The Art Of The Burn

Because the world is on fire and everyone is feeling singe-y.

By

Epic Burns

The Albigenses were a 12th and 13th century heretical Catholic sect, who “believed in a good spirit who created the spiritual, and in an evil spirit who created the material world.” The `net is also a struggle between the forces of good and evil: the Burn vs. the Tab. (May 10, 2015) was all Tabs, so to maintain the universal balance, today is dedicated to the art of the Burn. The Albigenses also “commended… in general, the extinction of human life” so I feel like they still have a lot of good ideas to offer us.

(May 10, 2015) Liz Lopatto reviewed a plate that weighs your food and takes pictures of it, because dieting (?), and concluded “a plate that measures calories and ignores all the human components of food? Keep your money.” The Smart Plate twitter got all snotty with her, recommending this review instead which raved that “Fitly’s vision for its just-Kickstarted SmartPlate isn’t entirely laughable.” I guess that was the best they could do. Ms. Lopatto, you may now clap back:

One of Secret’s early backers at Google Ventures, Bill Maris, told Mike Isaac and David Gelles that the app’s second fundraising round was “like a bank heist.” Maris tried to walk the quote back in an email, pointing out that “[Byttow] and Chrys worked extremely hard…” so I guess they deserve to pocket $3 million in VC money each. Congrats anyone else who has ever worked extremely hard! Your fat payday is waiting for you at Google Ventures.

Jamie Lauren Keiles chronicled a `net subculture that is very real and also super depressing, the “stable, midlevel urban creative type… feeling nothing as he tosses links into the ether.” Notably for our purposes she managed to craft a burn so tight that everyone has a different idea about whom, specifically, it is a brûler à clef: “At night, he strokes himself to a Kinfolk centerfold while his girlfriend whispers in his ear, ’N E V E R T W E E T.’” Dang.

Carly Fiorina courted the favor of the digital generation at a TechCrunch conference by telling them that “85 to 95 percent of what people spend time doing on their technology today is pretty superficial and useless.” “Welcome!” said the TechCrunch host. “Thank you! Great to have me!” replied Fiorina. Great. To. Have. Me. Carly Fiorina is uniquely terrible at everything she does, which Katie Benner made clear in Bloomberg View: “To cut to the chase: Fiorina was fired from HP because she did a bad job.”

Al-Jazeera America staffers and ex-staffers torched the network in the Times. Emily Nussbaum burned critics of feminist TV stars pretty hard in her Amy Schumer profile: “when you’re put on a pedestal, the whole world gets to upskirt you.” Josephine Livingstone burned men at literary readings and their terrible self-involved questions, something Mallory did recently as well so maybe they’ve been hitting the same readings. Lol j/k all men in all audiences have been like this forever. “Never Take Questions” is IRL for “Never Read the Comments.” Jeremy Renner stood by his opinion that Black Widow is “a slut”. “I’m taking about a fictional character!” protested Renner while applying his moral judgement to the fictional character’s fictional choices which were written by a man. Leigh Alexander for the burn:

And finally, The Verge’s Ben Popper posted a glowing blurb about Reddit’s new video venture, coincidentally run by “Stephen Greenwood and Jordan Oplinger, two veterans of The Verge video team,” who are “incredibly talented dudes…” Ryan Tate provided a graphical burn:

But by far the greatest burn of the day is the one delivered to the Progressive Conservative party by Alberta voters, for more on which I turn to intern and literal Canadian Karen Ho:

TODAY’S INTERN TAB, by KAREN HO

There was an election last night in Alberta, Canada’s super-rich, super-conservative province, where the Progressive Conservative party has reigned for the last 44 years, and everyone had forgotten what transition folders were.

But then! The oil crash happened, Premier Jim Prentice called an election and everyone was off to the races. It didn’t help the PCs that during a debate, Prentice patronizingly told his opponent Rachel Notley that “math is hard,” as if she were a Teen Talk Barbie. Nor was it helpful when a bunch of CEOs held a really stupid press conference where they told everyone how to vote. Still, four newspapers gave Prentice their endorsement.

But come election day, pigs flew, hell froze over, and heads exploded trying to explain just how much the electorate wanted a change. The polls had actually been right.

Notley’s New Democrat Party only needed 44 of the 87 seats in the Alberta legislature for a majority. Instead, they went from four seats to 53. The PCs went from 70 seats to 11. The National Post called Notley’s win a “tectonic shift”.


“Different” would be an understatement.

And because things weren’t crazy enough, there was even a tie.

Prentice immediately resigned in utter humiliation, both as head of the Alberta PC party and from the seat he just won, which means the residents of Calgary-Foothills also get to suffer through another by-election.

Rapid changes in provincial governments haven’t always been successful and there are plenty of questionably qualified people who suddenly find themselves with new jobs. But every once in a while, it’s fun to see Canadian politics be just as dramatic and interesting as its American counterpart.

You say “dramatic and interesting,” I say “rigged and pointless…” Tomato / tomahto! The important thing is to read about Parliamentary politics in private so no one will see my bitter, bitter tears of frustration.

Today in Spawn: Edison’s cursed doll.

Today’s Song: Ja Rule, “Clap Back“

~We gonna Tab back~

Today in Tabs pops the top like Fast Company, wear nothing but email. Let’s take ’em to war.


Epic Burns


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