The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Dear Vloggers: Please Learn to Type

Posted on | August 1, 2014 | 44 Comments

Jaclyn Glenn (@JaclynGlenn) is an atheist video performer — vlogger, as they say — whose online presence seems to consist entirely of a YouTube channel and a Twitter account. This presents difficulties for those of us whose preferred medium is the written word.

To explain: I’m a super-fast reader. If you were to provide me with a transcript of your 11-minute video rant, I could skim over it in less than a minute and locate the “money quote,” which I could then copy-and-paste into a block-quote on my blog and discuss it. Alternatively, I might decide that your 11-minute video rant is a silly piece of nonsense that should be ignored. Either way, the difference between (a) the 11-minute video rant and (b) a transcript of your rant is that (b) saves me 10 minutes of time over (a), not to mention the time savings between (c) doing a quick copy-and-paste of a quote and (d) having to transcribe your lunatic gibberish.

Excuse my prejudice, but whenever I encounter a vlogger who does not also have a blog — where they discuss topics in the format of written words — my suspicions run in one of three directions:

  1. This person is lazy. It’s easier for them to stare into their webcam and ramble aloud about their feelings than it is for them to bother writing down whatever it is they want to say.
  2. This person is mentally deficient. They’re so impenetrably stupid they were unable to learn basic spelling and grammar. They express themselves in video performances because if they tried to write what they think, it would be so full of obvious grammatical errors that nobody would take them seriously.
  3. This person really wants to be a TV star. That is to say, their videos aren’t really arguments so much as they are auditions. They hope a TV producer will spot their telegenic qualities and invite them on a cable-news discussion panel as a guest, or maybe cast them in a reality-TV series.

Maybe other people aren’t prejudiced this way like I am, but as a devotee of the written word, this is how I feel about vloggers.

So, all that is a long preamble to Jaclyn Glenn’s video “Atheists- Beware of the Extreme Feminist!” The title intrigues me, but I’ll be damned if I have the patience to watch the whole thing:

Fortunately, four minutes into this 11-minute rant, Jaclyn includes a screencap of a post by atheist blogger PZ Myers, so that I could Google that and find this description of the ridiculous “drama” among atheists that inspired the whole crazy thing:

Here’s the pocket summary: Glenn sets it up as an attempt to, in a comedic way, compare the bickering in the atheist community to arguments about vegetarians. To do this, she acts as two vloggers: for one, she puts on a blonde wig and glasses and makes a bunch of extremist, stupid arguments and demands absolute agreement; for the other, she just plays Jaclyn Glenn, reasonable, compromising, sensitive, egalitarian defender of reason who just wants to get along. In other words, she pretends to be the rational one pleading for unity while characterizing her critics as total idiots.
Really, it’s disgraceful and stupid and dishonest.

Thank you, Professor Myers. As to the question of whether it is Jaclyn Glenn or her atheist-feminist critics who are causing the “drama,” let me just point out this: Jaclyn Glenn has crazy eyes.

Beware of crazy-eyed atheist vloggers. Just sayin’ . . .

 

Category: Blogging, Feminism, How This Here Internet Thingy Works, Video

Comments

44 Responses to “Dear Vloggers: Please Learn to Type”

  1. Sam L.
    August 1st, 2014 @ 12:46 pm

    “Dildos were created by men to trick helpless women into raping themselves. #Patriarchy #YesAllWomen”
    Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Nuttiness on parade, but, as always, out of step.

  2. Quartermaster
    August 1st, 2014 @ 12:47 pm

    She needs to make herself a sammich. A bunch of them.

  3. Matt_SE
    August 1st, 2014 @ 12:55 pm

    Her video is a straw man argument, or as we say in the biz: a vstrawman.

  4. robertstacymccain
    August 1st, 2014 @ 12:57 pm

    I believe that Tweet was intended sarcastically, as a putdown of “extreme feminists.” But the sarcastic intent was not obvious, unless you knew that Glenn had been in arguments with those people, so that a lot of people took it seriously.

  5. CrustyB
    August 1st, 2014 @ 1:09 pm

    Having a non-written video blog also says “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! VALIDATE ME!”

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 1st, 2014 @ 1:16 pm

    I see a Cray Cray Rule 5 coming…

  7. Blazed
    August 1st, 2014 @ 1:29 pm

    If you’re going to wade into the world of bloggers try the Amazing Atheist. Glenn owes her entire following to him. He’s also gained the ire of radical feminists.

  8. Hired Mind
    August 1st, 2014 @ 1:36 pm

    I find this part of the PZ Myers piece incredibly dishonest:

    “…saying things so stupid that Christians wouldn’t recognize them as
    their own views, which I then described as “Atheism vs. Retards.””

    That’s *exactly* what PZ Myers did with comparison of Holly Fisher to a female radical Muslim terrorist recently:
    http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/07/05/lets-hold-up-a-mirror/

    I’m an Atheist. But I think PZ Myers is one of the worst representatives of Atheism.

  9. JeffS
    August 1st, 2014 @ 1:50 pm

    Yeah, I prefer the written words as well. Video has its place, but tends to be more performance than communication, intended to evoke an emotional response, rather than exchange information.

    There are exceptions, of course; look at Jaclyn “Crazy Eyes” Glenn versus Bill Whittle. Or AlfonZo Rachel.

    That’s why I appreciate your blog, Stacy. You write.

  10. RKae
    August 1st, 2014 @ 2:44 pm

    I wish atheists and worshippers of science would go fix the Fukushima reactor before attacking religion as being the “big dangerous” thing in the world. It’s the grownup thing to do, like eating your vegetables before you get your cake.

    Or how ’bout doing something about the utterly irresponsible science of over-the-top surveillance before you call religion “controlling”?

  11. Quartermaster
    August 1st, 2014 @ 2:52 pm

    PZ Meyers is a retard. He can’t argue, he simply insults and calls it argument.

  12. Dianna Deeley
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:14 pm

    Did she really consider that a clever thought?!

  13. Dianna Deeley
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:17 pm

    Even as sarcasm, it’s abominable.

    Seriously, that’s just offensive and stupid, it’s not in any possible world clever.

  14. DeadMessenger
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:26 pm

    If you keep giving rational examples of inconsistent thought RKae, you’re going to draw the ire of the irrational, inconsistent masses.

  15. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:31 pm

    If you consider poo throwing a way to get hits on your vlog, perhaps.

  16. RKae
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:34 pm

    You’d be surprised what passes for clever in the world of atheism.

  17. maniakmedic
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:46 pm

    I’d like to say that’s not true, but every time I think the asshole contingent of atheism (which unfortunately seems to be the majority of atheists) has hit rock bottom in their mining for stupidity, they manage to dig deeper and find another vein.

  18. RKae
    August 1st, 2014 @ 3:54 pm

    It doesn’t even need to be new to surprise me. I still shake my head in disbelief when they feel compelled to use the name “Jeebus” to mock Jesus.

  19. maniakmedic
    August 1st, 2014 @ 5:09 pm

    I’m particularly amused by how offended they get at the Christian belief strawmen they erect. “How dare you think I’m a sinner!” I always have to wonder why the hell they care if they don’t believe in sin or Hell.

    And it is pretty amusing that they can manage to go into an apoplectic rage over what they deem to be a “fictional character.” Somewhat like me throwing a fit if anybody mentioned having a fondness for Rocky Balboa or Jack Bauer.

  20. jakee308
    August 1st, 2014 @ 5:19 pm

    If an video article/story doesn’t have a transcript, I won’t listen to the video. I have trouble hearing. Particularly the high pitched whining noises females and other pretentious people tend to produce.

    If they can’t be bothered to allow it to be read at leisure then I assume it’s just twaddle and bumf.

  21. richard mcenroe
    August 1st, 2014 @ 5:25 pm

    I toyed with the idea of a vlog, but eyeshadow and a tube top weren’t the draw they are for female vloggers; I don’t know why…

  22. RKae
    August 1st, 2014 @ 5:50 pm

    Should’ve made your vlog about smashing gender. Then you could’ve worn that tube-top and taken people to task when they flooded you with hateful comments.

  23. Jeanette Victoria
    August 1st, 2014 @ 5:53 pm

    I with Stacy I find videos REALLY boring I want to READ. I also read really fast. I simply don’t pay any attention to vloggers

  24. Zohydro
    August 1st, 2014 @ 6:21 pm

    And I’m certain McEnroe would look absolutely smashing in that get up!

  25. richard mcenroe
    August 1st, 2014 @ 6:32 pm

    The only thing(s) smashed would have been everything on my desk when the spandex gave…

  26. richard mcenroe
    August 1st, 2014 @ 6:34 pm

    Already had enough problems in that area, thanks… http://threebeerslater.blogspot.com/2011/01/nothing-to-tell-but-they-asked-me.html

  27. richard mcenroe
    August 1st, 2014 @ 6:40 pm

    I should go back and revisit that post sometime, in light of Obama’s pinking the military. Apparently, the man could LITERALLY fuck up a circle jerk…

  28. RufusChoate
    August 1st, 2014 @ 6:55 pm

    I have observed with my many conversations and arguments with Atheists that most are of this particular type of shallow infantile narcissists with serious moral issues that they don’t want to be judged on.

    It isn’t a problem with God but the standards of being good. God is a judge and they are simply too magnificent for such a moral construct.

    The grim reality is they are opinionated effete five year old children in an adult body.

  29. Jaclyn Glenn Rule 5 | Batshit Crazy News
    August 1st, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

    […] TOM says that Vlogggers need to have a transcript.  I completely agree, I hate talking head video pieces that don’t give a written version I can skim to see if I even want to watch the video.TOM also notes that Jaclyn Glenn has crazy eyes. Never let a Rule 5 opportunity go to waste, I will let you gentle readers and viewers make up your own minds on this question. Now I do not think all atheists are crazy, but I know most liberals are. […]

  30. dustbury.com » Maybe I don’t need a video
    August 1st, 2014 @ 11:44 pm

    […] For a vivid illustration of “not well received,” here’s Robert Stacy McCain complaining to a videoblogger: […]

  31. Jupiter C.
    August 1st, 2014 @ 11:48 pm

    Bravo!

  32. 22blaze
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 1:47 am

    oh, please, shut up, you silly, judgmental putz. You sound ridiculous.

  33. Separated by Sanity: Dana Loesch and…? | Batshit Crazy News
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 2:45 am

    […] TOM: Dear Vloggers: Please learn how to type […]

  34. RufusChoate
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 8:45 am

    Exhibit A. Do I really need to comment further? It is almost scientific- Describe a personality trait and some one too narcissistic to be self aware provides an example.

  35. ThePaganTemple
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 11:54 am

    This chick is against extremist feminists, what could possibly be wrong with that? I haven’t watched the video yet, but thanks in advance for turning me on to her.

  36. ThePaganTemple
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 12:30 pm

    Well, okay, that was pretty fucking boring.

  37. 22blaze
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 3:32 pm

    I’m not atheist, and you still sound like an asshole. Lack of belief in God does not make one a malignant narcissist(more of those I notice among believers), or evil. Your assumptions, and logic are simply flawed and in no way reflect reality.

  38. RufusChoate
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 3:57 pm

    Sure it does. Keep charging the bayonets…sure it hurts but the pain is instructive. You missed the point about observed behavior and you’re perfect example of truly stupid people not being aware of how stupid they actually are.

    Too humorous please have another run in…

  39. Transplanted Pennsylvanian West Virginian Freaks! With bonus Fifty Shades of Grey Trailer Rule 5 | Batshit Crazy News
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 4:22 pm

    […] TOM: Dear Vloggers: Please learn to type… […]

  40. Wombat_socho
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 8:09 pm

    But it offends the right people! It must be funny!

  41. Wombat_socho
    August 2nd, 2014 @ 8:11 pm

    He’s too slow; already banned because I’m bored now.

  42. RufusChoate
    August 3rd, 2014 @ 6:50 am

    Yep, it is really fun when people just want to call you names without bother to read your posts. Cheers.

  43. HealthyAmerican
    August 4th, 2014 @ 3:06 am

    This particular argument that she makes early in the video amuses me greatly. (Advising guys how to talk to a girl) “Try acknowledging the problem before you try to fix it or diffuse it.”
    Um… isn’t the fact that we’re trying to help you with your problem pretty much a straightforward acknowledgement that you have a problem?

  44. 22blaze1
    August 4th, 2014 @ 2:19 pm

    No, it doesn’t, dummy, and claiming “I’m stupid” is not supporting your asinine, and counterfactual claim. So called “observable behavior” based on your heavily biased Christian bs moral code is worthless, especially when it lead you to such a lame brained, prejudiced conclusion. it’s my bayonet you’re running into.