Looking for some excellent reading material this weekend? We’ve got you covered:
For tears: RIP Tumblr’s NSFW content, a safe place that for many marginalized groups was the only place to be horny online.
For lols: Having a gastroenterologist break down farts according to how satisfying they are is pretty funny. But reading Miles Klee explain why expensive work lunches with the team are the ultimate form of adult peer pressure is even funnier.
For help: Win over your partner’s co-workers at their office holiday party. Learn how to improvise better when you’re doing public speaking. And continue to fuck safely (and like a champ) while dealing with a latex allergy.
But don’t stop there — here’s everything else that was great from the week that was…
Must Reads
“How Maine’s Queen of ‘Moose Tirds’ Became an Internet Sensation”
No one loves shit more than Mary Winchenbach — pardon me, “tirds,” as she calls the stuff. Winchenbach recently quit her day job to dedicate her life to making poop products after going viral on YouTube, her home now transformed into a mess of buckets of moose tirds and boxes to ship out the products she makes from the piles of shit she collects in the woods. And by products, I mean all the tird trinkets you never knew you wanted — from a bespoke “poo poo clock” to an actual piece of shit on a stick (or a“poopsicle”). READ MORE
“Stop Saying ‘Ghosting’ Is Abuse”
It’s dangerous to equate “ghosting” with the serious kinds of emotional and physical mistreatment that takes place in the context of established relationships, writes Maddie Holden. While ghosting is both selfish and cowardly, pushing the idea that it’s the same as something far, far worse is glib, reductive, and most importantly, bad for survivors of actual emotional and physical abuse. READ MORE
“The 30-Year Search for the U.K.’s Most Famous Missing Son”
Charles Horvath-Allan is a name synonymous with the roll call of Britain’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. That’s because, in 1989, Horvath-Allan disappeared without a trace three weeks into a gap-year hike across Canada. His mother, Denise, wasn’t initially concerned when he didn’t call her as promised. But when the days turned into weeks, her maternal instincts kicked in. Now, though, three decades since his disappearance, Denise is “running out of life” to find out what happened to her son. READ MORE
“The Internet Before the Internet: The Bizarre Heyday of the 1-900 Number”
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Case in point: our connected world. Because, while the internet may have brought people and their weird sexual and social proclivities into the digital era, the analog world of 1-900 numbers in the 1980s and 1990s was just as bizarre. Like telling Eddie Murphy to kill a lobster, bizarre. READ MORE
Five Things We Learned This Week
- You may think your one-star review on Yelp is the comeuppance a bar or restaurant deserves, but usually, staffers pass around your bad review and make fun of you. Bartender and MEL booze correspondent Haley Hamilton breaks down the four types of Yelp review(er)s every member of the service industry laughs at without shame.
- The healthiest fish you can eat is probably the type you want to eat the least. Mackerel, sardines and herring fall into this bucket, mainly because they’re at the bottom of the food chain, which means they’re low in the mercury and microplastics that accumulate in predatory fish. Least healthy? Shark — but who would want to eat a shark, anyway?
- The stigma of PTSD is keeping veterans unemployed. Stable jobs are what vets need more than anything else when they arrive home from being deployed overseas, but the fear of panic attacks, bouts of aggression or worse has employers weary to hire them.
- “Poop tools” are actual things people use in the bathroom, and they’re actually useful under the right circumstances. Notice I said “useful,” not “normal,” “hygienic” or “something sane people use.” But, let’s face it, when you have a low-flow toilet that struggles to flush huge dumps, sometimes you need a knife, spatula or other edged tool to cut that shit into smaller pieces.
- The Jeopardy! scene in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray “predicts” the answers features real footage from the show. Not just any episode, either — it’s an episode from the Tournament of Champions. In fact, you can learn a lot about Jeopardy! if you watch all 18 hours of the show currently on Netflix right now. I would know, I did it.
Quotes of the Week
Amyl Nitrites, aka poppers, might be a beloved recreational drug of the gay community, but their side effects — headaches, blue fingers, hacking cough — make them a crapshoot. Enter Double Scorpio, the first popper made with “organic chemistry” that promises all of the hole-loosening without any of the additives.
For most people, any acne they had in their teenage years usually goes away by their early 20s. But what if it doesn’t? Quinn Myers spoke to two guys about what it’s like to have acne well into manhood.
What’s it like to drop acid for the first time? Often it’s a beautiful experience where colors are brighter and sound is crisper. Sometimes, though, it’s your friends turning into rat people. Here’s what three guys experienced when they lost their LSD virginity.
Jeff Gross
Jeff Gross is MEL’s senior editor for social media and content marketing. His daily ICYMI column, which chronicles all things meta on the site, is the quickest way to catch up on MEL, and the funniest thing you’ll read all day. Follow him on Twitter.
