amanda hess

"the only luxury is time" - Kanye

[cutekittensarefun]

I made a replica of the cardboard cafe from Neko Atsume for our cats.

[2othcentury]

Mr. T with his autobiography, c. 1984

[amandahess]

Part of the deranged joy of Marnie’s arc has been witnessing the garbage fire that is her personality ignite her nascent music career.

I wrote about the new and improved fifth season of HBO’s “Girls” for the New York Times. 

[amandahess]

Earning the 'woke' badge is a particularly tantalizing prospect for white allies because it implies that you’re down with the historical fight against prejudice. It’s a word that arose from a specific context of black struggle and has recently assumed a new sense of urgency among activists fighting against racial injustices in Ferguson, Sanford, Baltimore and Flint. When Black Lives Matter activists started a website to help recruit volunteers to the cause, they called it StayWoke.org. “Woke” denotes awareness, but it also connotes blackness. It suggests to white allies that if they walk the walk, they get to talk the talk.

“Earning the ‘Woke’ Badge,” the New York Times Magazine

[amandahess]

Welcome to the strange allure of the “promposal,” the new coming-of-age ritual in which teenagers ask each other to dance through elaborate public displays of affection, surprise and wit. A promposal sounds like a very bad thing. The word conjures the nightmare of an adolescent dress rehearsal for a marriage proposal — one of those disquieting, viral-baiting marriage proposals where (typically) guys arrange some dastardly stunt (simulated plane crash, surprise “Today” show appearance) in a bid to shock and awe their (typically) female targets into signing over their lives on the spot. But after clicking play, play, play on one YouTube promposal after another, I’ve found that most of them are, against all odds, oddly delightful. It’s as if the over-the-top proposal trend has finally found the appropriate, low-stakes outlet.

“The Awkward Charm of the Promposal,” the New York Times Magazine

[spadergifs]

[amandahess]

It’s not that James Deen appeals to women. In the face of extreme erotic scarcity, women molded Deen into someone who appealed to them. For many of them, Deen was little more than just a conduit for expressing their sexuality, or a key to an online erotic world that had previously been closed. ...  That is subversive. They are the feminist icons.

James Deen Is Not a Feminist Icon

[gay4rihanna]

[anniewerner]

You could even say that making fun of the outdated truther ephemera that floats by on the trash floes of the Internet—the conspiratorial collages, the adult-contemporary power ballads, the YouTube documentaries that make the planes go really slow and also backwards—is a remarkably healthy response to the bizarre new emotional burden that’s been placed on post-9/11 teenagers.

Why Teens Love Making Jokes About 9/11 (via anniewerner)

[amandahess]

"It’s something that I sort of hate having unleashed upon the world.” — the woman who created People's "Sexiest Man Alive"

[amandahess]

ladyblogging, 1897

[amandahess]

[hannahmight]

Since moving to L.A. I have not met one person who writes for n+1. 

[amandahess]

She was awful about me. A real cunt. It could have broken my heart, hearing this woman who had inspired me so much talking about how my body was a crime, but somehow it didn't, because I think I understand her. She was there to totally crack open our sense of what a woman could be, what her place was, what her voice was.

Lena Dunham on Joan Rivers

[amandahess]

why do you hate men so much? Bad relationship? Frisky Uncle?

frisky relationships and good uncles

[amandahess]

Will Billy Bob Thornton ever love again?

[amandahess]

Our misandry, like the wings of the butterfly, is too beautiful to pull apart in order to see its workings.

The Toast co-founder Nicole Cliffe, on the rise of ironic misandry.