Gawker - They always come crawlin’ back

By Tarpley Hitt

Wikipedia credits an economist named Mark Boldger, but he's oddly hard to find

From the moment the phenomenon known as “quiet quitting” transitioned from niche TikTok topic to mainstream buzzword, it took on the kind of amorphous meaning that only a forced trend can. According to its very recent entry on Dictionary.com, “quiet quitting” means “reducing the amount of effort one devotes to one’s job,” like declining “any tasks not explicitly stated in the job description.” But few interpretations proved as literal. For Bloomberg readers, it meant CEOs were in a “state of fear.” For the Wall Street Journal, it was a symbol of Gen-Z’s “quiet privilege.” For tech writer Ed Zitron, it meant the demonization of “workers who aren’t doing free labor.” For at least one motivational speaker, it offered a job opportunity (he hawks corporate solutions for $15,000 a day), while for the Atlantic and other outlets, it was, simply, fake. “What people are now calling ‘quiet quitting,’” the Atlantic argued, “was, in previous decades, simply known as ‘having a job.’”

The fad also struck me as fake, or at least irrelevant. Who cares if workers are doing exactly what they’re asked? That’s what a job is. The whole cycle smelled like an employer psyop, managers trying to claw back control in the midst of pandemic-related mass resignations and mounting support for organized labor. But even psyops come from somewhere. If this was an “epidemic,” there had to be some patient zero — did quiet quitting waft down from some S&P 500 conglomerate’s panicked annual report? Was it a grassroots movement triggered by frustrated Zoomers tired of sending 8 p.m. emails? The answer should have been straightforward. But in the endless stream of search engine optimized articles, its origins seemed oddly hard to find. Continue reading

By Claire Carusillo

One of 12 fundamental truths

I know exactly 12 things to be true. Here’s one: affability is an important instinct to cultivate. Another one: If falling in love doesn’t feel like a return to some tenderness that got kicked out of you in second grade, it isn’t the real thing – everyone just wants to be called “baby” by a person who means it. A third truth: Two people can get over almost anything with each other except repulsion. You’ll have to pay for the other eight, but here’s a final one, the most important one, for free: They always come crawlin’ back.

What does it mean, that they always come crawlin’ back, and is dropping the g on “crawling” part of what makes this maxim irrefutable? The easier part to answer: Yes, dropping the g is essential. Say crawlin’ like a world-weary woman trying to ride out a humid summer night on her front porch in a semi-rural Wisconsin town nursing a no-longer-cold beer when she sees a shadowy figure from her past roll up the driveway in a banged up Ford F-150, prepared to lie prostrate on the gravel begging for a little bit of mercy. You can also add a Well, well, well to the front. As in Well, well, well, they always come crawlin’ back. Don’t they?

They do. It might be a few months, or seven years, or multiple decades for them to come crawlin’ back. When it happens, you may no longer recognize the person who’s squirming around on their knees beneath your nose. Maybe they found God. Maybe they got a new chin and some tasteful filler. Maybe they started dressing for their body type. Bully for you if you no longer care, or if you don’t forgive them, or if you were in the wrong in the first place. None of that changes that they came crawlin’ back. Continue reading

By George Civeris

If she's going to look that snatched doing it

Everything is a meme these days, and mostly that makes me want to erase my online footprint and move to Amanda Seyfried’s farm. However, every once in a while, something designed to go viral comes along that so perfectly captures the global zeitgeist that I have to swivel my “X Factor” chair around and press the “SLAY” button. Today, that something is a diminutive move-busting fashionista by the name of M3GAN.

In April, when I was first introduced to M3GAN via the poster for her James Wan-produced biopic (M3GAN), I declared her “the it girl we need” and clapped back at the haters calling her “yassified Annabelle.” Now, those haters are once again eating crow, because M3GAN — the girl robot, mental health advocate, and future face of Miu Miu — is shining brighter than ever in her very own full-length trailer. Continue reading

By Kelly Conaboy

A brief summary of relevant ‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ events, ahead of the tumultuous reunion

“Why is she upset and crying? I’m the one who bullied and percacuted for 10 months!” Kathy Hilton wrote, somewhat incomprehensibly, on Instagram over the weekend. The mother of Paris Hilton, wife of hotel Hilton, and housewife of Beverly Hills (sort of) (she’s not an official housewife but she’s there) was responding to a comment that showed concern for the emotional state of her sister Kyle Richards, following a preview of the upcoming Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion episodes. In it, Richards is upset and crying.

Why is she upset and crying? Especially when Kathy Hilton is the one who bullied and percacuted for 10 months? I don’t know, but we can try to untangle it together.

Is it because of years of family trauma?

“They cannot reconcile, and it's all so complicated because nobody's backing down,” a source told People regarding the current state of the sisters’ relationship. “Kyle has backed up her sister for years and no matter what she does, Kathy isn't satisfied. What we're watching is years of family trauma that hasn't been dealt with in a family dynamic."

Thanks to the fact that Kyle and her sisters have been followed by Bravo’s cameras for over a decade, we have some insight into some of that family trauma. Let’s go through it in a bullet-pointed list: Continue reading

By Olivia Craighead

It has become increasingly apparent that the TV remake is cursed

There has probably never been a worse time to remake the 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in the headlines once again, but this time because she is alleging that he physically assaulted both her and their children on a plane in 2016. But unfortunately for Amazon, Donald Glover, and Maya Erskine, their Mr. & Mrs. Smith show has been in the works since 2021, and they’ve been filming since this summer, so there’s no turning the ship around now.

I’m calling it now: The TV remake of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is cursed. The series was originally set to star and be executive produced by both Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but the Fleabag creator dropped out last year due to “creative differences” with Glover. She must have seen the writing on the wall. It was then announced (by Glover in a bizarre interview he did with himself) that Erskine, best known for Pen15, would take over the Mrs. role. Now the Pitt-Jolie battle is only getting nastier — with sources “close to Pitt” running to tabloids to smear Jolie’s name seemingly every other day — and will no doubt cast a shadow over the show’s release.

Through some careful consultation with my third eye and the help of some recent paparazzi shots from the set, where everyone looks super excited to be working on the project, here is how I see the press tour for Mr. & Mrs. Smith going: Continue reading