Journey To The Centre Of Attention
It occurs to me that it’s been a while since we marvelled at the mind of Laurie Penny. We must correct that immediately:
She “earned that pronoun with a lot of hard work,” you know. While also, rather suddenly, becoming a being of indeterminate gender. A they, depending on who’s nearby, and how fashionable they are.
Update, via the comments:
As long-time readers will know, this is part of Laurie’s ongoing, seemingly endless drama, in which she feels a need to ‘come out’ to the same group of Twitter followers, over and over again, as in some way unconventional or sexually anomalous, each time with some new twist or contradiction, some new basis for applause. Such that one has to wonder exactly how many times this feat of stunning bravery can be achieved.
Of course, if Laurie didn’t keep outing herself as something or other every few months, apparently depending on which word is in fashion, people might not realise just how fascinating and complicated she is. And in the hamster-wheel world of competitive self-definition, being merely feminist-and-a-bit-bisexual is so old hat. Even adding polyamory to her list of attributes doesn’t cut it anymore.
Given that straight, cis and white are now commonly used as pejoratives, not least by Laurie and her followers, there’s an obvious incentive to depict oneself as unblemished by such low-status labels. And hence the periodic modifications to Laurie’s ongoing project of self-description. You don’t want to be seen wearing last season’s identity tags.
And so, what we’re seeing above is a status-game called My Pronouns Are More Complicated Than Yours™. As Laurie’s latest must-haves are apparently dependent on whim and arbitrary contrivance, and could change again at any moment, and in unforeseen ways, it’s a strong hand. Among the neurotic and pretentious, I mean.
Update 2:
Oh no, mockery. How very dare they.
As long-time readers will know, this is part of Laurie’s ongoing, seemingly endless drama, in which she feels a need to ‘come out’ to the same group of Twitter followers, over and over again, as in some way sexually anomalous, each time with some new twist or contradiction, some new basis for applause. You have to wonder exactly how many times this feat of stunning bravery can be achieved, having first declared herself – sorry, themself – as “queer” and “polyamorous,” then, later, as “genderqueer,” and then again as “pansexual.”
Of course, if she didn’t keep outing herself as something or other every few months, apparently depending on which word is in fashion, people might not realise just how fascinating and complicated she is.
Has she ticked ALL of the boxes yet?
Has she ticked ALL of the boxes yet?
She does seem to be working her way through all conceivable categories and sub-categories. By the summer of 2026, I expect we’ll be told, earnestly, that our fearless feminist has always been a man. And therefore oppressing herself, presumably.
I suppose we should have seen this development coming.
The whole “my pronouns are…” thing is now well established and most people will use the pronouns stipulated, even if they think it’s daft, which doesn’t leave a lot of opportunity for shrieking and frothing about the patriarchy.
So, why not use two sets of pronouns instead of just one, and specify different circumstances in which it is appropriate to use each set? But here’s the clever part. Make sure that there’s some uncertainty or ambiguity over precisely when it is appropriate to use each set of pronouns. Now you can be sure that some people will get it wrong and you’ll have ample opportunity for weeping and whining and carrying on. Problem solved. Victimhood triumphantly reclaimed.
It used to be that aristocrats and clergy got their own special pronouns – your holiness, your grace, your highness, your majesty etc. And it used to be the left were opposed to that. Everybody should be equal, with no distinctions of rank. Everyone was to be addressed as “comrade”. It wasn’t just the crazy commies, the Labour Party used to call each other “comrades” at conference (until Tony Blair modified it to “colleagues”). Now, just like they’ve reinvented racial segregation and believing that black people are just child-like savages who not much can be expected of, they’ve also reinvented genuflection.
Ladies and gentlemen, the progressives.
And Laurie does spend an inordinate amount of time publicly defining herself.
It’s almost recreational.
She “earned that pronoun with a lot of hard work,” you know.
What the hell does that even mean?
What the hell does that even mean?
Heh. Today’s word is narcissism.
Of course, if she didn’t keep outing herself as something or other every few months…
But never, ever, something that would position her in violation of the left’s orthodoxy de jour.
What the hell does that even mean?
Nothing. It means nothing. Animal noises.
But never, ever, something that would position her in violation of the left’s orthodoxy du jour.
Well, her seemingly random outbursts of self-definition do seem to track with whatever term is currently in fashion, at least among her peer-group of niche neurotics and the pretentiously woke. Which suggests a kind of hamster-wheel world of forever keeping up with the Joneses.
There does seem to be a fear of being seen as insufficiently modish and complicated. Being merely feminist and bisexual is so old hat. Even adding polyamory didn’t cut it. And so, our self-fixated titan is now, rather suddenly, of indeterminate gender, a they, depending on who’s present, of course.
[ Edited. ]
It’s hard to make any sense of her tweets, but this one includes an inference that Laurie considers her ‘profession’ to be: “feminist in public”.
I can almost hear the howls of laughter at the registrar, the passport office, or indeed anywhere that she may need to state her occupation.
(Apologies for omitting the caps. I’m sure they’re important: “Feminist in Public”.)
I can’t quite remember where I read about an individual who self-identified as an attack helicopter but some small part of me fervently hopes that the Pennies (or is it Pennys?) have read the same thing.
By the summer of 2026, …
She’s 33 now?
Fuck social mobility. Fuck security. Fuck money. Fuck rising above your class rather than with it. Fuck marriage, mortgage, monogamy, and every other small, ugly ambition we were bullied into pursuing. [ … ]
Doomed youth isn’t so sympathetic when it’s screaming defiance in your face [… ] We tried terribly hard to save each other, in the way that young people do, sharing out whatever meager bits of work and welfare we could get our hands on, nursing one another ineffectually through the shock of walking out of school and college into a world that didn’t want us.
Hmm …
Screenwriter: The Nevers, The Haunting, Carnival Row. … London/Los Angeles
LP and her like should simply identify as a car crash. It would be far more accurate.
Good title, btw.
Good title, btw.
Shamelessly swiped from an episode of The Golden Girls.
Oh dear, oh dear, what a conundrum. A vexatious state of affairs I tell you! I have always assumed she/her pronouns. Even worse I have never felt the need to tell anyone or put a label on my lanyard announcing it. Ms Penny has alerted me to the fact that I may not have earned those pronouns. Fellow travellers, please help me to develop a criteria to determine my worthiness, or not, of said pronouns. If I am not in fact entitled to them just cos I have a cervix or something, does that automatically entitle me to they/their, or is their another set of criteria needed to use those?
Please help…..
“I earned that pronoun with a lot of hard work.”
No, the person working was your dad and even then, likely in under three minutes.
Oh, also how does one qualify to become a ‘feminist in public’, does it pay well, will I need to do further study, are there good retirement benefits etc?
Has she ticked ALL of the boxes yet?
Normal?
She’s 33 now?
For those who missed Nikw211’s reference.
And for readers unfamiliar with Ms Penny and her strange mental contortions, a beginner’s guide.
She’s 33 now?
At 34?
At 34?
My first thought was I learned the truth at 34
The correct pronoun is, of course, “you”. (Or “thee” and “thou” if you’re old fashioned.) You don’t get to tell me how I talk about you to third people.
the person working was your dad and even then, likely in under three minutes.
I’ve never been so pretentious (no, really) as to declare such a thing on line, and admittedly the competition on this thread is top-notch…episode of the Golden Girls indeed…but this is a thread winner IMNSHO.
Can’t we just call her asshole?
Oh dear, oh dear, what a conundrum.
It’s a status-game called My Pronouns Are More Complicated Than Yours™. As Laurie’s latest must-haves are apparently dependent on whim and arbitrary contrivance, and could change at any moment, it’s a strong hand.
Among the neurotic and pretentious, I mean.
Writings like this reminds me that I *have* to search for that old Looney Tunes cartoon. It was in black and white, with the first-draft attempt at Bugs Bunny. Elmer (before he bought the shotgun) is treating Bugs like a real rabbit and puts a plate of veggies before him. Bugs gets irate, stands up, and berates Elmer for his caring behavior, all the while stuffing his face with carrots and lettuce.
This seems like the perfect metaphor for her behavior.
A proper attempt at Googling shows me that the video was “Elmer’s Pet Rabbit,” a color toon from 1940.
Relevant scene on DailyMotion at the 2:25 mark
https://dai.ly/x3clilk
Someone made up a twatter profile of some AK wielding pantyfa who got ventilated. It included Pronouns: was/were.
there should be many more of these.
That DailyMotion site also has the
terrificterribly violent, racist, homophobic Rabbit Fire.“When I’m being a Feminist in public I’ll use she.”
Presumably, if one is a feminist, one is always a feminist. Being a “‘Feminist’ in public” confesses and confirms David’s observations that she’s a spin-the-wheel-of-woke persona for every occasion.
I doubt she’s ever used “she” to refer to herself while being a “‘Feminist’ in public” unless she’s adopted the habit of referring to herself in the third person–although she does seem a royal twit.
although she does seem a royal twit.
As we’ve seen many times, Laurie is interesting only as an example of leftist pathology, having internalised almost every vanity and dishonesty, every mental tic and ludicrous pretension, of the wokeling left. And so, she flies around the world, from Oxford to Harvard, from London to Los Angeles, while tweeting about how oppressed she is.
She’s practically a cartoon.
Language policing is so tiring you’d think there was another agenda barely hidden by daily new rules.
it’s a strong hand
Bucky Fuller’s pipsqueak classic I Seem to Be a Verb marked (I won’t say celebrated) fifty years in print recently — so for these fifty years Miss Lorrypenny has been irrecoverably topped. She just doesn’t know when to fold ’em.
she does seem a royal twit.
Wrong vowel.
David does Laurie Penny, Tim Worstall does Richard Murphy.
Perhaps we should introduce Laurie to Richard.
Perhaps we should introduce Laurie to Richard.
I’ve a vague recollection that Laurie has mentioned him approvingly at some point.
Hey, it’s one way to frame your neurotic ideology as decisiveness.
Regarding Miss Penny, Lisa cuts to the chase.
Okay, so if I’m reading this right, Laurie thinks everyone starts as a ‘they’. Someone has to earn a ‘she’ pronoun (and presumably a ‘he’ pronoun as well, though why anyone would want to earn that is presumably left up to the imagination). She earned her ‘she’ pronoun (which she likens as akin to a doctorate) via her feminist activism. But by her own beliefs, she (they?) started off as non-binary. As does everyone else who doesn’t put in the work.
So who was she (well, ‘they’ at the time, before enough effort was put in) being an activist for? 99% of the population is non-binary, and thus not an acceptable target for female-centric activism. Given that being ‘she’ is like being a doctor, did she spend all that time advocating for a very specific group of professionals? A group that 99% isn’t, and therefore could be reasonably called ‘the 1%’?
Barkeep! Give me something strong. If I don’t get this logic out of my mind immediately, I may go mad.
By the summer of 2026, I expect we’ll be told, earnestly, that our fearless feminist has always been a man.
Shortly after that, she’ll self-identify as Ficus pandorata.
I would have thought that Laurie’s pronouns were Karen, Karen, and Karen, no?
And inevitably, victimhood.
@Geoffrey
For Laurie Penny, being a woman means being a good Feminist. It’s an ideological act, not a biological fact. She’s worked very hard to be a good Feminist. Hence, she’s earned the pronoun ‘she’.
And inevitably, victimhood.
Seeks attention. Gets attention. Complains about attention. Poor dear. Life in the fast lane.
Seeks attention. Gets attention. Complains about attention. Poor dear. Life in the fast lane.
It was the line, “I just don’t talk about it much.”
Heh.
The above “heh” exchange perfectly exemplifies the fact that Laurie and her/their (sighs) ilk believe that twitter represents the world.
You are speaking into a very small echo chamber love/chaps (sighs again).
Off Topic:
Maybe there is such a thing as white privilege after all.
“Let me see your face! Let me see your face!”
“We’re gonna burn your building down!”
“We know where you li-ive!”
It’s hard to think of an alternative explanation as to why they have not been apprehended or, quite frankly, just shot dead.
“We’re gonna burn your building down!”
You have to wonder exactly how degenerate and sociopathic these creatures have to become – how obviously evil – before declaring affinity with Antifa and associated cults results in a public beating, every time.
victimhood
“I’ve been out for years. I just don’t talk about it much. Everyone really needs to calm down.”
Well, thank God for that.
Previously in LaurieWorld. The comments are worth a peek.
“We’re gonna burn your building down!”
Perhaps residents should take them at their word and use Any Means Necessary to end the threat.
…how fashionable they are.
Not entirely unrelated, for the
comicsgraphic novel fans out there.Rad.
Rad.
So our woke heroine’s adventures largely involve carbs, breathlessness and chafing thighs?
So our woke heroine’s adventures largely involve carbs, breathlessness and chafing thighs?
Classic signs of water retention. Looks like menstruation bloat to me.
Classic signs of water retention. Looks like menstruation bloat to me.
I’m sure I wouldn’t know.
Everyone really needs to calm down.
Physician heal thyself.
You may not know about menstruation bloat but quite a few “men” claim to and woe betide anyone who questions them.
File under “today’s world in a single sentence”.
As bad as that comic looks, I was very impressed when I clicked on the link to Rooster Teeth.
Their channel icon is superimposed on what can only be described as the flag of Wokistan.
…I was very impressed when I clicked on the link to Rooster Teeth.
I have to admit that when I first saw the logo in the bottom right corner of the cover, and was trying to figure out what it meant, I didn’t think “Roster Teeth”, but another word for rooster and what teeth do, and the result was more apt. I will report for still more regrooving.
Rad.
So in changing WW into a black woman, the artist also makes her obese.
Nope, no racial stereotyping there, eh Woke Artist of Pallor?
…eh Woke Artist of Pallor?
Pretty much also a one trick pony, it seems.
Pretty much also a one trick pony, it seems.
UV black light bulb extra. Can’t you just smell the incense and patchouli?
Woman with large butt draws other women with even larger butts.
What can this mean?
Dear Penny
Dost tha’ know how much tha’ gets from thy Patronise account?
Some say that thee gender-queer beings rakes in thousands a month but tha’d share it with the poor I’m sure.
What can this mean?
That her figure is the ideal figure.
I’m surprised that the people behind the old Red vs. Blue are now responsible for such a football-fucking monkey circus.
“football-fucking monkey circus.”
I’m not sure exactly what that means but it’s got to be very very bad.
From the thread:
“I honestly don’t care what pronouns someone uses, it’s their right to be referred to in the manner which they are most comfortable.”
No it bloody isn’t. It’s my right to refer to you any damn way I please. And, in fairness, it’s yours to be offended should I, for example – purely off the top of my head, you understand – choose to call you an oversensitive, self-absorbed, narcissistic arsewomble.
“We took an honest look at 17+ years of videos, many of them made live and uploaded on a daily basis, and concluded some do not fit the ethos of our company today”
Clearly not. Your company used to be cool.
Where is the compassion…she’s ivy league
I’m not sure exactly what that means but it’s got to be very very bad.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/monkey_humping_a_football
Your company used to be cool.
Color me surprised to learn that the creators of Rooster Teeth are apparently no longer a part of it. The present-day entity is just another example of Iowahawk’s “skin suit”.
“We took an honest look at 17+ years of videos, many of them made live and uploaded on a daily basis, and concluded some do not fit the ethos of our company today”
Wait, is that a quote from Rooster Teeth? Did they decide to purge some of their videos because they were insufficiently woke?
What, pray tell, is the Fahrenheit temperature at which hard drives burn?
Do you think LP will still be desperately seeking attention when she’s 44?
Probably but she’ll then be complaining about no longer being sexually attractive to people younger than her…just like her mate/rival Jessica Valenti…
I’ve been out for years. I just don’t talk about it much. Everyone really needs to calm down.
NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF CALMING DOWN HAS A PERSON CALMED DOWN AFTER BEING TOLD TO….
Oh, sorry, wrong meme response. Only works on lefties if a fellow lefty is doing it. My mistake.
the hamster-wheel world of competitive self-definition
That.
That.
Well, given that straight, cis and white are now commonly used as pejoratives, not least by Laurie and her followers, there’s an obvious incentive to depict oneself as exempt from such low-status labels. In a peer-group of neurotic poseurs, that is. And hence the periodic modifications to Laurie’s ongoing, seemingly endless, self-description.
You don’t want to be seen wearing last season’s identity tags.
That.
It is, I think, one of the ironies of modern leftism. If, for instance, you poke through Laurie’s Twitter feed, you’ll see that she and her likeminded admirers very much like to imagine themselves – and to describe themselves – as radical, freethinking, counter-cultural, iconoclastic, etc, while simultaneously being utterly predictable, even in their perversity, and while clearly being concerned by how their fellow wokelings will judge them. There’s lots of Gotcha! being played. For many, having opinions that are two weeks out of date is a kind of social death, and many hoops will be jumped through in order to avoid that terrible fate.
This may explain why such people often seek out environments in which they can browbeat impressionable and insecure teenagers, among whom peer-pressure is very much a thing, and why they often fare poorly when arguing with adults outside of their usual in-group, where the assumed pressure to conform may not be a priority, and not be available as leverage.
What can this mean?
It means DC has decided to follow Marvel’s policy of hiring woke Twitterati to write and draw their flagship books.
Because that’s worked out so well for Marvel.
Fun fact: it doesn’t actually matter, because no one reads Wonder Woman. Seriously. DC only keeps the title in print because they have to under the terms of the license; if they don’t print a new Wonder Woman comic every so many years, the rights to the character revert to Moulton’s estate. It’s one of the reasons why the Wonder Woman canon is so confused and why they’ve done so many weird things with it over the years; they just don’t care, and there aren’t enough readers to influence their editorial decisions.
Woman with large butt draws other women with even larger butts.
What can this mean?
It’s obvious: she’s creating mental space. If she can normalize (even in her own mind) larger butts then she 1) feels more attractive with just a ‘large’ butt and 2) she won’t feel so terrible when she inevitably has her own, larger butt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53ZSxkQ3Ho
Hey, I waited until the end to post this.
What’s wrong with her hair?