October 27th, 2010 / 1:23 pm
Massive People & Mean

What’s More Annoying: Special HTMLG Self-Reflexive Edition

What’s more annoying:

How Amy McDaniel never misses an opportunity to remind us that she studied with David Foster Wallace, which somehow endowed her with a magical (foolproof) grammar wand?

OR

How I never miss an opportunity to come across as a rotten pretentious elitist who loves the sound of his own voice yet can’t seem to talk about anything of interest or importance other than worn out concepts like experimental writing?

OR

How often HTMLG discusses Tao Lin?

OR

The fact that Chelsea Martin is still on the roster, even though she hasn’t posted since the great Wiggergate fiasco?

OR

How Justin Taylor, the inventor of the “craven self-promotion” label, which (btw) appears to have been discontinued, can somehow always find a way of self-promoting in every post?

OR

How Jimmy Chen seems both extremely smart and utterly incapable of playing any role other than class clown?

OR

The way Roxane Gay champions good ole fashion storytelling, the way regular folks do?

OR

How Ken Baumann is so smart and handsome and successful?

OR

???

44 Comments

  1. Anonymous

      this is the image that mind pops every time JT does the chest puff/ego dick stroke maneuver.

  2. Brad Green

      Wow, Christopher Higgs wrote something I can understand.

  3. Guest

      how about “how i can’t stop internalizing mean week?” and looking for things to break or set on fire in my apartment.

      the ken baumann thing drives me nuts, though. he’s nice, too! wtf

  4. Jimmy Chen

      so wrong yet so true

  5. jereme_dean

      as thursday approaches we start to get a little meaner…

      WIGGERGATE FIASCO i’m stealing. sooo making that a name of a poem.

  6. JustinTaylor

      Yes, they took that tag away from me. I assume because they felt that my self-promotion was not craven, but was/is actually adding a desperately needed touch of sophistication to this swamp. Needless to say, I nominate me–not because I think I’m actually annoying (I’m a genius; duh) but because I am constitutionally incapable of reading the word “nomination” (or any variant thereof) without assuming that it ought to be mine.

  7. Sean

      The fact I’m not parodied here is a clear statement to my irrelevancy and basic lack of anything to say. I thank you for the truth. It has set me frieze.

  8. lily hoang

      you and me both, sean. we can be irrelevant together.

  9. Matthew Simmons

      I decided he didn’t write about me because I am completely above reproach.

  10. Richard Thomas

      Funny stuff. Didn’t know Mr. Baumann had such an acting career.

  11. Christopher Higgs

      I was gonna do everybody, but I simultaneously got tired and ran out of ginger ale. Plus the only thing I could come up with for Matthew Simmons is “How Matthew Simmons loves his cat so much” which seemed lame and I figured that if I can’t do a good one for everybody, I shouldn’t even try to do everybody. Maybe I’ll give it some more thought and try to fill out the list for a Part II before the end of mean week.

  12. C.D. Smith

      I remember Wiggergate. That was interesting.

  13. mimi

      Dear Sean,
      I wrote a haiku about you once but then I didn’t have the guts to post it. I think now is the right time.

      run seventeen miles
      jack off screamin’ killer words
      go eat some nachos

      You are not irrelevant.
      I also wrote one about Brandon Scott Gorrell but I’ll spare you all.

  14. jereme_dean

      this is the image that mind pops every time JT does the chest puff/ego dick stroke maneuver.

  15. Brad Green

      Wow, Christopher Higgs wrote something I can understand.

  16. deadgod

      Using “craven” to mean ‘craving; greedy’ rather than ‘cowardly’ is an abnomination.

  17. Christopher Higgs

      Haha! Well played, Brad.

  18. Christopher Higgs

      You are not wrong, David: Ken is nice and generous, too! I have only positive things to say about him, so I better quit writing about him now lest I ruin the ethos of mean week.

  19. Matthew Simmons

      I am more than just a cat owner!

  20. Tim Horvath

      Higgs, what are you writing, “Kublai Khan”? Good start, till Porlock showed up. You need harder stuff. Ginger beer’s the thing…

  21. deadgod

      Why is that ‘Wigger Chick’ blogicle being called a “-gate fiasco”? (The thread is intelligently righteous, intelligently mistaken, comically self-righteous, and smugly errant: fun times, at least in the re-living.)

  22. stephen

      put “glow” in their somewhere

  23. mimi

      blar

  24. deadgod

      OR

      The redundancy of “self-reflexive”.

  25. ommzms

      I wish the ball was mine, and I could take it and go home. But, alas, I have no balls.

  26. Blake Butler

      because people fear words

  27. Igor

      I had no idea Baumann was so beautiful.

      Now what for my life?

  28. jereme_dean

      deadgod, here is the jereme version of it: people are pussies

  29. Steven Pine

      Well, the reason I found this place was because of some shitty poem of yours from pedestal magazine, but maybe that this isn’t helping.

  30. Sean

      freaking sweet!

  31. Sean

      sucker

  32. Nathan Tyree

      This is the reason that you are my favorite contributor to this site

  33. Nathan Tyree

      No. No you aren’t (cat and dog caretaker speaking here)

  34. Lukewarmresolve

      yes, i would agree your promotional pickle is genius and by genius i mean annoying.

  35. Matthew Simmons

      All right. All right. I’ll admit it.

      Emmett actually wrote A Jello Horse. And the new book, too.

  36. Sean

      Andy Devine would kick every ass in this place, you flirt-blurters. Andy Devine would kick your eye out your head and then fill the socket with butter.

  37. P. H. Madore

      Amy McDaniel, Justin Taylor, and Chelsea Martin earn my vote for top three most annoying.

  38. mjm

      i loved this post.

  39. P. H. Madore

      Who’s somewhere?

  40. mjm

      motherfucker. dont you edit my post you motherloving son of a loving sucka.

  41. Madison Langston

      TAO LIN.

  42. efferny jomes

      i dont understand anything that any of you have said

  43. Andrew

      ha

  44. Elisa

      What, nothing about Blake?