Tough Talk

I need y’all to brace yourselves because I’m about to tell you some hard truths AND YOU SHOULD HEED THEM.

1. Pinterest is the research cockblocker of the Internet. If you are a writer, and you want to research something from some distant year like, say, 1937 or 1969 or 1958 or 2019, about the most arcane, random shit, for which you are willing to spend a goodly portion of your time for ONE SINGLE SENTENCE in your work-in-progress, the truth is out there, but good luck getting past Pinterest, especially if you want a damn image with your information. Do you need to know if there were phone booths on the streets of Niagara Falls (Canadian side) in a certain year? And what they looked like? Hafuckingha. No matter what your key words are for a search, you are going to pull up thousands of pictures from Pinterest users of “my favorite phone booths ever” or “people crammed in phone booths” or “serial killers and phone booths” or “my top ten sexiest phone booth scenes from the movies” or “every picture since Alexander Graham Bell of every dog who hiked his leg on a phone booth.” There is no subject this does not apply to, and the Pinterest users won’t give you any actual information that’s of use to you.

2. BLESS YouTube. I don’t care about your issues with it, every song since dinosaurs bit it is on there. You can identify that obscure band from 1962 and that one song you sort of remember by putting one single snippet of a lyric (sometimes even mis-remembered) in a search engine, and YouTube WILL HAVE IT. And you can HEAR it. You will no longer wish you still had your albums that were drowned in the flood or that your one roommate or possibly bitter, vindictive ex stole. THE SONG IS THERE. But here is the warning you must heed. Somewhere in the comments, someone will say, “BEST SONG FROM BEST ALBUM EVER*.” And you’re thinking (but NOT REPLYING, FFS), Dude, I loved this song and most of the album it was on, but it isn’t even the 1032nd best album ever. Then you remember the mantra we’ve all learned the hard way and yet ignore and that’s probably why 2020 happened to us: DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS. No good can come of it.

You’re welcome.

*”Freebird” excluded is always implied.