The Week’s Internet Shit Talking in Review
Shit talking this week experienced somewhat of a lull. While we did start off the week strong with the Glenn Beck's rally—an event that later gained the enigmatic spiritual warrior the title "The White Malcom X" from one reporter at The Daily Beast—shit talking slacked during the middle of the week...
Shit talking this week experienced somewhat of a lull. While we did start off the week strong with the Glenn Beck’s rally—an event that later gained the enigmatic spiritual warrior the title “The White Malcom X” from one reporter at The Daily Beast—shit talking slacked during the middle of the week, with only a few instances occurring over the HTMLGIANT regions. By the end of the week we did see a notable event over the regions of underground author Tao Lin, as well as an instance of IRL shit talking that turned into an all out brawl caught on camera at the US Open, of all places.
1. Glenn Beck/ Old White Rural Anti-Christians v. the Environment, non-Christians, Abortion, Mosques & etc. @ The Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
2. ANGI v. Itself, Tao Lin @ HTMLGIANT
3. JA TYLER v. Tao Lin, Stephen Dierks @ Big Other
4. Young Male v. Old People @ US Open
This week’s shit-talking started out ‘with a bang’ at Glen Beck’s Restoring Honor rally, in which we were witness to a vague and perhaps ultimately life affirming meta ‘diss’ on the environment, non-Christians, people that are cool with abortions, the ‘Ground Zero’ ‘mosque’ and Democrats.
About the rally, many analysts simply acted confused. Even Gawker seemed somewhat at a loss for words, mostly offering that the rally was boring and kind of baffling.
While there was no definitive shit talking at the event, “The White Malcom X” and the “white and old” anti-non-Christians are absolutely contenders to keep watching, as some of the media are predicting one of the biggest shitstorms of American history to occur over their regions if they revolt, assassinate the president, bomb the ‘Ground Zero’ ‘mosque,’ or other inflammatory actions that might create a fertile environment for the seeds of shit.
Running parallel—and possibly in coordination with—Beck’s Great Conservative Revival movement, the Anonymous Nerd Gangs of the Internet (ANGI) lashed out at the opposition last Friday, with shit talking continuing into this Monday over on HTMLGIANT.
On a post by author and TC contributor Jimmy Chen titled “Directions to Forever” that vaguely poked fun at MFA programs and their placement by a recent ranking system, comments went the direction of shit talking within about 24 hours. Soon, a number of commenters had gotten into a heated argument about the validity of the ranking system, with several quoting each other in the effort of creating line-by-line ‘take downs,’ with the opponent usually responding that the other had misquoted him or quoted him out of context.
By around 30 hours after posting, we saw the first accusations of “trolling” as well as a large passage of Joyce’s Ulysses evoked for argumentative (or general) superiority. King Kong Bundy, definitely part of the ‘brawn’ of ANGI, stepped in at one point to, predictably, shift the conversation to Tao Lin. KKB quipped, “Who would win in a fight: Seth or Tao?” and then answered his own question with the response, “My bad. They’re both pussies.”
Increasingly cornered and hemmed in by, ironically, the very literary stance they use as a weapon (some might say), the animal that is ANGI should be watched, as individuals are often unpredictable and chaotic when faced with threats.
ANGI appeared yet again at HTMLGIANT competitor Big Other, represented, surprisingly, by small press champion JA Tyler. Yesterday, in the typical style of ANGI, Tyler posted a two sentence review of Lin’s Richard Yates in which he declared that the most interesting part of reading the novel was when the book fell off his footstool and he “didn’t know the footstool was crooked.”
Commenter “stephen,” who we presume is Pop Serial editor Stephen Dierks, quickly stepped in and asked for an explanation. Several multi-paragraph comments ensued, but their volume was limited, perhaps as the result of the site’s capacity to drive traffic. We’re left to wonder whether JA Tyler will fully embrace ANGI, as it’s yet unknown whether the editor has any concrete affiliation with the literary faction.
Finally, yesterday we saw an IRL real shit talking incident get physical at the US Open, in which a young man fist fights two old men and an old woman. I’ll let the video explain:
We’ve greatly enjoyed all your shit talking tips submitted during the past week—we thank you, and keep it up. Looking into next week, analysts are “honestly a bit bewildered” about the shit talking forecast, some claiming that Hurricane Earl will have an enhancing effect on shit talking levels, while others have vaguely alluded to the possibility of a random best-selling author ‘lashing out’ at New York Times or another best-selling author on Twitter. 
