Zoe Strimpel laments one more appalling cultural contribution from the worst-ever generation.

If there’s one thing Generation Z can be relied on to do, it’s make things creepy and weird where they were previously straightforward and commonplace. Having weirded out romantic intimacy, they’ve come for Guinness. It has become so popular among Gen Z that pubs this December are experiencing a Guinness shortage. …

[Now] there is “splitting the G,” in which drinkers attempt a single first swig so the remaining liquid ends up intersecting the Guinness logo. It’s a trend that combines a lackluster approach to downing a pint with something that sounds vaguely sexualized. No doubt we’ll soon be told that “splitting the G” is problematic.

Sales of this bog-standard staple have been helped along by the sorts of influences (and influencers) that would have the dyed-in-the-wool pub-goers of old Dublin turning in their graves. Take Kim Kardashian and pop star Olivia Rodrigo, the former very publicly sporting a pint of Guinness while in London last year, and the latter wearing an excruciatingly uncool-cool T-shirt reading “Guinness is good 4U.”

The Guinness obsession is part of a wider fetishization of the mundane. There are now TikTok accounts that teach women how to dress their boyfriends in old-people clothes, the so-called “grandpa core” aesthetic. Young women are also increasingly searching out goodwill store interior fittings, in the hope that a battered old lamp will help them appear quirky. For those not involved, it looks more like an attempt to intellectualize the boring task of filling your home or dressing yourself.

Part of the reason for this is the explosion in university education. Teach millions of young people to analyze their lives, and they’ll start treating everything as though it must be filled with meaning. Each decision is now part of an aesthetic, a conscious choice to be a “Guinness drinker,” which no doubt comes laden with semiotic irony, rather than choosing things because — you know — you like them?

RTWT

Matt Taibbi has the answer for how to watch election returns tonight.

No matter where you watch, coverage tonight should be packed with lunatic hyperbole, with warnings either about a blood-soaked New American Reich or a vast election-theft conspiracy, depending on which party succeeds. Of course the most likely end is the Beastie Boys No Sleep Till Brooklyn scenario, i.e. we don’t make it to an answer no matter how late we stay up, with panic continuing for weeks and people on all sides feeling more anxious and hating one another more as time progresses.

To which our answer is, Drink! But have fun doing it, at least tonight, perhaps according to these rules:

Drink EVERY TIME:

Anyone, from a candidate to a TV anchor, mentions that “democracy is on the ballot.” Double-shot for use of the phrase democracy itself, e,g, “democracy itself is on the ballot.”

You’re told this is the most important election of our lifetime, or the most critical moment of our lives, etc. You may drink an additional shot if you’re certain today is not any of those things.

Steve Kornacki draws a frenzied geometric shape around Pennsylvania.

John Fetterman’s shorts are visible in a video report.

Nate Silver reminds you he doesn’t do predictions, but rather publishes percentage-chance forecasts.

Liz Cheney is mentioned (i.e. as if mattering).

Elon Musk is blamed for something. Double-shot if the bad thing is “in the name of” or “under the guise of” free speech.

Anyone mentions “over a hundred election deniers on the ballot.” Also drink for permutations on the theme, e.g. “60% of Americans will have an election-denier on the ballot,” or “Over half of GOP candidates are election-deniers,” “election-denier JD Vance wants to ban books,” etc.

Anyone mentions the “specter of violence” or “conditions ripe for violence,” or reports votes are being counted “amid threats of violence.” Do an exclamation shot at the end of the night if no violence is ultimately observed.

A politician or a pundit warns that everything might come down to the “wild card” in Georgia, and with suspicious gleefulness reminds you we might all be waiting until December 6th to find out who’ll control the Senate. Call it the “No Sleep Till Georgia” rule. Read the rest of this entry »

Stephen Green is chickening out. He cannot face the hangover that playing would produce.