Hace más de 20 años, el psicólogo Arthur Aron consiguió que dos extraños se enamoraran en su laboratorio. El verano pasado apliqué esta técnica a mi vida, y por eso acabé de pie en un puente a medianoche, mirando a un hombre a los ojos durante exactamente cuatro minutos.

Dejad que me explique. Unas horas antes este hombre me dijo: “Sospecho que, dadas unas cuantas cosas en común, podríamos enamorarnos de cualquiera. Si es así, ¿cómo elegimos a alguien?”

Era un conocido de la universidad con el que me cruzaba de vez en cuando en el rocódromo y que me había llevado a pensar “¿y si?”. Había echado un vistazo a su día a día en Instagram. Pero esta era la primera vez que nos habíamos visto a solas.

“En realidad, hay psicólogos que han intentado hacer que la gente se enamore”, dije, recordando el estudio del doctor Aron. “Es fascinante. Siempre he querido probarlo”.

Supe por primera vez del estudio cuando estaba en mitad de una ruptura. Cada vez que pensaba en irme, mi corazón anulaba la decisión de mi cerebro. Me sentía atrapada. Así que como una buena académica, me volqué en la ciencia con la esperanza de que hubiera una forma más inteligente de amar.

Le expliqué el estudio a mi conocido de la universidad. Un hombre y una mujer heterosexuales entran el laboratorio desde puertas diferentes. Se sientan cara a cara y contestan a una serie de preguntas cada vez más personales. Después se miran a los ojos durante cuatro minutos. El detalle más cautivador: seis meses después, dos de los participantes estaban casados. Invitaron a todo el laboratorio a la ceremonia.

“Probémoslo”, dijo.

Dejadme admitir que nuestro experimento no se ajusta al estudio. Primero, estábamos en un bar, no en un laboratorio. Segundo, no éramos extraños. No sólo eso, sino que ahora me doy cuenta de que una persona ni sugiere ni está de acuerdo en probar un experimento diseñado para crear un amor romántico si esa persona no está abierta a que suceda.

Busqué las preguntas del doctor Aron en Google; son 36. Pasamos las dos horas siguientes pasándonos el iPhone en la mesa, haciendo las preguntas de forma alternativa.

Comenzaron de forma inocua: “¿Te gustaría ser famoso? ¿De qué forma?”. Y “¿cuándo fue la última vez que cantaste a solas? ¿Y para alguien?"

Pero rápidamente se volvieron más inquisitivas.

En respuesta a la provocadora “nombra tres cosas que tú y tú compañero tengáis aparentemente en común”, me miró y dijo: “Creo que los dos estamos interesados el uno en el otro”.

Sonreí y di un trago a mi cerveza mientras enumeró otras dos cosas que olvidé en seguida. Intercambiamos historias acerca de la última vez que lloramos y confesamos una pregunta que nos gustaría hacerle a un adivino. Explicamos nuestras relaciones con nuestras madres.

Las preguntas me recordaron al famoso experimento de la rana en el que el animal no nota cómo el agua se va calentando hasta que es demasiado tarde y está hirviendo. En nuestro caso y como el nivel de vulnerabilidad aumentaba gradualmente, no noté que habíamos entrado en terreno íntimo hasta que ya estábamos dentro, un proceso que típicamente puede llevar semanas o meses.

Me gustó aprender acerca de mí a través de mis respuestas, pero me gustó aún más aprender cosas de él. El bar, que estaba vacío cuando llegamos, se había llenado para cuando hicimos una pausa para ir al baño.

Me senté sola en la mesa, consciente del entorno por primera vez en una hora, y me pregunté si alguien había estado escuchando nuestra conversación. Si lo habían hecho, no me había dado cuenta. Y tampoco me fijé en que la multitud se fue desvaneciendo a medida que se hacía cada vez más tarde.

Todos tenemos una narrativa sobre nosotros mismos que ofrecemos a extraños y conocidos, pero las preguntas del doctor Aron hacen que sea imposible recurrir a ella. Se creó esa especie de intimidad acelerada que recuerdo del campamento de verano: quedarme despierta toda la noche con un amigo nuevo, intercambiando los detalles de nuestras cortas vidas. Con 13 años, lejos de casa por primera vez, parecía natural conocer a alguien tan deprisa. Pero la vida adulta nos ofrece estas circunstancias muy raramente.

Los momentos en los que me sentí más incómoda no fue cuando tuve que hacer confesiones acerca de mí, sino cuando tenía que aventurar opiniones sobre mi compañero. Por ejemplo: “Compartid alternativamente algo que consideréis una característica positiva de vuestro compañero; un total de cinco cosas” (pregunta 22), y “dile a tu compañero qué te gusta de él; sé muy honesto esta vez y di cosas que no dirías a alguien que acabas de conocer” (pregunta 28).

Gran parte de las investigaciones del doctor Aron se centran en cómo creamos cercanía interpersonal. En concreto, varios de sus estudios investigan las formas en las que incorporamos a los demás en nuestro sentido del yo. Es fácil ver cómo las preguntas animan lo que llama “autoexpansión”. Decir cosas como “me gusta tu voz, tus preferencias en cerveza, la forma en la que todos tus amigos parecen admirarte” hace que ciertas cualidades positivas de una persona sean explícitamente valiosas para la otra.

Es realmente sorprendente oír lo que alguien admira de ti. No sé por qué no nos dedicamos a decir cumplidos a todo el mundo todo el tiempo.

Acabamos a medianoche, y terminamos mucho más en acabar que los 90 minutos del estudio original. Miré a mi alrededor, en el bar, y me dio la impresión de que acababa de despertar. “No ha estado tan mal -dije-. Definitivamente menos incómodo de lo que sería la parte de mirarnos a los ojos”.

Él dudó y preguntó: “¿Crees que deberíamos hacer eso también?”

“¿Aquí?”, miré el bar. Me parecía demasiado raro, demasiado público.

“Podríamos ir al puente”, dijo, girándose hacia la ventana.

La noche era cálida y yo estaba completamente despierta. Caminamos al punto más alto y después nos giramos para quedarnos cara a cara. Toqué torpemente mi móvil para poner el cronómetro.

“Vale”, dije, respirando profundamente.

“Vale”, dijo, sonriendo.

He esquiado pendientes empinadas y he estado colgada de una pared rocosa atada con un trozo corto de cuerda, pero mirar a los ojos de alguien durante cuatro silenciosos minutos ha sido una de las experiencias más emocionantes y aterradoras de mi vida. Pasé el primer par de minutos simplemente intentando respirar de forma adecuada. Hubo muchas sonrisas nerviosas hasta que, finalmente, nos sentimos cómodos.

Sé que se dice que los ojos son la ventana del alma, o lo que sea, pero el quid del momento no era sólo que yo estaba mirando a alguien, sino que estaba mirando a alguien que me estaba mirando a mí. Una vez acepté la terrorífica idea de la que me había dado cuenta y di tiempo para que se asentara, llegué a un sitio inesperado.

Me sentí valiente y en un estado de asombro. Parte de ese asombro fue por mi propia vulnerabilidad y parte vino por la extraña forma de fascinación que ocurre cuando decimos una palabra una y otra vez hasta que pierde su significado y se convierte en lo que realmente es: sonidos ensamblados.

Así ocurrió con el ojo, que no es una ventana a nada, sino más bien un conjunto de células muy útiles. El sentimiento asociado con el ojo se desvaneció y me vi impactada por su sorprendente realidad biológica: la naturaleza esférica del globo ocular, la visible musculatura del iris, y el cristal suave y húmedo de la córnea. Era extraño y exquisito.

Cuando la alarma sonó, estaba sorprendida… Y algo aliviada. Pero también sentí una especie de pérdida. Ya estaba comenzando a ver nuestra noche con las lentes irreales y poco fiables de la retrospección.

Muchos de nosotros pensamos en el amor como algo que nos ocurre. En inglés “we fall in love”, caemos en el amor. “We get crushed”, nos aplasta.

Pero algo que me gusta de este estudio es cómo asume que el amor es una acción. Tiene en cuenta que aquello que importa a mi compañero también me importa a mí porque tenemos al menos tres cosas en común, porque mantenemos relaciones estrechas con nuestras madres y porque dejó que le mirara.

Me pregunté qué saldría de aquella interacción. Al menos, pensé que me daría material para una buena historia. Pero ahora me doy cuenta de que la historia no es sobre nosotros; es sobre qué significa tomarse la molestia de conocer a alguien, que a su vez y en realidad es una historia sobre qué significa que nos conozcan.

Es cierto que no puedes escoger quién te ama, aunque he pasado años con la esperanza contraria, y tampoco puedes crear sentimientos románticos basados sólo en lo que te conviene. La ciencia nos dice que la biología importa; nuestras feromonas y hormonas hacen mucho trabajo entre bambalinas.

Pero a pesar de todo esto, he comenzado a pensar que el amor es más flexible de lo que creemos que es. El estudio de Arthur Aron me ha enseñado que es posible -sencillo, incluso- generar confianza e intimidad, que son los sentimientos que el amor necesita para prosperar.

Probablemente te estás preguntando si él y yo nos enamoramos. Bien, lo hicimos. Aunque es difícil darle todo el mérito al estudio (podría haber ocurrido de todas formas), las preguntas nos ofrecieron un camino hacia una relación que sentimos como voluntario y deliberado. Pasamos semanas en el espacio íntimo que creamos esa noche, esperando a ver en qué podía convertirse.

El amor no nos ocurrió. Estamos enamorados porque tomamos la decisión de estarlo.

*****
Mandy Len Catron da clases de escritura en la Universidad de British Columbia, en Vancouver, y está trabajando en un libro sobre los peligros de las historias de amor.

© The New York Times

Traducción: Jaime Rubio Hancock.

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en The New York Times el 9 de enero, donde en apenas una semana sumó 5,2 millones de lectores y fue compartido 365.000 veces en Facebook y más de 14.000 en Twitter.

Si quieres leer (y probar) las 36 preguntas que se mencionan en el artículo, aquí las tienes.

Sliding into your DMs like HEY I LIKE YOU.

1. DM-ing a new acquaintance = Hey, I'm sexually attracted to you and we should talk where our followers can't see us.

2. Unfollowing and re-following someone = HI WHY AREN'T YOU FOLLOWING ME BACK YET?

3. Manual retweeting = I think this is funny, but I think my own commentary will make it even funnier.

4. Retweeting a crush = This is the highest form of flattery. HI LET'S TALK.

5. Retweeting a tweet about you = Look! I have friends and people like me!

6. Favoriting a crush's tweet = I'm being subtle and flirting with you.

7. Favoriting a tweet when no one else has = I've got your back and you better come in with the save for me in the future.

8. Deleting your own tweet = TWENTY MINUTES AND NO FAVES? EVERYTHING I SAY IS STUPID.

9. Adding a period before someone's twitter handle = I added the period so everyone can see this funny thing I said without it going to the black hole of mentions.

10. Subtweeting = You literally just did this, you know it's you, and I know you follow me and will see this. So basically, hi. *middle finger*

11. Tweeting right after your crush tweets = OMG WE'RE BOTH ONLINE. TEXT ME.

12. Sharing the screen shot of a text message = Hey, I'm really funny to talk to.

13. Sharing an Instagram = Follow me on Instagram aka the best of me.

14. Tweeting what music you're listening to = Not only am I funny, I also have good taste in music.

15. Adding someone to a Twitter list = I am so GOD DAMN popular I need to organize you plebeians.

16. Changing your avatar = Hey who's that hot person on my Twitter feed? OH THAT'S JUST ME KILLIN' IT AND MAKING YOU NOTICE ME.

17. Hashtags = I'm probably using these ironically.

18. Using Tweetdeck or Hootsuite = My online life is so bumping that I need multiple applications to keep track of it.

19. Replying to a crush's tweet = Your tweet was kinda mediocre, but I want to talk to you.

20. Pinning a tweet = This is the best thing I've said all week, so let's just highlight it for a bit.

21. #teamfollowback = I'll follow you back but unfollow you shortly after.

22. Muting people = I can't unfollow you because I see you regularly, but I really don't care what you have to say.

23. Tweeting about something you don't actually know anything about - Hi, I'm not really watching the State of The Union but everyone else is so I retweeted this meme to pretend.

---

View Entire List ›

Over the past few years, female-friendly pornography has made a big splash in Japan. Our friends over at the Japanese VICE office decided to check out this new world of adult entertainment.

 Nuestro primer invitado del año en el rincón subterráneo de los directos llega directamente de Crescent City presentando su álbum "Everlasting Arms". Luke Winslow-King (guitarra y voz) baja a visitarnos acompañado por Esther Rose (tabla de lavar y herradura) y Roberto Luti (guitarra). Playlist; Luke Winslow King (Traveling myself), Kitty Daisy and Lewis (Baby bye bye), Ray Gelato (Sing sing sing), Dani Nel-Lo (4 saxos 4), The Wild Magnolias (Handa wanda), Luke Winslow-King (Everlasting arms, Moving on toward better days).

Canciones en directo; Jitterbug swing, Wanton way of loving y Swing that thing.

 

British writer, actor and comedian Siobhan Thompson of Anglophenia (previously), brings in her American assistant, Science Friction's Rusty Ward, to teach us how to properly pronounce some unusual place names from the United Kingdom.


Anglophenia

Every other week I write micro blurb reviews of amazing new music. Below is the total opposite of that. Horribly dreadful albums that you need not bother listening to.

Marilyn Manson – The Pale Emperor

Three songs into this album and you realize that Nicki Minaj is scarier and more appalling than anything Marilyn Manson can write or do in his later years. It’s a sad day indeed.

Bread of Life Quartet – March On

Phil Spector may have created the wall of sound that elevated music for bands like The Beatles and Ike & Tina Turner, but the group Bread of Life Quartet invented a new pop formula of converting heathens with the aid of used ­car salesmen signing evangelical country songs. The fact that God didn’t stop this album from being released should make it clear that either the man upstairs has left the building or he wasn’t there at all.

Tropikal Forever- Puro Merenguetal

Merengue meets Iron Maiden.  Holy mother of god this is awesomely bad.

Septicopyemia – Masterpussies of Gore

If you like cookie monster metal whose songs sound exactly the same then I suggest Russia’s Septicopyemia.

Enjoy – Punk Planet

Technology has made the process of recording music a fairly easy endeavor for anyone with a $200 laptop and a shitty microphone to record an “album” and a lot has been said about how this is a good thing for fans and musicians alike. “Punk Planet” single-handedly discredits the merits of that point of view.

**UPDATE (01/23/2015 2:55PM EST): Various readers have pointed out that I had given the previous incarnation of Enjoy (a band by the name of The Garden) a good review. What the hell does that even mean? If you release what I consider a good album that I feel people will dig I’ll commend you for it. If I feel that your record sounds like a lazy effort I’ll call you out  on that too. Sorry we don’t play favorites here at TuffGnarl.com. You’re thinking of Pitchfork.** 

This is so irie.

The Jamaican ministerial cabinet has approved a bill that legalizes the possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana, the cultivation of as many as five plants and the use of marijuana for religious purposes by the island nation's 29,000-strong Rastafarian community for the first time. The bill, which Justice Minister Mark Golding has pledged to send to the Jamaican senate for approval next week, also contains provisions for the creation of a licensing authority for the cultivation and distribution of marijuana by the government.

Source: David McFadden/APWait, marijuana wasn't already legal in Jamaica? The cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis in Jamaica, whose flag adorns the dorm rooms of millions of American potheads, is illegal. Read More

Actually, thank you to Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, who created the wisecracking, Nazi-butt-kicking, modified dinosaur-defeating robot Atomic Robo. The pair are uploading seven years of Atomic Robo's adventures online and are turning their print comic into a free-to-read webcomic. Huzzah!

Read more...

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Left to right: normal author, health goth author, cutester author, normcore author

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

We are officially balls deep in 2015, and the world still doesn't have a new youth subculture to show for it. Sure, in a few months we might all be turning our Levi's inside out and the finance bros will start wearing multiple neckties, but at the moment we're stuck with the same fashion scenes as 2014. That's not good, because last year sucked for fashion. It felt like we were all too busy recoiling at the Fappening and beheadings in the desert to make any good stuff happen. No genuine new youth subculture was born last year, which is probably why the media went ahead and invented some themselves.

The biggest of these invented lifestyles was the art of dressing like a newly divorced dad, or "normcore," which was apparently the most googled fashion term of 2014. The most irritating youth tribe of the year came to bite us right at the death, when the Evening Standard looked at the Cereal Café on Brick Lane and conjured up the "cutesters." And then we had health goth. What is health goth? I always thought it was just a Facebook page full of monochrome sportswear and net art, but some journalists believe it's got something to do with Coal Chamber fans sweating their make-up out on crosstrainers. Either way, if that isn't a subculture that's gonna shake society to its foundations, I don't know what is.

In truth, none of these things are really subcultures—they're trends, ways to dress; you know that because you're not an idiot. As such, though you could probably find people who look health goth, normcore, and cutester in any major city, there doesn't seem to be any kind of coherent lifestyle behind the clothes. Where, for example, is the number one normcore bar in London? How does a health goth pay the rent? Where do cutesters go to find sex? Where's the sense of tribalism that led to the M25 raves and Mods getting their heads kicked in on Brighton beach?

I decided to try to flesh out these shallow clothing trends before they fade out and away from us forever. I spent one day living as a health goth, one living as a cutester, and one living normcore, in an attempt to find out if there was any kind of lifestyle beyond the clothes.

MAKING FRIENDS

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THE CUTESTER
Making friends was my first category; you can't have a youth tribe if there's only one of you, after all. You need a gang.

Cutester was my first lifestyle choice. As per the Standard's checklist, I swapped my typical all-black uniform for a cartoon jumper (I figured it should either be that or a onesie, the physical embodiment of the cutester's cloying, defining infantilism) and tried to conjure up the grating optimism necessary for a social life built on "ping-pong cafes" and "emoji tattoos."

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Unsurprisingly, not everyone was down with me dressing and acting like a spoilt American toddler. The guys in Hype—a store that has Swag Lord pretensions but just released a clothing range covered in Simpsons characters, i.e. cutester catnip—replied to my boundless enthusiasm with the nonchalance of three Odd Future-loving wank-fanatics whose mom just asked if they're interested in a night of live improv comedy based on a Jane Austen novel.

"Do you like what I'm wearing?" I asked.

"No," came the mass, stony-faced response.

I'd hate them for it if I didn't already hate myself.

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Fuck them, though; pretty much everyone else wanted to maintain a conversation with me. I guess it could have been the bubbly personality drawing them in, or the fact I looked like a lost child at a Disney shop. Maybe that was appealing to their sense of social responsibility.

Whatever the reason, I was having a lot more success making friends than I usually do.

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Friends like the staff at this entire shop dedicated to selling onesies.

At this point, in this shop, surrounded by $240 baby clothes, the cutester felt less like a media fabrication and more like a damning indictment of my generation. Yes: I had made friends. But they weren't cool friends. And up till the point when crying on the internet about how much you love Niall Horan became a thing that earned you cool points, that's what subcultures were always about.

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HEALTH GOTH
It immediately became clear that making friends as a health goth would be more difficult. But I guess that's the point? If you spend all your time looking moody, listening to MssingNo and the Haxan Cloak while droning on about "the role the digital space plays in the democratization of art" you have to expect a certain lack of love from the plebs.

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The nice barbers I visited seemed confused by my petulance, and offered me some chocolate from the fishbowl to cheer me up.

It didn't work, though; I'd gone full method, like a female Day-Lewis with a Nike+ subscription. You don't have time for celebrations when your life is about sweat and sadness.

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Flirting with the second definition of health goth I'd read, I headed to Gymbox, where I expected the staff to welcome me with open arms.

Instead, the receptionist told me they'd never heard of my adopted genre of person and told me I'd have to leave if I wasn't a member. Gymbox had claimed they were open for almost anything. Turns out health goth didn't make the cut.

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Sipping a protein shake, I wondered where the average health goth goes to find kindred spirits IRL. Your classic goths are still too hung up on crushed velvet and crows to care about Tumblr, and gyms are probably still full of the same dull-fuck City shitmunchers who can actually afford the membership.

It's a conclusion that might shock you, but maybe health goth just doesn't translate all that well into real life.

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NORMCORE
Lonelier still was the world of normcore. As trend forecasting company K-Hole wrote in the report that kickstarted the whole "movement," in normcore, "one does not pretend to be above the indignity of belonging."

While that's the kind of thing that probably sounds good in a trend report, in practice "the indignity of belonging" seemed to entail being so anonymous that I felt like I was slipping off the sides of the Earth.

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I tried to strike up a half-assed conversation with people in the street, but weirdly, nobody seemed particularly interested in anything I had to say. The "normcore personality" I had adopted was probably too drab and indifferent; I wondered if people thought me some kind of con artist or international assassin, looking as indistinguishable as possible in order to commit some awful atrocity.

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Instead of boring any more people with the normcore-y conversation-starters I'd come up with ("I still can't work out whether Berghaus beats North Face in terms of functionality;" "Have you heard of Seinfeld?") I decided to put pizza in my face, and realized that normcore's problem is in its name. You can't be in a gang with every single person you see; it stops being subculture and just becomes culture.

As I devoured the crust, I was forced to reflect on the sad fact that cutester was the most likeable look I'd tried.

EARNING MONEY

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CUTESTER
The way a subculture earns its money is vital; it helps to define its members' social class, political leaning and moral code. It also dictates other more important factors, like whether they're getting fucked up on Frosty Jack's or Courvoisier; whether they're getting thrown out of Boujis or Belushi's.

As a cutester, the streets of Shoreditch were paved with opportunity, the world of unskilled shift work my oyster. Acting like a baby and annoying people is one of the few boom industries in London right now, and several clothing shops took my CV. I also had a 15-minute chat with a man running a cyber-goth shop who offered me two weeks' work in return for my hairdresser's number (sorry, Loren).

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But I had my eye on the dream job. A job in the cutester coliseum: the Cereal Killer Cafe.

I turned up and, looking around for one of the workwear Jedwards who run the place, realized I fit in perfectly. My outfit looked like it belonged in a display case on the wall. I was Bon Jovi in a Hard Rock Cafe. I had fucking pink lippie and pigtails. I was made for this place.

Soon enough, one of the silver foxes appeared. He gave me his email and told me to get in touch right away. So there you have it: go to the concept cafe that a lot of people seem to hate, dressed up as a person a lot of people seem to hate, and you could well square that hatred and land yourself a job.

But then you could probably go anywhere as a cutester and be offered some kind of work. What kind of manager wouldn't want to employ someone with all the Technicolor spunk of an aspiring CBeebies presenter?

It was confirmed: the life of a full-time cutester would be rich and easy. Find them swigging Bolly in the club and swinging the election for the Tories.

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HEALTH GOTH
Again, the basic tenets of health gothism made finding a job highly problematic. I dialed down some of the attitude, but did tell all my potential employers that I'd insist on having full autonomy over my choice of outfit were I to gift them my time, bank details, and social security number.

This did not go down well; everywhere I went insisted that I'd have to represent the brand in their respective uniforms if I were to ever be offered a job there. And because I was asking at Pret not Nike, unlike the movement itself, I wasn't in the mood to sell out just yet.

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'POD might be up for it,' I thought, reasoning that I'd make a good brand ambassador for their healthy lunch thing. Alas, the clothes were once again an issue; the people behind the counter deemed my sliders a health hazard and stared at me until I left.

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Hope finally came in the shape of Elite Café. The friendly lady behind the counter asked what I was like. I told her I was moody with my default health goth resting bitchface. She told me that didn't matter and to ring her up for shifts.

In retrospect, I'm not sure the high street was a suitable working environment for a princess of nylon darkness. But if they can tear themselves away from posting photos of futuristic synthetic limbs on Facebook for long enough, their unique blend of physical fitness and infinite sadness could make health goths of both genders ideal candidates for the high-class escort game.

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NORMCORE
Staff in every café in East London seem to dress normcore in some form or other, so I thought getting a job would be easy. I was right. Every café I tried gave me a positive return on my pleas.

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Wearing a baggy sweatshirt and vacant expression, I probably seemed like a pretty docile creature. The sort of born follower who'd make BLT subs with my head down, return with five minutes of my lunchbreak to spare, and be too scared to ask for time off over reading week. Win-win.

What this tolerance for eating shit said about normcore's political stance or moral code, I had no idea. "Normcore moves away from a coolness that relies on difference to a post-authenticity coolness that opts in to sameness," isn't exactly a sentence that screams political partisanship.

Then again, all three of these fashion trends seemed morally blank. The closest anything came to a political statement was the cutester's ability to prosper effortlessly in Boris Johnson's weird new London. Call me old-fashioned but that doesn't seem like the right kind of basis for a youth movement.

SEX APPEAL

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One of the most important functions of youth subcultures is the way they pave to the loss of virginity and teenage sex; by narrowing the bang pool down from "everyone else in your school year" to "everyone else in your school year who likes Tool" nervous delta males become swaggering alphas; 6/10 wallflowers become Brazilian Carnival queens. Having an identity beyond anxious, horny teenager gives you confidence, conversation, and common ground. The youth subculture matrix is a glorious Royal Mail sorting office hellbent on delivering urgent supplies to your quivering libido.

As such, it's important that we work out if anyone actually wants to have sex with health goths, normcorers, or—fucking shudder—cutesters.

I used the same Tinder profile but different photos (of each outfit, obviously) to gauge the general reaction from the hounds. If I know Tinder (and I know Tinder), it wasn't going to matter whether I was dressed in slimy gym pants or a fucking Tweety Bird onesie; any swipers within a one-mile radius were going to swipe.

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Cutester me probably got the most swipes straight out the gates, which is a little worrying. Ladies: if 18-year-old boys with Louis Vuitton polos and iced gem haircuts are your thing, horrible garish clothes are apparently the way forward.

Health goth and normcore both got an equally warm reception, but I was proved correct: generally, Tinder didn't seem to give a fuck about what I was wearing.

Time for a second opinion: my male friends are alright, so I used them as a better yardstick for how fit I really was. Unhelpfully, my most trusted and cynical male confidant judged them all to be awful—cutester: "annoying," normcore: "looks like prison bait," health goth: "just straight up dickhead who thinks dressing like Sporty Spice is acceptable"—but even he agreed with the rest, who said normcore was the most attractive option.

This made sense. He lives in London, and is therefore desensitized to young women dressing like his pregnant mom in family photos from the 80s.

FASHION CRITIQUE

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Here's that comparison photo again, just for reference

Most important of all categories, perhaps, was someone who knows about fashion judging me and my appearance. Yes, I may have slurred normcore, health goth, and cutester as nothing more than clothing trends but looking cool is the means by which youth cultures rope in new recruits, grow and endure. For my assessment, I turned to Bertie Brandes, VICE writer and current contributing Features Editor at i-D.

These were her informed rulings:

"Cutester is so disgusting on so many levels. It's the go-to aesthetic for a self-loathing generation; VEVO filtered through Jeremy Scott and flooding into Primark quicker than you can say 'Squidward onesie.' Are those seriously bunches she's got in her hair? Honestly, the last time it was acceptable for any of us to wear a Mickey Mouse T-shirt was when we were trying to fuck the Cobrasnake for a new profile picture six years ago. Enough."

"Sorry, trend reporters, but though you think health goth was conceived this year, it's clearly been alive and well since So Solid Crew's Kaish wore white contact lenses on Top of the Pops. While it was cemented as a mainstream trend by Alexander Wang for H&M's asymmetric laser-cut travesty of a collection over summer, people with no personality have been wearing ribbed socks and Nike crop-tops to complement their dip-dyes for absolutely ages. Though this sportswear subculture might not be as sinister as the rich guys you meet on Tinder who wear Air Max with no socks, it still strikes me as a clusterfuck of symbols reserved largely for the sort of people so desperately in need of an identity they've got a tattoo of their own name. Not pictured: the obligatory septum piercing."

"The problem with normcore is it normally goes one of two ways: either you're so 'core in your stonewashed flares and ancient Stan Smiths that Refinery29 are sniffing around for an OOTD [Outfit of the Day], or you just shopped yourself silly on the ASOS basics vertical and you're less blasé, more just blah. Personally, I think normcore should be reserved for people with their natural hair color and an endearing number of pimples (exactly one) but you know what? Those jeans are truly hideous, so kudos for the effort."

My critique from Bertie confirmed what I'd suspected: cutester is straight-up gross, health goth is just the Spice Girls in an oil slick, and normcore is for vanilla humanities students who want to look like extras in a Woody Allen movie.

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But there's more to it than that. Interestingly, each of these trends seeks out comfort—both physical and emotional—in a city that is an increasingly hostile and confusing place for young people to live in. All the trends prize being cosy and comfy over any other criteria, be that health goths dressed in their slippers, normcorers dressed like their moms, or cutesters dressed in their childhoods.

Strutting around as a health goth gives you the camouflage of fitness. What is the camouflage of fitness? It is the reason no one takes the piss out of joggers in the street even though they look fucking stupid. These days, it seems there's some kind of unwritten rule that you can't knock an athlete.

Normcore is pure nostalgia; it's the sartorial equivalent of a family video on VHS. And just as the PC Music crew lift you from London concrete and drop you in a world made out of Haribo and candy floss, the whole cutester thing is a form of escape, a bunch of 20-somethings buying Hello Kitty phone cases and trying with all their might to dive back into the womb.

Sadly, none of them have any hope of becoming real subcultures; they are all too reliant on the internet and just don't translate IRL. Personally, I hold out hope for 2015, but there are those who argue that subcultures as we knew them died the day broadband started beaming every nascent youth movement into connected households the world over.

So for now until the Fall of Technology, I guess we'll have to make do with whatever op-ed writers and trend forecasters come up with. To 2015: the year of the Islamopunk and the Turbo Mod.

Follow Hannah on Twitter.

Cereal Killer, un local de desayunos situado en Brick Lane nos hace reflexionar sobre la antipatía que genera este colectivo.

P-P-P-P-Platypus.

And It Is Not What You Think. "The rats with good lives didn't like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did."

2014 marks the return of legendary punkers, The Vibrators, all fully recharged and ready to knock you in the head with Punk Mania: Back to the Roots, a nod and tip of the hat to their frosh release, Pure Mania, from 1977. Yes, you can draw a line from that date to the present for the band, albeit numerous personnel changes over the decades. Four constants present are, Ian ‘Knox’ Carnochan, John ‘Eddie’ Edwards, Pete Honkamaki and Darrell Bath, with production fiddling by original bassist Pat Collier, and guest guitar work by UK Subs player, Nicky Garratt, on 5 cuts. (Knox is sitting out the touring, leaving it to the trio.) The end product lives up to its title and can stand side-by-side righteously next to classics like Pure Mania and V2. As Ginger Coyote gushed in…

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…Punk Globe, “Punk Mania, with 14 razor sharp tracks that are guaranteed to satisfy your inner old school punk roots…I highly recommend this CD.”

 In those last 39 years, while not quite attaining the apotheosis of many fellow Brit-punk pioneers like The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Sex Pistols, The Fall and The Clash, many feel the band is under-rated and sadly overlooked as punk innovators. But, what’s astounding, is that after all these years, this release will probably be as appreciated by their original fans, as well as someone hearing them for the first time. The songs are tight and well written, grabbing you at the very first hearing, and lead vocalist Knox is in fine fettle for this outing.

The tunes are off to a jarring start with “Retard,” declaring forcefully, “I’m a retard, just like you,” dredging up some memories of “Mongoloid,” ‘Happy as you and me.’ “Blackout” heavily reminded me of “Everybody’s Girl,” one of my favorite songs by San Fran’s rabid rockers, the Dwarves. Following on its heels is pristine pop-punk gem, “Love Like Diamonds.” Since we’re time-tripping back to the late ‘70’s, “Love Like Diamonds” is one of those swooningly great, hooky pop numbers like “Another Girl, Another Planet” by The Only Ones, along with a perceivable Buzzcockian flavor.

Up next is pulse-pounding, chord choogling, “No Sweat,” that chugs right along with ominous overtones. The realm of Iggy and Jayne County is visited, aurally, at least, with “Bleed To Death,’ another twisted tune to head-bob to. The next song catches you off-guard, with a sudden shift into country-punk with the stomper, “The Ohio,’ that could almost be from the Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders songbook. “Turn The Radio On” is a tad more mainstream and ‘accessible,’ as songs on here go, but a pleasant and catchy one.

Lou Reed is channeled to some degree on “Harness” and the snarling “I Wish I Had A Gun.” Knox’s voice, phrasing and the lyrics could almost be from Lou’s repertoire. “Fix” wraps up the 14 songs here, and packs the punch you come to expect from a Vibrators song. The album wraps up with 3 bonus tracks, “Slow Death,” the delightful “ Get Me A Beer,” and “On My Way To Hell.”

Punk Mania is a high water mark in the band’s career, loaded with their old, bloody passion and punch, coming across as old school, while also being cutting edge and still having something valid to express after, lo, these many years. The “Back To The Roots’ part totally succeeds, and if this was their final bow, it would be a proud note for them to go out on.

Raxoi asume su retirada y analiza si la calle mantendrá aparcamiento

• El PSOE considera que debería rescindirse el contrato de las obras de Carreira do Conde al introducirse «modificacións substanciais»

CASIMIRO Y SUS AMIGOS, SERIE INFANTIL DE TV - 1981

01 - Buenas noches Casimiro
02 - Cosas que dan risa
03 - El conejo olvidadizo
04 - La princesa,el príncipe y el dragón
05 - La murga de la lenteja
06 - Los enanitos y las escondidas
07 - Cactus Kid
08 - El mago Ezequias
09 - El loro pirata
10 - El duende en la oreja
11 - Gatísimo gato
12 - Lo que mata es el calor

DESCARGAR AQUI

NELSON GAMIN
21-1-15

In their Facebook bio, Whiskey Moon Face describe their music as “original rag and bones jazz blues folk tuuunes!” which, while it gives an indication of their eclectic sound, in many ways doesn’t even begin to cover the full range and diversity of this three-piece London-based band – nor their astonishing workrate. Lead by Louisa Jones (singer, songwriter and virtuoso multi-instrumentalist) with Ewan Bleach on clarinet and Jim Ydstie on double bass, they took just two days to record the thirteen songs of their debut album One Blinding Dusky Dusk, plus a further nine tracks for a companion EP, The Echo of Me Shoes.
Thankfully, this frenetic pace has had no impact on the quality of their music, which is of an impressively high standard throughout, both…

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…in terms of musicianship as well as writing. While jazz, blues and folk are indeed all present, surfacing and disappearing throughout the album, to my ears there is also something of the feel of the musics of the Romani and klezmer traditions of Central and Eastern Europe; the classical dhrupad style of Northern India as well as music from around the Celtic diaspora (Quebec as well as Ireland). But at no time does the listener feel that she is listening to a grab bag of cultural appropriation whose target demographic is the hipster cliques of east London, or the result of some esoteric ethnomusicological experiment.

Whiskey Moon Face make music which is far more than the sum of its parts and effortlessly transcends any potential accusations of pastiche. The core trio and its various guests (fiddle player Alistair Caplin, violinist Mirabelle Gillis, trombonist Sky Murphy, drummer John Blease and songwriter and banjo player Sam Bailley) are clearly all highly skilled musicians, but the listener never feels that she is witness to a display of virtuosity for the sake of it. The arrangements are tight, yet deeper listening reveals an interplay between the performers which at times seems almost telepathic, a sure sign of musicians who not only listen to what each other is playing but for whom the songs are of far greater importance than the individual.

Throughout, the music itself is performed with assurance and aplomb, and one is left with the overriding sense of hearing atmospheric and heady music that lives and breathes. This in itself is a rare and precious thing in these days where a bland and formulaic commercialism, imposed by career-minded record company executives, too often makes the rules and this evident enjoyment is a defining feature of the band, which sets them apart from many of their peers. Consequently, uptempo numbers, such as Yellow Fingernails and Pirates, will have you dancing around your living room while more reflective tunes like Light and Limehouse De Reverie allow time to catch your breath. The end result of listening to One Blinding Dusky Dusk is akin to having been at one of those wild and joyous youthful parties in somebody else’s parents’ house that you’ll remember for years.

Pretty sure this is the strangest video I’ve seen today.

Extraordinary.

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Wait. This isn't what it sounds like.

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You see, this is Eufrat Mai, from the Czech Republic...

...aka the world's most chilled woman.

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And her vagina is the one they use to model the Fleshlight.

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When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon's founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west.

Read more...

We asked and you told us! Dan Meth draws your craziest tale of nature calling at the wrong time.

Dan Meth / BuzzFeed

Dan Meth / BuzzFeed

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Sobre a revolta irmandiña en terras de Vigo e o enfrontamento contra o señor feudal Pedro Madruga. Conferencia do catedrático en historia Carlos Barros en xuño do 2014.

Christopher Poole, aka moot, the founder of the notorious anonymous imageboard 4chan, is stepping down as administrator of the site after eleven and a half years.

A cambio de casarse con él, la joven de 16 años impuso condiciones al pirata Zheng Yi: que compartiera con ella todos los tesoros y también el poder en la flota de la Bandera Roja.

Naming is an important part of brand identity, and product names often go through different stages of development, from focus group testing to branding, before being slapped on a label and sold in stores. But even with all this testing and discussion terrible brand names sometimes slip through, and other times what we perceive as being a bad brand name is simply a matter of mistranslation.

Here are the stories behind ten products with seemingly unfortunate names, and the real story behind their bad brand names:

1. Tastes Like Grandma Homemade Jam- 

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Let's start off the list with a lighthearted entry- Tastes Like Grandma Homemade Jam, which derives its bad name from a typo.

Add an apostrophe and the letter S after Grandma and you've got a normal product, leave it like it is and it sounds like a spread beloved by cannibals and zombie cosplayers! If they ever come out with a Tomacco flavored jam they can slap Ralph Wiggum's face on the label and cash in!

2. Barf Detergent-

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Generally folks are trying to clean the barf out of their clothes rather than trying to clean their clothes with barf, so this detergent probably isn't a top seller in English speaking countries. However, Barf is probably a fine cleaning product, and the word "barf" is Persian for "snow" so it makes sense after all!

3. Pee Cola-

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Pee cola is brewed and bottled in Ghana out of cola, sugar and soda water, so it's not pee as you and I know it, that is until it comes out again. In this case the "pee" in Pee Cola actually means "Very Good", and this popular soda pop's sales certainly don't suffer due to mistranslation.

4. Megapussi-

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Megapussi is a word written across bags of chips all over Finland, but despite what your dirty mind might think the name actually means "large bag" in Finnish. So it turns out Megapussi is a bag size and not a monster movie about a giant cat battling a massive chip monster!

5. Batmilk-

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Contrary to popular belief Batmilk does not contain milk from a bat, but can you image all the wee milkers and tiny buckets it would take to squeeze out enough milk from bats to make this product?

Batmilk is a milky yogurt drink named "bat" after the company's name "Batavo", but due to bad press the company has since changed the name of the product to something less Chiroptera inspired. 

6. Breast Munchies-

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Breast Munchies is another unfortunate brand name that demonstrates how the omission of key words can make a fine food product seem unsavory. Leave out important words like "chicken" or "meat" and you've got a product that makes the purchaser feel like a total pervert!

7. Only Puke-

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Chalk this one up to poor package design- the package actually says "Only Pukeet", and according to those who have eaten the snack these honey bean crackers are quite delicious and don't make you want to puke at all.

8. 666 Cold Preparation-

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They must have a devil of a time selling this product in the Bible Belt! Usage of the number of the beast in the title comes from the formula created by company founder Tharp Spencer Roberts over 100 years ago:

The name derived from the prescription pad number on which he wrote a formula to treat a rural preacher with a severe case of malarial fever and chills. This formula was credited with saving the life of the much beloved fever sufferer and it came to be requested by reference to the “666” number off the prescription pad.

So you're not actually making a pact with Satan when you buy 666 Cold Relief, and no exorcist is needed as long as you take the recommended dosage!

9. Pet Sweat- 

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This product name may seem like a mistake, but it's actually named Pet Sweat on purpose- this Japanese product is an energy drink for dogs, meant to rehydrate dogs after they've been playing hard. Perhaps if they'd named it "For Pets After They Sweat" there wouldn't have been any room for misinterpretation.

10. OilyBoy Magazine-

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The name "oilyboy" may make you think this is a dirty magazine, and the fact that it's Japanese and has a winking Popeye on the cover may reinforce that misconception. But OilyBoy is actually a lifestyle mag for Japan's "elder boys", grown men who are young at heart and live a life of leisure.  

OilyBoy was actually a nickname given to Jiro Shirasu, and since Jiro is considered one of the coolest Japanese guys ever the creators thought it would lend a sense of flair to their hip magazine.

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These fine products should serve as proof that you can't judge all brands by their names, because sometimes a bad brand name is simply a matter of interpretation!

by Megh Wright

During last night's show, Conan O'Brien's animated guest Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) insisted that O'Brien meet him outside for their interview, only to take him on a violent Archer-style high-speed car chase with some Russian mobsters that brings out a completely new side of O'Brien: "I just killed a guy! That's a sexual thrill."

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