December 17, 2017

Something must have happened to Pajamas Media sometime.

This grabbed me by the eyeballs and I opened up the app called Grab and made this capture for you:



That's the "Editor's Choice" in the sidebar when I clicked on "Meryl Streep Admits She Reads Drudge, Watches Fox News."*

Let's talk about the psychology of Pajamas Media or, more accurately, the psychology Pajamas Media imagines in its readers. Somebody there believes that putting those 3 things together will work on you to click one. And they can see which one readers choose. Which way does your anxiety lead you? You can always calm yourself with the "overrated male musicians" if the idea of sexualized boys and adult wussies is too disturbing.

You might take refuge in "overrated male musicians" because it's the one that's not overtly sexual, and you know you'll see familiar faces — warning: you have to click through multiple pages — and you can dreamily lose yourself in contemplating how highly these men are rated and then whether they should really be rated lower. Hey! If you do that, maybe you're experiencing "modern life" and getting transformed into a wussy. What manly man gives a fuck whether musicians are overrated? By the way, the listicle is written by a woman and she begins by talking about Woody Allen and his 40-year-old riff from "Manhattan" about which writers are overrated.

I skimmed "How Modern Life Transforms Men into Wussies," including clicking through 4 pages. Apparently, men these days watch action movies and play video games instead of doing manly outdoor things. Well, if you're reading that article, you're probably not flexing your muscles out in the elements. And be careful. You're a modern man on the precipice of the wussy-making machine. You may be moved to comment over there, participating by whimpering something like: "So you just finished pointing out just how crappy the situation is for men, and then chide us for not participating in it?" Poor man. He should have opened door #3 where he could have calmly nodded over the notion that Stevie Wonder is overrated.

Need I open door #2, "New York Times Celebrates Sexualization of 10-Year-Old Boy"? It must attract PJ Media clicks, since it's an article that's already almost a month old. Of course, the NYT article doesn't talk about the "sexualization" of the boy, and it certainly doesn't "celebrate sexualization" of a child. It merely enthuses about a boy wearing what would be a depressing shitload of makeup on a grown woman. The PJ Media article chides the NYT: "Apparently, there are... many cosmetics companies and fashion magazines willing to whore out young boys for the sake of sales and clicks." But PJ Media is also using that madeup boy to get clicks, and it's putting "sexualization" in the article title and pimping it — weeks after its original publication — in the sidebar under a headline written to scare men about the world turning them into "wussies."

________________________

* Don't get too excited about that nonnews. Meryl Streep is talking about news media, because she's in a new Steven Spielberg movie about the Pentagon Papers. She plays the role "of Washington Post reporter Katharine Graham," as PJ Media puts it. Katharine Graham wasn't a "reporter." She owned the newspaper and was its publisher. Anyway, Streep was answering questions about what media she consumes, she listed a lot of things, and on mentioning Fox, added that she looks at it "to see the manipulation." All the media manipulate, so I only wonder if she tries to see manipulation when she looks at media that lean the way she likes, but I'm not a reporter, I'm not interviewing Meryl Streep. I'm just a humble blogger prying my way into Pajamas Media at 5 in the morning.

50 comments:

George M. Spencer said...

"I concede all the blessings we must all concede -- incredible amounts of luck, sources willing & even finally a few eager to talk & help. I concede the role of the courts, grand juries & congressional committees. We didn't bring him down."

Thank Judge Sirica...and reporters at other newspapers. Really, how hard is it to take leaks from a senior FBI official?

Text of hand-written note from Katharine Graham to Woodward and Bernstein after Nixon resigned, accord to article at Poynter, an institution that teaches ethics to journalists.

Thank Judge Sirica...and reporters at other newspapers. Really, how hard is it to take leaks from a senior FBI official?

rhhardin said...

There's a Croatian CW (morse code) Contest but the band was no good last night or they all went to bed. I got Ukraine, Croatia, Italy, Hungary and New Hampshire.

Manly stuff.

Oso Negro said...

You should give Breitbart another chance!

tim in vermont said...

Just looking at Fox and Drudge “for the manipulations” elevates Streep as a news consumer far above the vast majority of the Hollywood set. What got to me about the story was the rest of them, Spielberg included, who spoke of “trust” in the media. I guess he has to reserve the energy of his undoubtedly capacious mind <<-- (Stole that from Mary Shelly in Frankenstein) for his work, but still, if consuming the news doesn’t engage your critical thinking faculties, why bother? It’s not going to change the way you vote.

If it weren’t for Insty constantly “Rick rolling” me into PJ, I wouldn’t ever go there. Roger Simon to me, is the Gail Collins of the right.

But I will say this. Jerry Fucking Garcia is the most over-rated guitarist ever. Not that I don’t enjoy the Grateful Dead from time to time, it’s not for Garcia, especially since I was informed in these pages by people who actually care about that band that he didn’t even write their lyrics, which are what make that band listenable.

tim in vermont said...

You should give Breitbart another chance!

I read it for the manipulations, <<(Not kidding) and occasional links to media that can be trusted to have fact checked their sources. I never read it for their analysis.

Ann Althouse said...

"You should give Breitbart another chance!"

Don't forget The Daily Caller.

David said...

I read everything for the manipulations. My favorites are where the manipulation is overt and frank. The writer is seeking to persuade me about something and tells me what and why.

David said...

As for those three articles: none of the above for me.

Kate said...

Normally I would want to watch a movie about Katherine Graham -- an Important Woman at an Important Moment. Hanks and Spielberg with Streep. I would rather drink Windex than watch The Post.

tim in vermont said...

I read everything for the manipulations.

Yeah, me too, but sometimes somebody gets to a level where you trust them enough to give weight to their analyses. Mark Steyn, James Taranto, Rush Limbaugh.

dreams said...

Real men don't become liberals, I know that.

Humperdink said...

"Don't forget The Daily Caller."

I wonder how much Tucker Carlson is still involved in this site, now that he has his own show.
It's one of my go-to news sites. Much to my surprise, Carlson is a a very interviewer.

gilbar said...

hey rhhardin?
I'm years out of date, and have been wanting to ask for a while;
do American hams still use CW? Do most people get Technical licenses, or is there some new CW free license for voice only?
heck, do they even still use SSB? Do they still use 40 meter?

Oh, I'd better tie this in so the professor doesn't accuse me of thread stealing... Do modern wussie hams use code, or do they use some loser teletype crap?
thanx!

rhhardin said...

The FCC no longer requires code for any license, so no young hams know it. There's lots of CW but they're all over 60 years old.

It used to be, when I was 12, I'd tell my age so that the other guy knew what sort of conversation to expect. Now everybody is giving their age and how long they've been a ham, e.g. 83 and ham 62 years, as a grandchildren-type conversation point. Also what they used to do before they retired.

SSB is big as always, and digital modes are turning up. 40m is the best band around at the moment.

I'm all CW. Morse has a music to it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

eh. It cannot all be an outlet for the democrats and their hacks.
Sometimes writers need to bitch about subjects that don't pertain to the big lie. Even if those subjects are tired and boring.

David Begley said...

“Amy Pascal, producer of "The Post," piped in: "Now everybody has their own news programs and things that they read and, except for Meryl, nobody reads the other sides."

Stay in your silos you Libs. We have Althouse to pick out the best from WaPo and the NYT so we can see the manipulation. And New Day on CNN and Morning Joe on MSNBC is always good for a strong dose of TDS.

David Begley said...

This movie will bomb. Libs just reliving their glory days while the biggest scandal in American political history is ignored by them.

Follow the money. Check Point Shaver Strzok’s bitcoin account.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Meryl Streep is so blinded by the big insular leftwing ivory tower Hillarywoodland lie, she carefully peeks at some truth with large skepticisms. Be careful, Meryl - manipulations are lurking, trying to lure you out of the Strozk.

George M. Spencer said...

Near the bottom of the Hollywood Reporter group interview, this:

Is there one person in the media today you particularly admire?

SPIELBERG I like Don Lemon. I like Rachel Maddow.

HANNAH The bravery Anderson Cooper has, to go into war zones, is pretty admirable.

SPIELBERG Yeah and I adore and follow Christiane Amanpour.

STREEP And Maggie Haberman. I tend to trust the women.

Obviously not a question in the interview about the weaponization of the FBI by one party against another.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

George M Spencer

Geez - the hivemind insular are in constant drooling adoration mode. Did they break out some golden statues and slap each other on the back?

Shocka - Hillarywoodland insiders like the hacks on CNN.

Tank said...

Is there a story about Frankin actually resigning?

tim in vermont said...

I “trust” Glenn Reynolds too, but he doesn’t bloviate all that much, which is one of the charms of his site.

gilbar said...

thanx rhhardin !
I loved listening to code, even though I never even learned more then about 5 letters; it does sound great.

I'm looking at a WWII surplus 40 meter radio that's sitting on my self as I type. You make me want to string up some wire and turn it on: BOY, would those tubes be surprised! They've been napping since 1988 :)

Heartless Aztec said...

Saw all of it. Clicked none of it. Reading the addition link about Prince and his high heel fetish you added on in the stiletto posting was enough. The man did give good show. Now off to the outside to do manly sports not wearing my heeled Cuban boots.

Ann Althouse said...

I saw a lot of Spielberg movies up until 2002, and I even really liked the last one I saw, which was "Catch Me If You Can." And when I look at the list of movies right before that, I can say I only missed one:

2002 Minority Report
2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1997 Amistad
1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park
1993 Schindler's List
1993 Jurassic Park
1991 Hook

The one I missed was the second Jurassic Park movie.

But the reason I stopped watching Spielberg movies is that they got too ponderous. I didn't like Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Schindler's List very much. I don't like that kind of movie making. There's something wrong with that kind of heavy-handed melodrama based on history. I don't avoid serious history. I often choose books on subjects like that. But movies seem exploitative and wrong. The medium is the (wrong) message.

Ann Althouse said...

Something about Hollywood's love for itself rubs me the wrong way. And now we know how corrupt some of these people are. It's like eating at a restaurant where you're not sure how the food was handled.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

W7SUB.

Wince said...

"Need I open door #2...?"

That's what I love about Althouse. She's like our own Monty Hall and Carol Merrill rolled into one.

Meade is like Jay Stuart, who would carry the smaller boxes on tables to the contestants, or sit in a huge carriage dressed as a baby with a giant lollipop. ZONK!

tim in vermont said...

rharden, did you catch that Steele and the FBI were using HAM radio to communicate in a way that is all but untraceable? I have to admit that it was pretty darn clever. No machine readable addresses on the messages, they could use code pages which are all but unbreakable. Not that anybody would be listening to the conversations anyway. It would just be blips in the night, ignored by everybody else.

tim in vermont said...

Nobody keeps a fleet of radio direction finding trucks anymore, except maybe the BBC to locate people who aren’t paying their taxes.

David Begley said...

It was the wife of the DOJ lawyer who was a Russian expert at Fusion GPS who used the ham radio.

I wonder if they talked about bitcoin?

Wince said...

Top counter intelligence FBI agent Peter Strzok's ubiquity has been compared to movie characters "Zelig" and "Forrest Gump."

Like The Reckoning, Zelig was produced as a collaboration of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow (allegedly).

And nobody accused of sexual impropriety at this point can claim "it's just this war and that lying son of a bitch Trump!"

Doesn't mean they won't try.

Anonymous said...


Sexualized dingoes ate my overrated musicians.

tim in vermont said...
rharden, did you catch that Steele and the FBI were using HAM radio to communicate in a way that is all but untraceable?


Check out "number stations".

Daniel Jackson said...

I don't know, Professor; I think you're being a bit harsh. I read Roger Simon regularly and it was through PJ Media and Donald Sensing, Sense of Events (disclosure: where I used to blog), that I became an equally avid follower of your blog and followers.

A bit more "high-brow" perhaps; but, within the larger collective of those who are not invested in the Establishment and their lies.

Be kind; play nice.

Michael K said...

"I'm looking at a WWII surplus 40 meter radio that's sitting on my self as I type."

Did you ever see the movie "Frequency?" I liked it.
I had a ham license about 40 years ago. CB was a big thing about then. Sarah Palin had a story about CB when she and her husband were using it to communicate before they were married. They finally realized every trucker was listening to them.

I don't click on those side links.

I also did not like "Saving Private Ryan."

Last night my wife and I watched "Tom Jones." She had never seen it.

I doubt Street read "Apple Grower News" when she was destroying the industry with her Alar hysteria.

Michael K said...

Streep.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

But please, don't say CNN is biased D-hackery.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Which way does your anxiety lead you? You can always calm yourself with the "overrated male musicians" if the idea of sexualized boys and adult wussies is too disturbing.


Lady, your thinker is busted. I hope that's not overly personal but sheesh.

tim in vermont said...

Thanks for the link on “number stations,” anonymous.

As for Althouse’s question, what if your eyes don’t even register ads like that? Does there have to be a deeper meaning besides utter and complete disinterest? If there were a link on “number stations,” I would probably click.

rhhardin said...

It's illegal to send anything but clear messages in ham radio, so covert communication isn't going to work.

If you want to work covert, don't get a license so they at least don't have a probable address for the area they think you're in.

rhhardin said...

W1AW used to send code practice (they still do) with numbers practice given by transmitting random vacuum tube numbers, so as not to be sending a coded message.

They'd send "From tube tables ..." and then a list of tubes.

That apparently satisfied the clear message requirement.

rhhardin said...

All this is mentioned as a striking example of guy stuff.

Only about three of the 3600 contacts I've logged in the last year and a half have turned out to be women, judging by the first name.

Four if you count Connie from Texas but he's a guy.

rhhardin said...

Covert transmissions these days would all be digital frequency-spread modes, most likely. Steganography, you don't even know the coded message is there.

David Begley said...

EDH

And how was it that Point Shaver Strzok got placed into those prime spots? Comey put him there.

Check Comey’s bitcoin account. Follow the money.

And where are Deep Throat and Bob Woodward when you need them?

Edmund said...

Preppers are getting into ham radio, btw.

Leland said...

I just read Instapundit, and frankly, I've been disappointed with all the additional bloggers added to it. I like Hoyt. I can tolerate Driscoll. Green reads like a luddite. And Bay posts almost exclusively photos of military hardware with hardly any additional insight. Everyone else that posts is so infrequent to hardly notice. The various links to PJmedia content I mostly ignore. The few times I didn't, I found myself disagreeing with the writer.

With the exception of Glenn's various leave of absence; I'd be happy with just him, Helen, and maybe a little Hoyt posting in the overnight hours. And put it all back on Instapundit.com.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

One of the (small) things I like about Althouse is that both the main posts and the comments can be read with Javascript turned off (I do have to turn it on to post a comment, like now). I hate JS which makes pages jump around like I don't know, some thing that jumps around.

Whenever I get tricked into clicking a PJ page from Instapundit, it loads blank with JS off, and then I have to click load three times at the bottom to get the full thing anyway. Very rarely worth it.

Gahrie said...

Something about Hollywood's love for itself rubs me the wrong way. And now we know how corrupt some of these people are. It's like eating at a restaurant where you're not sure how the food was handled.

That is exactly how I feel about Leftwing lawyers and the way they abuse the 14th Amendment.

Bob said...

I give a fuck when I'm in a slowly moving elevator while Sam Smith is being piped in.

MikeD said...

Hi Althouse, on your next foray into PJM land just click the "print button" to get all on one page.