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• Wednesday, September 12, 2007 09:45 AM

  Death to crybabies

  I can't understand why any of this would bother a man. [I'm a man, by the way.] This is network television. Network television is a part of mainstream culture, which now belongs to women and gay men. That's okay. I'm a standard liberal on social issues and I figure women and gay men are entitled to run mainstream culture for a while. Maybe they'll even enjoy it.

  But virtually every man I know in my age group [20s-30s] checked out of mainstream culture a while ago. I know there is a show called "The Hills" but I don't know anything else about it except that its writers don't care about me and I don't care about their show. As far as network shows go, I watch sports, "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy." That's it. The proliferation of new media means it is now entirely possible to live a culturally fulfilling life while having very few attachments to mainstream culture.

  You know where you can find great TV? Try History International, it's fantastic -- better than the History Channel. I like some Animal Planet shows. DIY Network has good stuff from time to time. ["Wasted Spaces" is awesome.] National Geographic is fantastic. [I woke up early this morning and tuned into the last 15 minutes of a show about lions. I love that stuff. Made me wish I'd seen the first 45 minutes of it.] Check out Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" show on the Travel Channel, it is first rate.

  I know I'm opening myself up to charges of misogyny and homophobia by writing this but mainstream culture is awful. It was terrible when straight white men were running it and it seems even worse now. [At least straight white men ran videos on MTV. Now it is all idiotic 20-year-old rich girls speaking in a language that only vaguely resembles English.] The good news is that there is a healthy alternative to mainstream culture and you don't have to be a granola-crunching dropout to enjoy it. You can be a perfectly normal middle class guy living in a nice house in the suburbs and still enjoy a rich life in American culture outside of American culture.

  There are DVDs of the great TV shows of yore. There are the cable TV outlets I mentioned. The Internet is chock full o' stuff for normal American males. [After all, we still run the Internet!] Shows that pulsate with loathing for straight American males are fine for the women and gay men who want to watch them. I know I have female and gay friends who like those shows and I don't take it personally. They don't seem to mind that I find their mainstream culture a mindless desert.

  Stop your goddamned whining, American men! It's undignified. Control of mainstream culture actually meant something once upon a time. Now it means nothing. The TV networks are losing money and eyeballs so fast they can scarcely keep track of it. The cruel joke now being played upon women and gay men is that they are taking control of something only after it has lost its power. [I'm sure Katie Couric can sympathize.]

  Ms Traister may find all these shows terribly important, but they are really only important to people like herself, people who care about popular culture. Those millions of us who have checked out need not worry our pretty li'l heads a single moment. Strong and powerful males are very much alive in American culture. You just have to know where to look for them. You won't find them in popular culture, but the glorious little secret is, popular culture no longer matters.

  —Fairfax1 Read Fairfax1's other letters
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