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But what about Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte?

You guys, I have big news.

For the first time ever, I'm really excited about a new show on... the CW. 

The CW broadcasts the kinds of shows you might find on a normal network, except they have a bit of a homemade quality to them. Like, something is off about the production value. Or they don't actually use writers. For instance, I caught part of an episode of Hart of Dixie at the gym once, and I convinced myself that it wasn't actually Rachel Bilson because she's too famous to be in such a low-quality show. But, it was. And Rachel, I'm sad for you.

If you go to the CW's website (I'm currently there, for the first time ever), you'll notice the same thing - that's it not necessarily a terrible website... it's just not a good website. Something is just a little off, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is.

Anyway, no, I'm not excited about The Vampire Diaries or Emily Owens, M.D. But I am WAY more psyched than I should be for The Carrie Diaries, which is premiering soon.

This show is the sort-of prequel to Sex and the City, starring AnnaSophia Robb. If you're a 20something woman, you probably remember her from the made-for-TV movie "Samantha: An American Girl Holiday." 

The Carrie Diaries will follow 16-year-old Carrie Bradshaw through life as a teenager in suburban Connecticut in the mid-80s. During the first season, we'll also see her go to New York City for the first time, where she'll figure out, "yes, this is where I want to live as an adult and drive people crazy with my erratic behavior." 

The description on the CW's website describes Carrie's first trip to NYC this way: "Carrie's friends and family may have a big place in her heart, but she's fallen in love for the first time with the most important man in her life – Manhattan." And that's the most Sex-and-the-City phrase that anyone has ever written, including every line from the actual show.

But seriously, I mock Sex and the City and I do think it can be legitimately damaging for young girls and would never let my children watch it, but also, it was kind of great. Does that make me a terrible person? 

I think The Carrie Diaries will be kind of great, too. Not like, HBO-great, but like, maybe Gossip Girl-great. A show that's a little too good to be on the CW, but just barely. If you haven't seen it yet (and you probably haven't, because again, we're talking about the CW here), here's a preview for The Carrie Diaries:

So let's be honest. While Sex and the City was a pretty good show, the most compelling reason to watch was to find out what Carrie was wearing. Adult Carrie had an amazing - if often insane - fashion sense, and based on some shots from the set of The Carrie Diaries, I think the fashions are going to be totally 80s and just as amazing.

Who will be watching with me in January? 

Scholastic's Great Idea

Look, I'm as excited as the next 90s child about the recently-announced Boy Meets World spinoff (so cleverly named Girl Meets World).

But lost in all the hubbub is the fact that another relic of the 90s returning in less than a week and OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS IT IS A BIG ONE. In fact, it's probably the only pop culture artifact that impacted my development as a human being more than Boy Meets World.

I am talking, of course, about that figment of Ann M. Martin's glorious and at times inconsistent imagination: The Baby-Sitter's Club.

Maybe, unlike me, you didn't have your nose stuck in a pastel-colored chapter book between the years of 1993 and oh let's say 1999, so allow me to explain (if you're familiar, you can skip this paragraph...consider it the Chapter 2 of this post). The Baby-Sitter's Club is a series of novels about a group of 13-year-old girls who baby-sit and have adventures, sometimes with each other and surprisingly often with the kids they babysit (their charges). There are 132 titles in the regular series, but there are also 15 Super Specials, 36 Mysteries, 4 Super Mysteries, 3 Special Edition Readers' Requests, 6 Portrait Collections, 12 Friends Forever books, and a handful of other special titles. And this is to say nothing of the spinoff series, Baby-Sitter's Little Sister, which follows the insufferable Karen Brewer, stepsister to club President Kristy Thomas. I am groaning just thinking about it.

Though the last Baby-Sitter's Club book was published in 2000, the fandom has grown up and is now experiencing something of a creative renaissance. What Claudia Wore has become increasingly awesome as her "funky" 90s aesthetic has found its way back into the mainstream. Stoneybrookite operates the BSC Wiki and points to items of interest to 20something BSC fans. The BSC Snark Livejournal community is still very active, too. And among my favorites are the parody Twitter accounts--I never could have guessed I'd be able to follow Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, Mallory, and basically every resident of Stoneybrook via social media.

Over the past few years Scholastic attempted to take advantage of this underground support and introduce the BSC to another generation of girls by rereleasing the first four books in graphic novel form. While Raina Telgemeier did a decent job of updating the books for a 21st century tween, so much of the books' charm is in the way it portrays young teenagers who are mature, responsible, independent, and yet still innocent. And let's not forget about the glorious 90s fashion! BSC just wouldn't be the same without the overalls, the scrunchies, the turtlenecks, the high-tops.

But now! Now Scholastic is releasing the first 20 titles in ebook form. They've updated the series' official site and post regularly to its Facebook page. You may notice that a majority of the posts are from 20something Scholastic employees who gush about how their obsession with the BSC gave them a love for reading that led them to a career in publishing.

I would guess you would hear something similar from a pretty big majority of 20something women in publishing. In fact, my Scholastic cover letters included an anecdote that portrayed just how deeply the BSC impacted my life.

Picture this: it's my freshman year of college. I'm an eager English major in my second lit class, 17th-20th Century British Literature. The only person in the class I know is a girl named Julie, and since the class is right before lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we often end up eating lunch together. At one of these first lunches we realize that one of the many childhood experiences we share is an insane enthusiasm for the BSC. We joke about checking out BSC books from the public library, and since it's a Friday and it's one of those surprisingly warm early spring days and we don't have any more classes for the day, we ride the energy wave we've built exchanging stories and decide to do it.

Thus a tradition was born. We started referring to it as "T. S. Eliot" to disguise our lowbrow literary pursuits as something more "worthy" of our English majors. We kept doing it, nearly every Friday that semester and for the rest of our college careers. We still do it, though far less frequently.

Maybe over time the series will inspire another generation of readers, but right now their strength is their nostalgic base of first-generation fans. I have never been one to easily embarrass, but Julie and I have certainly raised some eyebrows and found ourselves struggling to explain exactly why we as 24 year old women were reading children's chapter books in a Starbucks in our free time. I would definitely think twice about reading a BSC book in a trendy coffeeshop downtown, or on a crowded subway. But in an ebook? I would gladly plunk down a few bucks to discreetly relive my childhood for a few hours.

Hopefully this relaunch of the BSC brand will lead to more than just ebook releases. If Scholastic published a where-are-they-now follow-up novel a la Sweet Valley Confidential, I honestly do not know what I would do. It might be the best day of my life. And if it leads to the BSC's most prolific ghost writer, Peter Lerangis, who now has a legitimate writing career under his own name, to finally start talking about his work on the BSC, well, it will have been worth the wait.

I can't believe I'm watching this.

I've never watched Dancing with the Stars. Because, oh I don't know, it seems horrible?

I had put this show in the same category as Two and a Half Men (glad to hear little Angus now feels the same way), but then I ended up in a resort in Colombia this year and the only English channel showed it on repeat. And I didn't like it, but I also didn't completely hate it, so now, Dancing with the Stars is all alone on the list of shows that get insanely high ratings that I've never seen but KNOW I'd hate.

I have never even had a desire to watch it, but I follow almost every member of the Fierce 5 on Instagram (because if anyone can teach me how to properly take selfies, it's 16-year-old girls), and yesterday I realized that all five girls are performing on DWTS (ew, I'm already using the acronym) yesterday and tonight, and I decided I had to watch. And yes, I realize I'm putting myself through a 2-hour broadcast for a 3-minute performance.

So, as a first-time watcher, I decided to write down everything I think as I watch tonight's finale:

There are three couples still in the running to be crowned this season's champion. The first couple they show is Kelly and Val. Apparently one member of each group is the "star" and one is the dancer, but so far, neither person is remotely familiar to me. And I read people.com like every day. Not only do I not know which member of this couple is the alleged "star," but I don't know which person is Kelly and which is Val.



I mean, seriously. It's a bit of a misnomer to call this show "Dancing with the Stars." Maybe a more accurate title would be "Dancing with people you may vaguely remember if you watch a lot of reality TV."

The next couple Melissa and Tony - I've gathered that Melissa is the woman and Tony is the man, but I don't know which one is the "star." Melissa is very nervous about performing on the show and I am very nervous for her. But mostly nervous that her boobs are going to fall out of her costume, because, yikes.



The last couple in the running is Shawn and Derek. I'm cheering for them only because I love women's gymnastics.



Oooh! So far the best part of this broadcast is the ad for This is 40.

Ah! The Fierce 5 are performing already! That was fast! Now I may not have to sit through the whole broadcast (oh, but I will...). These girls are awesome. They're finding a way to still be culturally relevant almost four months after the Olympics ended, which is about three and a half months longer than most gold medalists can manage.

The camera just cut to Chaz Bono sitting next to Florence Henderson in the audience. I'm guessing they might be there together because they both competed on the show, but I prefer to assume they're just good friends who go to events together.

Is this whole "Dance Center" their attempt to get men interested in this show? Because, umm... I don't think that's going to happen.

OK, I just took an hour-long break from watching the show, but don't worry, I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything important.

Annnnnd... nope! I didn't miss anything. Whew. That was close.

Ah! Just figured out that Kelly is the woman and Val is the man. Also, they're defffffintely sleeping together. They just denied it on live TV but they definitely are because Val just said he loves her unconditionally and they're feeling each other up. I bet when their friends tease them about being together, they're like, "We're NOT together. We just hung out last night and did the rumba!" and their friends are like, "Ew. Don't tell us what you call it."

Ughhh Melissa just said "Cha cha is the hard one because it's the counting one." Oh, sweet Melissa. Sweet, sweet Melissa.

If Tom Cochrane has been waiting over 20 years for some D-list celebrities to do a cha-cha dance to "Life is a Highway" on live TV, then he's in luck.

Wait, so seriously, what do the winners win besides the mirror-ball trophy? They win money too, right? If not, why are they so excited?

Shawn Johnson has a shockingly low voice for a female gymnast. And by that, I mean, she has a normal voice for a woman.

Shawn has spent about 1/3 of this song with her head in her partner's crotch... GUYS. IT'S A FAMILY SHOW. Who choreographed this thing? Were they like, "Guys, this is looking pretty good... but I think we need a little bit more of the head-in-crotch move."

I'm just thinking... if a normal person, like myself, went on this show, I can see myself getting kind of excited about people cheering for me. But if you've been to the Olympics, are you honestly getting emotional about people cheering for your ballroom dance? I mean, really, Shawn. Get a hold of yourself.

In 500 years, if someone wants to understand the state of American culture in the early 21st century, I would simply point them to a still frame of Bristol Palin and Joey Fatone sitting next to each other while Tom Bergeron stands in front of them talking about which former reality star is going to win an award for dancing.

OK, now they're announcing third place... and the third place couple is: Kelly and Val! Bummer for them. Ah well, at least they're in love with each other. Even though they won't admit it. OK, now they're saying her full name is Kelly Monaco... and I still have no idea who she is.

Now they're announcing the winner. OMG if Shawn gets 2nd place in something again, I won't even be able to handle it. It'll be like Beijing all over again. I'm so much more emotionally invested in her happiness than I thought I would be 10 minutes ago.

Waiting.... waiting...

Oh boy, this is some Seacrest-esque stalling.

And the winner is: Melissa and Tony! Now that they've won, will they tell us who they are?? (No, I'm forced to google them)

Wait wait wait! Why is Pamela Anderson there, in thigh-high leather boots?

Oh! Tom Bergeron just announced what else the winners get... an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Seriously, WHAT ELSE DO THEY GET, TOM. I cannot understand why/how they don't at least get a check. These "stars" can't possibly have other jobs - that's why they're on this show.

Oh thank God, it's over. I sort of hate all the people on this show, but also, I hope that someday I'll look as happy as Melissa and Tony sitting on someone's shoulders, confetti raining down, hoisting the storied DWTS mirror-ball trophy. Well done, guys. Soak it up.

Don't Call Me a Hipster (Or Do, I Don't Care)

I'm not one of those people who hates being called a hipster. To me the word points to a particular set of interests and tastes, most of which I would willfully admit I enjoy.

Most people who reject the label do so it because to some (mostly, at this point, major newspapers and publications obsessed with dissecting and explicating the younger generations for their older audiences) the label also suggests a detached appropriation of cool, an I-liked-it-before-it-was-cool, you-probably-haven't-heard-of-them, oh-isn't-this-mustache-hilarious brand of irony. But I don't consider my tastes or preferences ironic, and bristle at the suggestion.

Two weeks ago The New York Times published an opinion piece titled "How to Live Without Irony," written by Christy Wampole, a Princeton professor. In it she decries the hipster as "the most extreme manifestation of ironic living." She points to the rise of self-referencing ads, "vintage" photo filters, and the rise of kitsch in style and design as proofs that today's 20- and 30-somethings "frivolously invest in sham social capital without ever paying back one sincere dime."

If this were true, it would indeed be worrisome. Indifference is not an effective means of engaging the world, and should be fought where it is detected. But the aesthetic values she points to as proof do little to draw any meaningful distinction between hipsters and any previous generation that has reacted against what came before it. As an antidote to all this ironic living, she suggests these hipsters replace anything they value for its absurdity with things they genuinely find meaningful, and that they eliminate pop culture references and hyperbole from their speech. She also suggests they avoid any clothing that could be considered "costume-like, derivative or reminiscent of some specific style archetype." The problem with these clothes, she says, are that they refer to something else rather than themselves.

How can any clothes refer only to themselves? And why should we desire this? Fashion is never a cultural vacuum, nor should it be. Clothes reference ideas, whether we realize it or not, and the choices we make about what we put on our bodies connect our ideas of who we are with how we want others to see us. To juxtapose one style--the "derivative"--against another--the supposedly "neutral"--suggests that one represents how things should be.

This whole argument reminds me of the many conversations we had about worship styles while at Wheaton College. Every year we had a chapel service devoted to "multicultural worship" and every year many students (mostly white, upper-middle class students) complained about or even mocked the worship that looked and sounded "different." They felt these styles were less worshipful because they did not lead them into worship as easily and effortlessly as the styles they had grown up with. For at least one particular white, middle-class Wheaton student, it took a few years to finally understand that my experience was no less or more valid than that of any other student, and every individual's particular experience shapes and colors the way we interact with the world and with God.

But she ignores the fact that beauty and taste is an ever-changing concept, and a highly subjective one. To impose your own morality on the aesthetic of another generation or subculture seems to me the height of cultural hubris. But perhaps those mustaches you assume are ironic are actually a reflection of that individual's sincere tastes. Just because you wouldn't sincerely appreciate a record player, or cat-eye sunglasses, or artisanal cheese, doesn't mean there aren't people out there who do. Determining what is sincere is like determining what is authentic--if someone made it, it must be on some level authentic, or at least authentic to one person's experience. Whereas one generation, that has devoted itself to increasing productivity, may have dismissed the art of craft brewing as an antiquated waste of time, another generation sees an opportunity to create. In her essay "The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright" for New York magazine, Noreen Malone points to the current economic climate as an explanation for this very real generational divide: "Since we are, as a generation, more addicted to positive reinforcement than any before us, and because we have learned firsthand the futility of finding that affirmation through our employers, we have returned to our stuff-making ways, via pursuits easily mocked: the modern-day pickling, the obsessive Etsying, the flower-arranging classes, the knitting resurgence, the Kickstarter funds for art projects of no potential commercial value. ... This is a golden age for creativity and knowledge for their own sakes. Our pastimes have become our expressions of mastery, a substitute for the all-consuming career."

Many of the cultural artifacts Jonathan Fitzgerald points to in his rebuttal for The Atlantic, "Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Age's Ethos," as proofs of a New Sincerity movement--Wes Anderson, David Foster Wallace, Arcade Fire--could just as easily be used as counterproofs in Wampole's essay. In fact, these are the very things most people would point to as centerpieces of the hipster canon. The choice, I suppose, is in the attitude of the consumer. Irony and sincerity can often look like two sides of the same coin. In her essay, Wampole points the finger back at herself, saying, "I somehow cannot bear the thought of a friend disliking the gift I’d chosen with sincerity. The simple act of noticing my self-defensive behavior has made me think deeply about how potentially toxic ironic posturing could be." She assumes that because she ironically chooses a certain gift for her friend because she fears the friend will not like a gift chosen with more care, then everyone who chooses a similar gift has done so for the same reasons. It is this need to be liked, Maud Newton points out in "Another Thing to Sort of Pin on David Foster Wallace," that explains why "so much of what passes for intellectual debate nowadays is obscured behind a veneer of folksiness and sincerity and is characterized by an unwillingness to be pinned down. Where the craving for admiration and approval predominates, intellectual rigor cannot thrive, if it survives at all." Wait, what? I thought we were talking about irony, but now we're back to sincerity. Just look at David Foster Wallace's writing for examples of just how closely related the two are: the late writer's prose is full of self-defensive language that seems meant to deflect criticism by embedding all possible criticisms within the work itself. In an essay for Feed, Keith Gessen applauds Wallace for "trying, at last, to destroy” the oppositions between “irony and sincerity, self-consciousness and artifice.”

There we go again. Irony, sincerity, sincerity, irony. Which is it? If that's the question we're asking, we're missing the point. This world is full of people, each of us interacting with it in our own ways, informed by our own experiences. We need to stop with the superficial assessments and start asking questions about the cultural and personal forces that shape who we are and who people who are different from us are and how all of us interact with and contribute to the world in which we live...together.

What even is irony anymore?

If you went out at 3 this morning and pushed other humans out of the way in order to get a $400 TV for $250, you might be a terrible person.

But at least you're not as terrible as the person who spends $1,230 for this:

It's official: ironic ugly Christmas sweaters are out, and non-ironic ugly Christmas sweaters are in. If you're taking fashion advice from this lady, that is:

And you know who IS taking fashion advice from the woman dressed like a grandpa in 1970? Oh, nobody really... just the international fashion community.

God help us. And Merry Christmas.

GIFs for Every Occasion

I hope you enjoyed your turkey and your pie and your football and had a really wonderful Thanksgiving!

Before you get all ?!? on me, allow me to explain. I didn't just throw that in there to make you feel uncomfortable (that's just a bonus.)

Last week Oxford Dictionaries declared "GIF" the word of 2012. On its surface this seems like an odd choice, because GIFs, which compress multiple frames into moving image files like the terrifying TurKramer above, have been around since the late 80s, but this selection points not to the image type itself but to the way the word has changed to suggest more. In the past year they have risen to prominence as a particular form of online content fueled largely by Tumblrs that repurpose GIFs from familiar movies, TV shows, and memes by adding clever captions.

Clearly we're living in an age of visual communication and connection--look no further than the rise of Instagram if you need convincing of this. But where Instagrams are about our individual experience, GIFs are about our shared experience.

For better or for worse, pop culture quotes are the cultural currency we carry largely because they are the common experience we share. The better: they provide a shorthand that instantly increases the level of connection and humor by not just delivering a punchline (or perhaps even just a statement that on its own would not be funny) but also connecting it to the hilarity of its original source. The worse: they can alienate those who aren't familiar with the original source. Take the turkey/human image above--by posting it I am counting on the fact that you're familiar with Seinfeld, the popular American sitcom that aired on NBC from 1989-1998. If you're not, the image makes no sense and might be more than a little bit disturbing. You have to know your audience. For this reason GIFs seem to thrive most in communities centered around a specific experience (living in Chicago, singleness, or being a 20something in 2012).

As someone who frequently converses in TV and movie quotes, GIFs provide a perfect vehicle for expressing what is going on in my brain. I have had entire Gmail threads composed of nothing but GIFs. There is little that is more satisfying than finding the perfect GIF for a situation. Allow me to demonstrate.

Let's say, for example, someone posted something of which I am envious. I might post this GIF:

How about I do something awesome and want people to know how great I feel about it? I might share this little number: 

If I'm really excited about something, it's simple:

When it comes to a party, the choice is obvious:

Maybe I'm shocked by something? BOOM:

Or perhaps you just want to prove to someone how much Bill Cosby embodies the spirit of Jello: 

Less universal, sure, but unexpected and sure to bring a smile to even the most resolute GIF haters.

Ready to get out their and strut your stuff? Why not tell the world?

If you're feeling incredibly ambitious you could even double your impact by combining a meme with a GIF, like such:

So I guess what I'm saying is this: we're living in a golden age of GIFs. Embrace it. And learn the joy of a perfectly placed GIF. 

And please, please share your favorite GIFs in the comments.