"I love YouTube, and I want to be famous on YouTube, because I want a lot of money..."

"... said camper Chloe, 7, a second-grader who said she has dreamed of being a YouTuber since age 4. As a YouTube star, 'I could buy whatever I want,' she added, including 'an iPhone and a computer, AirPods and a Barbie Dreamhouse. A real Barbie Dreamhouse, that’s big and has walls. It would be in Paris because of the Eiffel Tower. I would go see the Eiffel Tower every day, and I’d have my room in front of the Eiffel Tower every morning and make videos about that.'"

Writes Taylor Lorenz, in "Camps teaching kids to be YouTubers are cropping up across the country/Education programs aimed at helping children gain the skills needed to become online creators are exploding" (WaPo).

"I'll share with you my urinal — swing-out urinal. In England, they call it the your-RYE-nall..."

Says the eminent filmmaker David Lynch, speaking from his L.A. workshop:



More David Lynch theater here.

"James Charles Posted A 41-Minute Video Of Screenshots And Receipts. We Broke It Down For You."

I actually watched that entire 41-minute video (and had a long conversation about it), so I'm really glad Buzzfeed broke it down for you, because I wanted to blog about it, but I didn't want to do the work of explaining it. This is a continuation of the complicated matter I blogged about 2 days ago under the post title "It's just all feeling, like, really intense...." I just gave you a 25-second clip from a 43-minute video and said "it conveys the drama and my mystification" and "Something very big or very small appears to have happened." Not many of you commented on that post, but, whatever, I wanted to show you the next step in the drama. I do feel sorry for this 19-year-old guy who has millions of observers as he's hit by some mind-bogglingly flimsy allegations from a 37-year old woman.

Excerpt from the 32-point explanation at Buzzfeed:

8. Responding to a clip of Tati saying he manipulates straight men, James said, "I am a 19-year-old virgin. I have never and will never use my fame, money, or my power to manipulate or get any sexual actions from a guy. That is disgusting. That is not me. The fact that Tati brought this up blows my mind."

9. He said at Tati's birthday dinner, the conversation never got inappropriate. He said the "I'm a celebrity" quote that Tati claimed James said about the waiter was an inside joke between him and his friends, and that Tati even participated in it (shown in texts). He said he uses the word "famous" to describe anything that's good — like a good Insta or good buffalo wings.

10. James said the waiter from the dinner slid into his DMs and even said he was bisexual, refuting Tati's claim that he tries to trick straight men....

That's slang — "slid into." I just learned it. Now, I'm reading "How to Slide Into Someone's DMs Without Being a Creep" (Lifehacker). I think the title means How to Slide Into Someone's DMs Without Being Perceived as a Creep. (Yeah, how do people who can see each other on line find a way to each other in real life?)

"I discovered a love for cooking and working with ingredients when I started cooking for myself after becoming vegan, and I noticed that I used my stump naturally as a kitchen tool - a juicer, a masher, as a spatula..."

"... you name it! This whole process helped me fall in love with this awesome part of myself that I had kind of forgotten about in my adulthood (yes, sometimes I even forget I have one hand!) I also swear, wear sweatpants, and don't give a shit about dropping or burning stuff!"

From a Metafilter post about Alexis Hillyard, which links to her YouTube page, "Stump Kitchen." The video that autoplays when you click on that last link illustrates the proposition in the quote. Here's a more sustained video, "Episode 1: Gluten free vegan waffles":

"Can you hear that?... Neither can I."

I never noticed this particular YouTube star until a few days ago when I got carried away researching the term "thought experiment" and this video of his turned up. I didn't watch it, but I left it open in a tab while I was reading things in other tabs, for example, "9 Philosophical Thought Experiments That Will Keep You Up at Night" (Gizmodo) and "The impossible barber and other bizarre thought experiments" (New Scientist). I'd opened all those tabs after pondering the difference between "experience" and "experiment" (and had learned that the oldest meaning of "experience" is "experiment"). Anyway, the point is, I'd left that video open in a tab but had not watched it. It was Meade — he'd sat down at my computer to do some comment moderation — who played the video and — like anyone else — became engrossed and fascinated. So if you're wondering what we watch at Meadhouse, this is it.

ADDED: The quote that I made the post title — it reminded me of something. I think it's this, from "Endgame" by Samuel Beckett.

HAMM Open the window.

CLOV What for?

HAMM I want to hear the sea.

CLOV You wouldn’t hear it.

HAMM Even if you opened the window?

CLOV No.

HAMM Then it’s not worthwhile opening it?

CLOV No.

HAMM [violently] Then open it! [Clov gets up on the ladder, opens the window. Pause.] Have you opened it?

CLOV Yes. [Pause.]

HAMM You swear you’ve opened it?

CLOV Yes. [Pause.]

HAMM Well . . . ! [Pause.] It must be very calm. [Pause. Violently.] I’m asking you is it very calm!

"I do this sh*t every day. I've made a 15 minute TV show EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past 460+ days."

"One may understand that it's easy to get caught up in the moment without fully weighing the possible ramifications."

From the Logan Paul apology, quoted in "YouTube star Logan Paul apologizes after being slammed for posting sick video of a man who had hanged himself in Japan's 'suicide forest' and joking about it on film with his friends" (The Daily Mail).

Woman shoots a man to death with a .50-caliber Desert Eagle firearm and says it was his idea as a stunt for her vlog.

He was holding a book, and she says he believed the book would stop the bullet and that he'd already tested the bullet-stopping power of another book. 

Before the shooting, she had tweeted "Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever. HIS idea not MINE."

[Monalisa] Perez told authorities that Ruiz had been trying to convince her "for a while" to shoot the book while he held it for a YouTube video.

Ruiz had set up a GoPro camera and another camera on a ladder nearby to record the stunt, according to the complaint. The two cameras — which recorded the shooting — have been secured as evidence for the investigation.

She shoots that .50-caliber gun from a foot away. Here's what that gun looks like:



How could he possibly have thought the book would protect him? But how can she be lying if there is 2-camera footage of the entire incident? She's charged only with manslaughter, so the authorities must believe her story, right?

"And thats why i post infrequently. Unless it is about Van Morrison."

Wrote D in the comments to the post about Stephen Colbert's lame effort to back out of his "cock holster" remark. D says:

I visit this blog everyday for the reasons espoused by many others already re: how the hostess find/pulls alot of interesting takes on the day's news articles. You can then find interesting tangents / new knowledge / stuff added by the many many commentators. Many with varied skills and knowledge bases whatever their political leans. Today, one of the posts has to do with a crazy scottish surfer. Comments then pulled towards using drones in search and rescue to reduce costs. And latest on towing insurance etc Ok that isnt everyones cup of tea, but that post will (i estimate) get 1/8 of this post And this post is about some guy and another guy who get paid lots o money to act in front of cameras, and they are riffing off what one guy said, a few nights ago, to show he's edgy. They are not capable of running search amd rescue operations. If people stop paying attention - including the # of comments on a top blog - hmm maybe the edgy guy becomes less important in the grand scheme of things. Might not get gigs in front of congress The posts today - the congress vote, the surfer, the army photographer, and the immigration post esp. - those posts deserve more comments than this fluff. IMHO. And thats why i post infrequently. Unless it is about Van Morrison.

Have I blogged about Van Morrison?! I guess I have. There was the time, back in December 2008, when I took some photographs in the snowy, foggy cemetery...



...  and the car radio just happened to be playing Van Morrison rendition of the old song "That's Life." (And the time I referred back to that old post.) And I've talked about the recording "Gloria" a few times:

1.  Way back in March 2004, before the posts had titles:

"[Amos] Yee’s arrest doesn't just underscore his complaints about Singapore’s backwardness on rights and freedom."

"It shows the country’s dire need for cultural education through intelligent dissent."

In the days after Yee’s arrest, a slew of local celebrities, including three Singaporean starlet types, were interviewed about his videos on national TV. In sequences depressing to watch, they all sided with the state. “If you say that, ‘Oh, people can say whatever they want, all the time,’ then what about those people who are listening?” Joshua Tan, a young actor, said. Well, what about them? The suggestion that citizens should withhold political criticism for fear of offense is preposterous—far more embarrassing to Singapore than any videos by Yee could be.

Amos Yee is only 17, and he's been arrested under the Protection from Harassment Act, apparently for hurting religious feelings when he likened Lee Kuan Yew — a dead Singaporean leader — to Jesus Christ. Here's the video, in which you can see how very charming Yee is. (Some of the language is NSFW.)

"Oh my my my.... leave the comments turned OFF. Please. I wasn't sure at first..."

"... but reading and thinking about what Althouse has to say without the clamorous din of too many commenters yelling about what they thought she'd said (I know I know I didn't have to read them) is so much better. The vlog was delightful. It was past time for some of the commenters to be stopped from using the comment section to fight, bicker, converse with, and insult each other and honestly with Althouse's type of post, commenters [would] sometimes distract from the message. I'll miss Freeman Hunt and a few others, but maybe they'll start their own blog someday. Maybe some of the others won't."

Email from one reader.

And here's another, from a different reader (hot link added):

NEVER START ACCEPTING COMMENTS AGAIN! For the sake of my sanity, please don’t! In recent times, whenever I read a comment chain, I found myself slipping into madness, like R.M. Renfield waiting for the arrival of the “master.” I was an addict. I wanted the shit so bad it didn’t matter if the bulk of the comments were meaningless garbage contributing nothing to the discussion of the topic. I needed my fix, got my hit and lost my way.

Ann then Ann intervened and axed the comments. She saved (metaphorically) my life.

For what it’s worth, Ann’s output is up, her topics of greater breadth and moment than ever and I’m enjoying reading her blog again, just as I did back in 2007.

If you really need a fix of the old stuff, you can see some of the my erstwhile commenters mixing it up on Lem's place. For the most part, they are demonstrating why it's better not to have that material here. And then there's the occasional comment like this, from "Eileen Lurker" (the 463rd comment in this thread):

I think I've finally read every single comment on this thread.

I really don't know why. Glutton for punishment, I guess....

I love all you guys, and as one of the 90% who almost never commented but always read at althouse, I was actually very excited to come here and see all my favorite names show up.

I'm really not interested in meeting anyone; I just like the way a lot of you think, and appreciate the depth and good humor that often underlies the discussion. I love -- love! -- the fact that so many of you see things "outside the box," and it interests and challenges me in ways I genuinely enjoy. In that sense, Althouse was the perfect leader for the discussion, since she was unafraid to challenge the conventional take on any topic that caught her eye.

I don't know why things changed, but it was a very rapid and unsettling devolvement. Maybe it's just not possible to get that back, but isn't there room for that on the internet? Can't there be a place that's about ideas, and not so much personalities, at least in the sense of truly knowing each other IRL?

I especially don't get the flame throwers, who never seem to add anything to the discussion at all, just name-calling and accusation and innuendo. Why? What's the value there? I don't get it. It's not about whether the commenters here like each other personally, at least that's not what attracts me. It's your *ideas,* and the way you express them. Maybe if I knew you personally I'd be repelled, and horrified that I let you and your ideas into my home (as it were).

But see, the beauty of this is that I never *have* to let you into my home. It's about how you think about a topic that interests me, and how that makes me think in turn; and that's all I really need to know in order to love coming here. So maybe you really *are* a dog. But if you put an idea out there that gets me to think, I'm grateful. It's fun. It's interesting. I really don't want more than that.

I'd always wanted to be a commenter at althouse -- my goodness, you've all provided fodder for many a discussion at my home! I'd love to see if I could keep up with you all, and maybe even add something to the discussion. But the risk appears to be high; and the nasty infection appears to have followed you all here.

Ugly, ugly stuff. Why? Really, why?

You know, I would have allowed all that ugliness to continue, and it wasn't the reason I suddenly shut off the comments the day I did. There was a more specific problem that had to be dealt with. It's been explained, but those who are grousing about my cutting off the comments don't seem to understand. Responding to people who don't (or won't) understand things had long been a distracting problem, quite aside from the ugliness and the outright hostility to me from people who were camped in my comments, stinking up the place. But, as I said, I would have continued to host the comments, because I liked seeing comments and loved some of the commenters, if it hadn't been for the more specific problem that I don't want to talk about.

Now, I see their continual expression of ill-will toward me, and I'm glad to have my distance. If they really loved commenting here and wanted to come back, they should have talked about how they could help me restore the conversation in a way that could work. Instead they showed how much they were part of the problem, and how they didn't really even like me. It's been an enlightenment, and it's affected how I write here. I've enjoyed the comments-free space, and I hope I'm providing better material for those who want to read what I have to say. If you want to talk back, I accept and read email and (as you see above) publish some of it.

Alternatively, start your own blog.

I answer questions from readers.

Thanks for sending in some questions, as requested earlier (here). The topics range from whether the feds will prosecute Zimmerman to 6 yes-or-no questions about ending the comments section.



ADDED: This video makes me look really sunburned. In addition to using sunscreen all the time, I guess I need to adjust the color on the videos.

Vlog alert.

I'm going to do a little vlog, maybe later today, where I'll respond to email. Ask me some good questions, and I'll select a few for response. This is something I used to do years ago. Perhaps some of you might remember. I thought it would be fun to try it again.

(Click here to email. Put "vlog" in the subject line.)

The iconic red Solo Cup.

Suddenly, it's everywhere. Or... I mean... it appears in 2 different (and excellent) articles on the front page of the nytimes.com right now.

1. It's in that article — which I just said I loved — about the political microcosm that is one nutty garden club:

[April Ward] listed many indiscretions she said she had seen, smelled or heard around the shed area on summer nights. Smoking (of more than one substance). Grilling. Bonfires. Club money used to pay for charcoal, propane and food. Composting bins used for Solo cup storage. Physical fighting, once resulting in stitches. “Sex noises.” At least one instance of adultery and a resulting divorce.

“We have people in the club who are recovering alcoholics or addicts; they can’t be around people drinking,” Ms. Ward said. “You come to the garden, you expect it to be people gardening. And these people aren’t gardening. They’re having a party.”

2. It's in this profile of the fascinating internet character Jenna Marbles, who puts up junky YouTube videos that young girls love so much she's up to over 1 billion clicks.

In a hushed tone, she chews over a thorny problem of young adulthood: how to apply full evening makeup when you’re already inebriated from drinking all day?

She begins her tutorial by wielding that totem of collegiate binge drinking everywhere: a red plastic Solo Cup. One jump cut later (after a “Law and Order: S.V.U.” drinking game), she re-emerges, thoroughly intoxicated. She misapplies a gob of glue. It dangles from a false eyelash. She lines her lips with a black pencil....

The video, titled “Drunk Makeup Tutorial,” is completely awesome to some, bewildering to others — and above all, classic Jenna Marbles....

Searching the back archives of the NYT, looking for the source of devotion to this icon, I see (from last fall):

Last year Toby Keith literally stumbled his way back into pop culture relevance with “Red Solo Cup,” an ode to the drinking vessel of choice for soused common folk everywhere....

Okay, obviously, I need to catch up with this meme:



I get it. Apparently, you do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from glass. Henceforth, I will keep track of this pop culture symbolism. Sorry I was slow on the uptake, readers. I'm trying. I'm really trying. Some day, if I can sharpen or blur my perceptions sufficiently for internet purposes, maybe I too will have 1 billion clicks.

Meanwhile, speaking of activities involving red Solo Cups — which you're free to buy at Amazon — here in Madison, the Chief of Police, Noble Wray, would like you to know:

There will be no Mifflin Street Block Party on or around Saturday, May 4th in 2013. The spring student party will no longer be a City permitted or sanctioned event... The nuisance house parties on Mifflin Street, with the rampant over-consumption of alcohol and the attendant safety issues will no longer be tolerated by the City of Madison....

If you are considering hosting a party in the downtown area on or about 05/04/2013,the City of Madison is strongly recommending that you reconsider....

Among the laws that will be enforced with a "no tolerance" policy that day:

The City of Madison has established a glass ban on Mifflin Street and surrounding areas from 05/03/2013 through 05/05/2013. This ban is meant to help keep residents, guests, visitors, police and fire personnel safe. ALL GLASS containers will be banned on public property, even if it is not alcohol. Please avoid any glass containers. If you have glass on the street, sidewalk, or terrace, you will be cited.

No glass, but — I heard it from Toby Keith — you, sir, do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from glass.

"A vlog about Thanksgiving squirrel, Mancow, guns, law school, commenters, and Madison versus New York."

Remember when I used to do vlogs like this? I'm toying with the idea of reviving the old format. Encourage me or discourage me. If you're on the encourage side of this debate, throw some questions at me — things I might discuss via vlog. If you're on the discourage side, feel free to be nuanced and to suggest some variation on the old-style vlog.

"Sheen's Korner - Episode 4 - Building the Perfect Torpedo."

Charlie Sheen is expressing himself artistically these days in web video form. Let's take his work seriously — that is, let's not dismiss it as nothing but evidence of insanity or substance abuse. (Warning: Dirty words.)



I'd say, first, this is carefully written in poetic style. He's not raving off the top of his head. He'd be a genius if he could do that. I don't know if he wrote this stuff himself, but it's highly amusing and invites us in, the way good poetry does. We want to try to figure out what he's really saying, and we enjoy the sound of the stream of words even when we only partly understand it. Second, Sheen is an actor performing this script. He isn't garbling it in any way. He's adopting an intense and interesting persona, suitable for the YouTube milieu, and he's able to go on for 8 1/2 minutes, maintaining a crisp delivery and holding our attention. Of course, the fixed stare is the consequence of filming with a computer's built-in camera while reading a text displayed on the computer screen. It's not that hard to do. If it weren't Charlie Sheen but some unknown poet adopting this style, would we think anything of it?

When a woman makes a statue, we don't say she sculpted it, do we?

I give a 1-minute lecture on that cowboy statue that's out in front of the Texas capitol building.

"I thought it was the most exhaustingly didactic bodice-ripper I had ever read."

It's Aunt Feminina Boots, talking about the Ayn Rand book club.

And here she is on the feminist book club. ("I want to read about hermaphrodites and Lizzy Borden. Every other woman in the group wants to read Barbara Kingsolver, Barbara Kingsolver, Barbara Kingsolver.")

(Via Metafilter.)

2 moving pictures from today's Farmers' Market.

2 boys were playing "Like a Rolling Stone" and collecting lots of dollar bills (including 2 from us):



A religious choir was singing as the nearby mindless drummer played:

Mystery video clip.

Context to be provided later.

ADDED: Here's the context. The clip is in the first few minutes.

"You know men need lessons, of course."

A completely out-of-context clip for your amusement/puzzlement:



Context to be provided later. Today, I think.

UPDATE: The context. I'm talking about Esquire magazine.