Category: Semi-Retired Riot Grrl

Chad & Stacy: The ‘Black Pill’ We’ve All Swallowed

Posted on by Kelly Welles

 

r/Braincels, earlier today.

No one cared about Incels when they were just writing shit on the internet. We all care about Incels now because a man called Alek Minassian committed an atrocity in Toronto, someone looked at his internet history (which is basically the first thing journalists and writers do while normal people are still in shock) and found a Facebook shoutout referencing Elliot Rodger.

The net effect of this is to make us feel incredible anger towards a group of people that claims it only exists because ‘normal’ society has already excluded them.

For reference, Incel is a term reportedly coined by an individual called Alana “as a name for an online support forum for singles, basically a lonely hearts club”.

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Last night, she said, oh baby I feel so down.

Posted on by Kelly Welles

Embed from Getty Images
 

My tablets aren’t working.

A bold, self-conscious step into the fray that followed Johann Hari’s contention that the drugs don’t work? Or indeed the same into reports of research showing that they do?

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Heaven Is A Handheld

Posted on by Kelly Welles

We’re having a conversation about sex at the moment. Not so much the great British tradition of ‘who’s doing it to who’ (although that continues unabated) but more how people arrive at the point of ‘doing it’ and others asserting their right to be in that conversation.

I could tell you all about it here, but Rachel Parris did such a good job on The Mash Report a few weeks ago, I’ll just leave it to her.

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The War on Wandering Wombs

Posted on by Kelly Welles

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No one expects the #MeToo movement to rise and fall without criticism.

Nor should they.

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JK Rowling: Amber Heard You. So Did We.

Posted on by Kelly Welles

JK Rowling broke her silence (and her website) yesterday afternoon by making a statement about the casting of Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

I cut and pasted that description because I literally couldn’t be arsed to write it all out, but don’t take my laziness as an indicator of the importance I place on the matter, I just wanted to get straight to the point rather than faffing about with Gellerts and Grindelwalds. It’s hugely important.

Here’s why.

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We need to talk about shagging

Posted on by Kelly Welles
Embed from Getty Images

It’s been almost a month since the New York Times broke the story of Ashley Judd’s allegations against Harvey Weinstein. A month in which people have bravely stepped forward to break the silence and tell their own stories. A month of support and empowerment.

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#MeToo: Trigger Warnings & Truths

Posted on by Kelly Welles

Do I have a responsibility not to self-harm because of the impact it will have on those around me?

Not exactly a party starter, is it? But it’s because this is a deeply uncomfortable question with significant and numerous ramifications that we don’t engage with it – we try not to think about it at all – despite the vital insights it might offer.

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Hollywood Ending

Posted on by Kelly Welles

Creating images is Hollywood’s business, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the allegations raining down upon Harvey Weinstein in the same way Oscars used to.

But then the pictures they like best tend to be formed from bold colour palettes, semiotics, tropes and conventions to push us towards resolutions that, while not necessarily satisfactory, are at least coherent. If the stories they told were as convoluted, confusing and messy as those we experience in real life, no one would watch them.

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Harvey Weinstein: Everybody Walk the Dinosaur

Posted on by Kelly Welles

Allegations that a very rich,very powerful Hollywood mogul behaved inappropriately with a number of women he worked with and paid some of them to keep quiet about it would have been revelatory ten years ago. Maybe even five.

Unless you’re a woman born before 1995. If that’s the case, the only revelation is that two female reporters were allowed to conduct an investigation into the matter which the New York Times broke yesterday.

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Musings on Hugh Hefner & Unwanted Proximity

Posted on by Kelly Welles

The crowded train carriage is rocking rhythmically. It might be accidental and you don’t want to come off like a screaming hysteric, but still. That leg, arm or pelvis pressed against you is uncomfortable and you’d rather it wasn’t there. Like when Mark from Peep Show put his hand on the bus seat and then Soph sat on it. He probably doesn’t even know and will be mortified if you were to call him out publicly. He looks alright. Not weird or anything.

Phew. You shifted and the contact is broken. That could have been really awkward.

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