The top 10 Rubesletters of 2023:

1. A family is a dictatorship ruled over by its sickest member

2. U2 at Sphere is the nightmare future of music

3. Ubuntu, hoops, and the antidote to toxic masculinity

4. I see you're taking a Zoom meeting in this coffeeshop

5. "THAT did not age well" and the battle between generations

6. "This isn't just hurt feelings. I want to give up."

7. We don't know how to look 👀

8. America the freak show

9. In defense of night owls 🦉

10. Good comedy isn’t on anyone’s side

Honorable mention:

• Why no one trusts the media anymore – and what to do about it

• Dear men, stop dressing like trash

• The futures that never happen

• On George Michael, David Foster Wallace, and making great art

• How to solve toxic masculinity

• The glorious horror of the New York City subway

• The greatest guitar solo ever played

• Bill Burr: "If you're going to fail, fail doing what you want."

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Quickies

🎯 Flying Basic Economy:

1. No changes

2. No checked bags

3. No advanced seat selection

4. Board last

5. Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather

6. Taste the whip, now plead for me

🎯 It's always hard for me to buy super religious couples. I feel like most of the time one of 'em is all in but the other one is secretly rolling their eyes while playing along because something's gotta give. "Yeah, sure. Bible stuff. Can we eat now?"

🎯 We've overdosed on authenticity, red flags, and "I get my way"ness. We really need to bring back settling, persuading, compromising, and pretending. Those are the lube to a functional society.

🎯 America is all about freedom! (And mass incarceration.) Basically, it’s the place where you have the freedom to wind up in jail.

🎯 Dear people mad at Jews, no more playing the Xmas songs we wrote for y'all. That means removing these from your holiday playlist:

• “White Christmas”

• “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

• “Walkin In a Winter Wonderland”

• “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”

• “Let it Snow”

• “Santa Baby”

• “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

• “Silver Bells”

🎯 I f****d around. But I'm still clueless. Didn't find out anything. Can I please talk to your manager?

🎯 The internet unbundled everything. Including America.

🎯 The more things get efficient, the flakier people behave. The easier it is to make plans, the more likely people are to cancel at the last minute. Eventually, “definitely” becomes probably, “probably” becomes maybe, and “maybe” becomes no.

🎯 RFE (Red Flag Energy) - you’re not walking away yet, but major BEWARE vibes lurk

🎯 NYC vs. the midwest: Everyone is 10 pounds lighter but 10 times more depressed.

🎯 I’ll say it again: Giuliani's life is the plot of the movie "Rudy" in reverse.

“Rudy” the movie: A no-talent loser, through determination & perseverance, winds up becoming an inspirational hero.

Rudy Giuliani: An inspirational hero, through determination & perseverance, winds up becoming a no-talent loser.

Comedy

🃏 I post clips of my standup (and more) at Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and YouTube.

🃏 Check out my other newsletter that’s all about the craft of doing standup: Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian. Recent posts there:

🃏 Podcast coming back in strong in 2024. Catch up on previous episodes (most are evergreen!)…

Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby Stereoactive Media 32 episodes

5-spotted

🗯️ Kurt Vonnegut on why couples fight:

When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this: “You are not enough people!”

🗯️ To clear “the doors of perception,” as William Blake wrote, Jim Morrison resorted to violence or sex (via Jillian Hess).

I rely on images of violence, which bring the shock of pain, to penetrate the barriers people erect and defend, not simple defenses; the phony facades people live behind. Blocking their perceptions from coming in, and blocking their feelings from coming out. There are two ways I try to shatter those facades, or at least make a hole where something can get in, to let the trapped feelings out—one way is violence, pain. The other is eroticism.

🗯️ Was Linus a Jew? James Poniewozik:

Linus, my favorite character, has many attributes of the Brainy Jewish Friend archetype, like Seth Cohen of “The O.C.” or Ross Geller of “Friends.”

He analyzes and overanalyzes, talking Charlie Brown through his depressions and existential confusion. He nurses his anxieties and neuroses, carrying his security blanket like an emblem of strength (capable of whipping a snowball like David’s slingshot). Every Halloween, he forgoes the celebration of the larger community around him and awaits a messiah.

🗯️ There used to be a middle class for creators. And then digital came along. Li Jin on the Web3 cooldown. (via sari azout)

Pre-digital platforms, pre-industrialization, we had a world where many more artisans and craftspeople existed. The absence of mass distribution mechanisms kept anyone from attaining superstar status and enabled a broader distribution of success.

🗯️ Everybody plays the victim now…because clout. Jason Zinoman (sharp comedy critic for the NY Times) saw Hasan Minaj and offers up some post-scandal context.

While I thought some of Minhaj’s fabrications were unnecessary and wrongheaded, I never thought he was a “psycho.” What I saw was a comic responding to the incentives of a culture that not only prefers its politics wrapped inside a personal emotional story, but also gives clout to dramatic displays of victimhood.

We live in a time when seemingly everyone, no matter how rich, famous or successful, is angling to play the victim. Elon Musk invites sympathy by telling us that a company refusing to advertise on his site is equivalent to blackmail. When even Taylor Swift says she was canceled in the Time magazine article announcing her as Person of the Year, you know that the ability to repackage yourself as the underdog is limitless.

Thanks for reading/the Rubesletter’s off next week/see ya in 2024!

-Matt

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