Many Such Takes: Giga-Stacy, Big Dick Olympian, Gentle Parenting White Woman, Is Kamala Harris Black, Ice Cream Dad
The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free
Welcome to Many Such Takes! I stay up to date with the latest and most chaotic Twitter 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. Right now I generally abide by censoring usernames if the person’s ideology is something I consider dangerous, or if the person is a small or small-ish account who said something controversial and who has the potential to be overrun with too many negative comments if not kept anonymous. Generally, I do not censor large accounts or accounts who said things that I don’t think will open them up to undue criticism. This week…
Giga-Stacy
If you’re not familiar with the various echelons of Chad and Stacy, let this serve as a primer. A meme of the character “Chad” being the hegemonic masculine ideal started within the 4chan/incel universe, and like many 4chan memes (see: Pepe the frog, now available as an emoji for corporate Slack channels) eventually broke containment and entered the real world full of normie sex-havers.
This was the original Chad, often juxtaposed with “Virgin,” his loser counterpart:
Eventually, Chad morphed into the Chadjak, a handsome and virile wojak (think virtual dolls for groypers):
Eventually Chadjak, whose catch phrase was an emphatic “yes” (usually in response to some rhetorical, incredulous question from an imagined liberal “soyjak,” like “You really want to make no-fault divorce illegal?!”) received a real-life counterpart. Presenting: GigaChad.
The term “GigaChad” predates the man who we all know as GigaChad—who is actually a Russian model named Ernest Khalimov, not an AI-generated image.
You might be wonder where I’m going with this. Well, basically, at some point GigaChad got a female counterpart, GigaStacy, who I’m pretty sure is AI-generated. The GigaStacy image is interesting, because while “Stacy” is the female counterpart of “Chad” (and has been since the early days of the meme) it’s implied that while Chad is extremely masculine, Stacy is extremely feminine. What’s amusing about the GigaStacy meme is that is merely gender-swaps GigaChad, creating an ideal woman who is both beautiful and also unapologetically (a bit) masculine:
This all came full circle when Twitter was introduced to Olympian rugby player Ilona Maher, who looks shockingly similar to GigaStacy:
Unfortunately, some folks on right-wing Twitter decided to take aim at her for looking too masculine, some calling her a “man.” It all started with a video of her singing and dancing, with this “absolutely asking for trouble” caption, which prompted the biggest shits on Twitter to mock her for looking too masculine.
What was amazing and refreshing about Ilona’s response is she didn’t just “clap back at the haters” or anything. She admitted it hurt her feelings. She expressed concern for young girls who would take the message even harder and emphasized the importance of self-acceptance. She wasn’t overly self-pitying or anything but her honest vulnerability put almost everyone on her side.
Women and men across the political spectrum rushed to her defense, pointing out how beautiful she was inside and out. Even the right wing contingent who typically sees no issue with body-shaming found little to mock; after all, she looks like fucking Gigastacy and they have to respect strength.
The more I see footage of Ilona, the more she seems irresistibly likable. By the way, this is the closest I’ve come to actually watching any of the Olympics in my life.
Big Dick Olympian
In other Olympics news, pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati failed the bar because it got stuck on his massive schlong.
Look, if you have to lose at an Olympic sport, this is clearly the best case scenario.
Sorority Drama
On August 1, someone posted a video of a synchronized sorority dance to a Chappel Roan song and declared that “we live in such a strange timeline.” This was a perfect discourse-starter because it made a vague enough statement that people could expand on it however they wanted, and it targeted the exact type of person who triggers Twitter the most—hot sorority girls who bring up deep-seated issues in a lot of people about getting bullied or sexually rejected.
For the most part, people told OP that the video was a perfectly normal thing and they were weird for finding it weird. But other people read into it differently, speculating that the dancers “probably” used homophobic slurs.
Others called this out:
Most amusingly, the president of that sorority cleared things up. As it turns out, she identifies as queer herself:
Gentle Parenting White Woman
On July 25, there was a “White women for Kamala” fundraising call which went fairly viral and raised lots of money for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign:
The leader of the call, Mrs. Frazzled, is mostly famous on TikTok for her “gentle parenting” videos, but crucially, these videos are satirical, because instead of speaking to children, the recipient of the lilting baby-talk lectures is an imagined conservative adult—the Qanon uncle who thinks the libs will take away his gas stove, the boomer parent refusing to take the covid vaccine, you get the point. The takeaway message is: these people are petulant children.
The problem with Mrs. Frazzled is that her videos must appeal to a pretty specific niche. To enjoy her videos you must meet the following criteria:
Liberal
Familiar with the “gentle parenting script” but also OK sort-of making fun of it
OK making fun of gentle parenting talk, but not annoyed by hearing it repeatedly
The way she imitates preschool teachers is actually so good it’s scary (she used to be a kindergarten teacher herself), but the problem with that is her videos can be misconstrued as “mocking” gentle parenting (it’s not clear to what extent she’s mocking gentle parenting in and of itself or just using it as a vehicle for scolding conservatives- that said, a lot of gentle parenting advocates are unable to take a joke.)
I don’t find her videos very enjoyable because even though I get what she’s trying to do, they’re just too annoying to sit through. That said, one content creator to another, I respect the creativity. She nails “the voice” perfectly. Not everyone is going to like your stuff, so you might as well just carry on, which is exactly what she did.
Unfortunately, many on right wing Twitter, some unfamiliar with gentle parenting lingo, thought that she was speaking to adults in an inexplicably condescending tone. Given that “white liberal millennial women” are the current face of cringe, many folks were quick to jump on her for not only her TikTok content (which many of them did not identify as satire), but the way that she told her fellow white women to “check their privilege” on the call. (This was not satire, apparently.)
Although she got a lot of hate, plenty of people pushed back on the vitriol toward her, especially given how creepy and paranoid some of it was:
Regardless of whether we like her videos or not, whatever she did worked (or at least didn’t hurt) because the call raised a lot of money. So make of that what you will!
Age Gap Discourse…Again
On July 30, Nick Gray, an author who specializes in writing books about making friends and social connections, tweeted out this, which was absolutely perfect bait designed for the most cursed discourse: age gap discourse.
On the face of it, he’s not wrong. I’m sure a lot of single 40-year-old men would like to have a wife between 28 and 32. I don’t even really fault them for that, any more than I would fault your average woman for wanting a tall, handsome man with all his hair. But of course, such a statement is designed to provoke people. It’ll provoke older single women who feel attacked, and it’ll provoke younger single women who want to date men their own age and are tired of being hit on by older men.
The funny thing about this discourse though, is that Nick isn’t some kind of red pill pickup artist. He’s kind of a wholesome chungus of dating, and all his responses on the thread were pleasant and Spongebobby, no matter what the person said to him. Just classic and shameless engagement generation, I have to respect it:
Ultimately this thread led to discourse about the fact that regardless of what men want, most married couples are within just two years of each other’s age.
I’m bored. But whatever, I had to include this. Can’t wait until next time! And in case you’re curious, here’s the article I wrote about being in an age-gap relationship myself (a massive two year gap.)
Ice Cream Dad
If you liked Bean Dad, you’ll love Ice Cream Dad, the latest in the genre of Linkedin-core fathers using desired food items to teach their kids completely unnecessary “tough life lessons.”
Nick Huber, a startup founder who posts on Twitter the way all startup founders do, told this story (which I’m guessing was supposed to be inspirational? I don’t know! Why is everything double-spaced like a poem?!) about a tough life lesson he taught his child. It’s not clear how old the kid is, but probably around four, so this life lesson comes off as incredibly mean:
Nick was clearly loving the attention, no matter how negative it got. He even posted his favorite hater comments in a separate tweet. My personal favorite is the person who is aghast that Nick lets his child eat ice cream at all. Just imagine the seed oils!
Mom Twitter was shook. They (and I included myself in this) were heartbroken over the poor little boy who had to forfeit his ice cream which his father perversely made him pay for:
Nick tried to capitalize off the ice cream controversy by using it as a meme to hawk one of his business articles:
Some folks said that Nick is probably a satire account, but it’s not entirely clear. He is, however, almost certainly rage-baiting because he continued posting stuff like this:
Is Kamala Harris Black?
Oh, how times have changed. In 2008, people were chanting “Barack Hussein Obama” and now they’re downplaying Kamala Harris’ Blackness in an attempt to—I actually don’t know what the endgame here is, but I assume it’s a misguided attempt to appeal to Black swing voters? Who knows anymore, man.
Trump, whose iconic assassination attempt photo op was evidently the last good decision he ever made, has been squandering all the juice he had built up so far by picking a creepy and obnoxious VP candidate who nobody likes (granted, maybe he was the only one willing to take the risk of eventually being chased out of the Capitol by a mob who believe JFK Jr. is still alive) and by making bizarre decisions like speaking at a conference for Black journalists in Chicago. It’s unclear what his endgame was with this appearance—again, presumably an appeal to Black voters, but why do it in Illinois, a safely blue state? Why not appear in, say, Georgia?
Anyway, the conference started on a typically Trumpy note, where his interviewer began by asking him about why Black voters should trust him given his history of racially-charged rhetoric. He responded, “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner.” (Crowd laughs) “You don’t even say, hello how are you. Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a terrible fake news network. I came here in good spirits, I love the Black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country…I think it’s a very rude introduction. I don’t know exactly why you would do something like that…I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.” (Crowd boos and laughs) “And for you to start off a question and answer period in such a hostile manner, I think it’s a disgrace.”
So…he didn’t start off on a good note. But he continued by postulating that Kamala Harris, who is half Indian and half Jamaican, is pretending to be Black. He said, “I didn’t know she was Black… until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black…She was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
Many on Right Wing Twitter have agreed with him for a while and rushed to his defense, citing that she has previously identified as Indian:
But honestly, this is a pretty dumb controversy even for Right Wing Twitter, because there’s no secret theory or explanation other than the fact that biracial people exist and Kamala Harris is biracial:
In a bizarre twist of irony, some on the Right have started pulling up Kamala Harris’ birth certificate for a sort of reverse-Obama controversy. Instead of trying to prove she isn’t American, they’re trying to prove she isn’t Black. Only one issue: her birth certificate lists “Jamaican” as her father’s ethnic background, which checks out with everything she’s ever said about her identity.
Oh well, this was stupid. Until next time.
Best Tweets of the Week
This hilarious baby jump scare:
This playlist:
This take on the Olympic boxing controversy:
This person getting rizzed up by the inventor of Nerds Gummy Clusters:
Oh no! You fell for the Nick Huber rage bait. All his stories are bad on purpose to sell his online courses or whatever.
He's had a number of other rage bait tweets go viral, he's *very* good at it.
https://x.com/JeremiahDJohns/status/1819875056949788736
The most annoying part about the patronizing baby talk is that she’s also sometimes just factually wrong. There *was* a push by some to ban gas stoves, just not a huge or successful one. But she’d rather patronize than listen to anyone but like Vox reporting or whatever