Wil Wheaton and HuffPost
To be honest I’m not totally sure who Wil Wheaton is but he has a lot of followers on Twitter and he wrote an eloquent blog post about writers not getting paid for content contributed to HuffPost…and publications like them. HuffPost isn’t the only one. These publications claim you’ll get “exposure” in exchange for your written works.
I absolutely agree with everything in Wheaton’s post, and I think I’ve even posted about this topic a while back.
I’m not talking about sharing a blog post or something you’ve written for smaller web sites or personal bloggers. If your good author friend has a small blog and you decide to write a blog post for them without getting paid I think that’s excellent. That’s called support. My blog is not for profit and I’ve had guest posts here (but not often) and I didn’t pay the authors either. I’ve also contributed to small blogs for free and I have no regrets.
But I think there’s a huge difference between contributing your written content for free to a small not for profit blogger as opposed to any huge multi-million dollar publication that can afford to pay you.
I’m not copying and pasting Wheaton’s content, but you can read the entire post here. The main point for me is that writers deserve to get paid for their hard work and their contributions. If you choose to do otherwise, that’s up to you.
“Heteroflexible”
It seems as if there’s a new PC term almost daily for yet another group that’s a little different. This time it’s “heteroflexible.” In my own lame attempt to define it, I think it’s about a straight guy with a girlfriend who wants to bring other men into their bedroom for sex…once in a while and only when he’s in the mood. But please don’t quote me on that. I know and understand as much about this as I do asexuals. Which is nothing at all.
This happened after he explained himself to the girlfriend…
She said that she was sorry that her reaction was a little harsh. She explained that she has zero problem with gays/bisexuals but that when it’s with her own partner it feels different. She agreed maybe it is close-minded but she said it’s an instinctive reaction. She said she is honestly not 100% comfortable with the idea, but that realistically it isn’t that big of a deal. She said she doesn’t truly understand the whole “it’s more about dick than being attracted to men” thing, but that she understands human sexuality is complex and believes me.
I don’t even know how to comment on this one. You can read the rest here. I do know for certain that as a gay man I wouldn’t be going near their bedroom any time soon. And I have zero problems with women/straights but it’s just not something that turns me on.
You’ll want to read the comments, trust me.
Boy George Sleeping With Prince?
This one is just too easy. The jokes could write themselves.
During the taping of some TV reality show, Boy George claimed he slept with Prince.
George boasted, “I have duetted with some of the greatest soul singers in history including Luther Vandross and Smokey Robinson,” prompting Paloma Faith to come back with, “Well OK, if we’re throwing big soul names out there I’ve performed with Prince.”
“Forget that, darling,” George quickly retorted. “I’ve slept with Prince.”
As it turns out, this is all clickbait. Boy George was joking around and talking about a poster of Prince in his bedroom. He didn’t actually sleep with Prince in a literal sense. So you can all take that proverbial sigh of relief now…especially Prince.
I could ask why do people do these things, but then I could also ask why do people watch reality TV shows.