The B Side

Brian. Everything that's good and fun.

[thebsideofthings]

"If these games did anything, it’s remind us that the corporatised world of sports is a mess that should be fumigated from snout to tail. We all know that doping permeates our favourite events, that the exclusion of trans women from competitions is pure bigotry based on junk science, and capitalism has marginalized working class fans and athletes alike. We watch our beloved teams play even though we know they’re owned by sleazy billionaires who would sink their clubs’ legacies for an extra dollar. And despite it all, we still love the essence of competition, of community, and of watching people try their best. The Enhanced Games isn’t about the love of the game; it’s a smarmy exercise in profit over people."

- The Enhanced Games is a Stupid Scam of Toxic Masculinity and Optimisation Culture by Kayleigh Donaldson, Pajiba

[thebsideofthings]

"Music doesn’t have to win a majority of voters. It doesn’t need to appeal to the lowest common denominator or lay out a 10-point plan. It just has to be true enough for people to see themselves in it. It just has to remind people that they’re not alone in their fears and their struggles, their hopes and their dreams. Great music has a way of helping us feel seen; more than that, it helps us see others, enlarging our hearts and our moral imaginations. That’s how the spirituals preached emancipation before the Proclamation was signed, rock & roll encouraged integration before the Civil Rights Act was passed, and the protest songs got the wrongness of Vietnam long before the government could admit it."

"Honoring the Music that Made Us" by Barack Obama for Rolling Stone

[thebsideofthings]

"Similar to Iowa State star Audi Crooks, Bueckers is doing what she can in her role to help in a time of crisis. Athletes who use their platforms and reach to give back are always welcome and show that they are actively engaged and a real part of the community. It’s understandable to feel despair at this moment. The US government is making life worse for people around the world. At a time like this, we have to find community with each other. This donation from Bueckers will help Minnesotans and hopefully spur other athletes to follow her lead. When we come together, we win."

Issue 089 of the Women's Basketball Roundup newsletter

[thebsideofthings]

"CBA negotiations have been a frustrating, yet revealing saga. Throughout the process, we’ve seen the league office disrespect and belittle players. It’s been shocking to watch from the outside, and I can only imagine how it feels to be on the receiving end of it. The disrespect hasn’t gone unnoticed, either."

- WNBA CBA negotiations are at a standstill by me in the Women's Basketball Roundup newsletter

[thebsideofthings]

"It’s become evident that the NBA and WNBA want the Sun in Houston and have steered the process toward their desired outcome. If the sale occurs, it gives them more ownership group that is aligned with NBA interests as compared to independent WNBA owners who might not be.

There’s a part of me that thinks the NBA and WNBA are killing the W’s chances to return to the New England area in the future. If I'm a Sun fan, why would I want to follow the WNBA again when I'm being told by Adam Silver, Cathy Engelbert, and leadership that I don’t matter?

Sun ownership stuck with the WNBA when others abandoned the league. Now that big money is flowing into the WNBA, the NBA has decided they want to get back in the WNBA business fully, previous relationships be damned. If you feel grossed out by this saga, you're not alone.

This saga appears to be heading towards the finish line. Connecticut fans deserve better from the WNBA, but it seems 2026 will be the last season they have with the Sun. It’s a shame and will be a permanent black mark on the reputations of the WNBA and NBA."

- The Women's Champions Classic shines in Brooklyn by me in the Women's Basketball Roundup newsletter

[thebsideofthings]

"Players — not all, but a lot — are increasingly and intensely concerned with controlling their narrative. Also, with getting paid for it. Influencer culture has emphasised the belief that if there’s something interesting, worthwhile, or novel about you (even if there isn’t) then you have to be the one to make other people see it. For athletes, this has translated into the sense that if they’re not the ones explicitly telling fans who they are, preferably on a podcast, fans won’t know."

- Engine, Ballast by Katie Heindl, Basketball Feelings

[thebsideofthings]

"In reading everything surrounding the CBA talks, I can’t help but feel that management has no respect for the players and their contributions to this league. WNBA players have sacrificed so much over the decades and played for less money than they could have elsewhere. In turn, players have been told they don’t “understand the business,” that sharing is the wrong way to look at things, they’re asking for too much, they should be grateful for the league, etc. That lack of respect manifests itself in what the league is offering the current players and the systematic ignoring of past eras of players. The WNBA historically hasn’t done a great job in honoring its history, and these negotiations continue that disappointing trend."

- 🤘Texas corrals the competition early by me in the Women’s Basketball Roundup newsletter

[thebsideofthings]

"For the league office, they don't need to be as married to NBA ownership groups as Cathy Engelbert seems to have been. Throughout the expansion process, the W has prioritized NBA ownership over independent groups that don’t have NBA affiliations, which limits the WNBA’s reach and gives the NBA even more control over the W.

As we continue on the road to CBA negotiations, the new owners joining the league will be of great interest to the players. The level of interest in the game has continued to grow, and hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing in to the league

The bulk of the new owners have come in from the NBA, and that presents its own unique challenges. As players continue advocating for a fair contract, their fight will involve more than just the WNBA league office."

- 📈 The Las Vegas Aces CLIMBING the standings by me in the Women's Basketball Roundup newsletter

[thebsideofthings]

"AI is a cruel technology. It replaces workers, devours millions of gallons of water, vomits CO2 into the atmosphere, propagandises exclusively for the worst ideologies, and fills the world with more ugliness and stupidity. Cruelty is the central tenet of right wing ideology. It is at the heart of everything they do. They are now quite willing to lose money or their lives in order to make the world a crueller place, and AI is a part of this – a mad rush to make a machine god that will liberate capital from labour for good. (This is no exaggeration: there is a lineage from OpenAI’s senior management back to the Lesswrong blog, originator of the concept of Roko’s Basilisk.) Moreso even than cryptocurrency, AI is entirely nihilistic, with zero redeeming qualities. It is a blight upon the world, and it will take decades to clear up the mountains of slop it has generated in the past two or three years."

- AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism by Gareth Watkins in the New Socialist

[thebsideofthings]

"Racism isn’t a logical position, so you cannot defeat it with logic. Facts just don’t matter to a racist, especially not the tedious kind of racist who makes their home in video game culture. There will always be a new hair to split, a new way for this kind of person to object to a black man being in this video game. You can bring up the other fantabulous aspects of the Assassin’s Creed franchise that clash with history: the existence of the titular Creed and the Knights Templar; whatever the fuck was going on with the Apples of Eden; the series’ depiction of Karl Marx as a devotee of democracy rather than advocating for an armed revolution of the proletariat. It does not matter because the people who are mad about this have already made up their mind."

- Stop Trying To Defeat Racism With Logic by Gita Jackson in Aftermath

[thebsideofthings]

"This isn’t about an elaborate “I told you so”—I don’t need all that. What this is, is a reminder that we know con artists when we see them. And while we appear to be heading into an era where the government is led by a crew of three-card-monte enthusiasts, we have to also do the critical work of understanding ourselves, our bodies, and what it means to keep ourselves healthy and safe in a time where it is very clear that the people in power couldn’t care less.

We have to be so much more to each other than this system wants us to be, both to ourselves and each other—if the system thinks it can save itself some money by losing us, then we hold each other together and keep one another safe and healthy. Kennedy might be rising to a new level of power, but we must learn to step into ours. It was there before, and it’s waiting for us now."

On RFK Jr.: Two con artists walk into a bar… by Erika Nicole Kendall

[thebsideofthings]

"If we have any hope of getting through the next four years and beyond, it’s by calling balls and strikes as we see them—and not kowtowing to fascists hellbent on cloistering themselves away while general suffering metastasizes."

- The Grotesque Age by Marisa Kabas for The Handbasket

[thebsideofthings]

"For Black Americans, the implications of this power struggle are deeply troubling. History has shown that when powerful white men vie for dominance, Black communities often bear the consequences, enduring setbacks that reverberate across generations. From slavery to Jim Crow, from redlining to mass incarceration, power struggles among white elites have often resulted in policies and systems that disproportionately harm Black Americans, entrenching inequality and erasing progress. Each of these historical moments serves as a reminder of how vulnerable marginalized communities become when political battles prioritize dominance over justice. These historical lessons remind us that when powerful white men clash, the resulting policies and systems often deepen systemic inequities, disproportionately harming Black Americans. MAGA, rooted in white supremacist ideologies, has always gravitated toward leaders who push to roll back civil rights advancements. This is why figures like Trump, with his attacks on the Central Park Five, and Musk, with his attempts to delegitimize institutions like HBCUs, find such embrace within the movement."

- Trump vs. Musk: The fight for MAGA and the high stakes for Black America by Haley Taylor Schlitz, Esq. for Insight News

[thebsideofthings]

"The commodification of everything is exhausting. Living within the smothering confines of late-stage capitalism is a total nightmare with no escape in sight. It’s understandable why you’d want to cash in on something as peurile and absurd as a sex joke, but then everything becomes about the money. Rising out one jokes means you will inevitably have to start talking about literally anything else, from politics to activism to whatever the hot take of the day is. And it’s all for sale, much in the same way our lives are. Every home is a potential AirBnb, every car a possible Uber, and every Tik Tok clip your route to millions. If you’re lucky, have a decent head on your shoulders and good people around you, you can get through it without falling into absolute mania. But the chances are you’ll most likely end up surrounded by creeps like the Paul brothers who see a quick buck to be made and string you along for the ride. Maybe you’ll get an agent or publicist but usually you’ll be the one trying to figure out the scam from the safe call, and when you’re young, dumb, and full of spit, why wouldn’t you pick the thing everyone says will make you more money? This is not to strip Welch away from the responsibility she bears for being part of a supposed scam, but it is a reminder that the addictive trauma of celebrity corrupts at a record pace."

- "Spit On It: Anatomy of Hawk Tuah, a Microcelebrity Trend Gone Horribly Wrong" by Kayleigh Donaldson in Pajiba

[thebsideofthings]

"Though we all moved to these platforms for their convenience, over time they became less convenient. I don’t remember exactly when or why I stopped looking at Facebook, just that now it’s overrun with AI slop and has become barely usable. Twitter is experiencing the same “enshittification” process as we speak: After the election, users left the Elon Musk-owned platform in droves, unwilling to centralize the way they talk to people online around this one website. Not that it matters much—Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have already made billions of dollars off of convincing everyone to invest their time into these websites, and if they had their way, you would spend even more time there, earning them even more money.

Unfortunately, this is what all of the internet is right now: social media, owned by large corporations that make changes to them to limit or suppress your speech, in order to make themselves more attractive to advertisers or just pursue their owners’ ends. Even the best Twitter alternatives, like Bluesky, aren’t immune to any of this—the more you centralize onto one single website, the more power that website has over you and what you post there. More than just moving to another website, we need more websites."

- For Love of God, Make Your Own Website by Gita Jackson in Aftermath

[thebsideofthings]

"In sports media, there is no such solidarity between writers of different beats, nor is there much insight into what the compensation is for these roles. New York, with its pay transparency requirements, is one of the few places with any visibility into that market. We aren’t represented in a way that would allow collective bargaining for a change to the compensation structure, and writers are often discouraged from revealing their salaries lest it get back to management as another writer negotiates a raise."

- "Equal Pay for Coverage" by Jane McManus

[thebsideofthings]

"We’re in a different climate now. A different era. Trump gives people permission to be the worst versions of themselves. And with him winning, we’re seeing that again on a much larger scale."

"Influencers Are Going Full MAGA" by EJ Dickson in The Cut