#heath enwright

[theonlybezo]

I listen faithfully to the podcast Citation Needed, hosted by Noah Lugeons, Heath Enwright, Eli Bosnick, Tom Curry, and Cecil Cicirello.

The premise of the show is simple; one of the hosts will read a single article on Wikipedia and pretend to be an expert ("because this is the internet and that's how it works now").

Through it I have learned about all sorts of fascinating things, from infamous humans to man-made disasters.

Very occasionally there will be an episode about a thing that I did not want to know exists that makes me long for my former ignorance.

The most recent episode is about "Looksmaxxing" in general and some guy who calls himself "Clavicular" in particular.

Some things make me hopeful for the future, though they are admittedly becoming more rare.

Looksmaxxing is not one of them.

[ooc-piat]

Dave: "I do my poison spray on the turkey leg so nobody can have it."

[theonlybezo]

I listened to the Citation Needed episode about enshittification and I kinda wanna just smash my phone into a million pieces and walk into the sea.

It was a good episode, don't get me wrong. It's just insane that we're allowing this to happen all around us.

[planetofsnarfs]

ChatGPT convinced a guy that he’s a superhero — Citation Needed — Overcast

Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation.

[planetofsnarfs]

Isabella of France — Citation Needed — Overcast

Isabella of France (c. 1295 – 22 August 1358), sometimes described as the She-Wolf of France (French: Louve de France), was Queen of England as the wife of King Edward II, and de facto regent of England from 1327 until 1330. She was the youngest surviving child and only surviving daughter of Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre. Isabella was notable in her lifetime for her diplomatic skills, intelligence, and beauty. She overthrew her husband, becoming a "femme fatale" figure in plays and literature over the years, usually portrayed as a beautiful but cruel and manipulative figure.

[ooc-piat]

Heath: "And just for the record, every single major brand of beer has very intentionally done some pro-LGBTQ marketing, including Coors Light. These people are idiots. But there IS a fun takeaway here. And Dylan Mulvaney…if you're listening…we're gonna need your help. I wanna make a series of videos with you doing a promotion for every single water company and every single grocery store. I don't think that counts as murder but a bunch of the bigots would die. Maybe even a video with you promoting Kid Rock himself…just to see what he does with his gun on TikTok the next day." Noah: "And that’s probably as close to just coming out and saying it as we’re legally allowed to get, so we’ll close out the…" Eli: [something that gets bleeped out]

[ooc-piat]

Heath: "Same script for just about every single video. Except one. And that would be the video from Kid Rock. Who? Exactly. If you weren't a big fan of white guys doing rap-rock-metal-country in 1999, or a big fan of badly-aging relics in fedoras right now…good. Why would you ever be those things? Well THAT GUY decided that pouring the beer he already purchased into the sink wasn't quite enough punishment for Bud Light. So instead, he bought several cases and shot them to death with an assault rifle." Eli: "To be fair if you looked like a cheap Tiger King halloween costume you’d have a lot of pent up anger too."

[ooc-piat]

Heath: "So if you don't have Eli to send you a barrage of links to Chinese spyware, you might've missed the latest bigot trend on TikTok--" Eli: "YOU WANT VIDEOS OF BULLDOGS DOING A WRAPAROUND, YOU ACCEPT A LITTLE SPYWARE!" Heath: "So to save you some time, I'll try to give you a composite version of all these videos. Cold open is a guy in a trucker hat sporting a penis-replacement beard. He yells at his wife about the phone settings for several minutes, and then they finally realize the video's been going the whole time. Then he gives a long proud speech about his very serious alcohol problem without realizing it, while he pours out his Tuesday morning 30-pack of Bud Light cans, throws in a transphobic slur, and then ceremoniously pulls out a comically oversize Coors Light. And then he tries to take a victory sip without visibly retching at the revolting flavor of their new favorite brand."