(1) PROTECT YOUR BRAND. At the SFWA Blog Shanna Swenson advises “Don’t Tweet Your Rejections”.
Rejection is one of the worst parts of writing. When you get a story or novel rejected by an editor or agent, it stings. Your first instinct may be to go online and seek comfort and commiseration by letting your followers know what you’re going through. But stop and think before you spread the news of your rejection all over social media.
You never know who might be reading what you post. An author’s social media platform can be a selling point, so people considering representing or buying a novel are likely to look you up to see what you post and what your audience is like. Even if they aren’t seeking information on you, publishing is a small world, and you never know what someone might see because someone else liked, shared, commented on, replied to, or retweeted it. It’s safest to assume that anyone you might submit to may see everything you post.
Anything you say in a public forum becomes a part of your image, and do you want to associate rejection with your personal “brand”? But it’s not just about image. It’s about strategy. When you inform potential buyers that someone else doesn’t want something you’ve produced, you make it less valuable. It’s human nature to value things more when they’re in demand and less when others don’t want it.
(2) ALTERNATIVE HISTORY THINGIE. Jo Lindsay Walton asks us to “Imagine if one day I actually finished this novel”.
What if Beyonce Knowles had not been tragically taken from us at the age of only twenty-four? Would she have continued to grow and flourish as an artist? Or would she have reposed comfortably into a middle-of-the-road R&B career trajectory? What kind of world might we live in today? This story is not about that.
As seasons have given way to seasons, my belly has grown less of liability. There is still something hidden beyond its curvature. There is still some genital structure ever beyond the horizon, whose properties I can only infer from the beliefs of the girlfriends who mount its numinous ink. But the belly which I once dragged around with me shamefully crashes before me gloriously. My belly announces me, tugs me laughingly by my hand along by white-flowered hedgerows. It is as if my whole life often is no more than a small pretty pink ribbon flapping in the wake of the one boulder that finally manages to mows into Indiana Jones.
I would like to nominate as the title of such a novel The Leftover Pre-incarnation Lives of Mycroft Canner. Just a thought.
(3) SPEAKING OF MYCROFT. Standback hopes you will read his essay about the themes and social dynamics in Too Like The Lightning which, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts:
Too Like The Lightning constructs a utopian society?—?but not one it thinks can survive. It plots the course of that society’s collapse?—?but not because they did anything wrong.
Consolidation, here, is when a system starts out with a bunch of different agents, competing and cooperating and interacting between them, and gradually evolves into a system with only a few major actors, each stronger and more solid than before.
Though it is seldom directly in focus, much of the underlying structure of Too Like The Lightning portrays this process of consolidation. Terra Ignota’s society began with a near-infinite assortment of options and identities….
In our previous parts, we discussed the thought experiment of a pluralistic utopia?—?and Too Like The Lightning’s conclusion that peaceful coexistence is an inherently unstable social structure.
And yet, while it can be doleful, it is not bleak. An invigorating current of optimism runs through Too Like The Lightning, and completes its theme.
(4) CROC OF THE WALK. Madagascar was a tough neighborhood in the Jurassic.
A giant ancient crocodile which measured 24 feet in length and possessed razor sharp T-Rex teeth was once the top predator in Jurassic Madagascar, a new study has found.
But unlike modern crocodiles, this killer beast walked on its hind feet as it hunted prey or scavenged for food….
(5) GENTLE GIANT. On the other hand, Atlas Obscura says the dinosaurs of the Cenozoic period can be very cute: “Fall in Love With the World’s First Animated Dinosaur”.
In February 1914, [Winsor] McCay debuted “Gertie the Dinosaur” on the vaudeville circuit. Created from over 10,000 drawings, “Gertie” became an instant hit. It is often credited as being the first animation to feature a character with a distinct personality and as the first work of key frame animation.
In his vaudeville act, McCay would walk onto the stage with a whip, calling out for Gertie. The cartoon started playing. McCay gave Gertie a series of commands, which she then performed in-screen.
(5) LOADS OF QUESTIONS. Podcaster Shaun Duke will be a very busy fellow when the NASFiC starts in Puerto Rico tomorrow: “My NASFiC / San Juan 2017 Schedule and Podcast Interviews”. This is just part of his schedule:
- TH 18:00 – San Geronimo Social Justice and SFF: It’s been there from the beginning.
- Social Justice Warriors are destroying SFF with these new-fangled ideas! Um, no. SFF has always been used as a tool to examine social and political issues. Come discuss how works like 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, and the Handmaid’s Tale explore oppressive regimes, and what, if any hope SFF can give us. (bilingual)
- Panelists: Shaun Duke, Marie Guthrie (m), Isabel Schechter, Javier Grillo-Marxuach
- FR 11:00 – San Geronimo A Chat with Tobias Buckell
- Shaun Duke interviews GoH Tobias Buckell
- Panelists: Tobias S. Buckell, Shaun Duke
- FR 13:00 – San Cristobal Whitewashing and White Savior Fail: How did Benedict, Tilda, and ScarJo become people of color?
- Avatar, the James Cameron version and the Last Airbender one. The new Star Trek 2nd movie. Doctor Strange. Ghost in the Shell. Iron Fist. These and more feature POC characters, yet when they are made into movies and tv, the actors cast are always white. Let’s discuss why this is and why representation matters. (bilingual)
- Panelists: Shaun Duke, Isabel Schechter (m), Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Pablo Vazquez
(6) TRIVIAL TRIVIA
Dr. Seuss wrote the book Green Eggs and Ham after his publisher bet him $50 that couldn’t write a book using only 50 words. (Source: Wikipedia)
(7) ONE THOUSAND AND ONE. When John W. Campbell started Unknown, L. Ron Hubbard asked him for exclusive rights to submit stories written in the world of the Arabian Nights. Are today’s readers that aware of Islamic fantasy traditions? Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad thinks not — “This is the Muslim tradition of sci-fi and speculative fiction”.
Think invisible men, time travel, flying machines and journeys to other planets are the product of the European or ‘Western’ imagination? Open One Thousand and One Nights – a collection of folk tales compiled during the Islamic Golden Age, from the 8th to the 13th centuries CE – and you will find it stuffed full of these narratives, and more.
Western readers often overlook the Muslim world’s speculative fiction. I use the term quite broadly, to capture any story that imagines the implications of real or imagined cultural or scientific advances. Some of the first forays into the genre were the utopias dreamt up during the cultural flowering of the Golden Age. As the Islamic empire expanded from the Arabian peninsula to capture territories spanning from Spain to India, literature addressed the problem of how to integrate such a vast array of cultures and people. The Virtuous City (al-Madina al-fadila), written in the 9th century by the scholar Al-Farabi, was one of the earliest great texts produced by the nascent Muslim civilisation. It was written under the influence of Plato’s Republic, and envisioned a perfect society ruled by Muslim philosophers – a template for governance in the Islamic world.
As well as political philosophy, debates about the value of reason were a hallmark of Muslim writing at this time. The first Arabic novel, The Self-Taught Philosopher (Hayy ibn Yaqzan, literally Alive, Son of Awake), was composed by Ibn Tufail, a Muslim physician from 12th-century Spain. The plot is a kind of Arabic Robinson Crusoe, and can be read as a thought experiment in how a rational being might learn about the universe with no outside influence. It concerns a lone child, raised by a gazelle on a remote island, who has no access to human culture or religion until he meets a human castaway. Many of the themes in the book – human nature, empiricism, the meaning of life, the role of the individual in society – echo the preoccupations of later Enlightenment-era philosophers, including John Locke and Immanuel Kant.
(8) LIVING OUT STORIES. A group believes live-action role playing can be used to break stereotypes about Palestine, and as a means of social and cultural exchange — “LARP in Palestine: let’s challenge the reality with fiction”.
…Over the past 6 years, a group of volunteers have been coming together to build a Larp community in Palestine with support from Nordic Larpers. “Birth of Larp in the Arab World” is a book summarizing our projects both in Arabic and English.
Using Larp, We played many stories : Finland was occupied (check out Halat Hisar). Hundred of kids were pretending to be animals, and fighting oppressive lions with magical water balloons. A wedding between a Palestinian girl and a Norwegian man (see here). A man was killed by his sister because he had a relationship with another girl. Children with superhero’s powers are attending a boarding school. A tribe that lived in Jericho 3,000 years ago and used dancing battles as a mean to solve conflicts. And many other stories…
Learn more about us in this feature in This Week in Palestine here.
Larp is a tool for participatory storytelling that allows us to be whatever we want. We believe in using Larp as an effective tool to promote dialogue and participatory art.
Our Larp community took the decision to institutionalize itself in a non-profit organization called Bait Byout. Bait Byout is the Arabic name for the role-playing kids play pretending to be adults. Bait Byout aims at contributing to a free society through creating positive impact in the lives of individuals using creative and critical tools within an entertaining, loving and safe space for everyone….
(9) LEGO ADS WIN AWARDS. Adweek has “The Story Behind Lego’s Brilliant Print Ads From the Cannes Festival”.
Lego makes some of the most delightful advertising around, and this series of print ads from Ogilvy Bangkok are just about perfect, from concept to execution.
The work, which won three silver Lions (in Print & Publishing and Outdoor) and a bronze (in Design) at the Cannes festival last month, shows kids literally envisioning their future careers by building them from the inside with Legos.
The tagline: “Build the future.”
(10) HE’S NOT CHICKEN. Gina Ippolito, in a Yahoo piece called “Hodor Can’t Hold Off The Lunch Crowd In New KFC Commercial Inspired by ‘Game of Thrones'”, says that all sorts of advertisers, including KFC and a weird Icelandic vodka, are eager to hire Game of Thrones actors to hawk their products.
A new KFC commercial starring Kristian Nairn, aka Hodor from Game of Thrones, has the actor reenacting a scene from the famous “Hold the Door” episode of the show.
In the commercial, Nairn fretfully looks at the clock because lunchtime is coming and he knows there will be crowds. As hungry people file in, all shouting that they want “chicken and fries,” it all becomes too much for Nairn, who repeats “chicken and fries” over and over with a faraway look in his eyes, eventually turning the phrase into “chicken and rice.” The spot is a play on the heartbreaking revelation on Game of Thrones about how Hodor came to be known as Hodor — and why it’s the only word he seems to be able to speak.
(11) ANOTHER SUPERHERO COMMERCIAL. When they’re clever, they’re a lot of fun.
(12) SPIELBERG REVIVAL. Director Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind to celebrate 40th anniversary in theaters” says SyFy.
What is not clear is which version of the movie will be re-released. There are three: the original 135-minute theatrical version, a 132-minute “Special Edition” and a 137-minute “Collector’s Edition” cut, which Spielberg says is his preferred version.
The director is not a huge fan of either the original cut or the Special Edition, so it seems likely that the Collector’s Edition, which he calls his definitive version, is the one that would get reissued (I would take either the original or the Collector’s Edition; the Special Edition — for which Columbia Pictures wrongly insisted that Spielberg include a look inside the alien mothership — I could do without).
The Collector’s Edition was created primarily for home video release and given only a very limited theatrical run in 1999, so now would be a chance for it to reach a wider audience (and probably promote sales of a new Blu-ray reissue as well).
For fans of this masterpiece — one of Spielberg’s best films, and regularly listed as one of the top sci-fi movies of all time — seeing a fresh new theatrical print on the big screen will be a terrific way to celebrate the movie’s 40th anniversary.
(13) COMIC CON BOOSTS READING. Denver Business Journal’s Monica Mendoza, in “Denver Comic Con draws 115,000, packs a $10 million economic punch”, notes that Denver Comic Con, held on June 30-July 2, is a subsidiary of a nonprofit, Pop Culture Classroom, which encourages literacy among Denver residents.
Pop Culture Classroom had an idea of hosting a comic convention to raise money for its organization and get children interested in reading. In its first year, there were 30,000 attendees to the convention that features comic book, science fiction and fantasy writers and artists. There are comic cons around the world and more than 20 in cities across the U.S.
(14) PUSH-BACK. It’s a good thing Denver’s local Comic Con is doing so well, because Mile Hi Comics (which calls itself “America’s Largest Comics dealer” and had space at the Denver con held a week ago) has given up on San Diego Comic-Con after 44 years of involvement.
To explain a bit more, my first little one-table booth in 1973 cost $40 to rent for the weekend. When we received our booth renewal for last year, our costs for our 70′ of space had been raised to over $18,000. While quite costly, that one factor alone would not have precluded us from returning, as we had paid $16,500 in rent the previous year.
What made the situation nearly impossible, however, was that foot traffic in the exhibit hall declined dramatically last year. Even at its peak on Saturday afternoon, our end of the building (which was primarily comics) was uncrowded. The San Diego Fire Marshals were partially to blame, as they put much stricter controls on the number of badge holders allowed in the building at any given time. That might not have been such a bad idea, except that it amplified the harm already being caused by the incredible proliferation of off-site events that are now being set up for upwards of eight blocks all around the convention center. When you can see GAME OF THRONES, POKEMON, and hundreds of other exhibits across from the convention hall for free, why bother going in to the hall? Many fans did not.
(15) A WRITER’S DEDUCTIONS. Tax planning pro tip:
Just remembered that because I write video games, all my game purchases are tax deductible.
(Heads over to the Steam sale)
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 4, 2017
He also gets to deduct all his purchases of faster-than-light spacecraft and red velour shirts
(16) WHITEFAIL. Not sure how I only scored 31 points Buzzfeed’s 100-question quiz: “How Stereotypically White Are You?” Maybe I need to drink more, because I could not truthfully say I ever drunkenly sang the lyrics to an Elton John song, though I’ve done that plenty of times cold sober.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Standback, Cat Eldridge, and mlex for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Arie Quinn.]
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(16) I got 11…but most of the questions are pop culture that I don’t do.
C!ickity
(2) ALTERNATIVE HISTORY THINGIE.
I see that someone has been studying at The John C. Wright School of Overblown Writing Technique.
Their Professor’s Comment: Needs more obscure 4- and 5-syllable words.
My Comment: Based on the sample, I feel no need to click on the link. 🙄
Seems to be the same paragraphs repeated twice in 5? The Gertie story. is this a tribute to a perennial Hugo “nominated” editor or an error?
Also pre-fifth
Fifth-ish?
I’m up to Best Fan/Professional Artist in my Hugo roundups.
Chris S: Whoops, that was an editor-o. Open the appertainment center. Open the appertainment center.
Also, (2): What the hell is that?
I think your question covers the subject far better than any answer could! 🙂
(2) Jo Walton channeling Ada Palmer’s Mycroft?
(I read a sample of TLTL and noped right out of it.)
I saw Close Encounters twice in Boston in December 1977, the first time in a theater with the sound turned way up. I also saw the “Special Edition” in 1980 (in Philadelphia on a double bill with Fame) but prefer the original. Whatever version is shown later this year, all I ask is that the line “They can fly rings around the moon, but we’re years ahead of ’em on the highway” be retained.
I feel so inadequate as an old white guy. I only got an 11. Having a 20 year old, I caught more references then I would have otherwise.
2) As it says over on the right-hand margin, “I’m probably not the Jo Walton you’re looking for.” Come to think of it, neither am I.
16) I got an 18, in part because I’m too old for some of those references.
I also call BS on “Gone fishing” as stereotypically white, but I clicked it anyway, which balances not clicking on “Defended Miley Cyrus based on her cover of ‘Jolene’ “, because I haven’t but I so would. I haven’t heard it, but then, I’ve never heard Patti Smith’s version, either.
In fact, I do hereby defend Miley Cyrus based on her cover of “Jolene”. That’s a great song and anyone who sings it straight is okay by me until conclusively proven otherwise.
(16) WHITEFAIL.
I scored 22… shocked to discover that I’ve actually seen 3 Wes Anderson movies.
The summary says that I’m not too white — but it also claims that I like country music, so it’s clear that the results are all bollocks. 😉
(12) On my recent Seattle to Chicago roadtrip I paid a visit to Devil’s Tower. It’s well worth the hour or so diversion from I90.
https://flic.kr/s/aHskXD9nTi
4) CROC OF THE WALK – Oh, hell no. I’m not sure why a bipedal 24 foot crocodile climbed to the top of my nightmare list, but it did.
16) WHITEFAIL – I am not white according to that. Except for the part where I am, but it’s true about the dance moves. And what’s with fishing being a white thing?
(2) Wait wut? WTF? Why? What substances were involved?
(10) Content not available. And I’m in the US.
(12) Ooh! I shall attend. I saw it on Christmas Eve (couldn’t get tickets till then, it was only in one theater), and then again maybe 5-10 years later. Not on a big screen since then.
(14) I used to beg to get taken there as a kid, and didn’t get to go very often. It does sound extremely not worth it for them to go any more, both in money and hassle. And disrespect. Fewer and fewer comics at Comic Con — maybe someone ought to start actual comics conventions, without TV and movie stars.
(16) I got 20, but only b/c some of the questions are aimed at people much younger than me. And I do not listen to country music, although I do have a 4th of July t-shirt mit der blinkenlights.
(16) mistook me as being “not white” because of me not being American and not really knowing who some of those people were. Scored for playing a kazoo and watching more than one Wes Anderson film but feel I should have got more points as I’ve played a kazoo while watching a Wes Anderson film.
1) Just don’t tweet. Its best not to start, but if you have started, Stop It.
7) I have owned at least 8-9 Islamic Fantasy books or story collections. Though I am also a big fan of the original Arabian Nights, since I discovered (in the 90s) that my college had a reading collection of different versions.
16) Aiyah! 37? Wow, I’m white like Mariah Carey, apparently (at least it wasn’t Drew Carey)…
“You are not that white. You listen to country music [I CHERRY-PICK SOME COUNTRY, MOSTLY FUNNY ONES], but prefer other genres [PREFER BLUES AND ROCK BUT MY COLLECTION IS WIDE], and even though you’ve done the Chicken Dance [SO NOT TRUE… I HAVE DONE SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCE BUT NOT COUNTRY AND WESTERN DANCING OF ANY STRIPE], you really hate yourself for doing it [NAH, IF YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT< YOU NEED TO STEP UP AND OWN IT, OR NOT DO IT AT ALL… SO I DON'T DO IT]. You do, however, have a special outfit for the Fourth of July [NOT REALLY, BUT I HAD A FLAG HAT AND SHIRT WHEN I SERVED A STRETCH AT A TEXAS INSTITUTION of higher learning]..
Fifth! It’s the fifth, we all get to be fifth, all day long!
I got 20 on the whiteness test. Which is a bit ironic, since the girl in the meme at the beginning looks almost exactly like my niece. I’m pretty darn white.
Though if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve embroidered (which is a bit unusual for a man, I think), I would have gotten 19. 🙂
I was a little surprised to see the Macarena on the list. That was pretty popular in Latinx communities as well. Or at least, it was when I lived in East San Jose
(12) We stopped at Devil’s Tower on the way back from Sasquan. I think we stopped at at least one, if not two or three national parks or monuments almost every day we were traveling between Saint Paul and Spokane, and the ones we stopped at on the way out were all different from the way back.
(16) Going fishing from a pier or dock or bridge seems to be a popular pastime of the Southeast Asians who have settled in the Twin Cities. I had a score in the low 20s partly because the quiz’s demographics appear to be more applicable to people who are under the age of 50, and probably even younger than that.
I see that I’m going to have to not have my usual behavior of staying up until 2-3 AM and arriving at Convergence around noonish if I want to go the 9:30 panels I’ve added to my schedule.
I, too, scored “Not That White.”
I figure it’s because they asked questions about Justin Bieber and Tenacious D, instead of questions about John Denver and The Waltons.
I’m just too old and white for their quiz.
(3) So, this is a lot of why I’ve been so quiet lately. WOW writing takes me way longer than I expected… 😛
But @JJ, I threatened essays and I’ve eventually delivered!
(2-3) I like to think of Mycroft as being the descendant of generations of unreliable narrators throughout history and including multiple timelines. That’s probably just head canon. In the movie, I envision him being played by a computer generated 1970s version of Malcolm McDowell circa Clockwork Orange that occasionally glitches and briefly transforms into a fiendishly cackling Marilyn Manson.
(15) I am looking forward to writing off Hawaiicon this year. Island business trips are a very important item on my list of writerly goals.
(16) Only eleven, I suck at caucasianing.
(16) Too old and too British.
Xtifr: “Though if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve embroidered (which is a bit unusual for a man, I think), I would have gotten 19.”
I’ve done cross-stitch. It was during a period when I was spending a lot of time in doctors’ and hospitals’ waiting rooms. (That particular year, between the two of us, Hilde and I had 153 medical appointments, with over 2500 travel miles deducted from our tax returns.)
Ticky
11) This is so wrong. Spider-Man doesn’t have drivers license for cars. He rides a motorbike.
16) 3? 3 out of 100? Is it because I is Irish? (No I’ve never Riverdanced; yes I get lots of freckles in the summer; no I’ve never said ‘I never tan’ – what I normally say is ‘Agh the light it burns.’) Or is ‘only passes for white because technically an ice zombie’ a category?
2) Wat.
16) 10 out of 100. Not sure if it is a test of if I’m white or if I’m american.
16) 6 out of 100. I am, apparently, Not White, which is news to my skin tone. I think it’s an American cultural thing and a generational thing – if I were a quarter of a century younger and American, I’d probably score a lot higher.
5) and sadly, I will not be there to reign Shaun in. But if you should see him…go and talk to him!
11) Spiderman? Drive? I still think of him as a stereotypical straphanger–why in the world would he own a CAR?
16) I am American, and white, and just barely under 40. I still scored 9 out of 100.
In the new film, ur zragvbaf gung ur’f bayl qevira ebhaq n cnexvat ybg orsber jura ur ‘obeebjf’ Synfu Gubzcfba’f pne, naq ur pyrneyl qbrfa’g ernyyl xabj ubj gb qevir.
(Gur zbivr znxrf cerggl tbbq frafr bhg bs hfvat n pne ol cynlvat gur tnt bs whfg ubj Fcvqrl trgf nebhaq jura ur qbrfa’g unir unaql ohvyqvatf gb fjvat sebz ba n srj bppnfvbaf.)
Fun film, I’d say. Being the third reboot, it’s not a revelation, but worthwhile and assured.
@Hampus:
11 out of 100. Not sure what it tests for, but I suspect it’s “under 35 and American”.
(16) I got 12/100, which [looks at fishbelly-white sandal tan lines on feet] seems …
And as far as Miley Cyrus’ Jolene goes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOwblaKmyVw
8. considering the nature of the write up at the link, I think it pretty safe to say that none of their games include a country called Israel….one also wonders how many of their players have simulated suicide vests among their game gear….
steve davidson: one also wonders how many of their players have simulated suicide vests among their game gear
That was absolutely un-called for. Shame on you.
[godstalk]
I scored 13, because I used to own a sailboat. Which we took sailing. And we had square dancing in gym class in junior high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
I think Buzzfeed is mistaking “young-ish Americans whom Buzzfeed likes to mock for being rural and/or un-hipster” for “stereotypically white.” I’m a white American geek.
1) This is not terrible advice, for the most part, but in my experience an author’s social media presence benefits way more from sincerity than it does from calculation.
16) Scored a 16, which apparently means “Not White,” although I’m guessing it just means “not a white American,” which would be true.
@steve davidson: going to have to agree w/ JJ here. WTF.
@steve davidson: seconding @JJ.
@9: that’s one hell of a build — makes the rocket put together at LSC3 look trivial, IFF they really built it instead of cheating with Kraggle.
@14: I’ve heard about logistics screwups (and dealt with a few), but MHC seems to have gotten royally screwed last year. I do wonder what each party did at the scene; did MHC check where they were in the queue? Has SDCC offered anything in response to this?
@16 is definitely “how stereotypically young white are you?” I recognized almost all of the references but scored 10 (possibly surprising my East Anglian and southwest-German ancestors), and that required counting kazoo playing in an ironic performance (PDQ Bach’s “Consort of Choral Christmas Carols”.) The conclusion that I’m first to learn a new dance move? Words fail.
(16) 19/100. “Not white.”
With the commentary:
I am so pale, it’s ridiculous. I’ve had to, when I was younger, explain to people that no, I wasn’t sick, this was just my natural color. My grandfather got serious burns from falling asleep in the sun at the beach. My cousins on that side of the family and I heard that story every summer, several times, to be sure we never forgot to reapply the sunscreen.
So, whatever they’re testing for, it doesn’t correlate with skin color. Or with being American. Perhaps with being a young, white American of a certain eco comic background.
@August:
I think that’s mostly true, but there are a few people I think might do better if they could only follow the old showbiz adage, “Sincerity is everything. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
Didn’t Audi do a great commercial with Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto? Their new commercial is pretty entertaining.
Apparently I’m not white either. But the quiz could be called how old are you. If I include things that I did as a child with the family, I score 13.
9.
I am very white, but also not American. I did once think it would be nice to live in Portland, but probably not the Portland they were thinking of – there’s an absolutely gorgeous inter war submarine wreck (HMS M2) about five miles south of the Isle of Portland which I’d like to visit more often.
@Lis Carey:
My score and experience match yours exactly. FWIW I’m a 46-year-old American woman who often describes herself as “fish-belly white”.
(16): I got 9 and the same commentary as Lis, despite being Whitey McWhiterson in the pigment department. The whole thing is as stupid as you would expect from Buzzfeed – having to worry about sunburn is a cultural choice.
16) I scored 21, mostly by feeling bad for anyone on the bottom of a social media dogpile. I’m fish-belly white where I’m not scar-tanned. (Yeah I’ve burned often enough to have the freckles running together.)
Not sure if I should have checked the last box, by the end of the quiz I was a bit aggroed at the author’s definition of white. Does that count?