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Drew Magary’s exploding brain

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Alma, May 16, 2019.

  1. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Here's hoping you never trip upon Longform.
     
  2. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    I wonder if this experience teaches Magary how stupid his cynicism is.
    Or is that merely a Deadspin affectation these days, the idea that everything in the world sucks.
     
  3. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    I was sort of struck by how he talked about using your brain to be good and to love one another, but so much of his past work has "Hate" or "Hater" in the title. Like, it's a lot of what he does. (Not all of it, of course.) I wonder whether that will change. It sounds like his new instinct toward kindness is being paired with a new tendency toward irritability, which doesn't sound like a great combo. I can't imagine I'd be fucking happy losing the hearing in my right ear. The brain is such a strange machine.
     
    Inky_Wretch and Alma like this.
  4. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I dunno. diminished capacity - and there’s clearly some here with the hearing - tends to amplify whatever your default setting was before. Not always. But more often than not in my experience.
     
  5. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    In some Q&A, I recall him talking of being a sufferer of severe depression at some time in the past.
    I don't care for his tone so I generally avoid his work. There are enough angry men making themselves heard on whatever subject, on the internet.
    It is very easy to bang out these rant-style pieces if you're of a certain mind and I think he knows that.
     
  6. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    There is no shortage of people willing to hate write for cash. Deadspin alone... I think Magary had a pretty original voice when he started there, but he begat Albert Burneko's one-note angry food writing, and now Laura Wagner hates on everything, and someone else will come along soon trying to up the hate ante. It's a dead end to my mind, but who knows? Magary has made a better career than most.
     
  7. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    We shall see. Amplifiers are interesting. Apparently going to space is the same. Whatever you were before, it makes you more of that. I can see how a near-death experience makes you kinder. But I can also see how the aftereffects, like a bum ear, could make you sour as hell. Not to sound like a ghoul, but it will be interesting to see how Magary proceeds.
     
  8. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Type-
    There's a market for what Magary and Burneko sell, but I think our culture is becoming quite fatigued by other people's anger.
    If I came within a whisker of death I'd do some soul-searching about what I'm doing right on this planet and what I'm not.
    I am getting much softer as I age and I don't sense that about Magary, not before his event anyway.
    As for skills, take him out of the essay format and see how he performs.
    Not sure how or when the essay became standard journalism.
     
    Iron_chet likes this.
  9. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Fatigued by Magary and Burneko’s anger, without a doubt. And Deadspin’s anger.

    I actually hope you’re right about everyone else’s anger, too. That we’re all real tired of it, that we all listen to that, and stop raging out on social media because of it. My goodness, it’s time for everybody to sit down and talk.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2019
  10. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Magary is genuinely funny, which many anger writers aren't. He's a valuable voice and it would have been a tragedy to lose him. A life without "Why Your Team Sucks" and "haters Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog" would be missing many laughs.
     
    nafselon and CD Boogie like this.
  11. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

  12. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Angry American humorists go back to at least Ambrose Bierce, so there's a role for them to play in modern letters.

    And as Michael says, Magary has been pretty good at it.

    But it's an exhausting voice to maintain. Anger is corrosive, not only in life, but on the page. For both writers and readers.

    Wherever Magary goes from here, I wish him well.
     
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