Also.Also.Also: Elmo Ruined Sesame Street and Other Stories to Start Your Week

I feel very strongly that you should have an Emergen-C pack today and then every day from now until like March. Are you getting enough sleep and sunshine? What about water? When was the last time you laughed out loud or flipped upside down and thought about what it would be like if you had to walk on your ceilings? That used to be one of my favorite pastimes, like “I would definitely trip over that ceiling fan daily.”

Queer as in F*ck You

+ Laura Jane Grace Opens Up About Trans Identity in 2015.

+ Janet Mock talks with Sasha Wortzel and Reina Gossett about Happy Birthday, Marsha!

+ As LGBT Groups Shift Focus, Foundation Support Decreases while Individual Donors Increase by Jeanne Allen.

+ Chief of Beijing Queer Chorus Discusses the Support It Provides, Its Successes, and Upcoming Shows.

+ Life Misunderstood: Asexuality by Casey Gilfoil


Doll Parts

+ Transgender Actress and Warhol Muse Holly Woodlawn Has Died.

+ Remembering Massacred Women Engineers with a Hairdryer Hackathon.

+ See 19th Century Portraits by a Pioneering Woman Photographer by Stephanie Eckardt.

+ Did Cara Delevingne Rip Off a Vintage Feminist T-Shirt Design? What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

+ Every 16 Year-Old in Sweden to Receive Copy of We Should All Be Feminists.

+ Women in Music 2015: The 50 Most Powerful Executive sin the Industry.


Saw This, Thought of You

+ How Corporations Profit From Black Teens’ Viral Content by Doreen St. Felix.

+ 9 Discontinued Cheetos Snacks. I remember liking the paws.

+ Wait this might actually get me into cross-stitching.

+ Why Mariah Carey’s Christmas Hit Will Be Around Forever and ever amen.

+ How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

+ The Best Board Games You’ve Probably Never Played Before. I can personally vouch for Ticket to Ride!

+ I don’t care that this might be impractical, it’s fucking lovely and festive.

+ Krampus talk.


And Finally

Sobbing/shrieking.


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Laneia

Laneia is the Director of Operations and founding member of Autostraddle, and you're the reason she's here.

Laneia has written 930 articles for us.

66 Comments

  1. Oh, man. I did the ‘hang upside down and think about what your house would look like if you lived that way’ thing a lot as a kid, but when I describe that experience now, people look at me like I’m crazy. I thought I was the only one! :-)

    • I can’t even – how would you interact with it? IT’S THE SIZE OF MY DOG

      As a kid I loved my pet snakes, but somehow when I grew up I developed that squirrely mammal reflex where reptiles make me want to shriek and flail. When I was six, I would regularly hold Chloe, my ball python, but now just the idea of holding a snake fills me with an animal instinct to run away. AND THAT PICTURE, oh man. I backed my office chair away from my monitor.

      Do you have any pet reptiles? Do they have personalities?

      • I probably wouldn’t interact with it at all aside from taking a ton of pictures from a safe distance and staring at it in awe. I just love looking at them! When I was younger, some of my favorite shows were all of those weird Animal Planet dudes who were always like, “CHECK OUT THIS GIANT SNAKE! OMG IT COULD KILL ME I WILL GRAB IT.” And whenever I go to a zoo, the herpetarium is usually a highlight for me. I think I just like thinking of them as dinosaurs that we decided not to call dinosaurs for some reason.

        And nope, I don’t have any pet reptiles. But I’ve always thought of Galopagos tortoises as my patronus. It makes me think Hufflepuff that accidentally got placed in Slytherin.

    • Reptiles are hella chill, like cold-blooded. Y’all can just hang out together and the lizard will be like “damn you’re warm” and you can be like “damn you’re room temperature, that feels amazing in hot AF Australia.” I’m for it! Giant lizard couch buddies for life!

  2. Ok I liked the Elmo article, but I think the author didn’t recognize one way that Elmo is valuable.

    If I were to raise a kid, I would want them to go through a selfish, me-centered phase like Elmo, to start their life looking at the world the way Elmo does. Some kids grow up in circumstances where they don’t get to have a childhood, they have to take care of their siblings and/or parents or learn to prioritize other people in order to survive. They never learn who they are and what they want because their life revolves around others.

    So, Elmo has value. But yes, the real world doesn’t cater to self-centered people. Unless you’re talking about men ahahahahah jk kinda not really.

  3. The only time I have ever seen value in Elmo was when, young and intoxicated, I witnessed my friend’s dog maliciously humping a tickle me Elmo doll belonging to said friend’s little brother. The dog was having the time of its life, Elmo was vibrating and giggling. Under the circumstances it was hilarious, especially given my hatred for the red muppet.
    Team Oscar forever.

  4. re: board games! you know what is such an amazing game that no one has heard of but is so much fun? DIXIT. I have played it with family and friends of all ages and everyone loves it. it doesn’t have very many rules (which is my favorite kind of game) and people learn it really quickly. y’all should look into it.

  5. Eeeee that lizard is a water monitor! They’re so cool!

    One time I was at Lane Cove National Park and there was this MASSIVE water monitor, like probably at least five feet long, and it had scared off a family from their barbecue grill and was eating hamburgers off the grill while the family cowered nearby.

    STRAYA MATE

  6. Did anyone ever watch Between The Lions? I feel like it picked up most of the subversive elements that Sesame Street dropped in the 00s. I’d watch it when I was in middle school, with my 3-years older sister, and it was super entertaining for all of the references and internet-meme-style humor it employed, which we suspected flew over the heads of the target-age kids.
    Plus Fred Newman, of Prairie Home Companion sound effects man fame, had a segment, and as big PMC fans, we got a huge kick out of realizing it was actually him, and we could actually see his face now!

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