The Old Country's Biggest Blunders

Schweppes is for mixed drinks.

Since my mom’s from the Midwest I actually grew up with the stuff and am greatly amused by its sudden trendiness, but I find LaCroix does manage to do the light hint of flavor better than most (especially either Perrier or San Pellegrino, can’t remember which—their flavored water tastes like it was filtered through lemon or lime Froot Loops).

I'm starting to actively post against those decrying the Supper Club. People really like to complain on the internet, don't they!

I thought it was an interesting article and I'm looking forward to reading more like it.

I think it's fine when they write about something more interesting than fast food.

That title though - it immediately reminded me of the article @patrickbatman posted yesterday. They offhandedly mention a "staple" of American poverty in a foodie article.

It's an article by a (formerly?) poor person about how rich people don't know what it's like to be part of the working poor and just think they're lazy and stupid. The comments and article include anecdotes of people getting yelled at in the grocery line for using food stamps.

He was replaced as EIC by a sentient package of Hormel Black Label Bacon.

I think I’ve said this before but the comments there are just so bitter now that I don’t even bother to scroll down on 2/3 of the articles I look at (which is only a couple per day if any now, typically) anymore. Except in stuff like the Reasonable Discussions page, or the rare feature article that engages some number of old-timers, the old feeling of an extended group of friends shooting the shit has been completely lost. The only people left commenting on a lot of the day-to-day articles seem to be people who are so thoroughly embittered with their life that they just take the comments as a place for some release. It’s not like newspaper comments…yet.

Evidently the bacon critic article was removed from the site due to the comments against the subject of the interview getting so out of hand.

The eternal problem with comments sections is that they're a great way to build loyal audience, which can help you get to profitability, but once you have enough readers to be profitable, they become horrible cesspools. But then you can't get RID of them, can you?

Well, this is all going swimmingly!

Pulling articles because the commentariat note when a piece is a pure blowjob to a sponsor is not a good sign for anyone involved.

I'll put money on commentless sponsored articles rising, to the point of commentable pieces being a minority by the end of the year.

The only thing that really keeps me coming back at this point is old TV club reviews from years ago.

Been following along with the Angel reviews on my rewatch. Most time I've spent on the site in months.

How much Fuck Flavor?

I haven't noticed the commenters getting that much worse, though you need to keep in mind I've blocked quite a few people. As a result, for me, it's probably, if anything, a little better.

I dunno. I think most of the commenters are fine, but I think there's more vitriol and more of it is allowed. Maybe this is partly that I am no longer amused by our resident jerks, though? There are a couple people there who get away with saying truly awful things because, why? They've been around a long time? It's stuff that any random Disqus n00b would get banned for if the mods noticed, too. And on that note, I also find that truly awful stuff stays around more often unless it's directly reported to the mods via email. The troll who showed up in the last Kesha article to say she was asking for it and that women routinely lie about rape had his comments remain (despite being flagged by plenty of people) for A WEEK until JaneSays emailed the mod team. 

All of this means that, for me, it feels less welcoming. It definitely feels more fraught to post about certain topics there, especially as a woman. When I make blatantly feminist posts there I now have to first decide if I'm willing to deal with some truly awful comments in response, or deal with gaining yet another creep who puts it upon himself to follow me around forever being nasty*.

*I have a couple of those now. It's SUPER great!**
**In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic there. 

Forget it, Jake, it's the Emmys.