America's elite opinion journalists spend most of their time trying to get readers to hate them.
And they also lament that everyone hates them.
Only a complete asshole would write an essay like the below Atlantic article. And only a troll would publish it.
@mattsheffield next they will surely come for Christmas.
Oh, Wait!
@mattsheffield This is serious? It should be in The Onion, or maybe McSweeney's.
@lauerhahn Yes it's real. And really pathetic.
@mattsheffield Yeah, those political opinion articles are nasty. Last election, they had provocative headlines, but the actual articles were often paywalled. When I finally read the article, the headline was misleading, mostly about Harris. But that's all most people read, the headlines. It's a political strategy.
@timo21 The paywalls are sometimes cookie-based. Clear them or disable Javascript and you can read.
A handier option is just to prepend "archive. is/" without the space in front of any URL. Usually someone captured it before the paywall was placed
@mattsheffield “Though mostly a marketing term, fun-size is the right way to think about Halloween candy from a gastronomic perspective.
To understand why, it’s first necessary to understand what fun means. That’s easier said than done. It’s a word that people use without really knowing what they mean by it.”
Oh boy the whole article is like this.
The newer article is somehow worse: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/trick-or-treating-mixed-candy/689208/
@WhiteCatTamer His entire shtick is "I'm a crotchety old guy; life was better when I was a kid."
He never even thinks that maybe variety packs became popular because adults want to let kids choose what they want, rather than the adults. I certainly have that in mind when I'm shopping.
There's also no thought that the alleged decline in trick or treating is due to kids actually eating healthy foods and preferring them. I know several kids who dislike soda and barely eat candy.
@mattsheffield It really seems it's the over-salaried against the rest of us, be they "left" or "right"
@samvarma Almost certainly the author is some former spoiled rich kid who thinks that being kind is against neoliberal market principles.
Or he's just a crusty old troll who only gets read through hate clicks.
@mattsheffield @samvarma From what I read, it’s more to do with his aesthetics. It’s VERY navel-gazey.
@mattsheffield @samvarma Which sucks because he actually touches on some interesting and important topics, but only in an offhanded or dismissive way, so they get lost in the “I am very smart” dreck.
@WhiteCatTamer @samvarma There are some real topics, but he's simultaneously too self-centered and ignorant to discuss them well.
@mattsheffield 💯 These days it's hard to take *any* headlines seriously at face value
I just teased my wife for buying some small wrapped gummies. I said "kids want big candy bars, weren't you ever a kid?"😁
Maybe she read that article.
