"did you guys know I was in the original YMCA music video?!"

Since the @realDonaldTrump YMCA dance is trending and taken the world by storm…did you guys know I was in the original YMCA music video?!
Check it out! So much fun! pic.twitter.com/29EzcE46bg

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) November 27, 2024

AND: For the annals of pronoun usage:

God he’s hot

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) November 28, 2024

ALSO: That video was clearly influenced by this much more carefully choreographed scene in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes":

"When people wonder how things might go wrong if AI controlled the world, this example clearly illustrates the point."

The sheer insanity of that actual response from Google’s AI is staggering! They will fix it to be less obvious in the future, but the bias will still be in there.

AI mirrors the mistakes of its creators.

When people wonder how things might go wrong if AI controlled the world,… https://t.co/Dr4BrxUPCm

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2024

Coincidentally, the NYT has this on its front page right now:

The article is full of graphics, apparently designed to boost our inadequate imagination. Here's one of the many vivid images that fly by as you scroll:

"Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 is authentic.... A high-volume lookup most years, authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023..."

"... driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.... Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate—two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary."

Announces Merriam-Webster.

They call attention to a headline I hadn't noticed and don't feel I even need to understand: "Three Ways To Tap Into Taylor Swift’s Authenticity And Build An Eras-Like Workplace."

That article came out a month ago in Forbes, which tells us: "Swift’s events brim with energy, carried by the thunderous voices – some melodious, others less in tune – of thousands: the opposite of how work feels today. According to recent data, 60% of employees are emotionally detached, and one in five is miserable."

Why would anyone want the workplace to feel like a pop concert? Why would the answer involve the concept of "authenticity"?

Take Hannah Shirley, a 23-year-old tech worker who recently went viral for pointing out that her job was “like a full-time acting gig.” She tik-toked one consequence of this: feeling “drained — especially mentally, sometimes even physically — from the character that …we play at work.”...

A Taylor Swift lyric is quoted: “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism? Like some kind of congressman?”

Forbes goes on:

What happens during an Eras event that makes it so engaging? There is realness, empathy, kindness, listening, a narrative (or journey-like) space big enough for all to partake and feel whole with oneself and others. The whole experience is devoid of pretension. Take this recipe and break it into three precepts – avoid alienation, increase authentic living and balance external pressure – and you have a roadmap for creating an Eras-like workplace culture....

I don't see how merger with a huge crowd is a feeling that you could — or would want — to take into the workplace. Even if I did, I wouldn't think of it as "authenticity." 

***

I've written about the word "authentic" many times on this blog. A few examples.... (and the first thing I see, strangely enough, has Taylor Swift in it):

On March 20, 2010, I quoted John Hinderaker saying "Much as Bob Dylan was the most authentic spokesman for his generation, Taylor Swift is the most authentic spokesman for hers." I say: "that's a trick assertion, since Bob Dylan was never about authenticity." I quoted Sean Wilentz:

During the first half of the concert, after singing "Gates of Eden," Dylan got into a little riff about how the song shouldn't scare anybody, that it was only Halloween, and that he had his Bob Dylan mask on. "I'm masquerading!" he joked, elongating the second word into a laugh. The joke was serious. Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his celebrity, but he was really an artist and entertainer, a man behind a mask, a great entertainer, maybe, but basically just that—someone who threw words together, astounding as they were. The burden of being something else — a guru, a political theorist, "the voice of a generation," as he facetiously put it in an interview a few years ago — was too much to ask of anyone.

On June 17, 2015, I talked about a Slate writer's advice to Hillary Clinton that she should "offer voters her authentic, geeky self. I said "We've been seeing the word 'authentic' a lot lately — what with Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. There's this idea we seem to like that everyone has a real identity inside and that if we've got an inconsistent outward presentation of ourselves it would be wonderful for the inner being to cast off that phony shell. But 'authenticity' can be another phony shell...."

On December 19, 2017, I wrote about Facebook's purported goal of "authentic engagement." I said:

Facebook wants you to engage... with Facebook. They want the direct interface with the authentic person, not for some other operation to leverage itself through Facebook. And it makes sense to say that the exclusion of these interposers makes the experience better for the authentic people who use Facebook.... 

On a more metaphysical level: What is authentic anymore? What is the authentic/artificial distinction that Facebook claims — authentically/artificially — to be the police of? Is there an authentic authentic/artificial distinction or is the authentic/artificial distinction artificial?

AND: I'm reading a book that I think has a lot to say about the authentic/artificial distinction. You can tell by the title: "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" (Subtitle: "A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace"). But the word "authentic" never appears in the book, and the word "artificial" only appears in the context of "artificial spit" ("it’s called Zero-Lube. It’s an actual pharmaceutical product").

On March 9, 2018, I blogged about something Nancy Pelosi said about "RuPaul's Drag Race." According to The Hollywood Reporter, she "suggested that politicians could learn a thing or two from Ru's girls: 'Authenticity. Taking pride in who you are. Knowing your power....'" Reading the comments on my post, I added:

Everyone jumps on that word "authenticity." "I mean, I'm all for people doing what they want -- except for misusing words like 'authenticity'" (fivewheels); "Authenticity? A man dressed as an over-the-top woman is authentic?" (Annie C); and the inevitable "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" (Ignorance is Bliss). Yeah? Well, when a person putting on a show is in costume and makeup, you could say he's an authentic showperson. And, anyway, what makes you think you're so authentic? 

My mind drifted back to this 1967 song by Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life": 

chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries
people rubbing elbows but never touching eyes
taking off their masks revealing still another guise
genuine imitation life
people buying happiness and manufactured fun
everybody doing everybody done
people count on people who can only count to one
genuine imitation life

Why, exactly, is Caitlyn Jenner attacking Dylan Mulvaney?

There's this:

. @MarshaBlackburn thank you for speaking out and having a backbone - one of the best senators we have. Let’s not ‘normalize’ any of what this person is doing. This is absurdity! https://t.co/YmQcuwWKhj

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) October 26, 2022

I got there via "Caitlyn Jenner Piles on Trans TikToker, Calls Body Positive Video ‘Absurdity’/The anti-trans attacks against Mulvaney come days after her interview with President Biden surrounding transgender rights and policies" (Rolling Stone).

I've been avoiding the Mulvaney-at-the-White-House story. Not sure why. I'd already seen many Dylan Mulvaney videos on TikTok, including the one that reenacts the opening sequence of the old TV show "That Girl" (and the subsequent version of that where Marlo Thomas looks on and is (or acts) choked up about the tribute to her long-ago perky, girly youth). 

"Don't blame men. It's not our fault that men make better women than women do."

Quips Instapundit, linking to "Women's opportunities are being taken away by 'womxn'/Biological men that identify as women are invading the area created specifically for women and are not only doing a disservice to the women but themselves as well" (Campus Reform). 

I'm not blogging this to engage on the issue whether transwomen belong in women's sports. But I will say, as I've said before, that I think women's sports has to do with the physical body, and not with the mind. Transgenderism radically prioritizes the mind over the body. Each of us holds dominion over our own mind, and that includes power to think of yourself in gendered terms and to give any meaning you want to the idea of what it means to be a woman. In your mind, you can believe it refers only to the body or only to the mind or to something in between or to nothing at all.

The reason I'm blogging this is to extract an unexamined question from "men make better women than women do." And that is: What makes a woman?

If you Google that question, the first thing you'll see is probably the Katy Perry song with that title:

 

Katy says you "could spend your whole life, but you couldn't describe what makes a woman/She’s always been a perfect mystery... and that's what makes a woman to me." That is: It's a mystery! There's no answer — even if you spend your whole life looking for the answer. There's a problem with the question! There is nothing that "makes a woman." 

"I'm getting so tired of this woke world."

I got there via the link in this Fox News tweet (which I saw because Caitlin Jenner is trending on Twitter):

WHAT A PAIR: @Caitlyn_Jenner blasts NCAA for policies that give advantages to transgender athletes over biological women. https://t.co/upC0NTIsmm pic.twitter.com/UhXF5pIkig

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 19, 2022

ADDED:

Do not underestimate the amount of justified contempt this creates for the trans movement.

I’m trans and this pisses me off- I can only imagine how the rest of the world feels. pic.twitter.com/gjdInZSYMU

— Blaire White (@MsBlaireWhite) March 18, 2022

"I didn't even vote. Out here in California, it's like, why vote for a Republican president? It's just not going to work. I mean..."

"... it's overwhelming. It was voting day, and I thought, the only thing out here in California that I worry about, which affects people, is the propositions that were out there. And I didn't see any propositions that I really had one side or the other. And so it was Election Day. And I just couldn't get excited about it. And I just wound up going to play golf and I said, eh, I'm not doing that." 

Said Caitlyn Jenner, quoted in "Jenner says she didn't vote in 2020. But records show she did." 

Oh, the fakery! I guess she didn't realize this was a fact that could be checked. 

And as for the propositions — there were 12, including things having to do with future of cash bail, affirmative action, gig workers, rent control, and criminal sentencing. But she didn't "see" any that she "really had [a] side" on, so she went eh, not doing that and played golf. Which would be bad enough, but it wasn't even true. That's the bullshit she made up.

Either she just doesn't care and doesn't respect her audience or she doesn't want to say how she voted on these things. She wants to be free to equivocate.

Caitlyn Jenner didn’t expect to get asked this on her Saturday morning coffee run, but she favors protecting girls' sports in schools.

I didn’t expect to get asked this on my Saturday morning coffee run, but I’m clear about where I stand. It’s an issue of fairness and we need to protect girls’ sports in our schools.https://t.co/YODLDQ3csP

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) May 1, 2021

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