Living At Pokemon Go Speeds

This sounds like it’s about it’s a game, but it’s not.  It’s about the way the game exposes a phenomena.  So even if you don’t give a crap about Pikachu, please do me a favor and listen.
Anyway: Pokemon Go was released last Wednesday.
I heard about it on Thursday, when pictures of Pikachu sitting in people’s back yards flooded into Twitter.
By Saturday I’d downloaded it and captured Pokemon around downtown Cleveland.  We gave a few folks knowing nods, already recognizing the “Pokemon Go hand position” that you hold your cell phone to play.
By Sunday Pokemon Go was making headlines.
By Monday, we went out and found at least eight other people playing Pokemon in our sleepy little burg, and we talked brightly to each other.  Wasn’t this weird?  It was weird.  But cool!  We had so much in common!
By Tuesday morning, I heard about clever business people who’d attached lures to the Pokestops in front of their stores, which drew customers.  By Tuesday evening, my friend Eric told me he was researching whether he could place Lures at his conventions.
By Wednesday, we went down to the mall and Pokemon Go was no longer an unusual activity.  Everyone was there to play Pokemon Go – the people who didn’t have their phones out and the by-now-mandatory recharge cord sticking out of their pocket were the exception.  And the friendly nods of Monday had been replaced by shrugs, because this was no longer cool or interesting, it was just what we did.  
Now check that out: Seven days, and we’d gone from “Never heard of it” to “Everyone is doing it.”  But it got worse.
By Thursday, we expected all the business Pokestops to have lures.  That was just standard practice.  Hillary Clinton was already making Pokemon Go jokes in that hesitating way the elderly discuss “the Facebook.”
By Friday morning, my feed was clogged with Pokemon Go thinkpieces asking, “Haven’t we had enough Pokemon Go?”
Nine days, and we had crested a complete wave from “This thing has never existed” to “This thing is so big that Presidential candidates feel the urge to reference it” to significant chunks of the population saying “God, this is played.”
I have a friend who’s in the hospital right now; she had a brain bleed last Thursday night, went into the hospital on Friday.  She’s okay, thankfully, but I can’t stop thinking that this is some parody version of Rick Grimes waking up in his hospital on The Walking Dead – arising from her coma to go, “Wait, when did Pokemon Go become just something that people did?”
And ya know, if you’re in the hospital for brain problems, waking to find everyone casually doing something you didn’t remember last week has to be a little worrisome.
When I grew up – which was, admittedly, in the dinosaur days before the Internet – nationwide crazes took months to catch on.  Star Wars was as big as it gets, but it had a premiere in May of 1977 – a well-attended premiere – but then word of mouth moved slowly in those days, as did theaters.  Star Wars, like every nation-changing phenomenon, was a glacial juggernaut, because movies often stayed in theaters for three to six months at a time with filled houses, drawing in people who’d never see it via Bittorrent or DVD or HBO.
I try to imagine the new Ghostbusters still drawing crowds to theaters in November, and it’s never going to happen. Even if it’s the best movie ever, people rush out to see them quickly and then they fade.  There’s a speed that gets us out there.
We’ve sped up.  Which is fine for entertainment.  Hey, Pokemon Go speeds are fine for videogames and movies and phone-booth-stuffing and whatever other trivial things we feel like whipping out.
But then we expect everyone to live at Pokemon Go speeds, and that’s pretty much inhuman.
I’ve seen major chains get yelled at because some store of theirs out in Futtbuck, Montana did something  intensely sexist/racist/otherwise stupid, and it’s gotten 50,000 Tumblr reshares, and why hasn’t this business done anything about this by now, don’t they care?
And I’m like, “That Tumblr post was posted nine hours ago.  At eleven o’clock at night.  When people were fucking sleeping.  And the people of this company got to their offices, logged into email, started to see something they were just aware of, and now they have to verify this awful thing isn’t some Photoshopped hoax, and get the regional manager out there to interview to see who did what and when, verify who’s responsible, and discuss a legally-correct punitive measure that’s not going to get them sued.”
Not everything acts on Pokemon Go time, and expecting that speed leads to you buying into lies.  Because a news that operates at Pokemon Go speed is a news that’s cribbing from whatever source it can get, and that leads to manipulation and horrendous smears that everyone knows, and believes.
Like, you know, the former Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron.  If Americans know him, it’s because he’s the guy who fucked a pig.  The story broke a few months ago: he was in a frat initiation, and he put his cock in a dead pig’s mouth, and ever since then there’s been a rampant stream of jokes about “This little piggy went to market” and “YOU FUCKED A PIG THE WAY YOU FUCKED BRITAIN WITH BREXIT” and so forth.
Except that never happened.  To quote this story:

Then, after a full day of online merriment, something shocking happened. Isabel Oakeshott, the Daily Mail journalist who had co-written the biography with Lord Ashcroft, a billionaire businessman, went on TV and admitted that she did not know whether her huge, scandalous scoop was even true. Pressed to provide evidence for the sensational claim, Oakeshott admitted she had none.
“We couldn’t get to the bottom of that source’s allegations,” she said on Channel 4 News. “So we merely reported the account that the source gave us … We don’t say whether we believe it to be true.” In other words, there was no evidence that the prime minister of the United Kingdom had once “inserted a private part of his anatomy” into the mouth of a dead pig – a story reported in dozens of newspapers and repeated in millions of tweets and Facebook updates, which many people presumably still believe to be true today.
Oakeshott went even further to absolve herself of any journalistic responsibility: “It’s up to other people to decide whether they give it any credibility or not,” she concluded. This was not, of course, the first time that outlandish claims were published on the basis of flimsy evidence, but this was an unusually brazen defence. It seemed that journalists were no longer required to believe their own stories to be true, nor, apparently, did they need to provide evidence. Instead it was up to the reader – who does not even know the identity of the source – to make up their own mind. But based on what? Gut instinct, intuition, mood?

In other words, she took an unsourced allegation, gave it to the Internet, and the Internet moved at Pokemon Go speed.  Was it true?  We didn’t have time to investigate, or fact-check; someone said it was true, and so we went with it.
Hell, I said it was true.  Why?  Because newspapers were reporting it.  I assumed, foolishly, that newspapers wouldn’t report something that was false – but I forgot how Pokemon Go speed is warping business models.
Because if everyone else on the Internet is saying something and you, the news source, are not confirming or denying it until you’ve determined whether it’s true, then you’re missing out on the precious clicks that fuel your coffers.  So you compromise.  You post a piece saying that “Everyone’s saying” this, the lie that Donald Trump slithers by on, and don’t bother to say in big letters that THIS IS UNCONFIRMED because the story is not whether he actually fucked a pig, the story is the allegations of him fucking a pig, but for some strange and ephemeral reason the words fucking a pig are the ones that stick in people’s minds.
If the truth comes out later, well, the fact that someone didn’t fuck a pig is way less interesting, so that never grabs people.
And we have rushed, with great speed, to a false conclusion, and never looked back.
The problem is that speed – or, rather, the assumption that this speed is necessary.  When Nice was bombed last night, we had thousands of folks on Twitter demanding to know what was happening by the minute, making crazy predictions about who did this before the last dying heart had stopped beating, everyone grabbing their hoary old stories of why these terrorists had attacked and tacking on their preferred narrative before a single fact could enter.
And I repeat: Pokemon Go speeds are fun.  It was super-fun to go down to the mall and find a group of people doing something unique in human history.  It’s fun to watch this story spread, and mutate, and see all the weird things Augmented Reality encourages humans to do when it’s mashed with actual, you know, reality.
But actual news cannot, and should not, move at Pokemon Go speed.  Sometimes good investigations take months of careful digging to get out the facts, cultivating news sources, discarding false leads, determining the story is bigger than this immediate scoop – the movie Spotlight has an excellent analysis of why a big story may not break at Pokemon Go speeds.
And I understand that news agencies can’t not report, because ultimately their primary goal is report what people want to hear, not what people need to hear – otherwise, they go broke, for all their lofty aspirations to responsibility – but I wish that news sources would draw a distinction.  To say “This is Pokemon Go-sped news, you should probably take it with about 80% skepticism, we’re going to deliver the real news in a week when we’ve had the chance to interview people, so chomp down on these news Cheetos until we can deliver you the rich, nutritious meal you deserve.”  And they’d repeat that every fifteen minutes, and put it at a big block at the top of every Pokemon Go-sped news page.
But they won’t.  Why?  Because you want your news at Pokemon Go speeds, just like you want your justice delivered at Pokemon Go speeds, just like you want your outrage delivered at Pokemon Go speeds.
And what I am suggesting – no, actually, I’m telling you – is that as long as you’re demanding people act at Pokemon Go speeds, you’re also demanding they rush to unwise conclusions based on sketchy facts perpetrated by unknown sources.
Slow down.
Wait a little.
Stop thinking you should get everything at convenience speed.

How Real Cocks Work: A Tutorial.

A real cock comes on command. A real cock never provides you with that embarrassing moment where you’re trying hard to orgasm, but can’t quite get there in time, so your partner’s on their knees foreeeeever waiting for you to ejaculate.
Real cocks never get almost close enough for you to come, so much so that your chest is heaving and your heart is pounding, and then coast up to the edge of sweet release before going “NOPE” and leaving you to have to start all fucking over again.
Real cocks never come too soon. Premature ejaculation’s for teenagers and the inexperienced.
Real cocks switch on hard whenever you want them and stay trembling stiff for as long as you need them to. A real cock never requires you to jerk off for a little between positions to keep your groove in. Real cocks never lose their erection while you’re fumbling the condom on. Real cocks never have problems with the loss of sensation from the condom, even though yes condoms are brutally necessary, come on, stop being a jerk like that and trying to spread STIs.
Real cocks are tied directly to desire. When you’re turned on, a real cock is hard. When you’re not interested, a real cock is soft. A real cock never has a moment where it’s stiff and you look down and go “What the fuck, why are you hard, I wasn’t even paying attention to you!” A real cock never has a moment where you think, “Wow, buddy, every other part of my body is into this, would you mind joining me?”
Real cocks have one level of hardness: rock. Real cocks never have varying levels of hardness, some of which may be inadequate for the job, where trying to work this 70% stiffy into a recalcitrant asshole is like trying to stuff a marshmallow into a parking meter.
Real cocks are all eight inches. Minimum.
Real cocks are all perfectly straight. No bends or curves. Just this divining rod of erection.
Real cocks all bulge real good. Real cocks never require you to say, “I’m a grower, not a shower!” Real cocks are like 80% of a full erection at all times, pushing out through any underwear like a peacock’s plumage to show all the penis-loving people “PENIS, HEY, GOTCHER HOT PENIS HERE.”
Real cocks are pretty amazing.
Man, I wish I had a real cock.

The Complete List Of Obvious Pokemon Go Story Cliches, So You Don't Have To Write Them.

As a former slush reader, I can tell you that lots of writers get their ideas from the news.  Right now, Pokemon Go is in all the headlines, and so every science-fiction and fantasy writer is writing a story that’s a spin on Pokemon Go.
Don’t make that spin obvious.  It’s going to be a lot harder to get your story published if it’s got the same plot we’ve seen six times this week.  And I can tell you from experience that in the months to come, magazines will see tons of stories with the following plotlines:
A Pokemon Go-style game is an evil plot designed to lure humans to their de –
What?
Kris Straub did it?

Well, I think my point’s been made.  If you want to be published – and I love it whenever a new writer gets published! – you’re going to have to work harder than the first ideas that come to mind.
But if you want more examples of the obvious twists slush readers will be seeing a lot of in the near future:
A lonely/abused child discovers his Pokemon Go-style capture is a real actual talking friend, and their new magical buddy humiliates and/or beats up the meanest character in the story.
A Pokemon Go-style game turns out to be the work of leprechauns (or fairies, or whatever) wanting to teach humans to accept finding magical creatures everywhere. 
A Pokemon Go-style game turns out to be the work of evil demons using the game to teach children in the secret ways of HATRED, even though honestly most of the people I’ve seen playing Pokemon Go personally have been in their early twenties.  
Pokemon Go-style creatures have real thoughts, and their own desires when humans aren’t looking, and yet none of them seem to realize this is the plot of Toy Story!   
A Pokemon Go-style game alienates a boy from his friends and he learns the amazing power of books.
Civilization has collapsed because every last human was playing Pokemon Go and nobody else mystically did anything, so now we’re all crawling through the ruins looking for Pikachu.  (Optional variant: A Very Smart Person tries to warn person about the dangers of a Pokemon Go-style game, and is ignored, and everyone is soooo foolish!  For extra chunky in your salsa, combine that with Pokemon Go-style games are the work of evil aliens and/or demons!)
A boy is sucked into the world of Pokemon Go, and now HE is the one who must be caught, and learns a valuable lesson about cruelty to animals.  
Maybe WE are all living in a virtual videogame, did you ever think of that?  Cooooool.
Pokemon Go-style… rape.  Someone will do it.  Someone always wants to tell the rape story.  Nobody ever buys them.
Pokemon Go-style characters comment about how silly the lives of humans are!  (We don’t have an actual plot here, just Squirtle making Seinfeld-style observations.)
A Pokemon Go-style game is a secret test by mysterious aliens to prove who really has the guts to catch them all.  (Although, you know, Ernie Cline got paid millions for that plot, so maybe you can do it too!)
I don’t mean to scorn, writers.  I bring up Ernie Cline at the end because if you write well enough, you can put a good spin on the hoariest concept.  But slush readers are going to be seeing a lot of stories like this, and even if you’re writing the best possible spin on this, an overworked slush reader may write you off because you sound too much like the last seven stories they’ve heard on this.
There’s good ideas for Pokemon Go out there.  Be inspired!  But be next-level inspired.  Think of an idea, and wonder if anyone else has thought of it, and take it to the next level.  Maybe the Pokemon Go AI has become sentient, and it doesn’t want to take over the planet or save a special child or make twee observations, so… what interesting things could it want?   Maybe the Pokemon Go changes society in fascinating ways – it already is – but that change is not as simplistic as “Pokemon Go leads us to the Rapture” or “Pokemon Go destroys civilization,” but rather has a subtle effect that leads to more unique story ideas than “save” or “break.”
You’ve got a good source material, here.  Now take it somewhere nobody but you is going to take it, write it, and submit it everywhere until, as they say in the Viable Paradise Workshop, “Until hell won’t have it!”
And good luck.
(But seriously, don’t write the “Pokemon Go is the lure of the devil” story.  Kris Straub’s done it.)

Ask Me Anything, Stressed Weasel Edition

So I had a pretty crappy day yesterday, what with a cavity and a gruellingly ignorant tech support experience:

“Now, is the tech still there? At your house?”
“…why?”
“Doesn’t he need to install the IP address?”
“It’s… not a physical item.”

— Ferrett Steinmetz (@ferretthimself) July 12, 2016

So I’m doing my usual “I want to reach out to people but don’t want to write an essay to do it” trick of saying “Whaddaya wanna know about me?”  All serious questions are on the table, which is to say, questions you actually want to know the answer to: the answer to questions like “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?” is “You’re not nearly as clever as you think you and shouldn’t post in this thread,” which generally makes people sadder than they’d like to be.
But anything else: up for grabs.  Wanna know about the new novels?  Polyamory?  What’s happening with me and Pokemon Go?  My opinions on random news events?  I’m up for anything, because last night was so stressful all I had for dinner was cupcake frosting and Ativan, so g’wan, distract me.

Your Secret Dental Weapon: Waterpiks

I just went to the dentist, as I do every three months, because about seven years ago I lost ten of my front teeth.  Cue three years’ worth of agonizing, embarrassing gum implant surgery.
…I’m better now.
(And a little better this morning, because I had the strange reward of “going downtown to see the dentist” and finding how Poke-packed the dentist’s office was! Seven Pokestops within an amble of the receptionist’s desk!  Two new Pokemon, a Zubat and a Koffing!  The only thing that might make random doctor visits fun is, indeed, Pokemon!)
Anyway, because of this, hoo boy am I familiar with dental hygiene!  And if you’re slack on your own teeth, I have some advice you need to know:
Get a Waterpik.
One Waterpik, even used improperly, beats the hell out of really good flossing.
Flossing requires a lot of knowledge, both in how to manipulate the string properly and in the personal topography of your mouth.  If you get the angle wrong, you don’t catch the plaque you need to.
A Waterpik, however, is basically pressure-washing your mouth – it requires no particular finesse, as you’re just flooding the spaces between your teeth with water.
I used to spend half an hour at each dental cleaning, being told I needed to be more careful as they scraped my teeth, me bleeding the whole time.  (I build up a lot of tartar.)  Now, post-Waterpik, I can be in and out in ten minutes, and at best my gums are a little red.
And it’s pretty quick, too.  Fill the tub with warm water (cold water hurts my gums), add a shot of Listerine to ensure that the bacteria get killed (and diluted, it doesn’t taste as awful as the direct stuff), and after about a minute you’re as squeaky clean as you can be.
So seriously.  If you’re looking to up your dental game so, I dunno, all your front teeth don’t have to be yanked out in a traumatizing surgery, get you a Waterpik.
Advice ends.