least knew about it. (My mother is also adamant that, when the Jackson 5 first appeared on Johnny Carson, she was the one who predicted that Michael would be a big deal). So, if you could get Johnny Carson to mention your name or product even in a derogatory way, sure, any publicity was good publicity.

Publicity is now, comparatively, really easy to get. There is more media than anyone can consume or even know about. In the ’60s, if you were on television regularly, you were definitely A Famous Person.  Today, there are not only more television shows than anyone can keep track of, there are entire television networks many culturally- literate people have never heard of. Try this: next time someone asks you what you do, say that you host a television show. If the person seems like a big hipster, say it’s late-night on EW. If the person seems not like a hipster, say it’s late-night on IFC. Pick some believable semi-celebrities you recently interviewed, like Lo Bosworth, or Levi Johnston’s family members. 90% chance you’ll get away with it.

On a more down-to-earth note, when I went on an East Coast tour as a comedian in 2007, getting press was really, really easy. If you do something cool in, say, Durham, people would like to know about it. Neat! Everyone’s happy! Even if you don’t get a feature article in the local alternative newsweekly, you will definitely be in the calendar, because the calendar lists literally everything that is happening. In New York, you can fly in a troupe of singing Maori children and still have to fellate someone to get listed in TimeOut under “Tuesday.”

But if print doesn’t work out, there are blogs! And if you do an interview that gets cut from the print edition of the newspaper because there’s a bomb threat at the local Stop & Shop, your piece will still go up online. Newspapers aren’t going to let content go to waste once it’s been created.

If you have a bit more time on your hands, actually create the free content yourself. Plenty of highly-read blogs would be happy to take free content from you, provided that the free content is itself informative and/or entertaining and only promotes your event/product obliquely (here’s an example). Every time you open a local newspaper and see one of those how-to columns on homebuying — always next to a photo of a smiling, glossy-haired real estate agent — you’re seeing someone who’s trading content generation for publicity. You can also do this for things that aren’t lame.

In fact, if your career would be helped by being able to say that you have PR experience, I highly recommend either developing some kind of cool performance or event, or attaching yourself to someone else’s, and then going on the road to various small and medium-sized American cities, and getting press. Seriously: if it’s election time, try a political trivia show. If people are making a big deal about Crystal Renn, put on a plus-size fashion show. Anytime is a good time for a charity fundraiser. These things are not hard to do (I once, through a strange confluence of events, guest-wrote two pages of a book, explaining to religious people how to put on a modest fashion show). Then book a small theater or find an amenable bar or community space, schedule your event, send event listings and friendly emails to all the local news outlets and blogs, get in your car or on a Greyhound bus, go do your show, and email the Flickr link late that night to any bloggers and journalists who sounded interested but couldn’t make it. Now you have clips! Your resume is now full of PR experience!

So, publicity: there’s plenty of it to go around.

Post from: TheGloss

Post from: TheGloss

So I checked out Project Runway on Fanfiction.net, and there’s nothing. I googled “Tim Gunn fanfiction.” Nothing. How is this even possible? Tim Gunn is the uber-fanfic character. Even his sexuality is mildly ambiguous (we all know he’s gay, but you could have him play straight). He’s always perfectly dressed and has very recognizable mannerisms. Did I mention there’s a comic book about him? He’s pretty much the most perfect person to write fanfiction about, ever.

I was going to copy and paste some excerpts from great Tim Gunn fanfiction I found, but since I can’t find any, you should just imagine the rest of this blank space filled with tears. I’ll add in some asterisks to help you imagine them.

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Post from: TheGloss

Too chicken to break up with someone? You can hire someone to do it for you. If only the guy who dumped me via voicemail had known about this. – Lemondrop

Is 18 bridesmaids too many? If you have to sit and think about that, you may be beyond help. – Wedinator

Would you ever place bets on your amount of weight loss? If so, we host a poker game on Friday nights. – Blisstree

This “Little Black Book” iPhone app not only helps you keep track of your dates, it helps you rank them. I guess Android users are less discerning about who they hook up with. – YourTango

Gwyneth Paltrow agrees with Lilit that Tom Ford’s lipsticks are the bestest. – GOOP

Post from: TheGloss