[today’s run: 3.2 miles (Watson Road)]
The Atlantic this month has a back of the magazine end-piece about swearing which starts off with a plethora of f-bombs in different forms. I think it is supposed to be humorous and also convey the information that swearing has gone upper crust.
The Atlantic used to be a general literary magazine with non-fiction about issues of the day or just interesting stuff salted with some fiction and poetry. Since they moved from Boston to Washington D.C. they have become more and more political, less about culture and more about their left of center stance. It’s not as good as it used to be.
But I was struck by the sudden flurry of vulgarity.
I spend quite a bit of time watching youtube videos. Most of them are craftsmanship kinds of things, car repair, small engines, boat building, that kind of stuff along with some culture things and some religious things. So I was immediately struck by the Atlantic piece because it is so much out of my normal on-line life, let alone my in-person life.
People on youtube, that I know about, generally don’t swear. One of the repair guys I watch fairly regularly, he will sometimes throw in a bit of innuendo, which would be easy to miss, a bit of junior high. Otherwise all of these grease monkey guys and carpenters and whatnot are able to get through their presentations cleanly.
But here is a supposedly high-class literary magazine with a column about the ubiquity of swearing, and happy to participate in same.
So yeah, I guess they are right. The trendy people are following in the footsteps of Samuel Jackson and the regular working guys somehow can be polite and informative and even interesting.