Hey y’all! It’s Wednesday Links time!
I love picturing us all gathering around. What do you think the vibe is today? Are we going cozy with lots of blankets and pillows? What about something with nature? The weather has been nice in New England and I’d be town to blanket fort it up in a magical tree house!
My birthday is coming up! I’ll be 33! Wowee. One birthday present has already arrived from my parents. It’s a tawny-colored little taxidermy bat. I’ve named him Colin after What We Do in the Shadows.
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If you love an internet profile, I highly recommend this one on Angelea Preston from America’s Next Top Model. It’s heartbreaking and harrowing.
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For all you romance academics out there:
Race and Romance: Coloring the Past, by @Elysabethgrace is now available for free to read online: https://t.co/t1MFz5MDJC pic.twitter.com/ZuQFDHH4OU
— Laura Vivanco (@DrLauraVivanco) April 5, 2022
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This image from tumblr really tickled me: cowboys and witches are two sides of the same coin.
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The Mary Sue talks about the issues with repackaging the Bridgerton novels with new tie-in covers. I definitely see the problem with this.
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Lastly, if you aren’t following Abby Jimenez on TikTok, I highly recommend fixing that!
@authorabbyjimenez Reply to @gilligangirl79 the painting explained. Also this is the video that launched Tess and Stuntman’s fame 1.3 million views 😂 #huntingdog #dogsofttiktok #stuntmanmike #tess #prank #husbandwifecomedy ♬ original sound – AuthorAbbyJimenez
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
I recently found @doesitgrovel on Twitter which, as the name suggests, rates romance grovels.
Of course, their grovel-meter isn’t perfectly calibrated with mine, but still happily scanning their tweets for books to add to the ever-growing TBR pile.
RE: the Bustle article
I know a lot of people here enjoy it, but there are so many ethical issues with reality TV. I was listening to a podcast about The Biggest Loser the other day and now this. I think it’s very different to ask a professional to play a fictional character than to ask an amateur to play a heavily manipulated version of themselves in a fraught environment. Not to say that filming fictional shows can’t get out of hand, but I’ve never heard of anyone having a good experience on a reality show. This woman should be proud that she’s built a life for herself and found the strength to speak out about her experience.
I feel the vibe today is that we should all be sipping delicious cocktails!
EJ: I agree completely. One reason that I avoid reality TV is that I don’t trust myself not to fall for the manipulative editing at least a little bit.
For instance, I might watch a nanny show and even though I suspect that the scenes are staged, I might think “Well, they wouldn’t be on this show if they weren’t poorly behaved, though.”
Or I’ll watch some competitive show where one woman seems like a rhymes-with-hitch, yelling at somebody, and I might think “Well, they might have edited the context, but the yelling is real, after all. She does yell like that.”
What I’m getting at is, I don’t trust myself to completely avoid that feeling that it’s probably partially real, at least. Even though of course, I don’t actually know so.
@EJ, how I think we can blame four years of hell in this country on the zero-ethics manipulation that helped birth reality tv. It’s generally all pretty horrible, outside of like GBBO…
However, I have heard of one good experience: Blair Braverman wrote about her time on Naked and Afraid; the irony of it being SO REAL and like no-one back home believing her that there hadn’t been a “safety guy with a gun” just off camera, how great everyone she worked with was (from her initial partner, the others she met up with, to the production). The only part that she said was a bit staged was taking her clothes off twice for two angles.
Now, I mean, she got a really bad spider bite and possible heat stroke/exhaustion and had to leave for the hospital, which for *me* wouldn’t be a good experience, but her speaking for herself, I don’t think she had any regrets.
@AtasB
Some people really love adventure! I’m not one of them. I watched a marathon of Naked and Afraid once and as silly as the premise is it was kind of interesting to watch the contestants figure stuff out.
I almost mentioned GBBO but I’ll bet there are issues there too.
I don’t really care for reality tv, but I would like to recommend one show: Game of Bros. This is a New Zealand reality show where guys compete in a series of tasks/challenges to see who is the True Polynesian Warrior. What’s so great is that it’s clearly low budget (especially the first season) so they get away with being more snarky, silly, and genuine than a larger budget show would allow.
It’s sweet, it’s entertaining, and it doesn’t have the cringe factor of a lot of other reality tv. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyVrEXYBYgo
@Maureen: Always down for yummy cocktails!
Taskmaster Season 13 episode 1 is now on YouTube. I wouldn’t have found this show without SBTB. I’d say it falls somewhere between reality tv and scripted comedy, in a best of both worlds sort of way. If you’ve never watched it, season 4 is one of the best and wholesomest.
@Sarah F – thank you for the Game of Bros rec!
Happy Birthday!
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/89017-maryland-gives-up-on-its-library-e-book-law.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Check%20Your%20Shelf%20041522&utm_term=BookRiot_CheckYourShelf_DormantSuppress
Maryland is no longer pursuing the library ebook law.