Disambiguation (disambiguation) (THG #12 of 20)

The deferral and deferment of the synonym conference is off-putting.

Mar 19, 2021

Dear reader:

Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, a news+letter newsletter where the grime wears haute adjectives and drives around in flashy sports adverbs.

We're still on Instagram. Check out @grimeswastaken2. Use it to lure those of your friends to the newsletter who do not yet believe in reading emails. Also, you can tweet us at the same handle.

This week, we talk about the misery of endless "content" creation and the toll it takes on YouTubers using information we gleaned from a sting operation. We also talk about the state of US comedy.

Yours contentedly,

momo & eggsy

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YouTubers Anonymous: The Misery of Endless Content Creation

MIB legalises OnlyFans in India; Will Smith to be brand ambassador

The World Wide Web, March 2021: One of our editors received a tip from a source about YouTubers Anonymous, a support group that YouTubers depend on to vent about their addiction. We went ahead and zoom-bombed their latest meeting. The results of this sting are detailed in the following report.

The event was kicked off by a famous YouTuber, Mann Mei Butt (name changed). "Hi. My name is Mann Mei Butt (name changed) and I am a YouTuber." He went on to talk about his problem with content creation. "I make loads of vlogs and now no longer have any content to put out. Last week I paid my roommate to make loud sex noises in the room next door so I had something to post. I have to stop, but I can't," he said. "My friends are very concerned but only send me letters coz they know otherwise I'll make a vlog out of that too. I'm resorting to desperate clickbait, with titles containing "YOU WON'T BELIEVE..", and my surprised face on the thumbnail. I'm running out of thumbnail ideas just as much as I'm out of video ideas."

Many other YouTube bigwigs such as Ashish Chancalani and Bhuvan Bam were present as well. They were more open about their struggles, with Ashish and Bhuvan stating that they were suffering from imposter syndrome. The two of them have been open about their struggles on Twitter, and hence their names have not been changed.

Mrs. Damayanti (name changed), runs a recipe channel, and she talked about the ceiling she hit in her channel recently. "You can cook the same dish only so many times. YouTube has converted everything into reproducible entities, and we are expected to become content factories," she said. "I have become too dependent on this income, and quit my job. I cannot go back to the Wilkins Chawla Paper Company, they've shut down. But I have to. I must quit YouTube. It's tough."

Some indie music producers talked about having to compete with a hostile algorithm and a culture of "demonetisation". "Sometimes, if a few chords in my music resembles something on T Series, my video is either demonetised, or the revenue is sent towards T Series. Additionally, I have to compete with T Series," said a disgruntled musician. "They use bots to increase their watch counts, and push their videos up on the algorithm. I can't compete with that."

Movie review and reaction channels described ingenious methods they used to avoid the above issues. "We crowd-finance Bollywood movies ourselves nowadays, so we get to retain reaction rights. It's a foolproof method. So we review movies we produce, and that's how we earn more revenue."

A YouTuber named Marry Cincinnati (name changed) spoke as well. "My name is Marry Cincinnati, I live in Kanya Kumari. I smoke meth, and make reaction videos. I can't live without either," they said. It seems that making reaction videos have the same level of addiction as methamphetamine. Marry Cincinnati further elaborated on their reaction video addiction, and said that they had recently branched into making reaction videos of their own reaction videos, as they were running out of content.

The session ended with a few moments of silence, followed by a prayer that oddly had the same tune as Psy's Gangnam Style. They then resolved to do better before ending the Zoom call.

Feminists accuse Lux Cozy of promoting domestic abuse. Seek redressal.

Maniesh Paul's Rs 13K ‘Big Logo' Sneakers Have Huge Stripes That Live Up To Its Name: MensXP

Coonoor, March 2021: "Beat Your Meat. Not Your Wife." read a prominent placard at the front of the protest at the Lux Cozy manufacturing unit in the city. Two days ago, over 200 feminists participated in a protest march, followed by four hours of non-violent obstruction of manufacturing, to display their resentment at wife beaters.

"Wife beating is a historical patriarchal wrong in the global society. Domestic abuse starts at home. Redressal need not," expounded Ms. Sati Savitri (name changed) in front of the gathered populace. "Companies like Lux Cozy that make wife beaters are to blame for propagating such abuse and they should be punished." The protest ended after some participants began burning wife beaters in the middle of the road and police had to politely ask everyone to disperse for fear of violence.

In a reactionary response, a motley group of a dozen middle aged men prominently wearing wife beaters began protesting in front of the City Hall at midday. When asked about why they were protesting, they failed to form a coherent response. A lack of leadership at the rally was evident. An hour into the unclear protest, two dupattas were burned. When asked about the burning, they said, "well, they did it first." Police quickly cleared the air and the City Hall steps.

News of the two protests soon became a national talking point. Prominent television news channels held debates on the issue at prime time. Indian National Congress spokespeople blamed the government for the historical wrong and demanded an apology from the Prime Minister. Bharatiya Janata Party spokespeople blamed the previous governments for the historical wrong and demanded that INC issue the apology. The CPI(M) was unavailable for comment citing urgent meetings to formulate solutions to the issue.

A panel of satirists and comics had a less heated debate on YouTube Live and came to the consensus that while the issue of wife beaters was stupid, acquiescing to not calling them wife beaters was sensible. They too held that the name was misleading and even though wife beaters had little to actually do with wife beating, it could confuse some wife beater wearers.

The panel suggests everyone to use the term Baniyans instead. The Baniya community is aggressively confused about the issue and believing that this re-branding might exacerbate caste system wounds, have declared that they might form a protest march this weekend.

US comics, news orgs complain of declining viewership post Trump

Twitter confirms that engagement is toxic as ever, promises a steep increase in next fiscal

New York, March 2021: The Comics of America Guild (CAG, not to be confused with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India) held their bi-annual meeting this month on Zoom and broadcast it live on YouTube due to the weaning second wave of COVID19 in the United States. They noted that the dismal conditions of 2020 were a fertile ground for a good year, as more and more people turned to comedy as an outlet. However, they also complained of a rising tide of disinterest in comedy, as the quality and quantity of their Trump content, and by association, their content overall, had dwindled after the former president's Twitter account was suspended in early January, and he subsequently left office later that month. "Our organisation has very nominal fees to allow up and coming comedians to enjoy the benefits of the protection of a guild. We rely on additional optional donations from other members to run the organisation, but that has taken a dip over the last quarter. This is a serious issue," said the chair of the guild, Ms Rebecca Blague.

Mr. John Astuce of Los Angeles spoke next, saying, "We're still telling great jokes, people just seem to be less interested in jokes after Trump left. When Joe Biden orders a military strike on Syria and hits civilians, he doesn't tweet about it, he announces it in a boring press conference. And hence, people don't care about it. Late night show hosts have been affected as well. People need tweets about whose nuclear button is bigger to actually understand the gravity of the situation."

The topic was brought up on primetime television as well, with a number of intellectuals clashing on the issue. Some of them dismissed the issue as "another farcical attempt at victimisation from the left". Others pointed out that cable news channels and independent news organisations were facing a decline as well. A UK political commentator was questioned if he felt that British comedians were in a similar situation with failed Batman impersonator and current British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "We never joke about politicians, we're a polite people," replied an unrelated Mr. Andrew Johnson. "We like having that man in the office though, we get the odd chuckle out of him. I think we'll keep him for a while."

To get an Indian opinion, we reached out to the Comics Guild of India (CGI, not to be confused with Computer Generated Imagery) for their comment on how politics impacted Indian comedy. The chair of the guild, Mr. Mazak Ahmad, hung up on us and promptly sought anticipatory bail from the Allahabad High Court on charges of sedition.

The Grimes’ Definitions of The Week

Debit: When you perform little pleasant things for your friend to have chips to call in later. Commonly confused with priming.

Priming: When you ask someone to help you carry a small table with the fervent hope in psychology that they will then help you in all your chores. Commonly confused with psychological trick.

Psychological trick: When websites make you watch adverts under the guise of teaching you "28 Simple Psychological Tricks". Commonly confused with learning a psychological trick.

mangtha le,