BuzzFeed: LGBT Myths Debunked

1. Myth: LGBT People Are More Promiscuous.

Sex surveys are notoriously unreliable, but telling us one (by an online dating site!) says that about 98% of both straight and gay people reported having less than 20 sexual partners tells us nothing. Moreover, what's wrong with shagging a lot of people anyway?

2. Myth: Lesbians Are Repulsed By All Men.

'All men'? 'Repulsed'!!! Does anyone actually believe this?

3. Myth: Children Of LGBT Parents Are More Likely To Be LGBT.

'According to multiple studies...' Which? And doesn't this work on the assumption that a kid growing up gay is a bad thing?

4. Myth: LGBT People Can't Be Religious.

Shame.

5. Myth: Being LGBT Is A Choice.

'Studies have found...' Which? Again, fail. No matter what they may say, nobody knows what makes people gay. And what does 'genes & your biology' mean? What's the difference?

6. Myth: LGBT Relationships Don't Last As Long As Heterosexual Relationships.

'Fact: There is no data that shows relationships don't last as long. In fact one study showed that same-sex couples have a lower divorce rate.'

The third unspecified study in a row. And what can gay 'divorce rates' tell us when same-sex marriage has only been available in some US states for a few years? Why not accept that most gay male relationships last a few years?

Which one surprised you?

Meh.

Coming Out: It's Twins!

Buzzfeed

1. I wish the virtual media would stop telling me what will melt/break/warm my heart. Can we not decide that for ourselves? Anyway it's clearly code for 'Sentimental twaddle ahoy!'

2. I find it a depressing sign of our culture that people would want to film such a private moment, then put it on their YouTube channel. And if that makes me sound like your granny, so be it!

3. I'll just write 'gay twins' again so I'll get loads of traffic from pervs.

4. What this guy said...

I know it's Buzzfeed and that's what they DO, but am I still supposed to just expect Dad Rejects Gay Son in 2015 https://t.co/Hcb276F49F
— Lauren G (@geeoharee) January 15, 2015

Update: Warning! Beware any gay story the Daily Mail loves.

'But they look such nice Aryan boys...'

Awkward Moments: Straight Guys Vs Gay Guys

A puckish satire on contemporary mores by BuzzFeed.

PS Least convincing impersonation of a straight man since...

Clickhole: Listen To The Dinosaur, Kids!

Brought to you by Clickhole.com which is brought to you by The Onion.

Not much going on, so I'm going out.
x

النصر على إيزيس ! الموت النظام العالمي الجديد ! الموت لأمريكا !

Madonna: Ban Jokes!

Slow news days at the Daily Mirror et al?

After this on BuzzFeed.

Why is it that idiots don't get irony?

Lighten up, gaybores!

The Daily Mail say NO to homophobia!

PS At the time of typing the grand total of gayers who have BLASTED or SLAMMED Madonna for her ANTI-GAY SLUR is... two!
Hold the front page.

Update: Kale comes out as gay in exclusive BuzzFeed inteview. Quite amusing pithtake.

How To Go Viral: Joining The Dots

The third thing that we've learned about viral content is that people are more likely to share something if they have a strong, positive emotional response to it. A 2010 study of the New York Times "most emailed" list found the articles that made the list tended to fall into one of four categories: awe-inspiring, emotional, positive or surprising. And the lesson from this isn't so much that people like to feel feelings when they engage with a piece of content, it is that when it works – when the thing actually makes them cry or exclaim or feel inspired or shocked or happy – they want to share that experience with others...

How To Make Something Go Viral - Tips from Buzzfeed, Guardian Online, Generation Y Takeover.

The site [Upworthy] has recently started making a big deal out of its fact-checking controls. A blog from its copy chief stresses that "credibility is perhaps the most important trait of great curation".

This attitude is far from universal. Other viral content originators are known for spreading unverifiable information. Perhaps the most famous is FCKH8, a pro-gay rights online clothing vendor (with mixed reviews at best), which has a habit of finding heartwarming or shocking anonymous letters from parents to their closeted children, or from people to theirbigoted family members. Efforts to find the writers of such letters generally fail. FCKH8's explanation – that they wish to stay anonymous... *

James Ball on Guardian Online, Generation Y Takeover, on Upworthy; 'Viral content about stuff that matters'. 

A sentimental gay hoax will go viral before the the truth has turned its tablet on.

This is where Fagburn is going wrong, basically.

Must run more baseless *Boo hoo squish squish sad face* stories in the future.

* It's not just FCKH8, of course. The problem is general to LGBT groups and media, and a credulous clicktivist virtual world.

Mail Online: Apocalypse Now!

Tom Phillips, BuzzFeed.

David Miranda: Nobody's Errand Boy

BuzzFeed profile David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's boyfriend.

Glenn Greenwald: Quo Vadis?

Glenn Greenwald, the lawyer and blogger who brought The Guardian the biggest scoop of the decade, is departing the London-based news organization, for a brand-new, large-scale, broadly focused media outlet, he told BuzzFeed Tuesday.

Greenwald, 46, published revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of American and British domestic spying and about officials’ deception about its scope. He said he is departing for a new, “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity” with major financial backing, the details of which will be public soon.

“My partnership with The Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved,” Greenwald said in an emailed statement. “The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline.”

Greenwald said that because the news had leaked “before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture.” It will, he said, “be unveiled very shortly."

...Greenwald declined to comment on the precise scale of the new venture or on its budget, but he said it would be “a very well-funded … very substantial new media outlet.” He said the source of funding will be public when the venture is officially announced...

“My role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing — but especially the political journalism part — in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he said.

Greenwald will continue to live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he said, and would bring some staff to Rio, but the new organization’s main hubs will be New York City; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, he said.

The venture, which he said had “hired a fair number of people already,” will be “a general media outlet and news site — it’s going to have sports and entertainment and features. I’m working on the whole thing but the political journalism unit is my focus.”

Greenwald said he looked forward to creating a new organization with “no preexisting institutional strictures on what you can do.”

And he said his move is driven solely by the opportunity presented.

“When people hear what it is, there is almost no journalist who would say no to it,” he said.

BuzzFeed.

How amusing that this news was leaked.

Fagburn can exclusively reveal that he doesn't know what this is all about, yet.

PS There's a rumour his wealthy benefactor is the billionaire eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar. [No idea if this other story is reliable].

Walk A Mile In My Shoes: Baggage Handler Homophobia Alert! PLS RT!!!

Utterly disgusted to find my luggage front and center on the @JetstarAirways luggage carousel looking like this. pic.twitter.com/ErU7LhRZDd
— Sleepysaurus Rex! (@aaronpp) October 13, 2013

A straight dad has tweeted and blogged about this new outrage.

As I dragged the case through the terminal, I looked back at the people I had passed and they too looked at me differently. My luggage was a scarlet letter.
I am a white heterosexual male. This trifecta of privilege means that I’m not routinely subjected to prejudice. But for a few minutes I got to walk in the shoes of a gay person in a public place. For no good reason I had had a slur marked over my luggage. I was degraded. I was shamed. I was humiliated...

Well, that sounds utterly convincing, I shall now make my Kate McCann *sadface*.
We - the gays - can not thank you enough for sharing our pain, straight dude.
Gaymedia and the usual gayhysterics went predictably mad!
No need to even try and check it.
Cause they have such a good record on falling for made-up stories about BAGGAGE HANDLER HOMOPHOBIA!
The "humiliated" gay couple there who cried that a dildo had been strapped to their suitcase in A CLEAR ACT OF HOMOPHOBIA were soon humiliated when it was shown to be so nonsensical they dropped the case.
Remember the oh-so proud mom of a gay kid who claimed to have witnessed HOMOPHOBIA! in the supermarket, but forgot to report it at the time, so just blogged about it instead?
She WENT VIRAL!
Then disappeared, when she was asked to prove it happened.
I could go on.
And on and on and on...

#boycottplanes

PS You may recall Buzzfeed's 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm was posted just two days go.
Satire - you are beyond fucked!

This could be true - there's 7 billion people in the world.
I guess a lot of them must get bored at work and have a sense of humour.
How anyone could find the above - if it actually happened - offensive is quite beyond me...
But hey groovy straight dad, for a few minutes you got to walk in the shoes of a gay person in a public place.
Wow!

"I am a white heterosexual male. This trifecta of privilege means..."

Oh, do fuck off.
If you factor in you being an insufferable guilt-ridden middle-class wanker that's a quinecta.
Probably.

The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm: Goes Viral, Ironically Causes Twitterstorm Etc Etc

Maybe a bit pointless posting this, such is the nature of the Twittersphere you'll all have been sent it endless times already today, but...
Oh, what a joy!
This satire of a Twitterstorm is generally applicable, but you may detect the closeness to the manufactured outrage last week over Tesco selling the Inflatable Gay Best Friend, a silly novelty item based on a patronising stereotype - and mistakenly listed as suitable for 3-4 year-olds.
The usual tedious gay hysterics over-reacted, and...
And as with Tom Phillips' brilliant piece for Buzzfeed here, the Twitterstorm grew and grew and grew, a celeb tweeted, someone started an e-petition, and someone started another pointless online petition, then it started trending, the media turned it into a story, someone boring called for a boycott, politicians jumped on the bandwagon and so on and so on and so on ad Twitter bloody nauseum...

As often happens with satire it was worth noting how many people could not see that it was their behaviour that was being satirised; smile and click RT.

And, as with any great satire, it was also making an important point, not just about these little outbreaks of mass hysteria, but also about how damaging these pink pearl-clutchers and pitchfork-wavers can be.

Anyway, just wanted to save this one for posterior.
Please bear it in mind the next time you get an "outraged" tweet or RT, and/or get asked to sign a silly e-petition about inflatable anti-gay Russian Nazi pasta dolls or whatever.

PS This was Fagburn's favourite, by the way...

PS Buzzfeed also compiled The 15 Best Reactions To Coming Out Day. 

Err, can anyone explain what number 12 is doing in there?

It seems a perfectly innocent tweet...