Peeing in a jar is our brand
And other oddities from the net
Welcome back to another edition of the sh!tpost weekly newsletter. This supplements our podcast, which can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and all those other places podcasts are found. If you find joy in the sh!tpost emails, forward them to your friends! (I think Marie Kondo said that in her book somewhere.)
Additionally, following the news coming out of Alabama and Georgia, I’d like to offer anyone who donates to a reproductive rights organization in those states and sends me a receipt (shtpostpodcast@gmail.com) a free gift subscription to give away to a friend or use for themselves. Here’s the organization I donated to today, if you need a place to start.
Peeing in Jars to Own Your Brand
Today, Tony Posnanski ripped into the beverage brand Vita Coco today for the fact that it does not taste good on the fact that it is coconut water and why the hell would anyone drink that shit? Coconut water is objectively not delicious.
After a back and forth with coconut water company Vita Coco, Tony—in his frequent over-the-top and humorous mannerism—declared to the brand that he would “rather drink your social media persons piss” than vile, vile coconut water.
Vita Coco delivered in a way that no one saw coming.
That image is now Vita Coco’s profile picture on Twitter.
I normally have a love/hate relationship with brands acting like people online. An awful lot of examples of that enter our zeitgeist and at the end of the day it’s only happening to sucker us into buying products. The Sunny D depressed tweet comes to mind.
But Vita Coco’s tweet breaks the mold and, honestly, earned some kudos.
You Gotta Fight… For Your Right… To POOL PARTY!
So that's when I had this bright idea,
(Throw the party of the month),
No, the party of the year
Local publication DCist reported that far-right figures including Milo Yiannopolous, the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and some Infowars folks, planned to host a pool party the night before a “free speech” event at a venue just north of downtown Washington, but there was a problem. It turns out that the venue they were selling tickets for had never booked their event, and that they didn’t plan to. What’s more, the tickets they were selling to the splash were nonrefundable!
There are perhaps no figures in the universe I cover that irritate me on a human level than the folks doing this political stuff online only to make names and dollars for themselves. I have stated time and time again that the audiences of right-wing grifters are victims; the pundits they love believe they are stupid and drain them of cash they could otherwise use making their lives better.
The event organizers didn’t take being exposed as fraudulent very well. They bombarded the venue with negative Google reviews.
I suspect there was a near-zero percent chance this event was ever going to follow through. It would not surprise me if this was part of the plan: get “booted” from a venue “last second” to “prove” that conservatives are relegated to the fringes of society and that free speech in America is dead.
Years ago I would have called that speculation ridiculous, but having watched this bunch for a few years now, I have exhausted my ability to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Baby never give a fuck about a thang,
내 걱정은 no thanks
They’re not signing.
The White House announced today that it would not sign on to a non-binding resolution with 18 governments and five tech giants to curb extremism online in response to the Christchurch massacre.
The Washington Post reports:
The White House felt the document could present constitutional concerns, officials there said, potentially conflicting with the First Amendment, even though Trump previously has threatened to regulate social media out of concern that it’s biased against conservatives.
That should be deeply embarrassing for this country.
The Good Things
This newsletter can deal with some heavy stuff sometimes, so I make sure to include some fun things I’ve found online lately to add some levity to this whole ordeal we’ve found ourselves in. Enjoy some of my favorites:
Reddit is better than Twitter and that is a fact:
The White House opened up a form to submit complaints from conservative boomers that they’ve been shadow banned or censored from social media websites. The whole thing is just a deceptive email-list-building and fundraising effort, but that didn’t stop some folks from having some fun.
There’s only one thing worse than a bigot: a stupid bigot. (Click below to watch the link.)
It’s never a good sign when the Dictionary is dunking on you.
Here’s some public transit I can get behind.
This week I learned fried-chicken food chain KFC has a gaming Twitter account. And apparently, the fast food chain has some tired opinions about Apex Legends.
Some ducks went to the White House, which is only bad news.
Can’t believe this didn’t get more press.
And finally, I fulfilled the prophecy.
