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I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

samj.substack.com

291–300 of 340 posts

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#291
> I even worry that in trying to diagnose some of the alienation, boredom and despair that people in the UK were starting to feel, I actually might have added to the malaise.

That's usually how it goes with personal scale self-deprecating humor too. It was instrumental to my own misery, and I didn't quite notice this until I've let go of it for a while.

Another thing to ponder is the second hand effects. For the one making the joke it's a very different headspace to someone who sees it from the outside, and internalizes it as some sort of style. I'm fairly sure this kind of "saying a body, hearing a skeleton" game is how the author got to the point of seeing that site carrying the torch, but not really appreciating what he sees there. It's a kind of effect people making humorous content always seem to learn the hard way, like it was the case for e.g. idubbz, and countless others. Or like weakly racist jokes are to any odd fellow European.

Not to pass judgement though, I can see how overcorrections and the "puritanism" are definitely not any good either. But yeah, that's how these things tend to go.

I'd be vary of the author really hopping on that "they're cancelling us" bus. If he doesn't appreciate what he sees on that site, he's in for a world of hurt when he realizes where people who constantly play around with this topic right now will get him to. This is all a setup to the next chapter, where humorists will actually get unfairly censored, but then they won't be able to properly reach audiences with it anymore, as the memetic background for that has been appropriated and spent by then, by those actually malicious, a long time ago.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#292

There's one thing I honestly don't understand about this post and the comments here. NOWHERE does the author, or the people commenting here, mention the reason why such a book might be deemed "offensive". Of course it's easy to repell the criticism if you don't address the reasons in it ! But to me, it feels weird and classist to make a book about shitty places in a country. Aren't they often simply... poor ? Is it O…

[deleted]

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sensibilities change If people are literally calling the police, they aren't changing, they are being suppressed/punished. > they’re just not getting the laughs they think they’re entitled to Why are the comedians 'entitled' rather than the people who go to their show and complain?

It’s not zero sum. Expand your thinking lol

Maybe expand your comment so I know what you're thinking, "lol"

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#294
post #15

Loved the fact that this post didn't go where I expected it to (or at least, didn't remain there). That a book like this probably wouldn't be published today, or would be less popular today, is a point that has been made many times by many people, about many different books, TV shows, jokes, etc. But the author actually moves on from there; the observation is that even in his own opinion , the same joke isn't funny t…

This is a good question..it just occurred to me that perhaps its because its so much easier for the people who would be the target of the joke to answer back now? Social media gives the possibility of instant reply, whereas if you publish a book in 2003 called 'crap towns' how can the so-called chavs answer back? Publish their own book? Write to the local paper? So its a side effect of how we can all hear each other…

It was 2003, not 1993 - the article even has a screenshot of people answering back online.

The competing website they don't want to name has Internet Archive pages dating back to 2004.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#295
post #37

>One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way. I couldn't help but keep thinking about this Wittgenstein quote as I read this. I find it harder to say exactly why. Obviously, we felt differently in the past. Not my past, of course: I was a child, barely able to integrate by parts or fold a shirt correctly. There is another possibility. The usual complaint is that o…

Reddit is cancer. Discord is a cancerous black hole. (Platforms are evil.)

The issue is not so much discoverability as scale (as you hinted at), as well as some social media aspects.

PhpBB-style forums are both discoverable, rarely grow large enough to become toxic, can be 'owned', and the exit option is much more viable.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#296
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that's an interesting trend. It's no longer feasible to have an independent web site, because nobody will visit it because you don't have the page rank. Journalists that do find your site copy your data and may add a link (that noone vists). Their pagerank is much higher, so they get all search engine links and all the ads, for your content.

We have this situation in lithuanian web for a two decades now. Once the big news networks (DELFI.lt, 15min.lt, lrytas.lt, alfa.lt and few others) bought out the largest blogs and connected them to their own domains, there isn't much of an independent web left. Owners of the websites back then gladly sold out (and I would have done it too), because it seemed like a great idea to sell your work back in the 2008-ish fo…

Sounds like the main issue is Google Search ?

Plenty of people are linking their own websites on HN, BTW, so it might not necessarily need to be one or the other.

https://indieweb.org/POSSE ?

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#297

> The good news is that I don’t think that the illiberalism of identity politics will endure much longer. That's a weird thing to say in 2025 , considering what the US government is deporting people for having the wrong opinions domestically, and attempting to export the identity politics of the current administration via tarde deals with the UK. I suppose one might be blind to it because of their own political persu…

> attempting to export the identity politics of the current administration via tarde deals with the UK Not only can I not understand how you could imagine this to be the motive; I can't imagine how you even understand the term "identity politics" such that they could even in principle be "exported" in such a manner. Are you suggesting, for example, that tariffs are somehow being differentially applied to different pr…

> Not only can I not understand how you could imagine this to be the motive

That's a fair question, and I suppose you may not consume British media and may be missing the necessary context.

> I can't imagine how you even understand the term "identity politics" such that they could even in principle be "exported" in such a manner.

I got you: the Trump admin wants to export its ideology on gender-identity by coercing the UK into changing its LGBTQ policies as a prerequisite to a trade deal with the US. The European right is not as crotchety about non-heteronomative relationship as the American right, and the Trump admin would like to change that. You may start here https://www.advocate.com/politics/us-uk-trade-deal-lgbtq https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/18/trump-uk-trade-lgbtq-...

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> attempting to export the identity politics of the current administration via tarde deals with the UK Not only can I not understand how you could imagine this to be the motive; I can't imagine how you even understand the term "identity politics" such that they could even in principle be "exported" in such a manner. Are you suggesting, for example, that tariffs are somehow being differentially applied to different pr…

> Not only can I not understand how you could imagine this to be the motive That's a fair question, and I suppose you may not consume British media and may be missing the necessary context. > I can't imagine how you even understand the term "identity politics" such that they could even in principle be "exported" in such a manner. I got you: the Trump admin wants to export its ideology on gender-identity by coercing t…

>The European right is not as ...crotchety about non-heteronomative relationship as the American right

This very much does not agree with my own observations over the years, but I suspect there is no productive discussion to be had here.

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