Yikes. I just had to convince my boss that it was a bad idea to run a comment in our publication comparing straight women writing slash fiction to white actors performing in blackface.

Thinking about that comparison makes my brain hurt.

I mean, yes, I've heard criticism of the whole women-writing-gay-men thing, but...I don't think it generally carries the same cultural and historical weight as blackface!!

meara, precisely! Also, this is for a brief column that has neither the space nor a particularly good reason to get into definitions of and debates over slash fiction, so the comment would have been almost entirely without context, and read almost entirely by people lacking any context for or understanding of fanfic or slash. Just... seemed like a really bad idea.

My brain isn't working. What's the name of the effect that observation has on phenomena?

Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.

OK, I dunno if anyone else has read Joel Stein's IDIOTIC tweet on YA book readers, but I am writing a rebuttal in a white-hot state of WTF? and would love a beta over in GWW. It's a rough draft; I just finished the draft.

He's an idiot, and it was in one of those idiotic NYTimes.com point-counterpoint roundups.

He IS an idiot...but...cannot....stop...self...from rebutting.

It's a sickess.

NYT article on men who wear high heels: [link]