Culture

Author: Various. http://essayist.tumblr.com/
http://thedocumentarian.tumblr.com/
(4.5/5)
A lot of the writing on the internet is trash. There are only so many lists (cracked.com) or poorly written blogs (shit you come across in Stumble) you can read before you start craving a well-written article. It’s like wanting some fruit after binging on McD’s for a couple of days. But if you look underneath the right rocks, you can find gold. Enter The Essayist. This blog has quickly become my favourite website.
 

The Essayist is a collection of essays from around the internet, covering a wide range of material. These range from Avatar as a racist fantasy (fuck that movie, right?), to a pretty crazy story of British espionage in WWII. There are essays penned by Tina Fey, the guy that wrote Arrested Development, Steve Albini and a whole lot of David Foster Wallace. Hell they’ve even got some Hunter S Thompson. One of my personal favourites is the interview with Kenneth Tong, a misogynistic sociopath. If you don’t know who that is, trust me it’s a good thing. He is an advocate of “controlled anorexia”, and one of the biggest pieces of shit ever. Do I need to say more?
 

Sister site The Documentarian is worth checking out too. It’s pretty much the same as The Essayist but with documentaries. I have spent way too many hours watching it through bloodshot, hazy eyes. And c’mon, how many times do you need to re-watch Tim and Eric, or Always Sunny? American Movie, The Fog of War, Small Town Ecstasy and God’s Angry Man are all essential viewing. There are plenty of little oddities there too. Welcome to Spivey’s Corner: A National Hollerin’ Contest and Heavy Metal Parking Lot are both hilarious. I recommend this site be enjoyed with a couple of cones and a nice fat L.

 
As much as I am gushing over The Essayist, not all of the articles are tens. Steve Albini’s article about the music industry is pretty biased, although I suppose it does show what can happen if you approach the music industry too naively. And as much as I hate Avatar, Return of the Natives: Avatar Is a Racist Fantasy is not well structured, even though there are some good points. But hey, it is a collection of different writings from different authors from all over the internet, there are bound to be a couple which don’t quite match the quality of the others.