Many Such Takes: Cousin Walk, Wifejak Infighting, Bluesky Update, Rich Thanksgiving

The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free

Welcome to Many Such Takes! For those unfamiliar, this is a free weekly segment (I also do lots of other stuff!) For Many Such Takes, I stay up to date with the latest and most chaotic Twitter (and now BlueSky) discourse so you don’t have to. If you see yourself featured here and you don’t like it, simply send me a Substack message and I will happily remove, no matter who you are or what you said. For previous issues of Many Such Takes, see this tab on my main page. Many Such Takes will always be free, so please become a free or paid subscriber to see more every Sunday!

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Cousin Walk

I don’t have a big extended family (I’m only in touch with two of my cousins) so I didn’t know the “cousin walk” on Thanksgiving was a thing. Apparently a lot of people smoke weed with their cousins at Thanksgiving and then wander back home, and people call that the cousin walk.

After a bunch of people made jokes about the cousin walk, this person weighed in with their own take: the cousin walk is actually about incest.

Rich Thanksgiving

While you were all enjoying your plebian “turkey” and “mashed potatoes,” this Twitter user wants you to know they were dining on fare you’ve never even heard of:

Several Twitter users noted that this meal was an example of the type of food that a regular person would imagine a rich person eating, and even pointed out subtle signifiers that whoever posted this wasn’t really rich:

Anyway, everyone can calm down because one click to the user’s profile shows a guy who almost certainly doesn’t exist:

Anyway, not sure who the mastermind behind “Kent Whippencock” is, but this was masterful trolling. I have to wonder if he cooked that entire meal just for the bit (and plated it on the bizarre wooden slab) or if he stole the photo from somewhere. Either way, I would love to interview Mr. Whippencock if he’s open to it.

BlueSky Update

So, I’m still getting used to Bluesky. Overall, I like it. Earlier, I wrote about how Bluesky doesn’t have any assholes which was meant to be a comedic take on the fact that I hadn’t seen any entertaining discourse there (think “I’m 17 and AFRAID of Sabrina Carpenter” or “holding space for the lyrics of defining gravity.”) However, the denizens of Bluesky immediately took it to mean that I was wistful for the nazis of Twitter, despite the fact that I disavowed them before the paywall (I thought this line was a bit unnecessary, but apparently it wasn’t enough.)

Anyway, they did prove me wrong:

Anyway, since this mini-drama, I clarified (again, I thought unnecessarily) that I didn’t “love nazis,” not that it really mattered. But it did get me thinking about Bluesky dynamics and how the drama is playing out, because I don’t care if you insist that everyone on your platform is nice—it’s not true. People on Bluesky are still jerks, but in a “when I’m a jerk it’s because someone was mean to me so it doesn’t count,” way, except the person being “mean” is just some left of center journalist writing about zoning laws. Look, I hate nazis as much as you guys, but if your idea of a nazi is Nate Silver or Ezra Klein, I’m not going to take you very seriously.

So that’s been established: Bluesky doesn’t have nazis, but they do have assholes. But are they funny? I’m happy to report: somewhat! Over the past two weeks, I’ve seen the following dramas:

• One person said that you audiobooks count as books, another person said that people should read real books too, and a third person popped in to say that reading was a privilege, prefaced by the the phrase, “hey friendo!”

• One person expressed some opinion about music theory that garnered the “nazi” accusation from another user, who was dogpiled for the accusation (good to know the “nazi” accusation does in fact have limits.) Ultimately they made up, after the person who made the nazi accusation was dogpiled, so at least there was a happy ending there.

• There’s also this:

  

Anyway, I think Bluesky absolutely has the juice for potential drama, because it’s very clear that people have decided “asshole” inherently means “far right agitator,” so if you’re not a far right agitator you can’t possibly be a dick, but that’s obviously not true. So I expect to see more leftist infighting (or just more stupid low-stakes apolitical drama, which I love!)

But that’s enough about the leftists of Bluesky. Let’s check in on the right-wingers of Twitter…

Wifejak Infighting

While I love to include lots of funny screenshots for this segment, I feel like I can’t do that here, because a lot of what I’m about to describe is actually so repugnant that I wouldn’t want to expose anyone to it. But let’s start with something pretty normal: the Wifejak meme.

This meme originated when a woman created a meme of herself on Reddit, and earlier this year became immortalized as the “wifejak,” meant to represent the prototypical basic wife. The meme originally wasn’t mean-spirited (or at least not hateful.) At worst, it was presenting the wife as oblivious to online terminology, and a bit simple but not stupid.

People have been arguing over whether wifejak is “I hate my wife” humor or “I love my wife,” but either way, it’s a fairly harmless meme.

The wifejak meme has branched off to include various forms of wifejak, including some that are presented less charitably or just…oddly. For example, someone started presenting wifejak in the front-facing position which is a little unsettling for some reason.

Over the past few weeks, someone created this sweater-clad wifejak with more voluminous hair, who is the new ideal woman, I suppose.

Anyway, some groypers (terminally online nazis, I guess? Think Nick Fuentes) started creating wifejak memes that displayed violence and pedophilia. Not gonna paste those here, for everyone’s sake. Even though some of the wifejak fans were right-wing (some even far right) they took issue with the groypers’ depiction of wifejak. Almost like, I can excuse the racism, but I can’t excuse defiling the wifejak.

Many of these folks on the right (ranging from ordinary conservatives to far-right or alt-right people who aren’t groypers- l imagine my confusion is how Republicans feel when they see social democrats fighting with communists) feel that the groypers’ treatment of wifejak is anti-family and “gay.” Meanwhile, the groypers believe that excessively valorizing women via wifejak is also gay. And I thought the leftists had the best discourse with “DoorDash is ableist.” I hadn’t yet experienced, “Wifejak is gay!”

Anyway, I’d show you more but trust me, you really don’t want to see it. But I think there’s something to the fact that a political party will immediately begin infighting as soon as they gain power. Curious what’s to come on this front. As Elon would say, looking into this.

Other Happenings/Funny Tweets

• We have “drinking coffee with my husband” redux (if you know you know):

• Technically this happened the previous week, but I was notified after I already drafted that edition of Many Such Takes. This guy briefly became the main character for suggesting that people procreate by adopting embryos from genetically superior people:

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