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You know Frank—he's been writing about menswear, sales, television, new shops, the recession, Lisa Loeb, the Golden Girls and getting blasted for Racked for over two years. Well, we think it's time you got to know him and his quirky-irreverent views on life and fashion even better with his column: Love, Frank. Taking the form of an open letter and always signed with love, Frank will rant about whatever style-related conundrum he encounters in a given week. So buckle your two-toned leather Moschino belts, folks, it's going to be ? Something.
Dear YouTube Savvy and Those Who Think They're Funny,
Please: Enough with the Shit People Say videos.
You've flooded the market. Now, even the sort of funny ones—they're no longer funny. And for every one of those sort of funny ones there are a dozen featuring non-Twitter personalities with bad skin filming themselves on their cell phones mumbling nothings and waiting for internet fame to descend.
It all started with Shit Girls Say: A Twitter feed featuring slice-of-life silly girlisms as well as the some thoughtfully retweeted slice-of-life silly girlisms from silly girl poster children like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. Then, the video: December 12th. A guy dressed as one of those silly girls talking about how her laptop is broken; how she's cold; how the TV is too loud; how the TV isn't loud enough; how she probably didn't lock the door and definitely can't find her keys in her bag. There's a surprise Juliette Lewis cameo; there is production value. It's instantly relatable. It's very funny.
But that bitch opened the damn floodgates. What's next? Shit Vegan Architects Say? Shit Wiccan Furries Say? Shit Caucasian Drug Dealers in Central Brooklyn Say?
This is not to say there aren't some that are really enjoyable. Shit Black Guys Say is awesome ("Hey man, I'm just doing me."); likewise Shit Black Girls Say ("Oh, pull up that episode of Basketball Wives.") and Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls ("Why isn't there a White Entertainment Television?")—if you're into exaggerated, hopefully benign racism.
The key, I think, is we've all heard these things or said these things and hearing them all at once, spliced together, at lightning speed is just absurd. And, again, super relatable (most of my male friends relate to Shit Girls Say while my female friends are torn between Shit Black Girls Say and Shit Black Guys Say—go figure).
Then things got fashion: Shit Fashion Girls Say is perfect. "She was wearing Aldos." "She was wearing Tory Burch flats." "Cute." "Chic" "Hate." Almost everything in that video: Heard it. Said it. Grace Coddington is the unsung hero of Vogue. And, yes, I'll just have the prosecco.
Meanwhile, doesn't the Shit OscarPRGirl Says video just kind of drain fashion of the fact that it is, by definition, kind of fun and frivolous. Case in point: "Sometimes I just wear cardigans backwards, because, why wouldn't you?" Like, yuck. They're all so serious and so irritating and too cool for school even though they're so clearly trying to play it off like they're not people who sometimes wear cardigans backwards just because. That said—the shaking of the fur coats and Andrew Mukamel pausing the Jennifer Lopez video to answer the phone: Brilliant.
Yet—they're both missing some of the most absurd comments and exchanges I hear practically daily. Were I not so fed up with the genre (because Shit Whomever Says is clearly a valid genre) I'd be inclined to put one together myself.
I mean, no one is shrieking "Prada!" No one's said "I'm wearing head-to-toe designer!" No one has called any mannequins fat, or referred to models as clothes hangers. No one's said anything is "in" or "out" or "the new" anything. No one's alluded to having a person at Barneys, or said "it doesn't even need to fit, I just need it."
And where are the exchanges like this:
Me: I just have visions of, like, earthy Jewish housewives taking pottery classes at community colleges after their kids are all grown—except their bracelet is from either a craft fair or a museum gift shop.
Her: I hear you, but I'm thinking it's so chic—but only in, like, a peach caftan and espadrilles on the beach in Antibes kind of way ? But I see what you are seeing.
Me: I guess I see what you're seeing, but I mainly see what I'm seeing.
A final note: Shit New Yorkers Say is terrible. Yes, we say a lot of those things. But those two are so awkward and geek-ish. New Yorkers are a lot of things, and they wear those things on their sleeves—but they don't do awkward and they don't do geek. To quote another tired internet-ism: Fail.
· Love, Frank [Racked]
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