"You should become a giraffe."
May 6, 2011 6:10 PM Subscribe

How To Make Guys Like You - romantic advice from the Vlogbrothers, who are also nerdfighters.

"Nerd girls are the world's greatest underutilized romantic resource."

posted by flex (66 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite

I was hoping this was about cloning.
posted by zippy at 6:13 PM on May 6, 2011 [18 favorites]

I miss Ze Frank, too.
posted by phunniemee at 6:26 PM on May 6, 2011 [6 favorites]

I think my favorite part is the "be yourself" interlude - "whose self would I otherwise be being?" It's so easy to say that as an adult to a teenager, but when I was a teenager, I would just eyeroll at it.
posted by flex at 6:27 PM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Geez, rip Ze Frank's style off much?
posted by dflemingecon at 6:28 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, I watched most of the first year of the Green brothers' video thing, and they were explicitly influenced by Ze Frank. I remember one of them toasting him on the anniversary of the show.
posted by danb at 6:29 PM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, well that's good at least. I was kind of startled at how blatantly obvious it was.
posted by dflemingecon at 6:31 PM on May 6, 2011

''Who the hell is this Robin bitch?''

''HE'S MY SIDEKICK!!''
posted by bwg at 6:35 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Vlogbrothers started the Nerdfighters. And yes, they have openly attributed their style to Ze Frank, and admire(d) him greatly.

I think that some of their videos are the best vlogs on YouTube.
posted by tzikeh at 6:39 PM on May 6, 2011

I think my favorite part is the "be yourself" interlude - "whose self would I otherwise be being?"

I used to laugh at that too, but I think I'm starting to get it now. It isn't "be yourself" it's "be yourself". Don't meta-be or "act like" or be ironic or try to live up to what you think someone you like wants or anything. Just...be the way you would normally be.

Be be be. Now it looks weird.
posted by DU at 6:41 PM on May 6, 2011 [11 favorites]

re: anorexic women and plastic bags in breasts

I sort of get his point, but "women are too thin and plastic for me" is just as bad as "women are too fat and flat for me." Women's bodies aren't *for him* in the first place.
posted by yaymukund at 6:45 PM on May 6, 2011 [13 favorites]

Be be be. Now it looks weird.

Isn't it strange? A be is OK. But the bes is enough to make one scream.
posted by zippy at 6:52 PM on May 6, 2011

I sort of get his point, but "women are too thin and plastic for me" is just as bad as "women are too fat and flat for me." Women's bodies aren't *for him* in the first place.

Did he actually say that? Seemed like he was just putting the expectation that women be like that in context (it's cultural, it's not universal, and above all it's not mandatory).
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:53 PM on May 6, 2011 [7 favorites]

Nerd girls don't need more people encouraging them to think they are God's gift to nerd boys. That gets old really fast. Sure, many nerds of all genders and sexes could use some well deserved self-esteem bolstering. But too many nerds (male and female) develop the idea that a nerd should be placed on a pedestal just because she's a girl, and that's really damaging to both friendships and romantic relationships in nerdtopia.
posted by yeolcoatl at 6:54 PM on May 6, 2011 [13 favorites]

yaymukund: I wasn't too comfortable with that as well. I did like he took it to "what's plastic?" though, which took some of the sting out of it, for me.
posted by flex at 6:54 PM on May 6, 2011

Whenever there is a vlogbrothers post, I think to myself, "I should make REALLY BIG vlogbrothers highlight reel post."

And then I never do.

I fucking love the vlogbrothers! They raise obscene amounts of money for charity (hundreds of thousands at this point), they get teens to read, they educate people about the political situation in (Nepal, Pakistan, Israel, etc.) while doing ridiculous things... And gah!
posted by flibbertigibbet at 7:05 PM on May 6, 2011

This is nice. You know, John Green went on reddit and answered all these questions, including addressing his tendency to go all MPDG with his female love interests in his book, which he does. And he was like, yeah, I do that, but Paper Towns was my attempt at subverting that. I don't think he was entirely successful, because the girl is still, like, the catalyst for adventure but absent for most of the novel, but I think it's admirable that he both knows about that and tries.

Anyway, I wish he would come to metafilter and be metafilter's own John Green.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:14 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

he's not saying that nerd girls should be on pedestals, he's saying that nerdy boys looking for girls to ask out should stop all chasing the same cheerleader and notice that there is a nice girl sitting quietly in the corner reading a star trek novel. Which is great advice, because star trek fans make for awesome dates.

Yeah. Also, audience. Being a nerd girl in high school is very different than being a 20-something nerd girl. I'm telling you, back then? I would have loved to have someone love me for my nerdery. Now I roll my eyes at that stuff, but seriously. Things were different in high school.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:15 PM on May 6, 2011 [6 favorites]

I always wondered about "be yourself", whoever told Hitler "be yourself" deserved an ass kicking.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:25 PM on May 6, 2011 [6 favorites]

@jb & @PhoBWanKenobi.

I agree with both of you and you are correct. I was largely thinking about how certain people listening in on the conversation would interpret what he said rather than what he said or who he said it to. I don't mean to suggest that what he said was incorrect, or even that he shouldn't have said it, but rather that the people watching the video who are not the target should be careful in what they take away from it.
posted by yeolcoatl at 7:29 PM on May 6, 2011

Anyway, yeah, someone should really make an epic vlogbrothers post. We keep getting them in dribbles and drabbles and we keep having the same conversation about Ze Frank. In part because of my loyalty to metafilter snark, it took me a long time to come around to them, but they make videos that are like this, which is really just terrific and their whole schtick is about encouraging people (especially teenagers) to be creative and weird and smart and awesome. Basically, I've come around to seeing how much of their whole routine is wonderful. Despite their BIG VOICES.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:37 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've always thought people want to be complimented, and maybe valued, in the area they have the most self doubt. I don't particularly want to be told I'm smart, I'm not sure "nerd girls" need more people fawning over their intellect. The only people I've ever met who wanted to be told they were smart were the ones that were insecure in their intelligence.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:53 PM on May 6, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is about as funny as a thirtysomething man trying to be funny pretending to give boy advice to a teenaged girl.
posted by anothermug at 7:55 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is about as funny as a thirtysomething man trying to be funny pretending to give boy advice to a teenaged girl.

So, a Michael Cera movie?
posted by zippy at 8:13 PM on May 6, 2011 [8 favorites]

I always wondered about "be yourself", whoever told Hitler "be yourself" deserved an ass kicking.

This is the laziest Godwinning I think I've ever seen (with possible youtubey exceptions). Stay classy, MetaFilter.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 8:38 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

notice that there is a nice girl sitting quietly in the corner reading a star trek novel. Which is great advice, because star trek fans make for awesome dates.
I read that approaching a reading girl meant you're a huge creep and you should leave her the hell alone
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 8:53 PM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]

Holy cow, you guys weren't kidding - this is Ze Frank, with half his wit. Seriously. The voice needs work - not yet convincingly Ze-ish enough. But the delivery is there.

Also, the Ze imitator needs to bulge his eyeballs more.

And be funnier.

Watch his brother, Hank. His delivery tends to be more over-the-top, but kind of less emo.

Man, metafilter so doesn't do the vlogbrothers well. I wonder why?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:55 PM on May 6, 2011

This is the laziest Godwinning I think I've ever seen

Here's my entry in this contest: Blah blah Hitler bla

It's extra lazy because I didn't bother to finish the last "blah"
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:58 PM on May 6, 2011 [6 favorites]

I read that approaching a reading girl meant you're a huge creep and you should leave her the hell alone

Yeah, you should probably wait until she's not actually reading to approach her. But that's not to say you can't find a reasonable excuse to talk to her some other time. Just don't recite the plot of a Star Trek novel at her even if she likes to read them. (This happened to me once. I don't think he meant it as nerd flirting, since he knew I was seeing someone, but it's still a running gag about fellow-nerd cluelessness in interpersonal relationships in our house.)
posted by immlass at 9:12 PM on May 6, 2011

cute and everything, but "underutilized resource for dating" is not a great way to talk about nerdgirls or any kind of woman.
posted by LMGM at 9:18 PM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'm thirty-something and married, but I still like to be liked for my nerdity -- that is, my interests (since intellect and nerdity are separate). Better than being liked just because I'm a super-model. (I'm not, but my husband is. Or so he tells me, he just says he hasn't been discovered yet...)
posted by jb at 9:20 PM on May 6, 2011

This is the laziest Godwinning I think I've ever seen (with possible youtubey exceptions). Stay classy, MetaFilter.

Well sure, it's pretty lazy, but that's just one event. What about Precision Godwinning? Freestyle Godwinning? Synchronized Godwinning (pairs and team)? What about GX? Hitler Pentathlon? You've got to be more of an all-rounder if you really want to compete.

Besides, everybody knows that Lazy Godwinning is like Basketball. It's just there for the Americans to win it.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:20 PM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yeah, you should probably wait until she's not actually reading to approach her. But that's not to say you can't find a reasonable excuse to talk to her some other time.

Nerd girls basically have the pick of the litter, like in other areas of life. If they say they have trouble finding guys they are lying. They just don't want the guys who are interested in them, and there are more of them than they can handle. How many geek guys have gotten the "like you like a brother" speech? Or my favorite, the "i want someone just like you, but not you." Then there are the geek girls who go for guys they try to change, i find that funny.

I will say this though, having dated girls who tried to make me what they "thought" i should be, i'm me, and if that's not what you want, your loss. (granted, it's been hell finding someone who doesn't mind the house rabbits, sci-fi and fantasy, my photography, that i hate sports and hunting, have depression and the scars from the worst of the times, etc. Being an odd duck really makes it hard to match up. That's for sure, geek or not)
posted by usagizero at 9:59 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ze Frank without the humor and interesting content.
posted by Nameless at 10:00 PM on May 6, 2011

Nerd girls basically have the pick of the litter, like in other areas of life. If they say they have trouble finding guys they are lying.

No, they have the pick of the litter of guys that like them, just as guys have the pick of the litter of girls who like them. It's like saying that workers have their pick of jobs.

It's been hell finding someone who doesn't mind the house rabbits, sci-fi and fantasy, my photography, that i hate sports and hunting, have depression and the scars from the worst of the times, etc.

That is not a male problem.
posted by verb at 10:04 PM on May 6, 2011 [10 favorites]

Nerd girls basically have the pick of the litter, like in other areas of life. If they say they have trouble finding guys they are lying.

As a nerd woman who used to be a nerd girl, this was not my experience at all. I am happy in my marriage and with the man I married. But I had my share of heartache over not finding guys, or losing them, before I was with him. When you say otherwise, you're calling me a liar without knowing much more about me than my nerdity and my sex, and that's pretty uncool.
posted by immlass at 10:25 PM on May 6, 2011 [9 favorites]

One more thread, screaming at me, reminding me how fortunate I am to be gay. Also, filling my head with the question of all time: How the hell do straight people ever manage to get laid?
posted by Goofyy at 11:00 PM on May 6, 2011 [6 favorites]

Nerd girls basically have the pick of the litter, like in other areas of life. If they say they have trouble finding guys they are lying. They just don't want the guys who are interested in them, and there are more of them than they can handle.

This is trolling, right? Good. Nerd girls have it so hard. Nerd girls these days have to deal with hollywood & the media pandering to nerd boys, telling them that they should get the hot chick, get the babe, that girl. That new standard of shlub dudes with hot wives, the tv trope. There is nothing comparable for us nerd girls. It's trendy now to be a 'nerd,' enough so that your actual female counterparts are being passed over in favor of girls that wear glasses and etc because it's trendy. It's really depressing to be a nerd girl, dude.
posted by troika at 11:03 PM on May 6, 2011 [10 favorites]

Can I just say I'm really fucking sick of all this nerd shit? I mean that with no irony of sarcasm. Get over yourselves.

Nobody picks on you anymore and Dr Who is a tv show not a way of life.
posted by lattiboy at 12:16 AM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Nerd girls basically have the pick of the litter

Not all nerd girls look like Felicia Day. Not at all nerd girls are as socially adept as her either. Maybe things are different elsewhere, but back when I hung out with nerds, I usually saw all of the nerd boys fixate on one or two queen nerd girls in their social circle and not even notice that the rest existed.
posted by yeolcoatl at 12:26 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

There are several different possible problems here : (1) you have trouble meeting people, (2) you have trouble expressing interest in people, (3) you have trouble reciprocating interest, i.e. you signal "no" too quickly, and (4) you have trouble in the early stages of a relationship.

You can very easily fix (1) by getting out more, although the "be yourself" advice doesn't always optimize your activities or meeting the people you'll find the most attractive, sometimes you really should go to the gym or whatever. You can fix (2) with some embarrassing trial and error. You'll need more painful trial and error for (4) but oh boy do people provide good advice.

I think the hardest skill for many "nerds" is actually (3), i.e. they respond badly when you express interest. Yes, this applies to both men and women.

There isn't much advice on replying "yes" either because people giving dating advice ether do so naturally, or else avoid the whole issue by playing a pure numbers game, ala PUAs. It's even non-trivial to recognize this problem because you'll read your own maladjusted instincts as indicating that you don't really like that particular person.

I've definitely found that poor emotion reciprocation skills are the main issue for both myself, many male nerd friends, and every nerd girl I've liked.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:43 AM on May 7, 2011 [7 favorites]

this conversation is overly complicated. listen to your animal instincts and pounce! rawwwwwwrrrrrrr.
posted by danielcoda at 1:02 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I always wondered about "be yourself", whoever told Hitler "be yourself" deserved an ass kicking.

This is the laziest Godwinning I think I've ever seen (with possible youtubey exceptions). Stay classy, MetaFilter.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 4:38 AM on May 7

Jesus Christ, it was a little joke. Try to realise that "Godwinning" is not the same thing as "any mention of Hitler, anywhere, ever." Bleating "Godwin" just because Adolf's name happens to crop up? Now that is laziness.
posted by Decani at 4:21 AM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

this conversation is overly complicated. listen to your animal instincts and pounce! rawwwwwwrrrrrrr.

And later on you can ask a girl if she wants to come up and see your collection of framed restraining orders.
posted by Grangousier at 4:35 AM on May 7, 2011 [5 favorites]

Not all nerd girls look like Felicia Day. Not at all nerd girls are as socially adept as her either. Maybe things are different elsewhere, but back when I hung out with nerds, I usually saw all of the nerd boys fixate on one or two queen nerd girls in their social circle and not even notice that the rest existed.

Can we all just agree that being a teenager is hard, and most people, not just the nerds, are going to hate high school for one reason or another? For the guys, we might look up to Wil Wheaton circa now, but in high school, we were likely Wil Wheaton circa Star Trek: TNG.
posted by explosion at 5:35 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

This doesn't work if you are a nerdy girl where there are no nerd boys, and you happen to fancy the nerd boys. God, high school was sexually frustrating.
posted by mippy at 5:36 AM on May 7, 2011

I dunno, becoming a giraffe worked for me.
posted by Elsa at 7:06 AM on May 7, 2011 [8 favorites]

Man, I went to a nerd high school and I still couldn't get dates with nerd girls.
posted by Eideteker at 7:15 AM on May 7, 2011

Let me go on record as the guy who does not know who Ze Frank is.
posted by _Lasar at 7:28 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

The other day, I saw a young woman on the subway who was wearing glasses ... without lenses!

this was shocking and disturbing and frankly a bit offensive. Next thing you know, white canes and wheelchairs will be fashion accessories.

/not actually that offended, just incredulous at the stupidity. We myopics wear glasses so that we can see, and if we get nice frames, it's because we are making the best of a necessary thing. But wearing frames when you don't nee to? that's crazy -- and besides, they were those horrible, huge 80s frames. if you have lenses of any thickness, they are massive at the edges of those large frames.
posted by jb at 8:10 AM on May 7, 2011

Goofyy: "How the hell do straight people ever manage to get laid?"

Mutual self delusion, a modicum of well intentioned deceit, and a whole bunch of desperation. Usually alcohol and other drugs are involved too.
posted by idiopath at 8:50 AM on May 7, 2011 [5 favorites]

Those of you thinking that this dude is a blatant rip off of Ze Frank in some way should probably ~~watch more internet videos~~ study attention spans, comedic timing, and internet video viewer statistics. A[n unfortunately] good portion of the YouTube generation don't even know who Ze Frank is and yet for some odd reason, the formatting and flow of the dialogue are oft similar.

Sure, the guy was a legend, he set the bar high and these guys credit him with their interest in vlogging (as many do), but that doesn't mean that every Bob, Jack and Nancy who have their own channel, have their mugs close-in to the frame are OMG ZE FRANK'D. This is the ADD generation, and we all mock the boring guy who just sits in his chair and spouts off about something, ultimately losing his train of thought while we waste 10 seconds of our lives waiting for him to get it back together. And that's hoping the message is even mildly interesting.

Have you ever even used webcams? That's how they look. Right in your face. Have you ever even tried to make a quick, interesting video? It's hard to do in one take and it's often incredibly boring that way. You splice and edit it to keep people watching to avoid the aforementioned scenario of the all-too-common 'boring-dude's-opinion-that-no-one-actually-cares-about-in-one-overly-enlongated-shot'. So this formula a lot of you have in your head about what differentiates a Ze Frank video from another is that it's in the production, when what differentiated Ze Frank is that he did so much more than just videos to keep his content relevant and his audience engaged.

And seriously? Get over your apparent disgust over some guy who was inspired - because apparently we can't be inspired anymore - and look at what he's trying to say. Oh, wait, some of you want to argue that too. Are you 15 year old teenage girls? Have you ever been? Are you that 15 year old girl?

I was a 15 year old girl once. It was awful. I didn't even care about boys, I just wanted friends. I just wanted to be around people that didn't care about social norms without having to hang out with the subconsciously attention-seeking goths or punks or whatever other high school stereotype pretended they weren't in it for the glares and the gasps and the ability to say they were ostracized. I wanted to continue to be that quiet girl in the corner, but I just wanted someone else who could geek out about internet memes that weren't juvenile Strongbad jokes there with me. If I were still 15 and I'd seen this video, it would have made my ~~day~~ life. And I'm sure for some girls it has, so shame on any of you that discredit this guy for whatever lame reason you can cry to. If it made one poor, awkward, teenage girl smile for one second: it was worth it.

So:

a) If you have something to say about or to 15 year old girls with nerd-centric interests, throw your face up on YouTube and see just how easy it is to whip up one of these videos, and come up with things witty enough to keep people until the last second. It isn't easy, I've tried, and that's the content side itself - don't even get me started on the self-consciousness that goes into it or

b) just keep posting bitterly on the blue behind a semi-anonymous mask about who even has the right to talk to teenage girls about what and how to even construct such a video to begin with; see if this guy or the legion of vloggers who make their livelihoods doing this are phased by your idea of what constitutes one man's apparent copyright because he had the tech skills and the marketing prowess to leverage himself amongst a sea of others attempting to get into that niche.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, sometimes this place reeks of living in the internet era of 2003. Ze Frank stopped doing this gig years ago, were internet monologues just supposed to stop when he retired from it as he was obviously the first person ever to do it?

In closing, ~~CONAN'S~~ ~~LENO'S~~ ~~LETTERMAN'S~~ ~~FALLON'S~~ ~~KIMMEL'S~~ ~~FERGUSON'S~~ ~~ARSENIO'S~~ ~~CARSON'S~~ RIPPING OFF ______________________. How valid is your formatting argument now?
posted by june made him a gemini at 9:09 AM on May 7, 2011 [6 favorites]

Well...

I don't know where I've been, but until this thread opened, I didn't know who Ze Frank is (or was? I'm actually confused on this point: I get The Show thing ended, but it looks like he's still around doing stuff, no?). And I've just now returned after watching the Ted Talk and a bunch of the stuff on his website and ROFL. The Atheist video game? Oh man...feels good to laugh again.

I didn't find this particular Vlogbrothers video that funny (though I did really like the "what's plastic" bit), but it seems silly to use something like Ze Frank as a metric; and this is a rule that should be applied universally. It is a silly, silly debate. From the Ze Frank stuff I just watched for the first time (and I'm going to leave this thread and watch some more), and knowing that he was sort of one of the first to do this sort of thing, I can see his influence in web culture everywhere.

And leaving aside the too oft quoted Picasso great artists don't copy they steal blah blah debate, measuring the value of works by comparing them to similar works doesn't do anything useful in terms of our enjoying or understanding them or whatever. While you may not like the finale of Brahm's First Symphony, it seems somehow obtuse to say that you don't like or that it's somehow inherently bad or faulty as a work because it's reminiscent of Beethven's Ninth. Where would that end? Surely the greatest works of Beethoven are still riddled with Haydn.

It's like when Wittgenstein says, "I cannot say I like this quartet by Schubert, give me another. They are not the same." What he means in part is that each thing must be considered by itself. This is not to say that one cannot have an informed, nuanced, and interesting understanding of some art or entertainment that colors one's enjoyment or distaste of it or whatever. Indeed it would be impossible not to, and it is an absolutely necessary faculty to develop taste and preference and all of those things that give rise to one's identity and worldview. But it's when people start to make categorical critiques based on such a wide and faulty premise of simply comparing this to that and who came first that one finds oneself to have become one of those douchey types with pretentious loyalty to certain figures or objects for the sake of loyalty or the guy at the party who liked everything before everyone else liked it and now hates it because of that and he can't ever enjoy or appreciate anything new. Indeed by that logic we should find ourselves still making cave paintings. /rant

In any case, thanks for introducing me to Ze Frank. Quality lulz.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:41 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was a 15 year old girl once. It was awful. I didn't even care about boys, I just wanted friends. I just wanted to be around people that didn't care about social norms without having to hang out with the subconsciously attention-seeking goths or punks or whatever other high school stereotype pretended they weren't in it for the glares and the gasps and the ability to say they were ostracized.

Er.

The 15-year-old "attention-seeking goth/punk" girl that I was really wishes you could say all of that without being a judgey mcjudgerson. Some of us dressed wacky because it made us happy, just like playing Vampire: The Masquerade and watching Farscape made us happy.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:37 AM on May 7, 2011

june made him a gemini: "I just wanted to be around people that didn't care about social norms without having to hang out with the subconsciously attention-seeking goths or punks or whatever"

You can't be neutral on a moving train.

Even as an adult, conformist or offensive are your choices, and it isn't the nonconformists who set it up that way.
posted by idiopath at 11:48 AM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Shear numbers Goofyy, shear numbers.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:56 PM on May 7, 2011

Who the eff is Hank?
posted by litnerd at 1:36 PM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Who the eff is Ze Frank?
posted by Aizkolari at 2:06 PM on May 7, 2011

Next thing you know, white canes and wheelchairs will be fashion accessories.

Morrissey wore a superfluous hearing aid in the early days of The Smiths, as a tribute to Johnny Ray.
posted by mippy at 4:02 PM on May 7, 2011

Poor old Johnny Ray.
posted by Duffington at 5:05 PM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

AdamCSnider: "Did he actually say that? Seemed like he was just putting the expectation that women be like that in context (it's cultural, it's not universal, and above all it's not mandatory)."

Okay, I'll try to deconstruct it. He said:

"And then there's the weird culturally constructed definition of hot, which means that that individual is malnourished and has probably had plastic bags inserted into her breasts... and you asked a fifteen year old boy [in the 18th century], 'Would you like to marry a woman who has had plastic bags needlessly inserted into her breasts?', that fifteen year old boy would probably be like, 'What's plastic?'"

From where I'm sitting, this is pretty judgmental of women who are thin or choose to have plastic surgery because of the "weird," "malnourished," "needlessly," and his sarcastic tone. In fact, the punch line ("What's plastic?") only works because we expect the boy to respond, "Fuck no, that's weird and unnecessary!"
posted by yaymukund at 7:08 PM on May 7, 2011

No, it's judgemental against the powers-that-be which elevate extremely thin and/or plastic surgeried women into the only women who are visible and desirable in our society. Girls - honest to goodness - believe that they have to be a size 8 (or smaller) to get a date, and that's because you never see a larger woman being shown as desirable. Even in media (sitcoms, movies) where large men have wives or girlfriends, those women are themselves smaller than average.

Interestingly, I'd heard that African-American girls have fewer problems with body image than Euro-American girls, because in black media there are larger, desirable women. I also heard that many African-American girls have issues with skin tone, because most black women in the media have very light skin tones. Which is such a shame, because very dark skin tones are so beautiful, and I wish they were recognised more widely as such.
posted by jb at 7:54 PM on May 7, 2011

I met this guy in real life, I don't know that he'd be my first choice when I need relationship advice.
posted by surenoproblem at 9:05 PM on May 7, 2011

Yes, how dare he suggest women not get unnecessary breast implants. Patriarchy!

Sigh

Once again, there is no topic of discussion on mefi that doesn't eventually turn into this Kids in the Hall sketch.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 9:32 AM on May 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I always confuse Ze Frank with Tom Zé. And I confuse them both with ZE records.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:53 PM on May 8, 2011

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"You should become a giraffe." May 6, 2011 6:10 PM Subscribe

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