The Vine: February 6, 2009
Hello Sars!
I love online advice columns, hence my reading of The Vine. I’m looking for more to read, but would you believe it’s difficult? There’s boring old Dear Abby and other, rather stuffy, syndicated columnists — and on the other side of the coin, when I Googled “agony aunt,” the first link was for a spanking site (both amateur and professional!), which…you know, consenting adults, whatever, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.
Recommendations?
Yours,
Enough with the Dan Savage already
Dear Enough,
I don’t read advice columns anymore. I used to read one, Dear Prudence, but I tired of it last year; it’s sort of a busman’s holiday. At this point, the only time I really read other columns is if a reader tips me that a Vine letter showed up somewhere else too.
But I think the readers will have a wide range of suggestions. Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
“I am an outlier in finding Dan Savage nowhere near as funny, and PARTICULARLY nowhere near as enlightened, as he thinks he is. He has a very particular attitude about sex and about what’s important in life, and there are people he likes and people he hates, and unless you share his values about relationships and people — which I ultimately realized I don’t, at all — he barely thinks you deserve to live, which I ultimately grew tired of hearing.”
I disagree with this interpretation. Dan can be over the top at times; I don’t disagree with that. But his basic attitude about relationships and people is that everybody should mind their own business and stay out of other’s lives. Its people who try to impose their value systems on others that he has a problem with, and I agree with that.
The author of “Dear Prudence” changed at some point in the last couple (few?) years, and that has definitely made a difference in the advice given.
Ooh! Another person that loves advice columns as much as I do! I read Dear Prudence but there’s also “Dear Margo” — she was on Yahoo and is now on wowOwow (as of late January: http://www.wowowow.com/category/margo-howard). The link to Yahoo is here: http://news.yahoo.com/i/2680.
PLENTY of archives. Enjoy!
“But his basic attitude about relationships and people is that everybody should mind their own business and stay out of other’s lives.”
Sure, but he hurls an endless string of insults at you if you don’t agree with his interpretation of everything. He won’t stop you from doing it, but he’s incredibly insulting. It’s not really “live and let live” in any genuine way; it’s “if you’re such a dumb-ass that you don’t see everything as clearly as I do, I won’t stop you.”
@raygun: Margo Howard is the “old” Dear Prudence. Love her advice.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/columnists/advice/chi-amydickinson,0,4715685.columnist Ask Amy.
And you can hear her weekly (or almost weekly) on NPRs quiz show, Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!
Ooh, I’d forgotten Miss Manners and her impeccable invisible snark. I love her too! (although she never called anyone a buttnut, she’s pretty good!)
WOW! Thanks, everyone! Now to find enough time to bookmark and read all of this stuff!
This might be a little to genre specific, but when I was planning my wedding I got addicted to “Ask Carley” on theknot.com A lot of the questions are simple “when do I send out the invitations” sort of thing, but there were also many silly wedding-related drama questions that made for a fun read.
Re: Dan Savage —
“He hurls an endless string of insults at you if you don’t agree with his interpretation of everything.”
This is true. However, anyone who’s read at least, oh, say, one Dan Savage column knows that hurling insults is his M.O. So I would advise anyone who *doesn’t* want to be insulted to seek advice from someone other than Dan Savage.
The alternative weekly in Toronto, The Eye, has a fantastic sex columnist named Sasha. She’s quite feminist and funny, and she dances with a burlesque troupe called the Scandelles as Sasha Van Bon Bon. What is not to love?
Sasha’s column is called “Love Bites,” and you can find it at http://www.eyeweekly.com/fun
OMG the best online advice guys is Since You Asked on Salon.com. Follow this link. http://dir.salon.com/topics/since_you_asked/
Seriously. Adult advice but with a reality spin. I’ve read through his old ones too, so good. Really compelling! Good luck!
Dan Savage is the Sara Silverman of the advice column world – funny in small doses, and sometimes extremely insightful, but the smart bits are excessively diluted by all the looky-me-I’m-outRAGEOUS! noise.
OMG the best online advice guys is Since You Asked on Salon.com.
You may find that an extremely unpopular opinion around here. I think Sars expressed it best upthread: “Cary Tennis = fail.”
@ Erin W
What’s “alarming” about Carolyn Hax’s personal life? That she is divorced?
The number of fans of Carolyn Hax and Miss Manners (both of the Washington Post) makes me wonder if Sars has an unofficial fan club in the Washington, DC area. Count me in, unofficially of course.
Oh great! Now I have even MORE ways to waste time at work :)
Wehof …really Sars hates Cary Tennis? I must have missed that one. But does it really matter what Sars likes? After all, she is not the one who wants to read an advice column. Because um…Miss Manners? Really? Not exactly hanging on her every word, you know?
Oh, yes, really Miss Manners. You should hang on her every word. She’s fabulously, dryly witty and applies beautiful standards that are anything but esoteric. Give her a chance before you poohpooh her.
G-d, especially if you’re putting down Miss Manners to trumpet Cary Foppy McGee Tennis.
Yes, Miss Manners gets a bad rap from people who have never actually read her. Her reputation is of someone who spends her time contemplating the horror of misuse of the shrimp fork. Whereas she’s really all about respecting people and never making a guest feel uncomfortable or looked down on.
Oh, and add me to the list of people who dropped Dan Savage like a bad habit. I grew tired of his roughly 2:1 ratio of excellent advice to rampant asshattery spiced with inaccuracies and his own prejudices.
“But does it really matter what Sars likes?”
Only in the sense that, you know, that’s exactly what the original letter writer asked-what SARS likes. The rest of us added our opinions-and mine is that Cary Tennis is an overwriting hack who really needs to quit masturbating while reading his copy of Roget’s Thesaurus and just answer his reader’s questions clearly and concisely-but, you know, your mileage may vary.
It was an Ask The Readers question, so in the larger sense, no, it doesn’t really matter what I like. But for the record, I dislike Tennis and Savage for the same reason — they’re more interested in issuing answers that conform with their trademark styles than in the question itself, or the reader’s attention span.
I agree with bossyboots: Miss Manners is a delightfully arch and witty character, and Judith Martin writes her column from the perspective that good manners consist not in following the rules for the own sake, but in making others feel comfortable and, ultimately, respected. This seems a sound principle to me. Miss Manners has my everlasting devotion in any case, because of her answer to a woman in her eighties who was perturbed by the practice then in vogue for doctors to “make their patients feel more comfortable” by addressing them by their first names, notwithstanding any generation or two of difference in their ages. Miss Manners replied that the patient might suggest that she is on a first-name basis with her friends, and if the doctor wished to be her friend, then surely he ought to take off all of his clothes, too?
Wehof …really Sars hates Cary Tennis? I must have missed that one. But does it really matter what Sars likes? After all, she is not the one who wants to read an advice column.
I wasn’t just pointing out that Sars doesn’t like Tennis, but that many others on this thread don’t either, myself included. I’m not trying to convince you not to like him or anything. :)
“However, anyone who’s read at least, oh, say, one Dan Savage column knows that hurling insults is his M.O. So I would advise anyone who *doesn’t* want to be insulted to seek advice from someone other than Dan Savage.”
Exactly. Which is what I did. I’m not saying he shouldn’t exist; I’m saying I don’t find it funny or insightful as much as obnoxious and self-satisfied. It’s subjective, to be sure. I find his style insufferable and his actual interest in the problem at hand minimal. So I don’t read it anymore. As Sarah said, he’s more interested in hearing himself go off Dan-Savage-style than he is in actually helping anyone.
Sarah D. Bunting says:
February 6, 2009 at 6:27 PM
“…sometimes the letter does the work for me.
For any new folks in the crowd: chain mail guy.”
Kelly says:
February 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM
“Chain mail guy NEVER gets old! Did that girl ever give you an update? Because if any Vine column needs one, it’s that.”
Oh yeah, the girl did offer an update.
A couple years back she popped by the old TWoPSucks messageboard (thread now inaccessible due to the ravages of time) and related how she found the “advice” to be self-serving, needlessly aggressive, and unhelpful. Not to mention how it misread the situation, failing to notice that the boyfriend’s job was currently supporting the couple. (Girl: “…he had the great job…” “he’s been paying most of rent, food, and utilities minus phone bill…” Sars: “HE APPARENTLY DOES NOT WORK.”) While misinformed on this crucial point, the response did afford the opportunity to type DOUCHEBAG in all-caps and to score some cheap laffs about Ren Faires, which also turned out to be the girl’s hobby. Anyway, the whole playing-to-the-crowd smackdown really tightened her corset.
There may have been a happily ever after, as the writer had since worked things out with her knight in chain-mail armor–choosing instead to talk about and work through the economic and behavioral issues that had been plaguing the relationship.
While Sars has regularly offered a good amount of sound advice, well-stated, it seems misplaced to be touting this bit of bombast–an effort perhaps “more interested in issuing an answer that conforms with a trademark style than in the question itself”–as a bullseye, when it flew so wildly off the mark.
Sorry I missed the job thing (sometimes with the longer letters, I overlook things). But then…there’s this:
“He needs me to pitch in more money so he can dig himself out of debt, but my bills have been piling up all this time, too.
Meanwhile, I’ve got some resentment going on toward him. I’ve got reason to be in the doghouse right now, yes, but if he’s really in debt, he shouldn’t be buying video games.”
There are more examples like that where she was covering his bills and getting treated like shit in return, and my central point — that you don’t get to be a douchebag AND into Ren-Faire at the same time — stands. Because you…don’t get to be a douchebag.
I’m not sure I see how pointing out in strong terms that he was taking advantage of her is “self-serving,” but…TWoP Sucks. Consider the source, I guess.
Aye, please do consider it. Verily.
The “self-serving” crit, I think, springs from the following perception: Encouraging the writer to take these hitherto private resentments and begin actually talking about them with her boyfriend — a state of the union, examining the financial and behavioral issues — would have proven mostly helpful to her. Repeatedly calling the loved one in her life a douchebag proved mostly helpful to you and to those readers who felt the desperate need for a “hee.”
You know, other than one reference to the Ren Faire Douchbag (“RFDB”) not having a job, every bit of that answer worked perfectly with the question. RFDB was living beyond his means and expecting his girlfriend to pick up the slack (and inexplicably getting pissy about her wanting a second job), all while showing classic controlling, yucktastic signs of an abuser. Actually, every time I read that letter, it reminds me of a COMPLETE douchebag I dated, and I, too, want to shake the girlfriend and tell her to dump RFDB’s ass as soon as she can write “I’m out, fuck off” on a post-it.
But that’s neither here nor there @JohnA, as you missed the point of the RFDB letter’s reemergence here in the first place. Sars’ original point at the top of the thread was that sometimes the letters are so entertaining in and of themselves that her job is really easy. Whether you agree with the advice or not, it’s an objectively juicy, engrossing letter. It’s the letter that’s being touted as the bullseye, not the bombast.
I’m going to take a minute here. Without wondering if John A is perhaps the original boyfriend or a similar type (buys armor, plate or chain, instead of paying bills), I’m going to suggest there might be some sensitivity to the implication that Renfolks are not a good choice for significant other. I love Sars, and I go to RenFaires whenever the opportunity presents itself. So even if Sars wouldn’t be inclined to get involved with RenFaire types, not all of us at TN feel the same way.
That said, the guy referenced in the original letter was, in fact, a DOUCHEBAG. Not because he liked RenFaires, but because he spent money on toys when he had debts that were piling up. He was a douchebag, not because he liked chain mail, but because he was treating his girlfriend in an abusive manner. He was a douchebag because he wanted her to contribute more money, but apparently not by actually going to a second job. I had decades’ worth of experience with a similar douchebag, so I’m calling it from the inside: Guy was a DOUCHEBAG regardless of the RenFaire affiliation, and unless his behaviour changed radically, I hope it doesn’t take her a quarter-century to figure it out and leave him.
I enjoy the etiquette hell forums (http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?) although the quality of advice varies. On the website proper there’s also advice from the mod.
It can we weirdly culturally specific (I never realised that there are so many people who think it’s rude to organise your own birthday party) but lots of entertainment in the questions asked.
In the interests of clarity, where I wrote:
“I’m going to suggest there might be some sensitivity to the implication that Renfolks are not a good choice for significant other. I love Sars, and I go to RenFaires whenever the opportunity presents itself.”
I was not stating, suggesting, or implying that I was Sars’s significant other! Her SO is undoubtedly exceedingly fortunate, but I was referring to love of a literary nature. Loving Tomato Nation does not preclude loving other pastimes, up to and including attending RenFaires.
Back to your regularly-scheduled posts.
So, a year later, I’ll bury this in the comments: PETER TORK has his own online advice column!! Squee!!