firehose

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Show Me a Hero is a brand new HBO six-part mini-series from David Simon, the creator of The Wire and is based upon a book of the same name by Lisa Belkin. The series focuses on a young and inexperienced mayor, played by Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, X-Men Apocalypse), who is trying to implement federally mandated integration in Yonkers, New York during the 1960s.

In an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the young mayor (Oscar Isaac) of a mid-sized American city is faced with a federal court order that says he must build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town. His attempt to do so tears the entire city apart, paralyzes the municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future.

Show Me A Hero premieres on August 16, 2015.

everydaygaga:

READ FOR F I L T H

It’s time to stop trying to prove that autism and vaccines aren’t linked. Why? Because parents who believe in the link, and believe that Big Pharma is covering it up, have much more in common with Big Pharma than they think.

Read more...

There’s an increasingly long list of women in Hollywood beginning to speak out about the ridiculous gender gap in wages. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Amanda Seyfried joined that list when she said, “A few years ago, on one of my big-budget films, I found I was being paid 10 percent of what my male co-star was getting, and we were pretty even in status.”

Ten. Percent. Holy hell. That kind of gap is absolutely absurd. Seyfried didn’t specify which movie she was talking about, but that doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that she was only paid ten percent of what her male co-star got. She offered some tough advice for women who’re trying to make it in Hollywood (or most industries, for that matter): “You have to decide if you’re willing to walk away from something, especially as a woman.”

(via The Hollywood Reporter, image via Indiewire)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

The storm seems to be growing stronger around reddit as its Chief Engineer, Bethanye Blount, leaves the company only two months after she moved there from Facebook. It’s especially worrying to see that reddit has lost another top female employee after Victoria Taylor was fired and Ellen Pao resigned.

According to re/code, Blount said her reasons for leaving were twofold. She said, “I feel like there are going be some big bumps on the road ahead for reddit. Along the way, there are some very aggressive implied promises being made to the community — in comments to mods, quotes from board members — and they’re going to have some pretty big challenges in meeting those implied promises.”

In the time between Taylor’s firing and now, a lot of the reddit higher-ups have been taking to comments and posts to let them know that they’re working on giving moderators the tools they need to properly manage their subreddits. They’ve also promised to work on curbing harassment. However, Blount doesn’t believe they can deliver on these promises.

Additionally, she said that she left because she believed Pao was placed on a “glass cliff,” which is a term that describes a woman who’s been set up to fail by being placed in leadership roles when there’s a crisis going on. Blount said, “Victoria wasn’t on a glass cliff. But it’s hard for me to see it any other way than Ellen was.” It’s important to note that she also said, “I wouldn’t say my decision to leave was directly related to my gender.”

What does this mean for reddit? Unsure. With the amount of dust that’s been kicked up recently, who knows where it’s going to be. What do you think, crew?

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

thatdeafblackguy:

majiinboo:

Stan Lee’s Superohero Selfie with Deadpool, X-Men Apocalypse & Fantastic Four (x)

That’s exactly what I thought when I saw haha

Literature is available in many forms these days. You can buy a paperback, a hardcover, or a digital book to download. Or you could plant your own forest, let it grow for 100 years, and then harvest the trees for the pages of an anthology. Which is what a new project in Norway is aiming to do.

The Harvey Awards honor the best in the comics industry as voted on by comics creators. The nominations just came out, and they’re a diverse and surprising group! Boom! Studios/Archaia and Valiant have the most nominations, and several of our favorite titles here at TMS – Bitch Planet, Lumberjanes, Ms. Marvel, and Sex Criminals – earned nominations, along with some of our favorite creators like Babs Tarr, Brian K. Vaughan, and G. Willow Wilson, to name a few!

The winners will be announced at the Harvey Awards banquet on September 26th at Baltimore Comic-Con. Here is the full list of nominees:

BEST LETTERER
____ Aubrey Aiese, LUMBERJANES, BOOM! Box (BOOM! Studios)
____ Deron Bennett, HACKTIVIST, Archaia Black Label (BOOM! Studios)
____ Ed Dukeshire, THE WOODS, BOOM! Studios
____ Jack Morelli, AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, Archie Comic Publications
____ Josh Reed, DAMSELS IN EXCESS, Aspen

BEST COLORIST

____ Elizabeth Breitweiser, VELVET, Image Comics
____ Jordie Bellaire, MOON KNIGHT, Marvel Comics
____ Laura Martin, ARMOR HUNTERS, Valiant Entertainment
____ Dave Stewart, HELLBOY IN HELL, Dark Horse Comics
____ Matthew Wilson, THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, Image Comics

BEST SYNDICATED STRIP or PANEL

____ DICK TRACY, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services
____ DILBERT, Scott Adams, Universal Uclick
____ FOX TROT, Bill Amend, Universal Uclick
____ GET FUZZY, Darby Conley, Universal Uclick
____ MUTTS, Patrick McDonnell, King Features Syndicate

BEST ONLINE COMICS WORK

____ ALBERT THE ALIEN, Trevor Mueller and Gabriel Bautista, albertthealien.com
____ BATTLEPUG, Mike Norton, battlepug.com
____ GIRLS WITH SLINGSHOTS, Danielle Corsetto, girlswithslingshots.com
____ SPACE MULLET, Daniel Warren Johnson, space-mullet.com
____ THE PRIVATE EYE, Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Muntsa Vicente,panelsyndicate.com

BEST AMERICAN EDITION of FOREIGN MATERIAL

____ BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS, Drawn & Quarterly
____ BLACKSAD: AMARILLO, Dark Horse
____ CORTO MALTESE: UNDER THE SIGN OF CAPRICORN, EuroComics/IDW
____ THE COLLECTOR, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ THE KILLER OMNIBUS VOL. 2, Archaia/BOOM! Studios

BEST INKER

____ Roger Langridge, JIM HENSON’S THE MUSICAL MONSTERS OF TURKEY HOLLOW, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ Danny Miki, BATMAN, DC Comics
____ Mark Pennington, ARMOR HUNTERS: BLOODSHOT, Valiant Entertainment
____ Joe Rivera, THE VALIANT, Valiant Entertainment
____ Wade Von Grawbadger, ALL NEW X-MEN, Marvel Comics

BEST NEW SERIES

____ BITCH PLANET, Image Comics
____ LUMBERJANES, BOOM! Box (BOOM! Studios)
____ MS. MARVEL, Marvel Comics
____ SOUTHERN BASTARDS, Image Comics
____ THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, Image Comics

MOST PROMISING NEW TALENT

____ Steve Bryant, ATHENA VOLTAIRE COMPENDIUM, Dark Horse Comics
____ Daniel Warren Johnson, GHOST FLEET, Dark Horse Comics
____ Chad Lambert, “KILL ME” FROM DARK HORSE PRESENTS, Dark Horse Comics
____ Babs Tarr, BATGIRL, DC Comics
____ Jen Van Meter, THE DEATH-DEFYING DOCTOR MIRAGE, Valiant Entertainment

SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR IN COMICS

____ James Asmus, QUANTUM AND WOODY, Valiant Entertainment
____ James Asmus & Fred Van Lente, THE DELINQUENTS, Valiant Entertainment
____ Ryan Browne, GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS, Image Comics
____ Fred Van Lente, ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG, Valiant Entertainment
____ Chip Zdarsky, SEX CRIMINALS, Image Comics

BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC PUBLICATION FOR YOUNGER READERS

____ JIM HENSON’S THE MUSICAL MONSTERS OF TURKEY HOLLOW, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ LUMBERJANES, BOOM! Box (BOOM! Studios)
____ SISTERS, Scholastic-Graphix
____ SPONGEBOB COMICS, United Plankton Pictures
____ THIS ONE SUMMER, First Second Books

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED

____ HIT: 1955 TP, BOOM! Studios
____ MOUSE GUARD: BALDWIN THE BRAVE AND OTHER TALES HC, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ RAI VOL. 1: WELCOME TO NEW JAPAN TP, Valiant Entertainment
____ SIX-GUN GORILLA TP, BOOM! Studios
____ THE LOVE BUNGLERS, Fantagraphics

BEST ANTHOLOGY

____ DARK HORSE PRESENTS, Dark Horse Comics
____ IN THE DARK: A HORROR ANTHOLOGY, IDW
____ LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM, Locust Moon Press
____ MASTERFUL MARKS: CARTOONISTS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD, Simon & Schuster
____ WILD OCEAN, Fulcrum Publishing

BEST DOMESTIC REPRINT PROJECT

____ HARVEY KURTZMAN’S JUNGLE BOOK: ESSENTIAL KURTZMAN VOLUME 1, Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Books
____ STERANKO NICK FURY AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. ARTIST’S EDITION, IDW
____ THE COMPLETE QUANTUM AND WOODY CLASSIC OMNIBUS, Valiant Entertainment
____ VALIANT MASTERS: H.A.R.D. CORPS VOL. 1 – SEARCH & DESTROY, Valiant Entertainment
____ WALT DISNEY DONALD DUCK AND UNCLE SCROOGE: THE SON OF THE SUN (DON ROSA LIBRARY VOL. 1), Fantagraphics

BEST COVER ARTIST

____ Mike Del Mundo, ELEKTRA, Marvel Comics
____ Francesco Francavilla, AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, Archie Comic Publications
____ Jenny Frison, REVIVAL, Image Comics
____ Chris Samnee, DAREDEVIL, Marvel Comics
____ Fiona Staples, SAGA, Image Comics

BEST BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, or JOURNALISTIC PRESENTATION

____ BACK ISSUES, Comic Pop
____ COMIC BOOK CREATOR, TwoMorrows Publications
____ HEROES OF THE COMICS: PORTRAITS OF THE LEGENDS OF COMIC BOOKS, Drew Friedman, Fantagraphics
____ MASTERFUL MARKS: CARTOONISTS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD, Monte Beauchamp, Simon & Schuster
____ TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: THE ULTIMATE VISUAL HISTORY, Andrew Farago, Insight Editions

SPECIAL AWARD for EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION

____ ARMOR HUNTERS, Josh Johns and Warren Simons, Valiant Entertainment
____ HARVEY KURTZMAN’S JUNGLE BOOK: ESSENTIAL KURTZMAN VOLUME 1, John Lind and Philip R. Simon, Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Books
____ LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM, Andrew Carl, Josh O’Neill, and Chris Stevens, Locust Moon Press
____ JIM HENSON’S THE MUSICAL MONSTERS OF TURKEY HOLLOW, Scott Newman, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ THE VALIANT, Kyle Andrukiewicz and Warren Simons, Valiant Entertainment

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM ORIGINAL
____ ATHENA VOLTAIRE COMPENDIUM, Dark Horse Comics
____ JIM HENSON’S THE MUSICAL MONSTERS OF TURKEY HOLLOW, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ SECONDS, Ballantine Books
____ THE WRENCHIES, First Second Books
____ THIS ONE SUMMER, First Second Books

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES

____ AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, Archie Comic Publications
____ DAREDEVIL, Marvel Comics
____ SAGA, Image Comics
____ SOUTHERN BASTARDS, Image Comics
____ THE VALIANT, Valiant Entertainment

BEST WRITER

____ Jason Aaron, SOUTHERN BASTARDS, Image Comics
____ Jen Van Meter, THE DEATH-DEFYING DOCTOR MIRAGE, Valiant Entertainment
____ Brian K. Vaughan, SAGA, Image Comics
____ Mark Waid, DAREDEVIL, Marvel Comics
____ G. Willow Wilson, MS. MARVEL, Marvel Comics

BEST ARTIST

____ Clayton Crain, RAI, Valiant Entertainment
____ Roberto de la Torre, THE DEATH-DEFYING DOCTOR MIRAGE, Valiant Entertainment
____ Chris Samnee, DAREDEVIL, Marvel Comics
____ Fiona Staples, SAGA, Image Comics
____ Jillian Tamaki, THIS ONE SUMMER, First Second Books

BEST CARTOONIST

____ Steve Bryant, ATHENA VOLTAIRE COMPENDIUM, Dark Horse Comics
____ Howard Chaykin, BLOODSHOT #25, Valiant Entertainment
____ Farel Dalrymple, THE WRENCHIES, First Second Books
____ Terry Moore, RACHEL RISING, Abstract Studios
____ Dan Parent, KEVIN KELLER, Archie Comic Publications
____ Andy Runton, X-O MANOWAR #25, Valiant Entertainment

BEST SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY

____ ARMOR HUNTERS #1, Valiant Entertainment
____ “Breaking Out”, DARK HORSE PRESENTS #35, Dark Horse Comics
____ JIM HENSON’S THE STORYTELLER: WITCHES #4, Archaia/BOOM! Studios
____ MULTIVERSITY: PAX AMERICANA, DC Comics
____ RAI #1, Valiant Entertainment

Are your favorites on the list? Who do you think will take home the award? Who’s not on the list, but should be? Tell us in the comments below!

(via The Beat)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

An unnamed 9-month old baby koala kept company with a plush koala during his weekly weigh-in and routine checkup at the San Diego Zoo and Aquarium in Southern California. The staff provided the joey with the stuffed animal in order to reduce separation anxiety caused from being apart from his doting mother, who kept a very close eye on her baby.

The joey’s mother, Cambee, stayed nearby during his health check, keeping an attentive eye on her offspring. She quickly nurtured her joey when his exam was complete and resumed their daily routine of perching and mostly sleeping. While Cambee has occasionally allowed the joey to try eucalyptus, he is still nursing as his primary source of nourishment and will continue to nurse until he is around 14 months old

Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Only a few people complained to the government about seeing it, and a couple weren't actually mad, but they're all pretty good.

The Federal Communications Commission receives a lot of complaints, and some of them are about LeBron James' penis. After the King flashed his court jester during an NBA Finals broadcast on June 11, SB Nation filed a records request for any complaints about James' previously unequalled degree of national exposure.

To our shock, the American public made few complaints about the indiscretion. They ranged from the completely sincere to the succinct and included one person who obviously reads sports websites.

The FCC's list of complaints follows.

1. "No more penis please!"

I am shocked and appalled! I was watching the NBA final with my small kids on ABC's TV channel and prior to the start of Game 4 on Thursday 11 June 2015, ABC showed my children the penis of Lebron James. This is unacceptable. I don't want my kids looking at male genitalia on broadcast television. I am OK with seeing cis female mammary glands, labia, vagina, etc, over broadcast TV but no more penis please!

2. "tallywacker"

I was watching game 4 of the NBA finals last night on ABC, and the camera had a close up on LeBron James, who was adjusting his shorts, and then pulled down his boxers and the camera had a close up of his tallywacker. This is the type of stuff I would expect from Game of Thrones, but not from the American Broadcasting Channel. At least I now know that I am bigger than the purportedly "biggest" star in the NBA...

3. A complaint about an entirely different show on an entirely different medium not featuring LeBron James' penis at all, actually.

This morning on Z-100 Elvis Duran morning show, Elvis Duran was discussing in lengthy detail the size of his penis in comparison to his on-air colleagues. The group then went on to discuss and describe Lebron James penis which they have seen online and all expressed envy and awe. It was prurient and totally inappropriate for the morning drive. Elvis Duran (a self-described homosexual) also said he would "rather have sex with a woman" than one of his male colleagues. I found that statement degrading and demeaning to women.

4. The factual snitch without spellcheck

During the game list night, LeBron James exposed himself to the cameras

5. The person who sent in a complaint knowing that eventually a sports blog would request the open records and see it and wonder why someone went to the absurd lengths of posting an FCC complaint just to make a joke that could have been made on social media.

LeBron James showed his dick on natonal television and completeley ruined my tinder date. It made us late for laser tag because i had to rewind it a few times to make sure thats exactly what we saw so we missed our bus. He clearly did it on purpose and hes not as good as Michael Jordan

The complainant here also listed the TV station being watched at the time.

In sum: The American people have seen the genitals of a famous athlete briefly. They were completely unfazed by the experience. Clearly, as a nation, we are growing and showing it.

In a case of “It was on the Internet so it must be true,” a Tennessee woman was arrested for trying to use counterfeit money, explaining to police that she read online that President Barack Obama had passed a law making it legal, reports the Times News.

Pamela Downs, 45, of Kingsport was arrested on Sunday after giving a clerk at gas station a $5 bill which he suspected might be counterfeit.

A police officer dispatched to the gas station wrote in his report that the fake money appeared to have been printed on a home printer with the two sides glued together.

Downs initially explained to the officer that she had received the fake money at another gas station in nearby Bristol a few days earlier and had never really looked at it.

After agreeing to have her purse searched, police discovered a fake $100 bill printed in black and white with the backside glued on upside down. Police also found receipts in her purse showing she had purchased a printer and copy paper at a local Walmart.

After being handcuffed and placed in a cruiser, Downs reportedly said, “I don’t give a ****, all these other bitches get to print money so I can too.”

In an interview at the jail, Downs admitted to printing the money in her apartment, stating that she read online that President Obama had made a new law  permitting her to print her own money because she is on a fixed income.

A search of her apartment uncovered printing supplies including copy paper, scissors, glue and a printer.

Several more counterfeit bills, both cut and uncut, were also found with police estimating the total to be around $30,000 to $50,000.

Original Source

I had a chance to check out the Maestros del Mezcal tasting in Oaxaca. It was completely focused on wild agaves (silvestres) and included a collection of live plants. There were some pretty amazing mezcals from small producers – from varieties we do not see, or rarely see, in the US. I had a Sierra Negra that blew my socks off, a Chato from the Siera Sur, and a truly sublime wild Espadin from the Sola de Vega region. None of these are CRM (COMERCAM) certified, and unless the producers work with someone who has money and is looking to develop a brand, it is unlikely most of them will be certified. There was also the chance to try maguey tortillas which had a lovely sweet flavor to them.

A little bit of a surprise was how many more women were present on the producer side, which is really exciting to see as this is a tough barrier to crack – more on this later as it is a focus of my trip here to Oaxaca.

I had a wedding to go to later in the day so I was trying to be as moderate in tasting as I could be – pretty damn near impossible when presented with so many different varieties of magueys and flavors. At some point someone will need to figure out the pricing issue – small bottles were selling for 50-100 pesos, larger bottles for 150-250 pesos. For rare silvestres, that just doesn’t seem like enough and certainly doesn’t include the hours of labor of the palenqueros.

It was a great kick off for the mezcal adventures to come over the next couple of weeks.

UNUSUAL HOARD commission for howlsmovingbuttcheeks, featuring their super cute oc and a whole bunch of fungi

douxkitten:

he chef

yes  !!!!

submitted by goalslammer [link] [7 comments]

and then we start making out

amralime:

Batman & Shia Labeouf v Superman : Dawn Of Do It  

Linkmoji is a new online tool created by Eric Nakagawa that converts text links to emoji. Users simply paste or type a link into a text field on the site and click a button to convert the text into a unique emoji string. Nakagawa says he built the tool in one hour using Parse.

Linkmoji for LaughingSquid.com

Linkmoji for https://twitter.com/ericnakagawa

Linkmoji for Linkmoji

I built this today: http://t.co/zwfUBBiyCw???????? I call it linkmoji.

— Eric Nakagawa (????) (@ericnakagawa) July 9, 2015

images via Linkmoji

by Rob DenBleyker

electricsexdoll:

donut-give-a-fuck-about-abs:

Yesterday, feminist writer and self-proclaimed fright bat Clementine Ford wrote about the misogynist crap published by Sunrise over the nude photo hacking of Australian women, who accompanied the story with the phrase: “When will women learn?”

The post went flat out viral. It’s struck a nerve with people everywhere, because she’s fucking right.

Blaming women for taking nude photographs instead of the total fuck bois who share and publish them contributes to rape culture. Publishing nude photos of people without their permission is a sex crime. It’s akin to digital rape.

This is 2015 and there’s a high, high chance that you or someone you know has taken a nude photo, either for themselves, or to send to someone they trusted.

Clementine Ford accompanied the post with a Facebook-appropriate, semi-nude photo, with the message “Hey #Sunrise Get Fucked” scrawled on her chest. She told the world without shame that she’s one of millions who have taken nude photographs.

And then, just because some COMPLETE AND UTTER MORONS DIDN’T GET THE POINT, douchebag after douchebag messaged Ms Ford, asking her for nudes.

Asking a stranger for naked photos is sexual harassment. Asking someone for naked photos because you’ve read her intelligent, bang-on post about victim blaming and consent is straight up fucking stupid.

Sunrise has since deleted their Facebook post, and Yahoo7 have apologised.

😔

It’s looking more and more like Ellen Pao was, in some sense, set up to fail by her male board of directors. Her predecessor Yishan Wong says it. A top Reddit engineer said it right after quitting. It might sound conspiratorial if it weren’t about this particular site.http://gawker.com/top-reddit-eng...

But this is Reddit. To the site’s super-dedicated core, an overwhelmingly male group of very vocal power-users whose understanding of progressive politics is limited to the idea that their pirated ecchi torrents have just as much a right to bandwidth as Netflix, few things are more offensive than being told what to do by a woman. And when harassment was banned and their fat-hating subreddit was shut down, they plugged their ears and screamed and stomped and spammed swastikas until they got their way. (It obviously didn’t hurt that their way also happened to align with the interests of the site’s founders.)http://gawker.com/ellen-pao-offi...

So Ellen Pao’s first mistake might have been thinking she could ever actually lead Reddit. But Reddit can’t even be governed by the white guys who founded it, let alone by an Asian American woman who’d fought a highly public court battle over gender discrimination. The truth is that no one can run Reddit, because Reddit already has a boss: A organized, malignant band of the adolescent and adolescent-at-heart, ready to topple any would-be savior who attempts to clean house.http://internet.gawker.com/redditors-stag...

Pao could never have been that savior. It doesn’t seem like she was a particularly good CEO, which isn’t to say that she was a particularly bad CEO. Given that Reddit is ostensibly a business and has never made any money a decade, it’s fair to say it’s never had a very good CEO.http://gawker.com/was-ellen-pao-...

But for the purposes of this particular public blowup, business acumen doesn’t actually matter. Ellen Pao could have taken Reddit public or negotiated a merger with Exxon—nothing would’ve negated the fact that she was an Asian American woman who took her former boss to court for sexual discrimination, placed in charge of an unruly mob of mostly white, mostly male users unable to countenance the idea that anyone could tell them how to behave. Pao was toast from day one.http://gawker.com/did-reddits-fo...

If her first mistake was taking the job in the first place, her second was trying to do anything at all from her position. When the site announced a new policy that would constrain the ability of men to post photos of naked women without their permission so that other men could jerk off to them, Redditors reacted as if ISIS paratroopers were just spotted over the Capitol dome.http://internet.gawker.com/the-creeps-of-...

To the Reddit shock troops, a common-sense policy against sexual harassment and violation was nothing less than the trampling of liberty. Remember SOPA? Hate it. Remember CISPA? No way. Remember the possibility of a rule that could make it a little more difficult to call your ex-girlfriend a whore [MORE PICS INSIDE] because your relationship disintegrated after you spent too much time on Reddit? Same principle. Ellen Pao was now an official enemy of “free speech,” and therefore the web itself. When Pao later banned a discussion section devoted to ridiculing fat strangers, it was open war, her or us, the CEO or the community.

But Reddit isn’t a community. A community compromises; it changes; it adapts as it grows. Communities are sites of give and take. A community has a sense of common culture and purpose. What Pao found herself up against was not a community but a vicious, malevolent movement that can only accept direction in the form of upvotes. The extremists were not interested in compromise and unable to see why it was in their interests to make their favorite site a more welcoming place for new users. They could not open and would not budge—the idea of sacrificing the divine right to mock the obese was unfathomable, too much to bear.

This is Reddit’s political reality: an aristocracy of the crass. Conde Nast, Y-Combinator, Snoop Dogg, Alexis Ohanian—all the people who’ve built and invested in Reddit are just figureheads and potential TechCrunch Disrupt panelists; emperors to the toxic praetorian guard of the men’s rights-Gamergate axis.

To this increasingly vocal coterie, anything resembling compromise away from adolescent male white mores is seen as the fascistic social justice agenda. Never mind that no one is being asked to do anything more than grow up: Fucking grow up, you don’t really need giant jiggling breasts in your Xbox games. Fucking grow up, it’s obnoxious, boring and lazy to make fun of obese strangers. And fucking grow up: if you have to go 4chan to make the same stale jokes about the holocaust, you are no less free than you were the day before.

So who would would ever come in from the outside to try and run this website? Its current leadership is tolerated only because it’s agreed to not lead at all, to permit the same laissez-faire operation that allowed /r/CoonTown to cheer on and advocate for the murdering of American blacks immediately after Dylann Roof’s Charleston massacre (Reddit’s new CEO, Steve Huffman, has hilariously suggested that these vile sections of the site be “appropriately quarantined” and left alone).

The real power, the administrative and bureaucratic power that keeps the site chugging along for its day-to-day users, is a collection of unpaid moderators who wield more power than any office executive. They can—and have!—shut down the site at will, using the same mass disruption tactics deployed to bring down Digg a decade ago.

Why would an outside chief executive expect to be treated any differently than Ellen Pao? Who going forward will dare tell Redditors that if they want to jerk off to teens or harass women, maybe they’ll have to go to another website? For Reddit to become something resembling a viable business, it has to make money, and that means making the bigots and stalkers and imbeciles feel less welcome—how many firms will do business with the company that pays to keep /r/GasTheKikes running? Any outside CEO is therefore facing an impossible job: fumigate Reddit sufficiently for advertisers while placating a hostile militia of superusers that can’t seem to distinguish between mild rules and a prison sentence on Robben Island.

Without cleansing itself a little, Reddit will continue on its current course: a petri dish for the web’s dullest, dumbest impulses, a lowest common denominator clearinghouse of lazy memes, stolen porn, casual racism, a recruiting ground for hate groups, and an overall bummer. Because Reddit is a place for cowards, run by cowards afraid to take responsibility for the machine they engineered, populated by cowards who won’t reckon with the adult world around them.