December 5th, 2011 / 11:43 am
 Contests

ToBS R1: no-taste design aesthetic online magazine vs. facebook updates of what you ate / listened to

[Matchup #13 in Tournament of Bookshit]

In the Really Fucking Ugly corner, weighing in at less than a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a pound, is the entire coded structure of happydogmomlitjournal.blogspot.com. Happy Dog Mom Lit Journal is a newcomer on the scene, but has recently secured training with the Google AdSense and AdWords programs, showing off a stiff upper right corner text ad box that flits out ads for Moleskine journals and Tin House magazine subscriptions. Its ability to fly almost completely under the radar––to not have a single pair of eyes look at it, at all, for years, save the eyes of its own mother and master and pen-name bedecked story feeder, among the occasional algorithmic complimentary link bait––is truly amazing. It’s a stunning example of incompetence, laziness, a journey retarded before it’s even begun, and a complete lack of aesthetic sense beyond the named, repuked text-based emotional “landscapes” that can cohere, almost accidentally, under forty thousand clicks or more, here called curation.

And in the Really Fucking Boring corner, weighing in at twenty-six to twenty-eight vertical scrolling screen inches daily––if compiled carefully, stacked one atop another, Facebook culled and Twitter culled and fuckelse culled––is the defending, perennial, perpetual, office-homicide-inciting small talk pleasantry mewl champion: WHAT I ATE TODAY AND WHAT MUSIC I LISTENED TO WHILE WRITING TODAY! (and the crowd goes wild, Jimmy! each open mouth most likely a flailer themselves!) The undisputed, undefeated champion of this local arena, WHAT I ATE TODAY etc. is the morose daily reminder of the advent of mechanical production processes, and their infestation and subsequent death-reminder presence in the non-ritualized––rituals have to be sacred, Jimmy––but still totally enforced daily habit that is WRITE EVERY DAY, WRITE EVERY DAY, as if some real ethical work is getting done in and through a further removed and more intellectually sparkly masturbation.

I don’t know, Jimmy. It’s a tough bout. One side makes me want to live completely via negativa and both burn myself and all I’ve touched and burn the work of others. And the other side makes me want to sew my mouth shut, rend my fingers, nap on Beckett’s grave in hopes of a ground-up lightning storm, and take to bathing in aromatic ash and talking to crabs every day.

…

After ten grueling rounds, a victor has emerged. Hailing from the king impulsed mother dick of all ethical and aesthetic cognitive dissonance, a startling monument to our collective, willful terror at the edge of dark, and a musically deadened, stillborn tone repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating…

– Ken Baumann

– – –

WINNER: WHAT I ATE TODAY AND WHAT MUSIC I LISTENED TO WHILE WRITING TODAY

Tags: ,

39 Comments

  1. December 5th, 2011 / 11:59 am mimi—

      you’ve been reading my blog again, haven’t you

  2. December 5th, 2011 / 1:30 pm Anonymous—

      I kind of like happy dog mom.

  3. December 5th, 2011 / 1:35 pm The Friendly Gatekeeper of LPP—

      i’m so fresh you can suck my nuts

  4. December 5th, 2011 / 1:48 pm Matt Rowan—

      Hey, don’t diss the dog!

  5. December 5th, 2011 / 1:53 pm Mason Johnson—

      Hmm… kind of a dick move to use an actual blog as an example.

      But also funny.

  6. December 5th, 2011 / 2:53 pm Brooks Sterritt—

      “the defending, perennial, perpetual, office-homicide-inciting small talk pleasantry mewl champion” (killed it)

  7. December 5th, 2011 / 2:56 pm deadgod—

      Happy Dog Mom is the new order.

  8. December 5th, 2011 / 4:08 pm mimi—

      mad hits, baby

  9. December 5th, 2011 / 5:20 pm Mason Johnson—

      I wish they had a geocities.

  10. December 5th, 2011 / 5:23 pm Matt Rowan—

      I think you need to address your flagrant anti-DogMom bias, Mr. Baumann. 

  11. December 5th, 2011 / 5:37 pm Matt Rowan—

      Because you should be horrified! 

  12. December 5th, 2011 / 5:50 pm Ken Baumann—

      I could’ve sworn happydogmomlitjournal 404’d. That it actually exists… I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. Humans can click.

  13. December 5th, 2011 / 6:00 pm deadgod—

      compelling photo illustrating “no-taste design” vs. modifier pile-up

  14. December 5th, 2011 / 6:02 pm Jess Dutschmann—

      Both the journal and facebook make me want to blow up a world

  15. December 5th, 2011 / 8:14 pm Tim Jones-Yelvington—
  16. December 5th, 2011 / 10:13 pm Tummler—

      I JUST SUBMITTED TO HAPPY DOG MOM LITJOURNAL (under a pseudonym, of course).

  17. December 5th, 2011 / 10:14 pm Anonymous—

      Happy Dog Mom is retarded. Their form rejection is a link to hampsterdance.com.

  18. December 5th, 2011 / 10:22 pm Mason Johnson—

      I’m going to too. BUT PROBABLY WITH MY REAL NAME CAUSE WHY NOT

  19. December 5th, 2011 / 10:52 pm Matt Rowan—
  20. December 5th, 2011 / 11:02 pm James Tadd Adcox—

      I’m kinda into Happy Dog Mom LJ. They got something goin on.

  21. December 6th, 2011 / 12:35 am Amy—

      After reading those links, I can only conclude that Happy Dog Mom is satire.

  22. December 6th, 2011 / 12:37 am Matt Rowan—

      Amy — I wish I could agree. And I would, except there a most un-satirical tone to this most recent post: http://happydogmomlitjournal.blogspot.com/2011/12/seriously-htmlgiant.html

  23. December 6th, 2011 / 1:22 am Tim Jones-Yelvington—

      I like the videos. Sounds like some shit I would’ve done in middle school.

  24. December 6th, 2011 / 1:57 am DN—

      Pretty sure they’re the same people.

  25. December 6th, 2011 / 11:11 am Guilie—

      LOL.  Great one.  I’m not sure that was your intention, but Happy Dog Mom is going to get a LOT of traffic from this.  

  26. December 6th, 2011 / 12:35 pm dead deer trope—
  27. December 6th, 2011 / 1:02 pm Mason Johnson—

      How do you know HTMLGiant isn’t going to get a lot of traffic from Happy Dog Mom?

  28. December 6th, 2011 / 7:20 pm Anonymous—

      linkhide.com.ar/47632

  29. December 6th, 2011 / 8:56 pm Michael Koh—

      i was certain i said something about this but i guyess nooottt flarfl

  30. December 6th, 2011 / 9:59 pm Anonymous—

      phlpn.es/829r8s

  31. December 6th, 2011 / 10:12 pm deadgod—

      ^ handle-molesting shitbag ^

      [“new order” colostomoid, not you, Mason–unless it is you, ha ha ha]

  32. December 7th, 2011 / 7:08 am Anonymous—

      phlpn.es/829r8s

  33. December 7th, 2011 / 7:45 am Anonymous—

      linkhide.com.ar/47632

  34. December 7th, 2011 / 9:14 am Anonymous—

      phlpn.es/829r8s

  35. December 7th, 2011 / 7:18 pm Anonymous—

      phlpn.es/829r8s

  36. December 7th, 2011 / 7:26 pm Anonymous—

      ai.vc/uj

  37. December 8th, 2011 / 7:40 am Anonymous—

      50.gd/2g

  38. December 8th, 2011 / 7:43 am Anonymous—

      liil.cc/chX

  39. December 8th, 2011 / 10:29 am Anonymous—

      50.gd/2g