March, 2012. I’m not going to pretend that as a white, middle class male with a degree and a loving, supportive network of family and friends, I’ve ever even approached rock bottom. But March 2012 was tough. After an internship came to a sudden and unexpected end, I was working in a Leicester Square pub and, while I awaited my first pay cheque, living off tips I schmoozed from the bored wives of wealthy tourists. Tom’s landlord had booted me off the living room futon, and most days I was moving from one kindly friend’s sofa to the next. I was also in a glass house relationship with an iron rod jammed through it. Two months later I firmly yanked the iron rod, and the whole thing shattered.

Not the worst position to find yourself in, by all accounts, not my favourite either. This is when I discovered Boredoms.

Boredoms are a Japanese rock band, a point both irrelevant and essential in that, like a lot of great Japanese art, they take something familiar, break it down, and create something new; see Murakami writing novels like music, or Beat Takeshi’s surreal, romantic gangster movie Hana Bi. Initially they broke down punk into its most primal, chaotic elements, like a brain surgeon proving that he can still do his job using a trowel. Then, via a series of EP’s, they evolved into something entirely different, culminating in their 1998 album Super AE. With tribal drumming, chanted vocals and extensive use of the studio as an instrument, they created a sound almost entirely without precedent, that Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson described as “a constant reminder, maybe, of what people who want to bring something good into being are capable of.”

I remember my first experience with Super AE very vividly. I was curled up foetally on the bus to Caroline’s flat after a real fucker of a shift, with the one working bud from a shitty paid of earphones I’d bought for three pounds that sounded like eavesdropping through tin. And then track three, “Super Going” (they’re really attached to this “Super” motif) shocked me into clarity. It’s a really simple song on the surface; for the first eight minutes or so it’s just two monolithic chords on a loop. But they’re warped and chopped, propelled by alternately pounding and frenetic drums, wrapped in electronic textures and elevated to transcendence by shouted call and response vocals (“Shine! Shine on!”). It gripped me, rising to impossible heights, threatening to cool off, then taking it even higher. And then, with a stuck record shudder and a howl, it becomes something else entirely. The mix is quieter but more dissonant; there are still distinct chords, but the movement between is more fluid. The drums become more insistent, and the mood becomes one of euphoria rather than exultation. And then, at 9.31, there are three chords, a rocket to the pleasure centre of my brain, a moment of full release after all those moments of unbelievably intense build. For ten minutes, the song wound me into a tight coil and with that moment, it let me go.

And that’s it, that’s what this article has been building to. Three chords. Roughly four seconds out of a thirteen minute song. Because I love those four seconds more than I love almost anything without a beating heart. Ever since I heard them, I’ve been desperate for someone to love them as much as I do. Naturally I’ve failed. Most stumble at Super AE’s bizarre opening track, and when “Super Going” was my alarm, no one who shared my bed ever failed to tell me to turn it the fuck off. Naturally, it’s quite hurtful, and feels like a slight.

But of course, it has to be this way. My love for “Super Going” comes from an incredibly specific set of parameters: my musical tastes, specifically my love for shoegaze and long, euphoric jams (it’s no coincidence that I got into Yo La Tengo and The Field at more or less the same time); that vulnerability I felt, making me susceptible to anything that felt transcendent and personal; more simply, my specific receptiveness to certain sounds – those chords just won’t be as sonically pleasant to everyone. After reading this, most likely around 60% of you will listen to “Super Going” and maybe.. nah, none of you will feel the same way about it. Not to say that anyone is right, or wrong; I know people whose work and opinions I respect a great deal who get a similar kick out of the work of such disparate sources as Conor Oberst and Demi Lovato.

Our first instinct when falling in love is to make the experience communal – everyone must feel the same love we do, and, for many things, this works. Hey, I loved Iron Man 3, let’s all talk about Iron Man 3! And they do, gladly. But the things that really stick, really become part of who we are – that’s different. That’s why no one will ever love your new girlfriend as much as you want them too, or appreciate just how great you felt when you reached the top of that mountain. All human experience is relative. I can pick a dozen moments in music alone that I just wish to god someone would love in the same way that I do. I’ve tried that here, and I can guarantee it hasn’t worked. But the experiment, presumably, has.

But then, here’s another angle, with an example. I love the Mountain Goats song “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” on a number of levels; thematic weight, lyrical clarity, and purely from a songwriting perspective. I think “When you punish a person for dreaming his dream / don’t expect him to thank or forgive you / the best ever death metal band out of Denton / will in time both outpace and outlive you,” is as stirring as the written word gets. But I’m not the only one. There are others on the writing team for this site who agree entirely, and so it will never be one of my “things,” even though I want to weep every time I hear it. Part of the reason why “Super Going” hits so deep is that it came to me when I was alone, and to this day Mark Richardson, writing from an office in Chicago, is the only person I’ve seen express this much reverence for it – and even he prefers “Super Shine.”

Don’t take it personally. It’s your song, she’s your girlfriend, that’s your mountaintop, and no one will ever love them as much as you do.

COMMENT PARTY: We know you all have things you love as much as this, so tell us about them below – what are they? How did you discover them? Why do they mean so much to you? It can be literally anything, as long as its not racist or boring.

I was a fantastically naïve 21. Graduating two months prior, my wife and I were unskilled, unemployed and fast approaching the arse-end of two student overdrafts. She had a course lined-up for September with a sure-fire bursary of £500 a month and it was my desire to find a similarly well-paying position to cover us through the cold summer nights.

The previous week I had turned up at the wrong agency for a ‘Marketing Position’ interview. The correct agency were so understanding when I eventually arrived that even I was suspicious. What followed was more sales pitch than interview. When I left I called my wife to tell her that this no-strings, no-experience, Marketing Position might be door-to-door sales. I walked back to my in-laws’ house dejected; my only suit sagging at the armpits, my charity-shop flip-flops relieving the wedding shoes I’d ran there in.

And yet, the next week I was attending an ‘assessment day’ for another ‘Marketing Position’ – this time with the first agency.

I was led away from similarly sparse offices in an X-Factor auditions queue of suits. I followed; forcing banter with uninterested hopefuls, trying to work out who was assessing me and who was being assessed. They told me I would be getting a train to a nearby Norfolk village. I was nervous because trains were Expensive but a tall guy handed me a ticket before striking up conversation with a passenger. Before I knew it, he was talking about internet providers and she was politely rejecting him. Then the ticket collector appeared.

‘Who are you bothering today?’ he asked.

Tall guy (our leader apparent) replied with some comment about important intercourse with elderly women. They both laughed like cell-mates with one rude picture they both had to share daily.

At the village territories were distributed. Our group split; Old Guy walking off with Stoner Guy – leaving Tall White Usher, Only Girl, and me. I asked Only Girl if she was new and she laughed; she’d been doing this for a whole week. I’d like to think I knew what ‘this’ was at that point, but I know it wasn’t until Usher knocked on a door, asked how they were today, if they had time for some questions, what service provider they were with, and if they’d heard of certain service provider, that I could say for certain I was doing door-to-door sales.

The worst thing was that it wasn’t bad. It was friendly; we were outside, the weather was good and I needed money. Most of the retirees seemed happy to talk; inviting us in to their pastel living room, sitting us in front of their loud soap operas and even sharing a cigarette with Usher (he was always the first to suggest this).

The game was: Usher wasn’t selling Internet. He was offering a no-commitment, no-fee opportunity to be placed on a list that – if un-cancelled – would sign them up. You can’t sell door-to-door any more, he explained, this was just Marketing.

Amazingly, he wasn’t unsuccessful. Whether it was his smile, his company, or the chance to prove to a young man that you were interested in Internet, he managed to call his direct debit number 5 times – it was a slow morning, he told me later.

But as the day wore on his smile became forced. Closed doors received a burst of C-words, while Girl was distracted by calls from a boyfriend who was also somewhere in this village and finding less success. He was ‘negged’, Usher said, a condition particular to door-to-door salespeople that prevented successful sales.

Over lunch, he explained how we were paid. The advertised £15,000 I was expecting was apparently naïve. He drew a map of how my sales would benefit me, then leaders, then managers. I already knew what a pyramid scheme looked like – only the term ‘OTE’ was new to me.

Moments later I was telling Usher that I couldn’t take the job, even if he (if he was indeed assessing me) offered it. I couldn’t work on commission alone, I told him, as he continued to insist that he made £500+ a week.

‘I make more money than my dad,’ he said. ‘My family don’t believe how much I make.’

When we re-grouped at the station a few were arguing about breach of territory. Usher was telling me about Roadtrip – a monthly expedition who stay in Travelodges, drink, fight and fuck. A manager had recently been punched in the face doing two of the above, but – as Usher told me in his most serious tone: what happened on Roadtrip, stayed on Roadtrip.

Waiting for a train to rescue me from an interview I couldn’t walk out of, I tuned in to the conversation and heard Old Guy telling dead baby jokes.

‘Jesus, how old are you?’ I said.

‘26’ said Old Guy.

Suddenly I had to guess everyone’s age. Stoner was 23, Girl was 20, and Usher, he was 18. He smiled. I admitted I’d thought he was older than me.

When the train arrived I sat apart. I could now see who the assessed members of our group were. They were leant back, sullen; like children tricked in to a trip to see grandparents. Everyone on the train suddenly seemed younger. Getting on the train to an unknown location had felt like a grown-up interview, now it had the familiar vibe of a returning school trip.

When the train stopped I walked over to the bus-stop. Some of them shouted that we’d be walking back to base, but Usher explained.

‘This job isn’t for everyone,’ he smiled.

A month later, I got a job temping for an insurance company. A year later I was in the bank, closing my student account. I remember looking up and seeing Usher emerging from behind the cashier window; off on his cigarette break. I smiled. He didn’t.

Well, they have invented a game. And yes, they’ve released it as an app, and that’s a bit lame, but whatevs (I’m absolutely downloading it – secretly I kind of love making an app out of a game you invented because of how much time you spend waiting around, although obviously it’s more fun in person). The game, and the video in which they demonstrate it, is super great.

It’s one of those ones you develop naturally when you’re with the same people all the time. Probably you invented a new one every family holiday, and you still vaguely remember the rules. This one, called Say the Same Thing, involves saying the same thing. At the same time. If (when) you fail, you wait, and then try again, but THIS TIME it’s different. You both say a word that you think connects the last two words spoken.

ARGH. IT’S GENIUS,

Anyway, though, watch the video. Melt into the sweet, sad music. Feel the pain as the two friends fail to match words. And PLAY, mother flippers. PLAY like the WIND.

Allegedly.

About a month ago, a woman wrote into The Times’ health advice column in search of reassurance. At the age of 29, she’d slept with twenty five men, and was concerned about whether or not she should tell her new boyfriend. Rather than shrugging and indicating the word ‘health’, the columnist responded the only way she knew how; with statistics. “I don’t wish to alarm you but that is more than four times the national average for a woman of your age!”

Around the same time, AskMen posted an article entitled “First Date Sex – Why You Should Pass” in which they gently, patronizingly insisted that you turn down the opportunity for a post-date tumble because sex is, fo’ real, “the main prize” of romantic interaction, and that having sex with someone right away is “starting the process back to front.”

These two pieces, though fairly disparate in tone and approach, both stem from a core issue. Let’s ignore the utter redundancy of sex-focused statistics for a second – what with the antics of Shane Ritchie and the ever-tightening global vice-grip of Christ, the idea of a sexual partners average being anything close to a representative is beyond laughable. Instead, we’re making a plea to the media – stop trying to apply a universal standard to sex.

Sex is all things to all people, and as long as no one’s getting hurt – unless they’ve specifically asked, of course – then you should feel entirely comfortable working within parameters that feel right to you. It’s an incredibly malleable thing, with the power to hold as much or as little personal weight as you like.

Want to use sex as a stress reliever, in the same way someone might have a pint or a fag? If no one’s getting hurt, go for it! Found yourself in a comfortable situation with two people, and feel like having sex with both of them? If no one’s getting hurt, go for it! Are you gay, but keen to try straight sex, or vice versa, because life is a rich banquet? Find a consenting adult, and go wild! Got so many bedpost notches that the sawdust comes up to your waist? Don’t let society think that shit should be rotting your soul away, because it’s your body and what you put into it, and how much you put into it, is your own goddamn business.

And obviously you should fuck on the first date if you both want to. If you feel that, having spent an entire evening fucking each other with your eyes, it’d be swell to fuck each other with your p’s and v’s, you shouldn’t feel like you’re not allowed – who’s to say that you can recreate that kind of chemistry further down the line? You can choose to have sex on the first date, and you can choose not to, and both those choices are fine because they are YOUR choices. In fact, the only side we’ll come down hard on is this – if sex is genuinely the “main prize” in your relationship, you’re probably not in a very healthy relationship.

It goes both ways, of course. If you want to treat sex with reverence, saving it until the moment in which it feels most perfect, or using it as a definitive symbol of your devotion to the person you love – GREAT! That’s going to feel awesome, and whether you come to regret it or not, you made your choice and that’s wonderful. And intentionally not doing it as a sign of your devotion to your body’s symbolic power as a vessel for your beliefs, your morality, and your principles; that’s a really powerful thing too. We could sit here all day and list all the different attitudes you can have towards your own sex life, and every time the answer is the same – if you’re ok, then it’s ok.

There’s a real danger here of cultivating a culture that not only spreads fear – of social stigma, of personal worth, of ‘getting it wrong’ – but also one that represses self-exploration. We grow the skin in which we feel most comfortable by trying things out, by intentionally testing and bending our personal boundaries – and breaking them if needs be – until we’ve made the shape that we like. Making mistakes and having regrets is an important part of that. What’s poisonous to the process is limiting the scope by allowing someone else to impose a universal standard to which you’re ordered to adhere. Want to feel the rush of an unexpected physical encounter with someone with whom you share a primal attraction that’s gripped your very core? Tough, fuck you, you’ve had your six, what on earth are people going to think of you?

And, of course, this all feeds into a more dangerous issue. The universal standard isn’t just used to inspire guilt, or to prevent some kind of global Bacchanal; it can be wielded as a tool of oppression. As highlighted by a piece that appeared on Jezebel this week, the extent to which women are made to feel like sex, consensual or not, can irreparably corrupt their quote unquote purity – which, as they rightly assert, is bullshit – has reached such extremes that rape victims, thanks to the wisdom passed down by male influence, the media and even teachers, are made to feel, in the words of rape victim Elizabeth Smart “like a chewed up piece of gum.” Because she believed that “no one re-chews a piece of gum,” Elizabeth felt so worthless that she didn’t try to escape her captors; “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

So how about this; you do you, I’ll do me, we’ll do each other, everyone can do everyone else and as long as no one’s getting hurt and everyone’s taking the relevant precautions, we’ll just let everyone get on with getting it on.

Bullsh.

Most of the genuinely great content out of the web will never make any money. How can it? People read it and watch it and look at it (and whatever else you do with internet things) for absolutely nothing. If no one’s paying, no one’s earning.

So it is that the only way to make money online is by allowing advertising onto your territory. Painting billboards on your cows, if you will. No? Fine, whatevs.

Unfortunately, advertising makes us all irritated and guilty. We tap our fingers waiting for the first five seconds of an ad to pass, so we can click through it, crying “I DON’T CARE ABOUT CAR INSURANCE, I JUST WANT TO WATCH THE CAT DRESSED LIKE A COWBOY GET STUCK IN THE BATH.” We know that the only way the maker of the genius video is going to make money from it is by us watching the ad in full, but we don’t care. It’s not worth our pain.

It’s a feral, capitalist, consumerrific world out there, but what’s the solution?

Well, potentially, we are.

A recent and excellent development that allows you to appreciate what makes you happy online has arrived in the form of Flattr.com.

Ignoring the fact that removing vowels to make things edgy is inexplicably still a thing, flattr is probably the coolest thing to happen to social media since that lion was on the loose in Essex that time. Flattr uses the “like” or “favourite” functions of a host of different sharing platforms to give micro donations. To you. You, who posted it.

When you sign up to Flattr there are two important steps to the process. You first connect it to the social media platforms you use. You can currently connect easily to Instagram, Soundcloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and then some. You can also add a Flattr button to your own blog. After that you set how much you want to donate per month. The minimum is €3 (I know, it’s in Euro, how exotic) a month, and you pay for a couple of months up front. Then, at the end of every month, that €3, or 5, or 20, or however much you choose to give, is divided amongst all the people whose photos or blog entries or videos you’ve hit the relevant approval button for.

ISN’T THAT GREAT?

Sure, it’s not going to make anyone any real money. I flattred about fifteen people in April, so they’re each getting 20 euro cents, or would if they’d signed up. But it’s not so much about money as it is a way to say “I like your work. It’s worth more to me than a thoughtless click of a button.”

I don’t want to sound like a great sap, but it’s things like this that genuinely make me hopeful for our generation. It’s the spirit behind this and behind Kickstarter (before it got all ruined by douchebags like Zach Braff, who are all “the studio will only give me money if I listen to their OPINIONS and shit”) that is starting to define how we want our world to be.

We want to support each other. We want a stake in each other’s successes. We’re not in things for what we can get out of it, we don’t want to tear each other down on our individual climb to the top.

Because the arrival and success of ventures like this depends on a lot of individuals being great about them. And great about each other.

In October I released a tiny little book into the digital world, and asked people to pay for it. And they did. And still do. And some of them aren’t even my mum. People I’ve never met reviewed it and talked about it and generally promoted it, and every time they did, it was like they were giving me a virtual pat on the back. A pat made of cheese and ice cream and gin and general loveliness.

So huzzah for innovation and having people’s backs, and huzzah for whatever you’ve done on the web that may earn you a few euro cents of my May allocation.

Huzzah for it all.

The problem with being an auteur is that it relies on the precious and careful reconstruction of an aesthetic which only makes sense or even exists in the head of one person, and if that person is not consummately gifted, you end up with a drab and self-important vanity project. Sometimes the auteur may be consummately gifted and still wind up with something tediously self-important. Has anyone seen Magnolia?

I like Magnolia, but only because it offsets its own pompousness by being inarguable in its quality and power. I have watched Scrubs and I do not associate the words ‘quality’ or ‘power’ with Zach Braff. The most immediate words I associate with Zach Braff are ‘urine-soaked mattress’.

Let’s be clear: he’s not an incompetent filmmaker, but he is an intensely annoying one who seems to be stuck in a state of permanent sixth-form. I’ve never been one to say extreme things I don’t mean for a cheap laugh, but I hope hyenas chew off Zach Braff’s genitals.

And now he wants you to pay for his next movie via Kickstarter, the crowdsourcing website. Despite opening the page with a quote from Thomas Edison, which in itself should have you muttering darkly, Braff also refers to potential investors in the video as the ‘money-people’ in what must be the single biggest indicator of what Braff thinks of you, the audience. The second-biggest is expecting you to pay $30 for the privilege of watching the movie, on the internet, once. Once! Alternatively, you could buy $30 worth of wool and have a very similar experience: warm, mildly amusing, cats will like it, and it means basically nothing.

Now, sure, Zach Braff could have this movie made by Hollywood suits, who would insist upon a final cut and casting choices which may ‘hurt’ the movie. Typically, there is an idea that corporate compromises ruin good art, and indeed in some cases they do. But how many of these cases are there? Most movies rely on the input of test audiences and the influence of an experienced sounding board, as well they usually should: except for a rare sprinkling of perfect movie artists, a crop which doesn’t even stretch to include the lauded Tarantino and his highly patchy body of work, every filmmaker should be subject to quality control. And Zach Braff, who has far from proven himself as a writer-director on a Paul Thomas Anderson level, wants your cash to buy his way out of taking notes from the industry veterans. Artists given free rein to do what they will so often disappoint us with self-parody and demonstrations that they, without the gentle influence of studios, investors and the critical voices who thin out inversely in proportion to the artist’s fame, are not as good as we thought they were at making movies.

I think crowdsourcing is a wonderful thing for new artists but as a rule of thumb I think you should be allowed to crowdsource but once, and only below a certain threshold of fame. I have worked on a crowdsourced movie, and if it fails to put our company’s name on the map, then we failed and have to do it again another way. But that’s all it is for us – putting our name on the map. That’s literally the best case scenario. The best case scenario for Zach Braff is that his armies of fans, who adored Garden State and, for some reason, nine full seasons of Scrubs, buy up his new movie in their droves, making it a sleeper hit which nets Braff millions of dollars and leaves the investors who made the whole thing happen out of their own pocket money with nothing but signed copies of the script.

What we need is a paradigm shift: if crowdsourcing is here to stay, and if it does truly circumvent the studios notoriously reluctant to explore new filmmakers, then we have to stop the ‘donations’ and turn them into ‘investments.’ After all, donators are playing the role of the investor now, but instead of five investors with a million bucks each, it’s a million investors with five bucks each. For the system to ever truly replace the old model, we need to disseminate the same benefits of funding a movie as the old industrialists had, and still have. Otherwise it’s glorified charity and that’s hardly a replacement.

In any case, Kevin Smith maxed out all his credit cards to pay the $35,000 for Clerks, because he believed in it. Are we really to believe that the man behind one of our generations most popular, longest running sitcoms can’t find the equivalent of one and a half million pounds? He must not want to spend it, and that means he doesn’t want to tell the story enough. And ultimately, if crowdsourcing is what it is to Braff – a little club which is making a movie together, to paraphrase him – then the other members should be asking themselves why they’re getting such a bum deal.

We do this quite consciously, and we do it because it is easy. In a ceaseless search for definition in a godless 21^st century, to be defined by some great homogenising ideology is far more satisfying than trying to codify the dissonant elements of our being and far more palatable than admitting to ourselves what we are: a hurly burly bundle of contradictions that can never add up to a satisfying whole.

Once you define yourself as a warrior, you start to see the whole world as a battlefield, and every move is a strike and counter-strike. This is Maslow’s hammer-time, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Because now, every offensive action taken by a preordained aggressor is an opportunity to nail your colours to the mast – to stand up and be counted amongst the likeminded legions of the social media militia.

This is the fuel that keeps infernal war machines like ‘Samantha Brick’ and the Daily Mail chugging along, laying waste to this beautiful garden we see on the screens of our dreams. The sole source of ‘Samantha Brick’s’ power is the caterwauling of the righteously indignant who share and link and comment and curse and spread the word of body dysmorphia, slut-shaming, benefit fraudster’s incinerated younglings and whatever other wicked rhetoric flows endless and unbidden down the social stream on any given lunch hour. The Daily Mail may supply the basic parts, but it’s us who are the arms dealers.

And the sad thing is, we know it. We must. How couldn’t we? Even a cursory skim of that latest ‘Samantha Brick’ joint reveals it for exactly what it is – pure liberal PC-baiting at its very broadest, most ham-fisted and shallow. “Any woman who wants to stay beautiful (like me!)”. I mean, come on guys! She’s laughing at us! She’s got us going so many times that she’s now parodying herself, seeing just how far she can push it and still get a rise out of you. I’m not sure there actually is a limit to how far she can go, because these Twitter Feed Fury-a-Thons, blog entries, Thoughts & Feelings pieces are all kneejerk reactions that don’t really stand up to any analysis. Crying jags for trigger words, confirmation bias, and a welcome opportunity, conscious or not, to restate our case as ‘one of the good ones’ in this bad, sad and ugly world.

Brass tack time: ‘Samantha Brick’ is paid to write inflammatory articles to annoy people like us, and as long as we keep getting annoyed by the inflammatory articles she’s paid to write, she’ll keep being paid to write inflammatory articles. This is a foul beast that subsists wholly on exposure generated by the very people who wish to strike it down – the dark progeny of the democratised press. This article is, by its very being, fuel to her diabolic fire. I might go back and omit her name, like they do with homeland terrorists and people who shoot-up primary schools.

But what really cuts is that ‘Samantha Brick’ is actually far smarter than the people who tweet their 140-character disparages and 500-word character assassinations. She has control because we can’t control ourselves, and the harder we fight, the longer we perpetuate this war of worthless words. But then, maybe that’s just what we want: a cause to fight for, and a reason to be.

Even the most agoraphobic of us can be easily inundated with a near constant
stream of indirect appearance based criticism. Magazines with celebrity weight gain scandals, movies where supposedly ordinary people are played by the unobtainably beautiful, infomercials for exercise equipment and diet procedures, all of which can be relentlessly delivered direct to our mind holes. All telling us that we can and should be more perfectly presented, all normalising a world in which our is at the forefront of our minds all the time.

All working so hard to stop us from realising that it’s all total bullsh.

I wish I could just pity you.

Pity the person who’s obviously had the misfortune to come across an endless stream of people who’ve let her believe all she has to offer is her appearance. Pity the woman so insecure in her relationship she genuinely believes it depends on her remaining slim. Pity the woman who credits her looks, rather than her brains or hard work, in keeping her employed. The problem is, as so often happens, the damaged is now causing damage.

Because some people are susceptible to the nonsense. Some people a dangerously given to believing what you are so earnestly trying to convince them of. There are thousands of people looking for someone to confirm that not eating is ok. That it’s normal. That it’s not a miserable and unhealthy way to live.

This infection of food abhorrence is so easily spread. A person can go so quickly from health and happiness to obsession and self-denial. Because that is was this is. Obsession with food. The belief that food is bad, that wanting it is weak, that living in constant hunger is a sign of success. And it leads to, in the best case scenario, a disproportionate amount of energy being given to food related maths, and in the worst, severe malnourishment. It leads to death.

And why? Why do we do this? Why do so many people think it’s a reasonable way to live? Is it just because we happen to live in a society where attractive people are prized to the point of excluding anyone else? Simply that to be found different from the tiny Hollywood mould is to be found wanting?

The society we live in is one we have power to change. We can change it to one where thirteen year old girls aren’t made to feel guilty and unloved because they’re a little chub. All we have to do is reserve the right to eat cake.

Please, please don’t let people feel that they shouldn’t eat cake.

But I’m not putting the burden of this solely on your shoulders. A hearty portion of blame must go to the douchery of editors who would publish a piece like yours. It was an action sure to reinforce the delusions of both its writer and prospective readers. The Daily Mail has exploited your weakness for profit, and for that they deserve to be ashamed. They have potentially led a slew of youngsters towards a serious eating disorder, and for that they deserve to be completely abandoned. But they won’t be, of course. They will thrive on the controversy of your tragic narrowness, of your bizarre adherence to wildly superficial and outdated views.

For you, I suppose all you’re really guilty of is the arrogant presumption of assessing the lives of others based on your own warped standards. Of assuming people have failed simply because they value things other than their waistlines. And also of making this about sex. Claiming that women should be svelte in order to keep and satisfy a man. It’s not about women and men, Samantha. It’s about people ludicrously buying into the arbitrary expectations of other people. About people feeling like their first goal in life should be impressing others.

I’m not saying it’s wrong or strange to want to look good. I exercise as regularly as I can make myself, and a good third of my reasons were because I want to be attractive. The other two are because I want to be fit in case I unexpectedly have to climb a hill or escape a raptor, and because I make a living from my mind, so want the blood pumping through it good and fast. And sure, in a perfect world I’d have a super flat belly, rather than the quite poochy one I’ve got at the moment.
But in perfect worlds, you have to constantly keep up with the perfection, so perfect worlds can fuck right off; in this world I get to be messy and chaotic, and I get to be happy.

Are you happy, Samantha? Not in a superficial way, mostly based on your misconception about the envy your trim figure causes other women, but gently, resolutely, with no disquiet in your spirit? Maybe you are; I don’t know you, after all. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that my road to happiness is anything like yours.

My road will continue to include putting cheese on anything that can take it and being overly enthusiastic about ice cream.

I will sign off now, Samantha, with a quote from one Julia Child. A highly successful woman who knew what to do with food:

“Life itself is the proper binge.”