Many Such Takes: Tylenol, Toddler Food, Leftist Bookstore, and More

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 discourse so you don’t have to.

In case you missed it, another free surprise this week: I recorded a 12-minute conversation between Elmo and Donald Trump (both me.) I don’t know how to promote this without sounding like I need to be involuntarily committed, but the people who listened to it seem to like it, so give it a listen here.

Tylenol and Other Trump Highlights

It’s hard to miss this story if you’ve been checking any news or social media this week, but Donald Trump and RFK Jr. announced (confidently) that they discovered the cure to autism, which is taking Tylenol while pregnant. Tylenol has long been the only OTC pain reliever considered safe in pregnancy (category B) and the FDA warns that the danger of an untreated fever could be more detrimental than Tylenol used to treat it.

All of this has been very stressful and confusing for moms of autistic children, pregnant women, and autistic people, but at least we got the following instant classic Trumpism:

We also have Trump “going gynecologist mode” with some pregnancy advice, and then signing his own name in case you forgot who was speaking:

Trump also lit up Erdogan for no reason:

Vibes

I know what you’re all thinking—we really need more short-form video content on our phones, ideally if it was all AI-generated. Well, Meta has you covered with their new feature: Vibes. Vibes is a feed of short-form AI videos, because FUCKING FINALLY, right?

Meta did not get the reception they probably hoped for:

Toddler Food

Feeding a toddler or preschooler can be really hard and demoralizing. Trust me, I’d know. I wrote all about how my child only eats five foods and how he’s sent two separate feeding therapists running for the hills. As a result, I understand how frustrating it can be to see other kids eating so much more (and more varied) foods than your kid. But this week, a mom posted some (fairly normal) toddler meals her 15-month-old ate, and people absolutely lost their gourds.

We have two camps of critics. I’ll start with the "this isn’t healthy/right” group:

Now the, “What, you think you’re better than me?!” group:

This one is particularly funny because the foods she’s displayed are some of the cheapest foods you can buy, minus the blueberries I guess. We’re looking at cheese, eggs, chicken, hotdogs and rice. Come on. It’s charcuterie board drama all over again.

I noticed a bizarre dynamic where people couldn’t decide whether they were mad about the post because it was “smug” or, if they couldn’t prove it was smug, that it “didn’t need to be posted” or that it was posted “for validation.” Geez, why is ANYTHING posted?? Are people meant to post stuff on Twitter and hope nobody sees it or likes it? You’re on this validation-seeking app too!!

Luckily, most people were on the side of the mom, even if the negative comments got wildly out of hand.

Leftist Bookstore

In what can only be described as a “Portlandia skit come to life,” in an almost-too-on-the-nose way, drama has erupted over the closure of a worker-owned feminist bookstore in New York City, which described itself as, “Gender-neutral, co-op owned store specializing in queer, social-justice and feminist books, plus events and zines.” Oh thank goodness, I was afraid they didn’t seem like the type to have zines.

From what I can parse, the bookstore closed for financial reasons, but the decision wasn’t as unanimous as the initial Instagram post insinuated, and multiple former employees called them out for making this decision without consulting the (actual quotes here) “brown folx” or “melanated POC.”

It also appears that the bookstore became a “worker owned cooperative” without the knowledge of whoever actually owned it. I dug a little deeper and it looks like they decided to be “owners” without actually taking legal ownership because they didn’t want to inherit the $100,000 of debt that the bookstore had amassed.

This was the point where I got completely lost:

I’m just gonna say it: why were any of them out there in an onsite bookstore during a triple pandemic?

It really is kind of whimsical to see this kind of 2018-level wokeness out in the wild. I mean, my Twitter feed is all phrenology and right wing loonies now, and I kind of missed this stripe of crazy. I can’t even find them on Bluesky, to be honest with you. It’s been a little sad. Briefly, we had a great moment with the “secular wimple” person, but they kind of vanished. Anyway, seeing people who say things like “melanated POC” feels kind of like going to a quaint village in Colonial Williamsburg where people still churn butter.

And now, an Instagram Story attempting to cover the controversy, clearly unfamiliar with the whole “short form” component. Obviously, what this person really needs to do is to get on VIBES.

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Funny Tweets/Other Happenings

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