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#and they didnt MEAN to be hurtful. theyre just immature and selfish
soldier-poet-king · 6 months
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I literally just do not understand how full grown ass adults go thru life like this. 0 self reflection. 0 concern about the impact of their behaviours on others. Continuing said behaviours even when they're pointed out as hurtful. Like????
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quadrant-query · 4 months
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theres someone i really care about, ill call them z. we'd been best friends for a while, and had been heading in a pale direction for a little while. z found a matesprit at one point, and started spending a lot of time with him. throughout that relationship, it felt like z didnt really have time for me, even though they were my oldest friend. they and their matesprit broke up. (it was a complicated situation, neither party was fully at fault.) shortly after, we became moirails.
recently, some stuff happened, and they and their ex-matesprit might start hanging out again, and maybe even start dating again. im trying really hard to be supportive, but its difficult not to get jealous. the first time they were together, it felt like z never had time to hang out with me, and im worried that itll happen again.
it feels so selfish that im hurting about it at all. theyre my moirail ffs, im supposed to be happy for them, not jealous because another quadrantmate might take up their time.
im also worried that i might care more about them than they do me, or that they dont care about me in the same way. when we became moirails, they commented that "it wouldnt be much different" than us being friends, and i dont know how to feel about that. does moirallegiance even mean the same thing to them as it does to me??
any advice on what i should do? i know i should probably talk to them about it, but i dont know how to. anytime i imagine it, i just picture myself as coming across as selfish and immature.
thank you in advance for any tips you can give, sorry this was a bit of a long one.
This is a rough situation, and I'm sorry you're going through it.
Jealously about other quadrantmates might be not be common, but it isn't rare either. It makes sense to become somewhat resentful if your quadrantmate seems to be putting a lot less effort into your relationship than one of their others.
It's also a bit of a rust flag that your moirail thinks moirallegiance is not much different from your friendship. If it's true that they feel differently about the relationship than you, that would definitely confirm and also explain their lack of effort.
Sometimes the only solution to a problem like this is to make your feelings known. I understand that you feel like you are being unreasonable and even selfish, but the entire point of a moirail is to soothe and balance these kinds of things-- so you would benefit from telling them this even if it did not pertain directly to them. Communication is very good.
Alternatively, if you're really worried about possibly hurting them, I would suggest putting in more effort yourself to make a "good example". Take them on extravagant dates, ask to hang out multiple nights in a row, stay at their hive overday, start divulging more emotional secrets to them, maybe go a little overboard with the sensual papping and kissing. Really get it through their head that you're an important romantic partner who is taking this relationship seriously. This could inspire them to realize how unlike friendship it is and try to match you.
But in my opinion, communication is always the best option.
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everydayanth · 5 years
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The Liam Neeson Thing...
Okay guys, this is gonna get complex and personal right quick. But it’s been bothering me and I’m working on posting more without thinking about it for two weeks until nobody cares anymore.
So here goes.
Context matters. Context is important and it can be complicated, but it freakin’ matters. 
In my opinion, Liam Neeson’s flaw was that he thought a rapist would be the kind of person to also attack him. 
Here’s the thing guys, if you’ve never heard someone you love confess to you that they have been irrevocably hurt by a person, you need to take a step back for a minute. 
That moment, talking about it, it’s extremely vulnerable, so this is a bit hard for me, but in a moment of chaos and torment, a person you love and care deeply for is breaking apart in front of you and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. There’s not a damn thing you can do but hold them and cry with them and hurt for them and try to help and figure out the right thing to say. 
And when they’re tucked safe in bed and you’re researching what you can do for them or laying awake thinking about what you could possibly say, the amount of guilt and hurt and anger hits you in the chest, it fills you so wholly that you just need to find a way to let it out. It’s a dangerous rage, it’s immature and unhealthy and so so so painful. 
We don’t talk about emotions in America. We just don’t. So of course we want to put this emotion into a context we discuss, and idea we understand. 
But it’s not an -ism, it’s an emotion. 
If you don’t think when my sister told me about our cousin assaulting her that I didn’t wander around my ghetto ass neighborhood waiting for some big white guy to try to hurt me, well, you’d be wrong. Our brain makes patterns, my cousin didn’t live in our city, but I knew he was a big white guy with a shitty pencil beard, my brain classified that as a pattern. Every time I talked to a big white guy, I had to check myself, yeah. But when my brain registered a human who looked like my cousin, my heart rate ran up and I would will them to attack me. I wanted to fight because I didn’t know what else to do with all that pain, all that helpless emotion. But I could wander around places where someone was bound to get hurt anyway and invite the fight to me. 
Neeson was wandering around areas inviting a fight. INVITING, not instigating. It is a common reaction of revenge and feeling hurt, and we’re shoving this idea into something familiar - outrage, racism, etc., anything so we don’t have to actually talk about emotions. 
He was looking for a “black bastard,” poor choice of words, I agree, but he was hoping that guy, the one who hurt his friend, would challenge him, and it would just happen to be the same guy and he could get his anger out. It’s not healthy, but if they man who hurt his friend had been white and he’d wandered around lower class white neighborhoods inviting a fight, would it have been racism? 
This had an opportunity to be a conversation about what the fuck you do around a friend who confesses they were raped and hurt to you. After all the #MeToo (or in the midst of it), how do you be a friend to your loved ones who feel ready to confess to you? What do you do to manage that amount of disgust you feel at the world, that rage and hate and hurt and horror that there’s not a single damn thing you can do? 
This could have been a conversation about grief and friendship and growth and complex emotions. But we made it about the race of a rapist instead. 
That’s how much we don’t want to talk about feelings. 
We would focus on a man talking for the first time about the anger of helplessness in the face of a friend’s pain and come out in outrage. 
Here’s the reality guys, racism is forming a series of patterns based on skin color that aren’t true. They can be based off stereotypes or influenced by false representation in sensational news. Racism is NOT fighting your brain’s reality in order to form a more balanced understanding of the world. I was assaulted by a bunch of black kids at a playground when I was 14, it was terrifying and it’s a long and complex story but the short of it is very simple: I lived in a black neighborhood and this was not my only experience with black kids. I went to school with middle class black kids and I hung out with other black kids, this was NOT my only experience, and therefore, my brain was capable of nixing the pattern before it was created. Black kids weren’t dangerous, those kids were just assholes. 
Racism is if Neeson went to those places and started fights. I can’t know whether he did or not, but it’s if he went around and accused every black man of being a rapist, in his head or otherwise. I didn’t have a lot of experience with big white guys, so it took me much longer not to feel nervous around them than it did to write off my brain’s pattern about the black kids. Emotions and how our brains work are important details for us to know, and it’s the real reason diversity matters, it keeps our patterns in context. Neeson coming out of the situation horrified at himself shows growth of emotion, the dismissal of the pattern, recognizing that it is false without acting on it, understanding the power of agency is an illusion because he would never find that particular man. 
Comparing this to the policing issues isn’t the same, because of their place in society, their home culture society, and the results of their opinions. A police officer has a responsibility to the public to understand their emotions and their racial biases, an actor is responsible for displaying emotion. We can’t hold these people to the same accountability, that would be ridiculous, for a police officer, emotions need to be stable and understood and should involve a LOT more psychology training. For an actor... they entertain us with their emotions. They need to be self aware and reflective in order to project our experiences in stories. We still expect race car drivers to follow the speed limits and we understand that doctors have to call in sick sometimes, the world isn’t fair and occupation doesn’t dismiss personal biases or professional demeanor, but context matters. A doctor calling in sick after handling small pox in a lab requires observation and questions, an actor talking about rage and looking for a fight when he was younger and confessing horror at that version of himself while promoting a film about revenge kind of seems like part of the job, of doing the job well.  
And it’s not racist because it was not instigated by the color of skin as perceived by an individual to be less or more - he was inviting a fight with a black man on the word of his friend. That was wrong, and so was me doing it with large white men (also because I am not that large of a white woman, so that wasn’t going to end well for me), but he even said in a follow up interview that they could have killed him. The interviewer says she thinks of the innocent black man that could have been killed and Neeson responds “Or he could have killed me.” BUT HE WASN’T INSTIGATING FIGHTS, he was INVITING them! He wasn’t looking for an innocent man, he was waiting for someone to try to hurt him so he could release the extreme emotions. These are different. These are SO different. 
This conversation can go back to what it could have been. Race of the rapist aside, what do you do when a person you love confides in you that they have been hurt and scared and they are breaking apart in front of you? How do you process your emotions and heartbreak? What can you do or say? How can you feel like you’re helping? Is that selfish? Why do we need to feel like we’re helping? How do you manage your own trauma so you don’t loop theirs in with yours? How do you self reflect so that you stop your brain forming false patterns when you’re filled with so much hurt and pain? How do you not become a villain of the world, hating everyone for always telling you you are helpless? How do you find control in yourself when you’re imploding and be responsible and mature with emotions? How do you talk about it in a society that wants to be angry? How do you not hate them for focusing on your reaction to a rapist rather than being angry with an individual for being an asshole and RAPING your friend?
How do we return to a conversation about emotions and how, unchecked, they can lead to pain and anger and rage, and eventually, if we don’t have a moment of clarity and rationality, if we are not balanced in the world, they can become biases that develop into ignorance and racism? How do we focus on context so that we don’t become arrogant and disconnected, classists by nature because we interact with such a small and similar world? How do we connect and talk about the human experience when society turns away from us in favor of what is familiar? How do we have a logical discussion about emotion when we can’t even talk about meaning and intent? How do we accuse someone of racism when, had the rapist been white, the conversation might have focused on the context of emotion and pain and hurt and the process of healing - it was the outraged audience that pointed at the race as important, as the meaningful factor, how do we look at that hypocrisy and not feel utterly defeated?
How do we scream at the world that we need help, we all need help, without crucifying ourselves? I have no idea, this post is terrifying and I have no idea what to expect. Maybe nothing would be good? To return to not a single note or like or comment, to be unheard and dismissed and navigated around might be good because I want to talk about this reality but it. Is. Terrifying. 
And maybe it’s all a projection. Maybe I’m the racist and I want to defend someone I relate to. But it feels more right that we as a society don’t talk about emotions, we lock them up like these secret things we’re terrified other people will discover. I’m working on vulnerability lately, and what better place to talk about all the shit that’s ever happened to me than the freakin’ internet! I’m just a person and from my experiences, I think I understand what Neeson meant. But that could equally be a self-aggrandizing reality that doesn’t exist. Perhaps he’s just a racist, a professional actor with a successful career who took this exact moment to reveal his true colors, what a sneaky man! 
But more probably, the logic says, he’s a professional actor with a successful career who took this moment to discuss the emotions he’s had to reflect on and relive for the past year or so in order to play a role in a film that he hopes will entertain and reflect something of the human experience. He more probably took the moment to discuss a human experience and we did not listen because it’s more popular not to listen or because we could not relate or because we just want to be angry and sometimes pulling weeds is so exhausting we raze the whole garden instead. We did not talk about the moment he was horrified with himself because we don’t want to talk about growth or greys, we want the world to stabilize so we can see the bad guys clearly. 
We really ought to know by now that there are no clear bad guys. 
And we know Neeson likes to play in those lines. What is good? What is bad? They aren’t a duality, they are a false dichotomy, created by whatever world you grew up in, whatever experiences you had, whatever your society or culture told you, whatever education you discovered, and whatever philosophy you’ve come to believe. But in a moment of vulnerable confession, in all that grey reality, your friend tells you about a bad guy and they become singularly bad. They don’t exist beyond that. And that’s what is horrifying. That you stop seeing humanity as grey and suddenly it becomes good or bad, that’s the scary part about revenge and inviting fights, it encourages a black-and-white view of the world that says the rapist is ONLY bad and your friend is ONLY good. 
A bit ironic that, in trying to talk about that tunnel-vision-rage, Neeson found himself the target of it.
It’s raw, that anger. It’s part of all the hurt that has happened to you and then you couldn’t even protect your friend or family. Why did you go through all that pain if you couldn’t grow enough to save them? That guilt is a liar, you didn’t hurt them, the asshole did, and you need that to be true or else you were also the cause of all your own pain as well. So you look for the assholes because then at least you could be useful, you could protect them from one asshole by taking the hit. We need to talk about that kind of hurt, about sacrificing the self for revenge because you can’t find worth anymore. We need to talk about existential nihilism that hides inside outrage because you can’t find meaning anymore. We need to talk about emotions and how to talk about them so we can be better friends, better people, so when we look for guidance on talking to friends about their hurt, we find advice on how to not be overwhelmed by rage and guilt and disgust and anger and violence. 
That’s the conversation we could have had. That’s the world we could have started to create. But outrage culture is racist and racism gets attention and we all just want to be heard because we don’t know how to talk about our emotions. Interesting how it keeps going around like that. 
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booksbroadwaybbc · 6 years
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I think I may be a Narcissist via /r/selfimprovement
I think I may be a Narcissist
Im a 19 year old male, and I think I may be a narcissist.
Ive had this mild gnawing for, a while now, and had honestly known the answer, but I was just too scared to confront it.
I was just laying in bed last night when I decided to look up “am I a narcissist” on google, and I was greeted by dozens of articles from non-narcissist telling how to avoid narcissist, or how to tell if your being abused, or if they do this or that, and how terrible they are.
The first thing I felt? Offended. That these articles were expressing such hatred and aversion to narcissists. Because almost all the “symptoms” or “techniques”, Ive used. I felt those articles were directly describing me.
There are a lot of little things that Ive noticed over the past few years that make me think I’m a narcissist.
Whenever I’m talking to someone, or even thinking what they think of me or how random people view me, its always things like “oh he’s so cool, look at that jacket” or “so caring and handsome”. Just, self absorbed compliments.
I do spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, or at my own instagram photos. On tinder I find myself looking at my own profile more than I do swiping through others.
But then there’s, the bigger reasons I think this. Namely my last relationship.
It started out great. We were in love. We had been talking long distance for about a year before for unrelated reason I moved fairly close. We started physically dating, we moved in together after a few weeks.
She was amazing. I had never felt that close to someone, and I thought there was nothing in the world she could do to change it. Even her flaws, her awkwardness, her clumsiness, were adorable. Until they weren’t.
There mightve been smaller things, but the first major fight was when she acidentally bleached my laundry. I was livid. Hundreds of dollars of shirts and pants were utterly ruined. Both of my favorite shirts. She apologized profusely, but it wasn’t good enough for me. I know she didnt mean to, but I didnt care. She had still hurt me, and cost me hundreds.
I “got over it” within an hour or two, but I never really got over it. I was still angry about it for weeks later, I just hid it.
Things like this kept happening more and more. When she spilled soda in my car. When she lost the 60$ I gave her to buy something. Stuff like that.
She wasnt perfect either tho, she hit me more than once, she was immature when it came to talking about serious things, she didnt realize her actions had consequences, and she blamed me for giving her a complex, saying I made her more self conscious about her social status (to give context, im from a middle class average suburban family, shes a high school dropout who’s parents had her when they were teens). Her reasoning for this? The main example she always brings up? I joked at her not to touch the art at an art museum, not knowing she had never been to one before.
Yea she was a bit too sensitive...
I planned on breaking up with her before moving back up north for college, but she convinced me that we could make it work. Of course it didnt work, and she broke up with me not two weeks later.
I felt, and still feel, nothing but anger and resentment towards her. That someone could do that to me?
Sorry im going off on a tangent. Basically I get incredible angry and personally offended whenever someone does anything that harms me, even if its an accident. People always manage to disappoint me.
I am truly conflicted, and, ashamed I am this way. I dont hate it, but I know other people hate narcissists, and I dont want people to hate me. And I realize that sentence itself is oh, so ironic.
Im not entirely self absorbed and selfish though. I was a volunteer EMT for 2 years. For my gap year I rebuilt houses that were destroyed by hurricanes and floods in the south east. But part of me worries I just do that because I know people admire it
I just so desire to know what life would be like without this. To be unable to sympathize with others because theyre not me, to really know what empathy is like, to not be so self absorbed. To just be a good person.
I just, dont know where to start. Ive been to therapy before and stopped, but im going back next week to talk about this.
Submitted November 03, 2018 at 08:06AM by TrepidationOfTheSoul via reddit https://ift.tt/2qmL1Uy
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samanthasroberts · 7 years
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The Fat Jew’s ‘Money Pizza Respect’ is the worst book I’ve ever read
I wish I liked the Fat Jews new book. It would make a far more interesting piece if he exceeded our expectations. No one I talked to expected it to be good. I bet he didnt even write it, said one friend. I bet he had his interns write it.
To contextualize this for people who arent on the Internet all the time, Josh The Fat Jew Ostrovsky became the center of controversy when he was accused of stealing memes and jokes from comedians this summer. Ostrovsky had been doing this for years, and amassed millions of Instagram followers with his admittedly excellent meme aggregating skills. But comedians took a stand when he signed with the talent agency CAA in August.
Upon reading Money Pizza Respect, there is no doubt in my mind that the unfortunately titled book is penned by the Fat Jew himself; I confidently assert that MoneyPizza Respect is singlehandedly the worst book I have ever read.
His actual sense of humorand Im talking about humor, not the memes he aggregatesis painfully abject. He relies on a Tucker Max-esque style of storytelling, glorifying cocaine and alcohol abuse and fucking his groupies, who all embody a different type of crazy girl stereotype.
In a chapter ironically titled The Eleven Commandments of Not Being the Worst Person Ever, he warns readers that if you aggressively and frequently talk about your sex life, people will think youre gay. When you tell me that you tackled a slam pig and stuffed her axe wound, he writes, I assume that your actual goal is having anal sex with men. Ostrovsky makes sure to note that the only exception to this rule is Dan Bilzerian, who has literally thrown a woman off his roof, breaking her foot, and been accused of kicking another woman in the face.
Money Pizza Respect is laced with homophobic comments. He writes a note to P. Diddy: Sorry for outing you as a homosexual. Im pretty sure you are, but Im sorry. Theres also a healthy dose of sexism, describing his female groupies as a bunch of fours and fives who have giant lady hands hate their dads. To complete the trifecta, he also manages to be transphobic, referring to transgender women as trannies in a chapter chronicling his brothers bachelor party. (When his brother and friends found out the strippers who were giving them lap dances were trans, they left the club immediately.)
Before I met Ostrovsky, I was confused about how he was so successful, especially after reading his book, where he brags about his selfish and generally gross behavior at every possible moment, proudly displays pictures of him wearing a thong made out of beef jerky, and writes things like, Cocaine is the greatest gift the world has ever seen.
When I sat down with him at a press junket, located at an arcade in Chinatown, I immediately understood why hes garnered so much success. He is unfortunately charming and is actually a naturally funny person. Hes like the cool, mean boy in 8th grade, the type who introduced pot to all your friends and made fun of girls for being ugly or not having boobs yet. The type who definitely bullied me, and yet I tirelessly tried to gain his affection.
During our interview, Ostrovsky remained on the defensive, masterful at answering my questions with non-answers. He is somebody who has never taken life seriously, which is perhaps not too difficult for a straight, white, affluent male. He is fundamentally interested in his conception of fun, and hopes youll join him for the ride. If not, fuck off.
Its not that I began to like Ostrovsky or his book any more after meeting him, but I went from hating him to feeling an iota of pity for him. His flamboyant and unapologetic immaturity, his bratty affect: This is what has brought him success, and what I imagine will be his inevitable downfall.
So my approach for this interview, because I know a lot of people have been shitting on you, is to not shit on you.
No ones been shitting on me.
I was curious about how that affected you emotionally, and how you felt about getting blasted by the media.
It was definitely a shitty situation. Im of the Internet, so its like a lot of people screaming about things. I respect trolling. I respect people screaming at one another, which is why the Internet is so fucking great. I definitely didnt take it personally. It was also something that needed to get talked about. People were not on the same page. Like a 38-year-old comedy writer and a 16-year-old Filipino millennial were not seeing the issue the same way.
I try to look at it like I was the face of the whole thing. I mean the Internet is a giant, lawless fuckin thing. Sometimes we need some rules But not too many. Because that would be weird. No parents. But you know, sometimes people get pissed. I obviously see it from the 16-year-old Filipino millennial side. I dont look for credit on my stuff and I dont ever watermark or anything like that, but I also get the other side too. Im old enough to understand both sides. I just want everyone to be happy so were fuckin partying.
Instagram for fucking photos of dogs playing volleyball in sunglasses and iguanas surfing. I just want to have everyone get heard, fix the problem, and then get back to surfing iguanas. It didnt rock me emotionally because I just saw it as something that needed to be discussed. It definitely got dangerous and exciting at some points. People just get so crazy, theres a portion of people who dont even know what theyre screaming about. I got chased by TMZ. Some guy followed me around a Duane Reade recording my phone call. That was tight.
You liked that?
I kinda felt like Leo , for like a second. It was also scary. No one wants that life. I was trying to look at it like this is a conversation that needed to be had. I didnt look at it as being shit on. The Internet is more important to me than my family or anything. I would love to be with the Internet, have sex with the Internet, I love the Internet. Now its a better place.
Why was it important for you to celebrate drugs, specifically cocaine, in your book?
Its a mixed bag. I refer to it as the best and worst thing ever. Part of the ethos of this book is that its a how-to guide in that its like I dont know what you should be doing but I know what you shouldnt be doing. Ive seen every horrible thing. I basically think you read this book and you dont do coke. Because youre like, its gonna make me unbearable. Like my breath is gonna smell like a diaper and get into a super intense conversation about stuff I dont even care about.
I think it depends on how old the reader is. For me, Ive done coke so I understood more where you were coming from in that it can be great and terrible at the same time. From a teenagers standpoint, it might just look really cool.
It depends. Im pretty explicit that its been responsible for the greatest things that ever happened, but also some of the most horrendous things, too. I think its more self-reflective than it is encouraging.
Your book is provocative is many ways. People are going to interpret some of the content as transphobic and homophobic. I was thinking of the chapter where you refer to trans women as trannies.
I dont know what youre specifically referring to.
You wrote about tranny strippers. Thats a contentious word. Many trans people have spoken out about how hurtful they find that term to be. I was curious about how you would respond to those critics.
is a factual account of what happened. Youre talking about an actual pejorative word?
Yeah. Its a slur. There were a bunch of moments in the book where I read something and immediately thought about how angry it would make social justice activists on the Internet.
Social justice people are angry at everything.
I was wondering if you included some things specifically to be provocative.
No, definitely not. First of all, any social justice person can come at me at any time. I literally have more transgender friends who will vouch for me than anyone. They self-identify as trannies. Ask a transgender who is not a nerd from the Internet how they identify, and I bet you will find hundreds who identify as trannies.
I know transgender folks who identify that way. Its like the N-word. If they call themselves that, its OK. But having a cis person is a different story.
Any person who would find offense in that kind of minutia is not someone who should be reading this book.
Its not your audience, thats probably true.
That shouldnt be anyones audience, as far Im concerned.
As I was reading your book, I was thinking about your crazy drug and sex stories as they relate to Tucker Maxs stories from I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Was he somebody who influenced you?
No, thats like bro culture stuff. This is completely different.
Tonally, there were similarities.
Ive never read it, but I also think that in terms of this book, like Ive been living performance art long enough to write a book full of debaucherous stories, but I wanted to go with more pathos, truth. From what I understand from Tucker Maxs stuff, he doesnt really go into too much stuff like that. Not all the stories here are particularly turnt up, as far as Im concerned. There are some that are honest family stories, not every story is about partying.
But a lot of them are.
We can go through it When I was writing it, putting in some emotion and truth, and some real feeling on it, like talking about my mom having sex with Shel Silverstein and being a 9-year-old child actor diva. Shit like that, to me, that is not the same as walking around a bar with a breathalyzer . I dont not relate to it, but Ive never read any of his stuff.
Ostrovsky as a child actor Josh Ostrovsky
Do you differentiate between the Fat Jew as your performative character and yourself as Josh?
No. I dont go home at night and unscrew the hairection , sit down, and listen to This American Life and be like, Oh, what a hard day at work! Being the Fat Jew! No, its all one in the same. To me, that would be disingenuous. I was doing this stuff long before there was anywhere to share it, long before anyone knew about it. Ten years ago, people in New York would be like, Oh thats the Fat Jew, the guy who does crazy stuff. It wasnt something I created and cultivated in order to share on social media for the masses.
But this is your career, this is your passion, but a lot of artists and actors differentiate between their performative self, which is still their self, and who they are when theyre not performing.
Im not an artist or an actor. Im neither.
How do you identify?
Im the only one whos really just going for it. Im genuinely making it up as I go along. I could start a ros company and that could become a real thing. Im about to do the worlds first EDM cologne.
What is that gonna smell like?
I dont know. Thats a good question. Like I dont even know what that means but Im gonna do it. Its 2015. Anything is possible. The world is so ridiculous at this point. I might open a yoga ashram in Toronto. Who knows? Im one of the only people who doesnt consider anything on or off limits. I dont think that it can be defined. We have this human need to compartmentalize, to be like, What are you? But I dont know.
I guess its my job to say, as a writer trying to make sense of what you do.
I dont think theres anything to make sense of. I dont know. What do you think I do?
I think youre a content creator and performer.
Thats vague. But yeah. Im not not. But thats what Im saying. I like to keep people guessing, keep people off kilter. If people think Im a comedian, I will move in a totally different direction and start making cologne. I wanna make people go, What the fuck? Keeping people guessing, keeping genuine conversation going about me, whether its, I dont want to say the word negative, but whatever its gonna be, thats what I am. A conversation starter? I dont know.
Tastemaker?
Conversation piece? Idiot? All of the above?
Whats your goal with your book? Why do you do what you do? Aside from the fact that you just want to do it.
The end goal with the book is that I think I can get some turnt-up 18-year-old to read. Thats the challenge, like, can you get fuckin some kids to read and think its really fuckin chill? Is that doable? Ill literally do it just for that.
Were doing reading raves to promote the book. IRL is what the programs called. Its just like huge DJs and books. Like, can you make them read? I think its doable. I dont think publishing knows how to do it. I dont think parents know how to do it.
So you want to make reading cool?
Kind of. What if Im somehow the guy to do it?
What are your favorite books?
I love Shel Silverstein, and not only because my mom fucked him. Mostly, Im the type to read 100 listicles. Like, what kind of bagel is Rihanna? You know what I mean? One-hundred times Rihanna ate fruit. Im not reading enough books.
No ones reading enough books.
Maybe now? That would fucking weird. To get a fucking 17-year-old whos over it to sit down and read an entire book? I mean I put in some stuff to break up the chapters, like you can color in a picture of Tyrese. I mean, I dont want you to have to read too much.
Illustration by Max Fleishman
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I went to the Rentboy liquidation sale, and all I got was this amazing escort swag
After a massive federal raid, Rentboy had to sell its entire office on Craigslist to pay its lawyers.
By Mary Emily O'Hara — November 02, 2015
Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/19/the-fat-jewaes-money-pizza-respect-is-the-worst-book-iaeve-ever-read/
from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/the-fat-jewaes-money-pizza-respect-is-the-worst-book-iaeve-ever-read/
0 notes
adambstingus · 7 years
Text
The Fat Jew’s ‘Money Pizza Respect’ is the worst book I’ve ever read
I wish I liked the Fat Jews new book. It would make a far more interesting piece if he exceeded our expectations. No one I talked to expected it to be good. I bet he didnt even write it, said one friend. I bet he had his interns write it.
To contextualize this for people who arent on the Internet all the time, Josh The Fat Jew Ostrovsky became the center of controversy when he was accused of stealing memes and jokes from comedians this summer. Ostrovsky had been doing this for years, and amassed millions of Instagram followers with his admittedly excellent meme aggregating skills. But comedians took a stand when he signed with the talent agency CAA in August.
Upon reading Money Pizza Respect, there is no doubt in my mind that the unfortunately titled book is penned by the Fat Jew himself; I confidently assert that MoneyPizza Respect is singlehandedly the worst book I have ever read.
His actual sense of humorand Im talking about humor, not the memes he aggregatesis painfully abject. He relies on a Tucker Max-esque style of storytelling, glorifying cocaine and alcohol abuse and fucking his groupies, who all embody a different type of crazy girl stereotype.
In a chapter ironically titled The Eleven Commandments of Not Being the Worst Person Ever, he warns readers that if you aggressively and frequently talk about your sex life, people will think youre gay. When you tell me that you tackled a slam pig and stuffed her axe wound, he writes, I assume that your actual goal is having anal sex with men. Ostrovsky makes sure to note that the only exception to this rule is Dan Bilzerian, who has literally thrown a woman off his roof, breaking her foot, and been accused of kicking another woman in the face.
Money Pizza Respect is laced with homophobic comments. He writes a note to P. Diddy: Sorry for outing you as a homosexual. Im pretty sure you are, but Im sorry. Theres also a healthy dose of sexism, describing his female groupies as a bunch of fours and fives who have giant lady hands hate their dads. To complete the trifecta, he also manages to be transphobic, referring to transgender women as trannies in a chapter chronicling his brothers bachelor party. (When his brother and friends found out the strippers who were giving them lap dances were trans, they left the club immediately.)
Before I met Ostrovsky, I was confused about how he was so successful, especially after reading his book, where he brags about his selfish and generally gross behavior at every possible moment, proudly displays pictures of him wearing a thong made out of beef jerky, and writes things like, Cocaine is the greatest gift the world has ever seen.
When I sat down with him at a press junket, located at an arcade in Chinatown, I immediately understood why hes garnered so much success. He is unfortunately charming and is actually a naturally funny person. Hes like the cool, mean boy in 8th grade, the type who introduced pot to all your friends and made fun of girls for being ugly or not having boobs yet. The type who definitely bullied me, and yet I tirelessly tried to gain his affection.
During our interview, Ostrovsky remained on the defensive, masterful at answering my questions with non-answers. He is somebody who has never taken life seriously, which is perhaps not too difficult for a straight, white, affluent male. He is fundamentally interested in his conception of fun, and hopes youll join him for the ride. If not, fuck off.
Its not that I began to like Ostrovsky or his book any more after meeting him, but I went from hating him to feeling an iota of pity for him. His flamboyant and unapologetic immaturity, his bratty affect: This is what has brought him success, and what I imagine will be his inevitable downfall.
So my approach for this interview, because I know a lot of people have been shitting on you, is to not shit on you.
No ones been shitting on me.
I was curious about how that affected you emotionally, and how you felt about getting blasted by the media.
It was definitely a shitty situation. Im of the Internet, so its like a lot of people screaming about things. I respect trolling. I respect people screaming at one another, which is why the Internet is so fucking great. I definitely didnt take it personally. It was also something that needed to get talked about. People were not on the same page. Like a 38-year-old comedy writer and a 16-year-old Filipino millennial were not seeing the issue the same way.
I try to look at it like I was the face of the whole thing. I mean the Internet is a giant, lawless fuckin thing. Sometimes we need some rules But not too many. Because that would be weird. No parents. But you know, sometimes people get pissed. I obviously see it from the 16-year-old Filipino millennial side. I dont look for credit on my stuff and I dont ever watermark or anything like that, but I also get the other side too. Im old enough to understand both sides. I just want everyone to be happy so were fuckin partying.
Instagram for fucking photos of dogs playing volleyball in sunglasses and iguanas surfing. I just want to have everyone get heard, fix the problem, and then get back to surfing iguanas. It didnt rock me emotionally because I just saw it as something that needed to be discussed. It definitely got dangerous and exciting at some points. People just get so crazy, theres a portion of people who dont even know what theyre screaming about. I got chased by TMZ. Some guy followed me around a Duane Reade recording my phone call. That was tight.
You liked that?
I kinda felt like Leo , for like a second. It was also scary. No one wants that life. I was trying to look at it like this is a conversation that needed to be had. I didnt look at it as being shit on. The Internet is more important to me than my family or anything. I would love to be with the Internet, have sex with the Internet, I love the Internet. Now its a better place.
Why was it important for you to celebrate drugs, specifically cocaine, in your book?
Its a mixed bag. I refer to it as the best and worst thing ever. Part of the ethos of this book is that its a how-to guide in that its like I dont know what you should be doing but I know what you shouldnt be doing. Ive seen every horrible thing. I basically think you read this book and you dont do coke. Because youre like, its gonna make me unbearable. Like my breath is gonna smell like a diaper and get into a super intense conversation about stuff I dont even care about.
I think it depends on how old the reader is. For me, Ive done coke so I understood more where you were coming from in that it can be great and terrible at the same time. From a teenagers standpoint, it might just look really cool.
It depends. Im pretty explicit that its been responsible for the greatest things that ever happened, but also some of the most horrendous things, too. I think its more self-reflective than it is encouraging.
Your book is provocative is many ways. People are going to interpret some of the content as transphobic and homophobic. I was thinking of the chapter where you refer to trans women as trannies.
I dont know what youre specifically referring to.
You wrote about tranny strippers. Thats a contentious word. Many trans people have spoken out about how hurtful they find that term to be. I was curious about how you would respond to those critics.
is a factual account of what happened. Youre talking about an actual pejorative word?
Yeah. Its a slur. There were a bunch of moments in the book where I read something and immediately thought about how angry it would make social justice activists on the Internet.
Social justice people are angry at everything.
I was wondering if you included some things specifically to be provocative.
No, definitely not. First of all, any social justice person can come at me at any time. I literally have more transgender friends who will vouch for me than anyone. They self-identify as trannies. Ask a transgender who is not a nerd from the Internet how they identify, and I bet you will find hundreds who identify as trannies.
I know transgender folks who identify that way. Its like the N-word. If they call themselves that, its OK. But having a cis person is a different story.
Any person who would find offense in that kind of minutia is not someone who should be reading this book.
Its not your audience, thats probably true.
That shouldnt be anyones audience, as far Im concerned.
As I was reading your book, I was thinking about your crazy drug and sex stories as they relate to Tucker Maxs stories from I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Was he somebody who influenced you?
No, thats like bro culture stuff. This is completely different.
Tonally, there were similarities.
Ive never read it, but I also think that in terms of this book, like Ive been living performance art long enough to write a book full of debaucherous stories, but I wanted to go with more pathos, truth. From what I understand from Tucker Maxs stuff, he doesnt really go into too much stuff like that. Not all the stories here are particularly turnt up, as far as Im concerned. There are some that are honest family stories, not every story is about partying.
But a lot of them are.
We can go through it When I was writing it, putting in some emotion and truth, and some real feeling on it, like talking about my mom having sex with Shel Silverstein and being a 9-year-old child actor diva. Shit like that, to me, that is not the same as walking around a bar with a breathalyzer . I dont not relate to it, but Ive never read any of his stuff.
Ostrovsky as a child actor Josh Ostrovsky
Do you differentiate between the Fat Jew as your performative character and yourself as Josh?
No. I dont go home at night and unscrew the hairection , sit down, and listen to This American Life and be like, Oh, what a hard day at work! Being the Fat Jew! No, its all one in the same. To me, that would be disingenuous. I was doing this stuff long before there was anywhere to share it, long before anyone knew about it. Ten years ago, people in New York would be like, Oh thats the Fat Jew, the guy who does crazy stuff. It wasnt something I created and cultivated in order to share on social media for the masses.
But this is your career, this is your passion, but a lot of artists and actors differentiate between their performative self, which is still their self, and who they are when theyre not performing.
Im not an artist or an actor. Im neither.
How do you identify?
Im the only one whos really just going for it. Im genuinely making it up as I go along. I could start a ros company and that could become a real thing. Im about to do the worlds first EDM cologne.
What is that gonna smell like?
I dont know. Thats a good question. Like I dont even know what that means but Im gonna do it. Its 2015. Anything is possible. The world is so ridiculous at this point. I might open a yoga ashram in Toronto. Who knows? Im one of the only people who doesnt consider anything on or off limits. I dont think that it can be defined. We have this human need to compartmentalize, to be like, What are you? But I dont know.
I guess its my job to say, as a writer trying to make sense of what you do.
I dont think theres anything to make sense of. I dont know. What do you think I do?
I think youre a content creator and performer.
Thats vague. But yeah. Im not not. But thats what Im saying. I like to keep people guessing, keep people off kilter. If people think Im a comedian, I will move in a totally different direction and start making cologne. I wanna make people go, What the fuck? Keeping people guessing, keeping genuine conversation going about me, whether its, I dont want to say the word negative, but whatever its gonna be, thats what I am. A conversation starter? I dont know.
Tastemaker?
Conversation piece? Idiot? All of the above?
Whats your goal with your book? Why do you do what you do? Aside from the fact that you just want to do it.
The end goal with the book is that I think I can get some turnt-up 18-year-old to read. Thats the challenge, like, can you get fuckin some kids to read and think its really fuckin chill? Is that doable? Ill literally do it just for that.
Were doing reading raves to promote the book. IRL is what the programs called. Its just like huge DJs and books. Like, can you make them read? I think its doable. I dont think publishing knows how to do it. I dont think parents know how to do it.
So you want to make reading cool?
Kind of. What if Im somehow the guy to do it?
What are your favorite books?
I love Shel Silverstein, and not only because my mom fucked him. Mostly, Im the type to read 100 listicles. Like, what kind of bagel is Rihanna? You know what I mean? One-hundred times Rihanna ate fruit. Im not reading enough books.
No ones reading enough books.
Maybe now? That would fucking weird. To get a fucking 17-year-old whos over it to sit down and read an entire book? I mean I put in some stuff to break up the chapters, like you can color in a picture of Tyrese. I mean, I dont want you to have to read too much.
Illustration by Max Fleishman
Popular on The Daily Dot
I went to the Rentboy liquidation sale, and all I got was this amazing escort swag
After a massive federal raid, Rentboy had to sell its entire office on Craigslist to pay its lawyers.
By Mary Emily O'Hara — November 02, 2015
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/19/the-fat-jewaes-money-pizza-respect-is-the-worst-book-iaeve-ever-read/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/165493432272
0 notes
allofbeercom · 7 years
Text
The Fat Jew’s ‘Money Pizza Respect’ is the worst book I’ve ever read
I wish I liked the Fat Jews new book. It would make a far more interesting piece if he exceeded our expectations. No one I talked to expected it to be good. I bet he didnt even write it, said one friend. I bet he had his interns write it.
To contextualize this for people who arent on the Internet all the time, Josh The Fat Jew Ostrovsky became the center of controversy when he was accused of stealing memes and jokes from comedians this summer. Ostrovsky had been doing this for years, and amassed millions of Instagram followers with his admittedly excellent meme aggregating skills. But comedians took a stand when he signed with the talent agency CAA in August.
Upon reading Money Pizza Respect, there is no doubt in my mind that the unfortunately titled book is penned by the Fat Jew himself; I confidently assert that MoneyPizza Respect is singlehandedly the worst book I have ever read.
His actual sense of humorand Im talking about humor, not the memes he aggregatesis painfully abject. He relies on a Tucker Max-esque style of storytelling, glorifying cocaine and alcohol abuse and fucking his groupies, who all embody a different type of crazy girl stereotype.
In a chapter ironically titled The Eleven Commandments of Not Being the Worst Person Ever, he warns readers that if you aggressively and frequently talk about your sex life, people will think youre gay. When you tell me that you tackled a slam pig and stuffed her axe wound, he writes, I assume that your actual goal is having anal sex with men. Ostrovsky makes sure to note that the only exception to this rule is Dan Bilzerian, who has literally thrown a woman off his roof, breaking her foot, and been accused of kicking another woman in the face.
Money Pizza Respect is laced with homophobic comments. He writes a note to P. Diddy: Sorry for outing you as a homosexual. Im pretty sure you are, but Im sorry. Theres also a healthy dose of sexism, describing his female groupies as a bunch of fours and fives who have giant lady hands hate their dads. To complete the trifecta, he also manages to be transphobic, referring to transgender women as trannies in a chapter chronicling his brothers bachelor party. (When his brother and friends found out the strippers who were giving them lap dances were trans, they left the club immediately.)
Before I met Ostrovsky, I was confused about how he was so successful, especially after reading his book, where he brags about his selfish and generally gross behavior at every possible moment, proudly displays pictures of him wearing a thong made out of beef jerky, and writes things like, Cocaine is the greatest gift the world has ever seen.
When I sat down with him at a press junket, located at an arcade in Chinatown, I immediately understood why hes garnered so much success. He is unfortunately charming and is actually a naturally funny person. Hes like the cool, mean boy in 8th grade, the type who introduced pot to all your friends and made fun of girls for being ugly or not having boobs yet. The type who definitely bullied me, and yet I tirelessly tried to gain his affection.
During our interview, Ostrovsky remained on the defensive, masterful at answering my questions with non-answers. He is somebody who has never taken life seriously, which is perhaps not too difficult for a straight, white, affluent male. He is fundamentally interested in his conception of fun, and hopes youll join him for the ride. If not, fuck off.
Its not that I began to like Ostrovsky or his book any more after meeting him, but I went from hating him to feeling an iota of pity for him. His flamboyant and unapologetic immaturity, his bratty affect: This is what has brought him success, and what I imagine will be his inevitable downfall.
So my approach for this interview, because I know a lot of people have been shitting on you, is to not shit on you.
No ones been shitting on me.
I was curious about how that affected you emotionally, and how you felt about getting blasted by the media.
It was definitely a shitty situation. Im of the Internet, so its like a lot of people screaming about things. I respect trolling. I respect people screaming at one another, which is why the Internet is so fucking great. I definitely didnt take it personally. It was also something that needed to get talked about. People were not on the same page. Like a 38-year-old comedy writer and a 16-year-old Filipino millennial were not seeing the issue the same way.
I try to look at it like I was the face of the whole thing. I mean the Internet is a giant, lawless fuckin thing. Sometimes we need some rules But not too many. Because that would be weird. No parents. But you know, sometimes people get pissed. I obviously see it from the 16-year-old Filipino millennial side. I dont look for credit on my stuff and I dont ever watermark or anything like that, but I also get the other side too. Im old enough to understand both sides. I just want everyone to be happy so were fuckin partying.
Instagram for fucking photos of dogs playing volleyball in sunglasses and iguanas surfing. I just want to have everyone get heard, fix the problem, and then get back to surfing iguanas. It didnt rock me emotionally because I just saw it as something that needed to be discussed. It definitely got dangerous and exciting at some points. People just get so crazy, theres a portion of people who dont even know what theyre screaming about. I got chased by TMZ. Some guy followed me around a Duane Reade recording my phone call. That was tight.
You liked that?
I kinda felt like Leo , for like a second. It was also scary. No one wants that life. I was trying to look at it like this is a conversation that needed to be had. I didnt look at it as being shit on. The Internet is more important to me than my family or anything. I would love to be with the Internet, have sex with the Internet, I love the Internet. Now its a better place.
Why was it important for you to celebrate drugs, specifically cocaine, in your book?
Its a mixed bag. I refer to it as the best and worst thing ever. Part of the ethos of this book is that its a how-to guide in that its like I dont know what you should be doing but I know what you shouldnt be doing. Ive seen every horrible thing. I basically think you read this book and you dont do coke. Because youre like, its gonna make me unbearable. Like my breath is gonna smell like a diaper and get into a super intense conversation about stuff I dont even care about.
I think it depends on how old the reader is. For me, Ive done coke so I understood more where you were coming from in that it can be great and terrible at the same time. From a teenagers standpoint, it might just look really cool.
It depends. Im pretty explicit that its been responsible for the greatest things that ever happened, but also some of the most horrendous things, too. I think its more self-reflective than it is encouraging.
Your book is provocative is many ways. People are going to interpret some of the content as transphobic and homophobic. I was thinking of the chapter where you refer to trans women as trannies.
I dont know what youre specifically referring to.
You wrote about tranny strippers. Thats a contentious word. Many trans people have spoken out about how hurtful they find that term to be. I was curious about how you would respond to those critics.
is a factual account of what happened. Youre talking about an actual pejorative word?
Yeah. Its a slur. There were a bunch of moments in the book where I read something and immediately thought about how angry it would make social justice activists on the Internet.
Social justice people are angry at everything.
I was wondering if you included some things specifically to be provocative.
No, definitely not. First of all, any social justice person can come at me at any time. I literally have more transgender friends who will vouch for me than anyone. They self-identify as trannies. Ask a transgender who is not a nerd from the Internet how they identify, and I bet you will find hundreds who identify as trannies.
I know transgender folks who identify that way. Its like the N-word. If they call themselves that, its OK. But having a cis person is a different story.
Any person who would find offense in that kind of minutia is not someone who should be reading this book.
Its not your audience, thats probably true.
That shouldnt be anyones audience, as far Im concerned.
As I was reading your book, I was thinking about your crazy drug and sex stories as they relate to Tucker Maxs stories from I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Was he somebody who influenced you?
No, thats like bro culture stuff. This is completely different.
Tonally, there were similarities.
Ive never read it, but I also think that in terms of this book, like Ive been living performance art long enough to write a book full of debaucherous stories, but I wanted to go with more pathos, truth. From what I understand from Tucker Maxs stuff, he doesnt really go into too much stuff like that. Not all the stories here are particularly turnt up, as far as Im concerned. There are some that are honest family stories, not every story is about partying.
But a lot of them are.
We can go through it When I was writing it, putting in some emotion and truth, and some real feeling on it, like talking about my mom having sex with Shel Silverstein and being a 9-year-old child actor diva. Shit like that, to me, that is not the same as walking around a bar with a breathalyzer . I dont not relate to it, but Ive never read any of his stuff.
Ostrovsky as a child actor Josh Ostrovsky
Do you differentiate between the Fat Jew as your performative character and yourself as Josh?
No. I dont go home at night and unscrew the hairection , sit down, and listen to This American Life and be like, Oh, what a hard day at work! Being the Fat Jew! No, its all one in the same. To me, that would be disingenuous. I was doing this stuff long before there was anywhere to share it, long before anyone knew about it. Ten years ago, people in New York would be like, Oh thats the Fat Jew, the guy who does crazy stuff. It wasnt something I created and cultivated in order to share on social media for the masses.
But this is your career, this is your passion, but a lot of artists and actors differentiate between their performative self, which is still their self, and who they are when theyre not performing.
Im not an artist or an actor. Im neither.
How do you identify?
Im the only one whos really just going for it. Im genuinely making it up as I go along. I could start a ros company and that could become a real thing. Im about to do the worlds first EDM cologne.
What is that gonna smell like?
I dont know. Thats a good question. Like I dont even know what that means but Im gonna do it. Its 2015. Anything is possible. The world is so ridiculous at this point. I might open a yoga ashram in Toronto. Who knows? Im one of the only people who doesnt consider anything on or off limits. I dont think that it can be defined. We have this human need to compartmentalize, to be like, What are you? But I dont know.
I guess its my job to say, as a writer trying to make sense of what you do.
I dont think theres anything to make sense of. I dont know. What do you think I do?
I think youre a content creator and performer.
Thats vague. But yeah. Im not not. But thats what Im saying. I like to keep people guessing, keep people off kilter. If people think Im a comedian, I will move in a totally different direction and start making cologne. I wanna make people go, What the fuck? Keeping people guessing, keeping genuine conversation going about me, whether its, I dont want to say the word negative, but whatever its gonna be, thats what I am. A conversation starter? I dont know.
Tastemaker?
Conversation piece? Idiot? All of the above?
Whats your goal with your book? Why do you do what you do? Aside from the fact that you just want to do it.
The end goal with the book is that I think I can get some turnt-up 18-year-old to read. Thats the challenge, like, can you get fuckin some kids to read and think its really fuckin chill? Is that doable? Ill literally do it just for that.
Were doing reading raves to promote the book. IRL is what the programs called. Its just like huge DJs and books. Like, can you make them read? I think its doable. I dont think publishing knows how to do it. I dont think parents know how to do it.
So you want to make reading cool?
Kind of. What if Im somehow the guy to do it?
What are your favorite books?
I love Shel Silverstein, and not only because my mom fucked him. Mostly, Im the type to read 100 listicles. Like, what kind of bagel is Rihanna? You know what I mean? One-hundred times Rihanna ate fruit. Im not reading enough books.
No ones reading enough books.
Maybe now? That would fucking weird. To get a fucking 17-year-old whos over it to sit down and read an entire book? I mean I put in some stuff to break up the chapters, like you can color in a picture of Tyrese. I mean, I dont want you to have to read too much.
Illustration by Max Fleishman
Popular on The Daily Dot
I went to the Rentboy liquidation sale, and all I got was this amazing escort swag
After a massive federal raid, Rentboy had to sell its entire office on Craigslist to pay its lawyers.
By Mary Emily O'Hara — November 02, 2015
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/19/the-fat-jewaes-money-pizza-respect-is-the-worst-book-iaeve-ever-read/
0 notes
jimdsmith34 · 7 years
Text
The Fat Jew’s ‘Money Pizza Respect’ is the worst book I’ve ever read
I wish I liked the Fat Jews new book. It would make a far more interesting piece if he exceeded our expectations. No one I talked to expected it to be good. I bet he didnt even write it, said one friend. I bet he had his interns write it.
To contextualize this for people who arent on the Internet all the time, Josh The Fat Jew Ostrovsky became the center of controversy when he was accused of stealing memes and jokes from comedians this summer. Ostrovsky had been doing this for years, and amassed millions of Instagram followers with his admittedly excellent meme aggregating skills. But comedians took a stand when he signed with the talent agency CAA in August.
Upon reading Money Pizza Respect, there is no doubt in my mind that the unfortunately titled book is penned by the Fat Jew himself; I confidently assert that MoneyPizza Respect is singlehandedly the worst book I have ever read.
His actual sense of humorand Im talking about humor, not the memes he aggregatesis painfully abject. He relies on a Tucker Max-esque style of storytelling, glorifying cocaine and alcohol abuse and fucking his groupies, who all embody a different type of crazy girl stereotype.
In a chapter ironically titled The Eleven Commandments of Not Being the Worst Person Ever, he warns readers that if you aggressively and frequently talk about your sex life, people will think youre gay. When you tell me that you tackled a slam pig and stuffed her axe wound, he writes, I assume that your actual goal is having anal sex with men. Ostrovsky makes sure to note that the only exception to this rule is Dan Bilzerian, who has literally thrown a woman off his roof, breaking her foot, and been accused of kicking another woman in the face.
Money Pizza Respect is laced with homophobic comments. He writes a note to P. Diddy: Sorry for outing you as a homosexual. Im pretty sure you are, but Im sorry. Theres also a healthy dose of sexism, describing his female groupies as a bunch of fours and fives who have giant lady hands hate their dads. To complete the trifecta, he also manages to be transphobic, referring to transgender women as trannies in a chapter chronicling his brothers bachelor party. (When his brother and friends found out the strippers who were giving them lap dances were trans, they left the club immediately.)
Before I met Ostrovsky, I was confused about how he was so successful, especially after reading his book, where he brags about his selfish and generally gross behavior at every possible moment, proudly displays pictures of him wearing a thong made out of beef jerky, and writes things like, Cocaine is the greatest gift the world has ever seen.
When I sat down with him at a press junket, located at an arcade in Chinatown, I immediately understood why hes garnered so much success. He is unfortunately charming and is actually a naturally funny person. Hes like the cool, mean boy in 8th grade, the type who introduced pot to all your friends and made fun of girls for being ugly or not having boobs yet. The type who definitely bullied me, and yet I tirelessly tried to gain his affection.
During our interview, Ostrovsky remained on the defensive, masterful at answering my questions with non-answers. He is somebody who has never taken life seriously, which is perhaps not too difficult for a straight, white, affluent male. He is fundamentally interested in his conception of fun, and hopes youll join him for the ride. If not, fuck off.
Its not that I began to like Ostrovsky or his book any more after meeting him, but I went from hating him to feeling an iota of pity for him. His flamboyant and unapologetic immaturity, his bratty affect: This is what has brought him success, and what I imagine will be his inevitable downfall.
So my approach for this interview, because I know a lot of people have been shitting on you, is to not shit on you.
No ones been shitting on me.
I was curious about how that affected you emotionally, and how you felt about getting blasted by the media.
It was definitely a shitty situation. Im of the Internet, so its like a lot of people screaming about things. I respect trolling. I respect people screaming at one another, which is why the Internet is so fucking great. I definitely didnt take it personally. It was also something that needed to get talked about. People were not on the same page. Like a 38-year-old comedy writer and a 16-year-old Filipino millennial were not seeing the issue the same way.
I try to look at it like I was the face of the whole thing. I mean the Internet is a giant, lawless fuckin thing. Sometimes we need some rules But not too many. Because that would be weird. No parents. But you know, sometimes people get pissed. I obviously see it from the 16-year-old Filipino millennial side. I dont look for credit on my stuff and I dont ever watermark or anything like that, but I also get the other side too. Im old enough to understand both sides. I just want everyone to be happy so were fuckin partying.
Instagram for fucking photos of dogs playing volleyball in sunglasses and iguanas surfing. I just want to have everyone get heard, fix the problem, and then get back to surfing iguanas. It didnt rock me emotionally because I just saw it as something that needed to be discussed. It definitely got dangerous and exciting at some points. People just get so crazy, theres a portion of people who dont even know what theyre screaming about. I got chased by TMZ. Some guy followed me around a Duane Reade recording my phone call. That was tight.
You liked that?
I kinda felt like Leo , for like a second. It was also scary. No one wants that life. I was trying to look at it like this is a conversation that needed to be had. I didnt look at it as being shit on. The Internet is more important to me than my family or anything. I would love to be with the Internet, have sex with the Internet, I love the Internet. Now its a better place.
Why was it important for you to celebrate drugs, specifically cocaine, in your book?
Its a mixed bag. I refer to it as the best and worst thing ever. Part of the ethos of this book is that its a how-to guide in that its like I dont know what you should be doing but I know what you shouldnt be doing. Ive seen every horrible thing. I basically think you read this book and you dont do coke. Because youre like, its gonna make me unbearable. Like my breath is gonna smell like a diaper and get into a super intense conversation about stuff I dont even care about.
I think it depends on how old the reader is. For me, Ive done coke so I understood more where you were coming from in that it can be great and terrible at the same time. From a teenagers standpoint, it might just look really cool.
It depends. Im pretty explicit that its been responsible for the greatest things that ever happened, but also some of the most horrendous things, too. I think its more self-reflective than it is encouraging.
Your book is provocative is many ways. People are going to interpret some of the content as transphobic and homophobic. I was thinking of the chapter where you refer to trans women as trannies.
I dont know what youre specifically referring to.
You wrote about tranny strippers. Thats a contentious word. Many trans people have spoken out about how hurtful they find that term to be. I was curious about how you would respond to those critics.
is a factual account of what happened. Youre talking about an actual pejorative word?
Yeah. Its a slur. There were a bunch of moments in the book where I read something and immediately thought about how angry it would make social justice activists on the Internet.
Social justice people are angry at everything.
I was wondering if you included some things specifically to be provocative.
No, definitely not. First of all, any social justice person can come at me at any time. I literally have more transgender friends who will vouch for me than anyone. They self-identify as trannies. Ask a transgender who is not a nerd from the Internet how they identify, and I bet you will find hundreds who identify as trannies.
I know transgender folks who identify that way. Its like the N-word. If they call themselves that, its OK. But having a cis person is a different story.
Any person who would find offense in that kind of minutia is not someone who should be reading this book.
Its not your audience, thats probably true.
That shouldnt be anyones audience, as far Im concerned.
As I was reading your book, I was thinking about your crazy drug and sex stories as they relate to Tucker Maxs stories from I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Was he somebody who influenced you?
No, thats like bro culture stuff. This is completely different.
Tonally, there were similarities.
Ive never read it, but I also think that in terms of this book, like Ive been living performance art long enough to write a book full of debaucherous stories, but I wanted to go with more pathos, truth. From what I understand from Tucker Maxs stuff, he doesnt really go into too much stuff like that. Not all the stories here are particularly turnt up, as far as Im concerned. There are some that are honest family stories, not every story is about partying.
But a lot of them are.
We can go through it When I was writing it, putting in some emotion and truth, and some real feeling on it, like talking about my mom having sex with Shel Silverstein and being a 9-year-old child actor diva. Shit like that, to me, that is not the same as walking around a bar with a breathalyzer . I dont not relate to it, but Ive never read any of his stuff.
Ostrovsky as a child actor Josh Ostrovsky
Do you differentiate between the Fat Jew as your performative character and yourself as Josh?
No. I dont go home at night and unscrew the hairection , sit down, and listen to This American Life and be like, Oh, what a hard day at work! Being the Fat Jew! No, its all one in the same. To me, that would be disingenuous. I was doing this stuff long before there was anywhere to share it, long before anyone knew about it. Ten years ago, people in New York would be like, Oh thats the Fat Jew, the guy who does crazy stuff. It wasnt something I created and cultivated in order to share on social media for the masses.
But this is your career, this is your passion, but a lot of artists and actors differentiate between their performative self, which is still their self, and who they are when theyre not performing.
Im not an artist or an actor. Im neither.
How do you identify?
Im the only one whos really just going for it. Im genuinely making it up as I go along. I could start a ros company and that could become a real thing. Im about to do the worlds first EDM cologne.
What is that gonna smell like?
I dont know. Thats a good question. Like I dont even know what that means but Im gonna do it. Its 2015. Anything is possible. The world is so ridiculous at this point. I might open a yoga ashram in Toronto. Who knows? Im one of the only people who doesnt consider anything on or off limits. I dont think that it can be defined. We have this human need to compartmentalize, to be like, What are you? But I dont know.
I guess its my job to say, as a writer trying to make sense of what you do.
I dont think theres anything to make sense of. I dont know. What do you think I do?
I think youre a content creator and performer.
Thats vague. But yeah. Im not not. But thats what Im saying. I like to keep people guessing, keep people off kilter. If people think Im a comedian, I will move in a totally different direction and start making cologne. I wanna make people go, What the fuck? Keeping people guessing, keeping genuine conversation going about me, whether its, I dont want to say the word negative, but whatever its gonna be, thats what I am. A conversation starter? I dont know.
Tastemaker?
Conversation piece? Idiot? All of the above?
Whats your goal with your book? Why do you do what you do? Aside from the fact that you just want to do it.
The end goal with the book is that I think I can get some turnt-up 18-year-old to read. Thats the challenge, like, can you get fuckin some kids to read and think its really fuckin chill? Is that doable? Ill literally do it just for that.
Were doing reading raves to promote the book. IRL is what the programs called. Its just like huge DJs and books. Like, can you make them read? I think its doable. I dont think publishing knows how to do it. I dont think parents know how to do it.
So you want to make reading cool?
Kind of. What if Im somehow the guy to do it?
What are your favorite books?
I love Shel Silverstein, and not only because my mom fucked him. Mostly, Im the type to read 100 listicles. Like, what kind of bagel is Rihanna? You know what I mean? One-hundred times Rihanna ate fruit. Im not reading enough books.
No ones reading enough books.
Maybe now? That would fucking weird. To get a fucking 17-year-old whos over it to sit down and read an entire book? I mean I put in some stuff to break up the chapters, like you can color in a picture of Tyrese. I mean, I dont want you to have to read too much.
Illustration by Max Fleishman
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source http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/19/the-fat-jewaes-money-pizza-respect-is-the-worst-book-iaeve-ever-read/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-fat-jewas-money-pizza-respect-is.html
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