LMFAO or You Suck Bitch:

Read on Huffington Post, or below:

LMFAO vs. You Suck, Bitch:

A Civil Discourse on the Nature of Youtube Comments From Haters & Trolls

If you’ve got an on-line presence, you’ve got on-line haters. It’s just a fact of life. But what makes the haters hate and the trolls troll? When I think about what I actually hate (and I’m a relatively sane person without many loaded guns in my basement, on most days), it’s always political: I hate the powers that be that are taking away my rights, hate corporate greed, hate misogyny… But hate someone because they aren’t funny? No. I just feel bad for them. So when someone says you aren’t funny and really goes at it in attack form on your Youtube comments, there’s something under that. It’s just sort of a law of psychology.

People ask me all the time how I can stand the hater comments. They look at me like I’ve got a heart of steel, but that isn’t the case. If a friend or peer who I respect critiques me I take it to heart and listen and think about it. But the haters? Couldn’t care less.

So here’s how to become someone who isn’t really fazed by those comments. Understanding where the hate comes from is the way to loosen its grip on you:

Okay, reason #1: Jealousy. Have you ever watched something and thought there was no reason on god’s green earth they should be famous and making all that money and getting laid like that on a Tuesday night when you are just as funny and living on a 7^th floor walk-up in New York and eating nothing but the olives you took home from the company Christmas party? And you really want to tell them so?!! Jealousy. And frustration. Put those together and you’ve got: “This shit isn’t funny! What a fucking loser!!!! I hope she loses all her money and her house.” (Actual quote.)

Hater Reason #2: They just don’t agree with you. See my reason above for my hate. There are very few uber conservative comics out there, so I don’t have many opportunities, though I’m always more fascinated than hateful, but when I do see something misogynistic or gay-bashing it’s rarely funny to me. So when I read, “This dum-ass ugly fat bitch thinks she’s funy and can sing,” (actual quote, actual spelling), I just know they aren’t playing for my team. Or, as in the homophobic, closeted responses to my song about homophobic people being possibly maybe really closeted and gay, I know they got caught in their own trap and can’t stand it. (See Probably Gay). My favorite Youtube comment for that song being, “You are sick. When I watch gay porn, I just think it’s disgusting.” Um, when you watch gay porn?!?! I rest my case.

Reason #3: They wish they were comedians. Oops, back to reason #1…

Reason #4: No one is listening to them in real life and it’s frustrating for them to see audiences laughing and applauding for you. No, wait, that’s also… Dang. I thought this blog would be longer.

Reason #5: You remind them of their ex.

Reason #6: You remind them of their father

Reason #7: You remind them of their inadequate sexual skills?

Reason #8: You do actually suck and you remind them of themselves??? Okay, I’m reaching here but just trying to be fair that it’s possible sometimes we do suck. But again, that’s back to jealousy because if you suck and are successful (which we have all seen) then it’s back to your haters blaming fate and luck that they aren’t also sucky and successful. Powerlessness breeds hate. Like when I can’t remember how to program my DVR and have to ask my husband. It’s all those hate-things wrapped up into one! Powerlessness! Jealousy that he can! Self-hating my own misogyny — for god’s sake am I really a girl who can’t program my goddamn DVR?!?! All wrapped up in one which makes me hate the DVR and the people who created the system. And all the money they made on it. Fuckers.

And finally Reason #8: They are just assholes who hate everything and want to look cooler by saying so. But again, this is probably not a person you would have fun with. Or sex with. Back to square one of insecurity as well as #7. Walking around hating everyone all the time probably would benefit from a good therapist. Or some excellent scotch. Or a blow job occasionally. Just sayin’.

So, there ya go. If people give you useful feedback, use it. If it’s hate, know from whence it cometh and ignore it. Now go back to doing what you do well.

Eat, People (Not a Zombie Blog)

(On Huffington Post, or read below):

I’ve never written about this before, but when I was in high school and college I had a mild eating disorder. Nothing extreme, but a basic binge/purge cycle, although the purge was through excessive exercise. I would have been bulimic except that I couldn’t make myself throw up. And I tried. Believe me. Thank you strong Russian stomach. But it was fairly pervasive and took up a ton of my attention and energy.  I’m writing about this now because as an adult I have no obsession with food and body image whatsoever and as a feminist I think we really need to see this oppressive, anti-woman dilemma for what it is: um, an oppressive anti-woman dilemma.

It’s the holidays and invariable friends have started to bemoan – along with the anxiety about the anticipated home-for-the-holidays political fights and child-rearing-criticism to come –the expected weight gain. Here’s what I know. And I had to learn it, so I am writing this because I hope it helps others. Eating and being healthy and fit are completely natural. Babies know it and if we don’t screw up our kids too much, they know it. Beauty magazines don’t. Your best friend probably doesn’t. And your parents are your parents, so whatever you learned there, therapy was invented to undo.  (Across the board probably.) But this is about eating.

When I was 20 or so I found a book called Eating Awareness Training by Molly Groger. It is out of print because it was so against the grain of the times and culture that I just couldn’t endure. But it’s the cure for us. It’s ridiculously simple. Eat when you’re hungry. Stop when you’re full. Eat what you want. Don’t reward, punish, or really even pay a damn bit of difference to your thoughts about it all. Use your BODY to do its job. The book uses a 12-week retraining sort of program, though she’s adamant that it’s not a program or diet. It’s just learning to listen to your body. She uses a scale of 1 – 10. 1 is starving to death, 10 you fall into a drooling coma, you’re so full. Generally shoot for eating from a 3 – 5 or 6. Eat when hungry, stop when comfortable. Seriously. THAT IS IT. It’s how we were built to eat and live.

Look, of course there are exceptions and difficulties. I watch what cholesterol-inducing stuff I eat because I have horrible cholesterol, and yes I try to be a vegetarian for political reasons, but when I’m feeling exhausted I eat some damn protein. When I eat a lot of cheese I have salmon for my heart the next day if I feel like it. But seriously, I DON’T THINK ABOUT THIS CRAP.  I haven’t gained or lost weight — except obviously when I was pregnant — in 15 years. And I’m not “one of those lucky people” who doesn’t have to worry because I have a killer metabolism or something. I am a lazy piece of crap many weeks of the year (read: this week) and I just don’t want as much food during those times so I don’t gain weight then either. Am I sounding annoying? I’m sorry if I am, but seriously, I want to stress that I’m not lucky or special. This is everyone’s birthright and the culture has done everything possible to mess with our minds about this. Men, too, but women more. I mean, we can see Phillip Morris for what it is, convincing us to smoke. So why don’t we feel an incredible urge to attack our fashion magazines for making us crazy? Why are we still buying them?! And why are they still messing with us? They are run by strong, sometimes feminist, women. Let’s hold them accountable. Write letters. Send them a bathroom scale smashed to pieces. Or brownies!

When I was in college my girl friends and I talked a lot about dieting. Now, we talk about girls’ schools in Afghanistan, we talk about “legitimate rape,” we talk about the fact that New York is under water and climate change will continue to get worse, we talk about our children and our aging parents. We talk about why the fuck the Obama administration didn’t approve the morning after pill.

Do you know the diet industry –and we’re not just talking Diet Coke sales here– is a 40-billion dollar industry annually (Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/01/the_diet_indust.html) just in the US alone. We are griping over taxes going to support wars we don’t believe in, and lack of money going to our schools but we are doing this with our own little pocketbooks and neurotic anxiety. What if we all decided to take any money we spend this year on diet books, pills, liposuction, diet foods, cleanses, and gave it to our kids’ school. That same amount of money would literally cover the budget cuts for this year. Or give it to Planned Parenthood, or a woman’s political campaign or your aunt Bessie who’s losing her pension and is fairly odd and annoying and loves to bedazzle her hats with words like “Create!” and give them to you but you kind of love her anyway. Or, Jesus, give the money to ANYTHING else!

That’s my suggestion for this holiday. Start looking at what you’ve bought into. Get some therapeutic help to look at why you overeat. Make a decision that you are just not going to give it all the attention you normally do. EVER AGAIN. Learn how to judge when you are full and stop there. Don’t let family or anyone guilt you into eating more. Take half your meal home from the restaurant if you’re full. Listen to your body, not the culture. And then take all that energy and let’s fix some shit.