New Feature: I Read Twilight and Hate it

I have decided to read Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. I've already done some reading about Twilight, which leads me to dislike the series, but I've never read the actual books. This makes is somewhat difficult to impress on people that have read it that it is a bad book, as all the Twilight fans would just accuse me of criticizing something I didn't even know or understand (and they would be right)¹. I've decided to read Twilight partially to give it a fair chance, but mostly so that I can criticize it better. Also, because I usually try to avoid any book or TV series which becomes suddenly and intensely popular, but sometimes (after it's been out for awhile) my curiosity gets the best of me, much like it did with the Harry Potter series.
Actually, Harry Potter became somewhat of a guilty pleasure, where I enjoyed reading it but was still able to recognize that it wasn't actually good² (sort of like when I would watch "Jackie Chan Adventures"). Really, though, my prediction about Twilight is that I will neither think that it is good nor enjoy it, at least not how it was meant to be enjoyed. Still, I'd like to give the series a fair shake before judging it further (well, maybe not fair, but a shake at any rate). What I do believe I will enjoy is tearing it a new literary hole here, on my blog. You see, I'm introducing a new feature today on Dotted Pomegranates; it's called "I Read Twilight and Hate It." It's meant to be a chapter-by-chapter criticism of the book, as well as a synopsis and substitute to actually reading it, for those in the same situation as me. Look forward to installments, soon.
¹: And if you have read it but say that you hated it, then they just ask "Well, why did you read it then?" It's a bit of a Catch-22
²: I still maintain that Harry Potter is not a good series. I will explain why I think this in a separate post, if necessary.

How much people want to have sex with you.

      This mostly describes heterosexual relationships, because that’s what I know.

 

 

(As usual, totally made up and not based on actual data).

Compounded Stereotypes

As a litmus test for racism, I often hear the question, "If you're walking down the sidewalk at night, and you see a black man walking towards you on the same side of the street, do you cross the street?" A yes-answer is supposed to indicate that you have an ingrained fear of blacks, as evidence of personal or societal racism. Have you ever noticed that they always use a black man in the example and not a black woman, though? I think that if they used a black woman in the question, then less people would say that they would cross the street. This question is meant to serve as a litmus test for racism but it also serves well as a litmus test for sexism.
The thing is, everyone is going to have at least two sets of stereotypes applied to them; one for their sex and one for their race. They could have more if they are, for example, gay or handicapped, but it seems that two would be the minimum that anyone would face. The problem with the "black man" stereotype is that there are a number of stereotypes about African Americans that are also stereotypes about men; notably, that they are more violent, more likely to commit a crime, more callous, and more preoccupied with showing dominance to those around them. I feel that, because there are two traits for which the same set of stereotypes are applied to black men, these stereotypes are compounded.

Most Hilarious Misuse of an Apostrophe Ever

 

   I remember when I was a kid; every Christmas, Dad would break out his Love Tools and… wait, what?

Which operating system is right for you?

Here’s a little flowchart I made, for people who are thinking of buying a new computer but aren’t sure which operating system to get:

Sorry if it’s hard to read; I can upload a larger version if necessary.

Anti-Troling

    I'm going to introduce a new fun activity on the internet; a new way to mess with people with ideology-centered message boards.  I call it "anti-trolling."  Anyone who's been on the internet for awhile is probably familiar with trolling; the act of going to a message board or chat room and saying things solely for the purpose of annoying and harassing everyone there or to provoke an argument.  Anti-trolling is sort of like acting in the opposite of that, but with the same effect. 
    Basically, I got the idea when I noticed that a lot of message boards considered anyone who disagreed with the ideology of the message board to be a troll and usually banning them.  So, since it's usually so easy to get banned while disagreeing with a community, I wanted to see how easy it was to get banned by agreeing with it, fervently and aggressively.  For instance; if it's a right-wing message board, you can act like the most jingoistic, liberal-hating, belligerent conservative that you could imagine, and talk about things, like how you think that it would be a good idea to round up every member of the Democratic Party and shoot them, etc.  Then, sit back and watch while people with moderately left-leanings opinions are all banned for trolling, while you get away with idiotic post after idiotic post.  It's fun.
    There's only certain kinds of message boards that this works for, however.  First of all, it has to be a community based around an ideology (which you will aggressively embrace).  That ideology could be political ("the Iraq war needs to end now") or non-political ("Twilight is the best book series, evar").  Secondly, you'll want to pick a message board that's heavily moderated, and has a tendency to ban people for officering opinions that clash with the above-mentioned ideology. 
    For my anti-trolling experiment, I chose the previously-mentioned "I Blame the Patriarchy" message board¹.  It was great until I eventually did banned and then the message board shut down soon after.  I didn't actually end up getting banned for the wacky-ass ideas I was submitting on the board, but because they somehow found out that I wasn't who I was pretending to be.  But oh well, guess I'll just have to be more careful next time.

 

 

¹: This link is to the old message board, which I would frequent.  Iblamethepatriarchy.com links to a new(?) one, but it’s not loading for me. 

Culture Lag

   Have ever noticed that the world doesn't tend to work in the same way as it does in the media? Take high school for instance.  Based on any movie or TV show you may watch about high school life, you may be lead to believe that there's a rigid caste system for popularity, with the cheerleaders and football hotshots ruling the school with an iron fist.  You may be lead to believe that every student falls neatly into an easily identifiable clique; jocks, nerds, goths, etc, and only keeps friends within that specific group. All these perceptions about high school life, in my experience at least, are completely false.  There is no real hierarchy of popularity, no social royalty.  All the cheerleaders I knew were very nice an approachable (actually, it tended to be the geeky girls who were the most stuck up and superficial, but I digress).  There were no well-defined social groups; everyone just had their own little list of people that they were friends with.
   And yet, throughout much of my time in high school, I still tended to believe that social politics in high school functioned like they did in the movies, despite the fact that I could see for myself that this wasn't true.  This might be how high school used to be, but I was seeing it as how high school currently was.  Basically, I believed these facts about high school to be currently true, because they were previously true.  It's a phenomenon I call Culture Lag.
   Here's how I think it works: the people of one generation experience something (for example, high school) in a certain way.  They then go on to produce media which portrays things how they experienced.  The next generation then watches that media and begins to think that things work how they are portrayed in it, rather than how they actually experience it.  Thus, people are basing their perceptions of reality on other people's (previous) observations, rather than their own.