10 Thought Catalog Posts You Should Have Read This Week
This week was big for Thought Catalog. Chelsea Fagan‘s reddit compilation 27 Bizarre Things That All Women Have Done At Least Once clocked in at over 3.8 million pageviews, Brianna Wiest‘s 16 Weird Things Best Friends Do That Prove They’re Your Soul Mates got just over a million, and Malina Bickford came through our submissions inbox with a post called 10 Popular Myths About Bartenders that attracted over 950,000. We also landed an interview with Rob Delaney and MIA retweeted us, no big deal.
Last week was the first time I did this kind of week-end roundup. Since, I’ve considered making this my weekly report to readers — what did I learn this week? What trends did I recognize — among readers and at TC itself? I’m not so sure if I’ll actually follow through with that, but at the least, as last week proved, these posts can double as a forum for feedback and discussion about Thought Catalog.
Here’s a notable discussion from the comments section of last week’s round-up. (I miss Ryan, too.)
Last, definitely not least, check out the Thought Reel — a vertical chronologically-ordered page that holds four times as many TC posts as does thoughtcatalog.com. (Please check it out!) At the Thought Reel you not only have a ton more options to click on, you can also browse by using the “Today’s popular posts” bar on the right column.
The new design of this is fun and useful, but there’s a more quiet aspect to it that will, in the future, turn out to be more interesting, I think. There’s a small, hidden back alley here — all community member posts automatically hit the Thought Reel when they’re published. Since we only have a very small number of community members, it’s difficult to see, but this means that Thought Reel could become sort of a “Deep TC” (as in Deep Web) — a new way to search through Thought Catalog, with content you wouldn’t be able to find through its homepage and social channels. Additionally, community members who have access to our platform will be able to interact with each other — something that’s not possible on Thought Catalog any other way, except in the comments sections of disparate articles. (Interested in this “community member” stuff? Email me if you want to get involved: brandon@thoughtcatalog.com.)
Also, if you’re into it, follow us on Pinterest — Chrissy‘s been doing some really cool stuff with it lately.
RELEVANT INTERVIEW: H. Alan Scott – Holy Gosh: We Interviewed/ Tried To Seduce @RobDelaney
“They want to get semen samples from you, and I had heard about sperm banks that had a room where you could go in and jerk off, and I thought, ‘Whoa, this is great.’ They said, ‘It’s probably not cancer, but to be safe, can we have a few loads?’ So I was like, ‘Great, I probably don’t have cancer and I get to jerk off to their medical grade porn? Wow!’ So I was very excited. But they don’t have that room. They want you to jerk off at home, but I didn’t live anywhere near the clinic and I also went to a clinic in Beverly Hills because, if it’s my balls, I want the best. I had to jerk off in a parking garage, well, I didn’t have to jerk off in a parking garage, but I chose to to get the jizz there on time (because the jizz has a half hour before it dies). And this isn’t even in the stand-up, this is beyond horror, but I had to jerk off in a stall at work while a guy aggressively, angrily, symphonically, shit in the stall next to me. Worst, worst possible ejaculation experience of my life, I was yelling at my penis, it was awful.”
FUNNY, CATS: Jimmy Chen – Open Letter To My Cat At Dawn
“I have opposable thumbs, you don’t. I can open the cat food, you can’t. I know where Petco is, you don’t. I’ve read Ulysses, you haven’t. These are examples of me looking down at you on the evolutionary chart. True, I cannot lick my own asshole and I don’t have claws, nor can I jump seven times my height; but neither can you. Fat ass.”
DEEP, SERIOUS, FAMOUS WRITER: Elizabeth Wurtzel – I Refuse To Be A Grown Up
“I don’t eat meat, and I eat lots of salad: boring. I drink red wine—never white, which does not count—but not for breakfast anymore: boring. I love a great cocktail—I especially love the kinds with blueberries or pomegranates in them that no serious drinker would countenance. What is so great about being serious? I used to do cocaine and go running; now I just go running. I am fiercely loyal. I am vicious when necessary, sometimes just for fun. I put Vitamin E on my lips. I solve most problems with duct tape, and most problems can be solved with duct tape. I tell people what I need. I insist. I say what I want, which is the same as what I need. I choose my principles over my desires. But I will lose an argument over a matter of principle sooner than I will give in over a matter of honor: My honor is my deepest principle, and I will be damned if anyone is going to be disrespectful, even or especially for dumb reasons.
Sometimes, maybe even a lot, I say things that are ridiculous. Sometimes I am ridiculous. There are worse things.”
CLEVER, SUBVERSIVE PARODY: Nicole Mullen – Are Assies Empowering Or A Cry For Help?
“The feminist camp, as always, is torn on the issue. The very point of feminism is to elevate women above all other genders, passively trumpet racial equality in your downtime, and streamline access to celebrity gossip. It would seem that the assie would fit perfectly with this agenda – one assie is indistinguishable from the next, and they’re ambiguously sexual while maintaining the ability and potentiality to shit all over anything at any moment. So what’s not to like? Well, a lot, according to several feminist voices.”
‘The assie is a affirmation of the patriarchy’s message to young women,’ says Lorna Blauhardt, professor of Black People at the Granola College of the Mountains. ‘Girls are told they are nothing more than their anus. They’re told what to cover it with, what to put in it, even what color it should be. Victoria’s Secret? What do you think that’s a euphemism for? It’s her asshole, obviously.'”
ART, EXPERIMENTAL, ATYPICAL THOUGHT CATALOG: Adam J. Kurtz – Unsolicited Advice
DARK, FUNNY, DISTURBING: Anonymous – Dear Justin Bieber, I’m 19 And Lost My Virginity To An Escort
“I start googling backpage.com escorts out of sheer 12 AM horny boredom, and find this girl named (D.P.). Her description says ‘bubble butt,’ and my nighttime dick is sold. I become a bit obsessed with her and began jerking off to her photos.
I download TextPlus to use a fake number. Should I do it? Should I do it? Should I do it?”
AWESOME WRITING: Lance Pauker – 42 Things That Happen The Night Before Thanksgiving, The Most Interesting Night Of The Year
“8. A stop at 7-11, to pick up those Bud Light Plattypusses. Depending on how old you are, you either sit in the car cursing the drinking laws, or get carded and talk about how thrilled you are that people are still carding you.
9. Pulling up to Gavins, and you know exactly who is there based on the cars.
10. You decide to pull up next to Nicole’s car. For memory purposes. She parked like two feet away from the curb, which is classic Nicole.”
VIDEOS, CRAZY: Zaron Burnett III – 15 GoPro Videos Of The Coolest, Sickest, Craziest Stuff You’ve Ever Seen
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x76VEPXYaI0&w=584&h=390]
INTERESTING, COMPELLING: Cody Delistraty – Does Learning A New Language Give You A New Personality?
“For those with asymmetrical linguistic abilities, one language might be particularly tiresome. Speaking it will force you to think longer and harder, and you may feel like you played a five-set tennis match after a conversation. Yet, it will also help you avoid ‘cognitive traps,’ or linguistic shortcuts that can cause errors like answering obvious-sounding answers that, if one were to take a second longer to think about, could correctly determine to be wrong. Yet for the truly bilingual and multilingual, shifting between languages can almost immediately alter one’s personality.”
QUIET, PRETTY: Oliver Miller – A Wrecked Car In The Woods
“I read a lot of books. In books, the woods are nebulous; places either of good or evil, it’s not clear — but what is clear is that in the woods, you will be tested. Midway through life’s journey, Dante found himself in a dark wood, I have read. Everything that I know, I have read. Eighteen; I’m eighteen years old. …I was young, young, a character in Faulkner says, but they never told me; I never knew it, that was I young! The only things that I know come from books.”
Would love to see your faves from this week in the comments. 
