Random Music Talk CVII - At Home with Cobbler

[bono_212]

They're being completely moronic about this whole thing.

 

[djerdap]

Some songs/elements I don't have an issue with, such as the sequencer in Bad. But I'm not a fan of the backing vocal track on Beautiful Day, for example, because Bono, Edge, and Larry should be able to do that themselves. There's no reason it has to sound exactly like the album version.

Yep. There are more examples (like those silly violins in Miracle Drug or Edge's backing vocals in Mofo being pre-recorded), but it's pointless to bring them up in that thread for reasons well-known.

 

[lazarus]

There are more examples (like those silly violins in Miracle Drug)

Ugh I totally hate that. Though while I'm a fan of the song, the "violins" don't sound good on the album track, either. Pretty lame they couldn't be bothered to use real strings.

 

[Danny Boy]

What is this Tidal nonsense? Daft Punk is there, Arcade Fire, Kanye of course... Every big artist in the world it seems.

I'm watching a stream because Kanye posted a link on his Twitter.

It's a lossless streaming service that Jay-Z just bought. It actually launched several months ago, but they are relaunching it because everyone ignored it the first time around.

 

[cobl04]

I read somewhere that the artists involved are taking their music off Spotify? That's the only way I'll care about it.

 

[Danny Boy]

That will be great if we have a streaming service war and you have to subscribe to three of them just to hear all the music you want to.

Leave it to the music industry to fuck up every revenue stream they come across.

I'm sure Apple will strong arm everyone into making their music available on their relaunched Beats service.

 

[david]

God damn the new Sufjan Stevens.. God damn.

 

[bono_212]

That will be great if we have a streaming service war and you have to subscribe to three of them just to hear all the music you want to.

Leave it to the music industry to fuck up every revenue stream they come across.

I'm sure Apple will strong arm everyone into making their music available on their relaunched Beats service.

But haven't you heard? This new service is THE ONE to save the industry, cause the artists own it.

 

[PhilsFan]

It makes no sense. Lossless won't be noticed on your phone, except that it will use more data.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[nielsgov]

That will be great if we have a streaming service war and you have to subscribe to three of them just to hear all the music you want to.

Leave it to the music industry to fuck up every revenue stream they come across.

Yeah this is my biggest worry about this thing. I'm already annoyed when the odd album isn't available on Google All Access. I still had to buy (or pirate) to listen to Vulnicura for instance.

 

[cobl04]

How good would a well-planned monopoly be. Everything you want available at any time. New stuff added instantaneously. You pay a bit more so the artists get a better deal.

 

[LemonMelon]

Like an iTunes streaming service? Yeah, I'd subscribe. Every song in the world for $15 320 kbps, $20 for lossless.

 

[Axver]

I'd happily pay an extra $20 for my monthly Internet if it meant any and every music I downloaded from anywhere was legal.

 

[liamcool]

I'm not streaming lossless unless I can get it on my Pono, and they give me 24 carat headphones to listen with.

 

[Hewson]

This was mildly entertaining:

Experience "Brandy & Coke (Trampled Under Foot)" | Led Zeppelin - Official Website

 

[cobl04]

I'm quite annoyed, gang, so I'm going to post a rant.

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is on at the moment. Late last week, a comedian by the name of Ray Badran was all of a sudden the subject of some pretty intense abuse. This came about as a result of his show, in which he has a bit that contains the word 'rape'. I haven't seen the show, so can't comment, but from first-hand reports, it is a joke about stereotypes and how certain types of people are more likely to be perceived as a rapist than others. A woman heard about this "rape joke" and immediately started a Twitter campaign against him, calling for boycotts and including him in tweets calling him a cunt, an arsehole, so on.

I don't have an issue with going to a comedy show and being offended. Everyone has that right. But this woman, and subsequent women who joined the campaign, had not seen the show, nor heard the joke. I think it's kind of fucking stupid to be offended and outraged and protest something you have not seen or heard. I posited this to a woman on Twitter, she replied "how is that fucking relevant?" and just accused me of mansplaining.

A feminist friend of mine texted me the next day after the story blew up and our most prominent feminist website wrote a blog post about Ray and rape jokes, despite the author not having seen the show or heard the joke firsthand. My friend too was outraged (although she had not seen the show or heard the joke firsthand) and started talking about how disgusting it is that men feel they are entitled to tell rape jokes. Which I can sympathise with - I think the Daniel Tosh incident was downright disgusting, and any joke which trivialises rape is fucked and the comedian should be called out for that. But from all the firsthand knowledge that I could find, Ray's joke was not trivialising rape, it was a joke about stereotypes (again I haven't seen his show yet. Plan to next week). But that point - and the point about how it is possible to be outraged about something you haven't witnessed - was continuously overlooked.

I like to think that I am very sympathetic to feminism, but I don't think I would call myself one as I am a straight, white, middle-class male, so I really have no idea what it is like to be discriminated against. But there is a subset of feminists who I think hold such strong views that they are unwilling to have discussions, especially with men. I find this frustrating because I am always trying to learn and be a better person; but I feel like if I bring up a point of view it is shot down immediately as mansplaining, or man feelings, just completely irrelevant because I'm a man. There are many cases where men really don't need to be heard, particularly on issues such as abortion. But it seems to be so black-and-white with a certain subset of feminists.

Anyway. Tonight I saw that friend, we ended up going to a couple of gigs together. We saw a comedian named Scott Dooley. It was a pretty decent set, he said a lot of things that would have pleased women in the crowd but he also contradicted himself a fair bit. He also used the word 'rape' at least two times. Now in neither of those bits did I think he was trivialising rape, I didn't think they were particularly funny or smart jokes, but they were fine and elicited chuckles from the crowd, made up of both males and females. My friend has the hots for him, and laughed throughout the show and spoke afterwards about how she just wanted to suck his dick the whole time. Which is totally cool, more power to her. But I felt very annoyed, because last week she was outraged and protesting a gig by a comedian about whom she only had thirdhand evidence; (I argued in a text that there's a difference between a rape joke and a joke with the word rape in it; she disagreed and said that any joke with the word rape in it was a rape joke) and then in this show, in which the comedian used the word rape at least twice, she had no issue. I found that extraordinarily annoying, but didn't say anything as I was afraid it would result in a 'men need to listen to women more, you're mansplaining' kinda deal.

Earlier tonight I saw a comedian by the name of Gen Fricker. She had a great show and included a bit about how she only just escaped a sexual assault at the hands of a taxi driver. Harrowing stuff, but it was really powerful and also funny in the way she explored it on stage. Fricker was one of several feminist comedians defending Ray on Twitter last week; I pointed that out to several women who were protesting and abusing him and I was told "there's such a thing as internalised misogyny". I have no doubt that's true but how can you level that at someone you don't know? That is very narrow-minded. And if we do need to listen to more women, and we do, doesn't that mean listening to women who might not share your point of view?

Rant over. Just needed to get that out somewhere.

 

[PhilsFan]

There is a clear difference between a joke with the word rape in it and a rape joke. Louis CK, who feminists love, has a joke about a woman who wanted him to have sex with her without her giving him permission because "she wants it to feel real and dangerous." Louie's reply was "Are you out of your mind? I'm not going to rape you on the off-chance you're into that shit." That's not a rape joke, but rape is mentioned.

That said, you have to remember where a lot of the women you are talking about are coming from. To them, you are yet another random dude in their Twitter mentions telling them to chill out about rape. And most of the ones they have are usually people a lot shittier than you and me. My thought in this situation is to give my opinion if asked about it, but to not be that guy.

 

[cobl04]

I know, I'm well aware of that. These women would have dickhead men jumping in their mentions all the fucking time. I was just really annoyed with the reaction to the whole thing, and also I was bored and doing nothing at work. I tried to get across that I was not just another random fuckwit and that was at least somewhat communicated okay.

And also, like, it was frustrating to see a comedian being abused by people who had not seen the show or heard the joke. I'm really into live comedy (I am seeing 100+ shows this festival) and I don't think it's fair for a comedian to be the recipient of abuse and boycotts when it isn't quite justified.

 

[iron yuppie]

But there is a subset of feminists who I think hold such strong views that they are unwilling to have discussions

I think this is true of any ideological group/movement.

 

[LemonMelon]

Ugh, mansplaining is not the same thing as a man arguing with a woman.

 

[corianderstem]

I don't have anything helpful to add, so I'll add unhelpful but amusing gifs.

 

[nielsgov]

I don't even.know what mansplaining is. Does it come from explaining?

Sent from my H60-L04 using U2 Interference mobile app

 

[Danny Boy]

I'm glad you asked, Niels.

Mansplaining is a portmanteau of the words man and explaining, defined as "to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing."[1][2] Lily Rothman of The Atlantic defines it as "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman,"[3] and Rebecca Solnit ascribes the phenomenon to a combination of "overconfidence and cluelessness" that some men display.[4]

The neologism[5] showed up simultaneously in multiple places, so its origin is difficult to establish definitively.[5] In an opinion piece entitled "Men who explain things", Solnit relates an anecdote about a man at a party who said he had heard she had written some books and she replied by talking about her most recent book on Eadweard Muybridge whereupon he cut her off and asked if she had "heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year", not knowing--or entertaining the idea--that she might be the author.[6] The word soon became popular among feminist bloggers and then in mainstream political commentary, as a much-needed term for an old concept and a frequent experience.[3][5] It was selected for New York Times '​ 2010 word of the year list;[5] nominated for American Dialect Society's most creative word of the year in 2012;[2] added to the online Oxford Dictionaries in 2014;[7] and engendered parallel constructions such as whitesplaining and rightsplaining.[8] As the word has become more popular, some commentators have complained that its misappropriation, overuse, and overly-broad use have diluted its original meaning and made its use counter-productive, or even inflammatory, in some instances.[9][10]

Contents [hide]
1 Definition
2 History
3 Controversy
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Definition[edit]
Mansplaining also covers a heterogeneous mix of mannerisms in which a speaker's reduced respect for the stance of a listener, or a person being discussed, appears to have little reason behind it other than the speaker's assumption that the listener or subject, being female, does not have the same capacity to understand as a man or should not be given the same respect as a man. It also covers situations where it appears a person is using their conversation primarily for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, by holding forth to a presumed less capable female listener in order to appear knowledgeable by comparison.[citation needed]

Rebecca Solnit's original essay took the idea further than the bare concept of mansplaining, to cover its consequences, which she describes as covering many situations where women, whether members of the public or professionals and experts within some area, are routinely seen or treated as less credible than men, or as needing a man to validate their testimony or insights,[11] stating that this is one symptom of a widespread behavior that "keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence".[12]

Mansplaining differs somewhat from many other forms of condescension since it is specifically a gender-related form of condescension and is rooted in a sexist assumption which assumes that a man will normally be more knowledgeable, or more capable of understanding many matters, than a woman.[13]

Mansplaining is considered a patronizing act in gender divisions and has been generalized to include racial divisions and political divisions, for example whitesplaining and rightsplaining.[8]

History[edit]
The word is thought to have been first used in 2008 or 2009,[14] shortly after San Francisco essayist Rebecca Solnit published an April 2008 blog post titled "Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way". In it, she did not use the word mansplaining, but defined the phenomenon as "something every woman knows". Her post involved the story of a man she met at a party, who began to didactically describe to her a recent "very important" book (which it transpired he himself had not read but had read about in a review). The man needed to be told by Solnit's accompanying friend three or four times that Solnit was in fact the author of the book concerned, before actually paying attention to and absorbing the information.

Solnit's original essay went further, to cover the consequences of this gendered behavior, drawing attention to its effect in creating a conspiracy of silence and disempowerment.[15] Solnit later published Men Explain Things To Me, a collection of seven essays surrounding this theme.

A month later the word mansplaining appeared in a comment on the social network LiveJournal, and its use has grown since.[3] The term quickly gained wide recognition,[3] and in 2010, The New York Times named mansplainer as one of its "Words of the Year."[16]

Since 2010, journalists have described U.S. Republican politicians including then-presidential nominee Mitt Romney,[17] then-vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan[18] and Governor of Texas Rick Perry,[19] MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell,[20] and various characters on the HBO drama series The Newsroom[21][22][23] as mansplainers.

In 2013, Dictionary.com said it was adding both mansplain and the suffix (libfix) -splain to its dictionary.[24] In its announcement, Dictionary.com explained its reasoning in putting more emphasis on -splain suffix: "In addition to being creative, this term, particularly the -splaining part, has proven to be incredibly robust and useful as a combining form in 2013". It noted that the meaning of mansplain has changed somewhat since 2009, from "intense and serious to casual and jocular", with the older -splain words still have "heavy cultural and political connotations and are often added to the names of politicians.[24]

Controversy[edit]
The usefulness of the term is disputed. Given its gender-specific nature and negative connotation, the word has been described by Lesley Kinzel as being inherently biased, essentialist, dismissive, and a double standard.[25] Annie-Rose Strasser states that the term is too easily misunderstood and misappropriated, which makes it counterproductive in calling out problematic behaviour. She cites the coinage of the term "womansplaining" to describe a woman interacting with someone in a condescending manner as evidence of this misappropriation.[9]

Author Cathy Young has referred to it as "a pejorative term for supposedly obtuse and arrogant male arguments on gender, apparently now also applied to female dissent".[26]

 

[Vlad n U 2]

There is a clear difference between a joke with the word rape in it and a rape joke. Louis CK, who feminists love, has a joke about a woman who wanted him to have sex with her without her giving him permission because "she wants it to feel real and dangerous." Louie's reply was "Are you out of your mind? I'm not going to rape you on the off-chance you're into that shit." That's not a rape joke, but rape is mentioned.

That said, you have to remember where a lot of the women you are talking about are coming from. To them, you are yet another random dude in their Twitter mentions telling them to chill out about rape. And most of the ones they have are usually people a lot shittier than you and me. My thought in this situation is to give my opinion if asked about it, but to not be that guy.

Do they really? He's said some pretty shit things IIRC.

 

[Axver]

Cobbler, I haven't followed the Ray Badran debate because it's not one I really want to be part of - far too many preconceptions and baggage on both sides - but I was under the impression that a significant part of the outrage was directed at Badran's response to the woman at the show who got offended, telling her to die. Whatever your opinion on rape jokes, telling somebody to die clearly crosses a line. Indeed, the content of the joke is immaterial to that point; if your response to an audience member offended at any material is to tell them to die, you deserve at least some criticism.

 

[martha]

Vn Halen is one of the bands where if someone have me a ticket, I'd burn it so no one else would have to go.

 

[u2popmofo]

I'm glad you asked, Niels.

Mansplaining is a portmanteau of the words man and explaining, defined as "to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing."[1][2] Lily Rothman of The Atlantic defines it as "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman,"[3] and Rebecca Solnit ascribes the phenomenon to a combination of "overconfidence and cluelessness" that some men display.[4]

The neologism[5] showed up simultaneously in multiple places, so its origin is difficult to establish definitively.[5] In an opinion piece entitled "Men who explain things", Solnit relates an anecdote about a man at a party who said he had heard she had written some books and she replied by talking about her most recent book on Eadweard Muybridge whereupon he cut her off and asked if she had "heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year", not knowing--or entertaining the idea--that she might be the author.[6] The word soon became popular among feminist bloggers and then in mainstream political commentary, as a much-needed term for an old concept and a frequent experience.[3][5] It was selected for New York Times '​ 2010 word of the year list;[5] nominated for American Dialect Society's most creative word of the year in 2012;[2] added to the online Oxford Dictionaries in 2014;[7] and engendered parallel constructions such as whitesplaining and rightsplaining.[8] As the word has become more popular, some commentators have complained that its misappropriation, overuse, and overly-broad use have diluted its original meaning and made its use counter-productive, or even inflammatory, in some instances.[9][10]

Contents [hide]
1 Definition
2 History
3 Controversy
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Definition[edit]
Mansplaining also covers a heterogeneous mix of mannerisms in which a speaker's reduced respect for the stance of a listener, or a person being discussed, appears to have little reason behind it other than the speaker's assumption that the listener or subject, being female, does not have the same capacity to understand as a man or should not be given the same respect as a man. It also covers situations where it appears a person is using their conversation primarily for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, by holding forth to a presumed less capable female listener in order to appear knowledgeable by comparison.[citation needed]

Rebecca Solnit's original essay took the idea further than the bare concept of mansplaining, to cover its consequences, which she describes as covering many situations where women, whether members of the public or professionals and experts within some area, are routinely seen or treated as less credible than men, or as needing a man to validate their testimony or insights,[11] stating that this is one symptom of a widespread behavior that "keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence".[12]

Mansplaining differs somewhat from many other forms of condescension since it is specifically a gender-related form of condescension and is rooted in a sexist assumption which assumes that a man will normally be more knowledgeable, or more capable of understanding many matters, than a woman.[13]

Mansplaining is considered a patronizing act in gender divisions and has been generalized to include racial divisions and political divisions, for example whitesplaining and rightsplaining.[8]

History[edit]
The word is thought to have been first used in 2008 or 2009,[14] shortly after San Francisco essayist Rebecca Solnit published an April 2008 blog post titled "Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn't Get in Their Way". In it, she did not use the word mansplaining, but defined the phenomenon as "something every woman knows". Her post involved the story of a man she met at a party, who began to didactically describe to her a recent "very important" book (which it transpired he himself had not read but had read about in a review). The man needed to be told by Solnit's accompanying friend three or four times that Solnit was in fact the author of the book concerned, before actually paying attention to and absorbing the information.

Solnit's original essay went further, to cover the consequences of this gendered behavior, drawing attention to its effect in creating a conspiracy of silence and disempowerment.[15] Solnit later published Men Explain Things To Me, a collection of seven essays surrounding this theme.

A month later the word mansplaining appeared in a comment on the social network LiveJournal, and its use has grown since.[3] The term quickly gained wide recognition,[3] and in 2010, The New York Times named mansplainer as one of its "Words of the Year."[16]

Since 2010, journalists have described U.S. Republican politicians including then-presidential nominee Mitt Romney,[17] then-vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan[18] and Governor of Texas Rick Perry,[19] MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell,[20] and various characters on the HBO drama series The Newsroom[21][22][23] as mansplainers.

In 2013, Dictionary.com said it was adding both mansplain and the suffix (libfix) -splain to its dictionary.[24] In its announcement, Dictionary.com explained its reasoning in putting more emphasis on -splain suffix: "In addition to being creative, this term, particularly the -splaining part, has proven to be incredibly robust and useful as a combining form in 2013". It noted that the meaning of mansplain has changed somewhat since 2009, from "intense and serious to casual and jocular", with the older -splain words still have "heavy cultural and political connotations and are often added to the names of politicians.[24]

Controversy[edit]
The usefulness of the term is disputed. Given its gender-specific nature and negative connotation, the word has been described by Lesley Kinzel as being inherently biased, essentialist, dismissive, and a double standard.[25] Annie-Rose Strasser states that the term is too easily misunderstood and misappropriated, which makes it counterproductive in calling out problematic behaviour. She cites the coinage of the term "womansplaining" to describe a woman interacting with someone in a condescending manner as evidence of this misappropriation.[9]

Author Cathy Young has referred to it as "a pejorative term for supposedly obtuse and arrogant male arguments on gender, apparently now also applied to female dissent".[26]

u no a lawt bout dis, u got sum mansplainin' 2 do

 

[cobl04]

Cobbler, I haven't followed the Ray Badran debate because it's not one I really want to be part of - far too many preconceptions and baggage on both sides - but I was under the impression that a significant part of the outrage was directed at Badran's response to the woman at the show who got offended, telling her to die. Whatever your opinion on rape jokes, telling somebody to die clearly crosses a line. Indeed, the content of the joke is immaterial to that point; if your response to an audience member offended at any material is to tell them to die, you deserve at least some criticism.

Yes, I should have mentioned that. There is a clear separation between the the joke and the reaction to the audience member, but everyone has agreed that the way he handled the situation was very poor, even fellow comedians who were there. Not the way to go about it and you deserve criticism for that.

I was more annoyed at my friend's hypocrisy than anything else.

 

[IWasBored]

Raped by wolves?

 

[Kieran McConville]

I think a lot of these arguments (Twitter arguments in particular) are more about power and in-group status than anything else, and I want no part of it.