ColumnNeed to look good on Facebook? Ask an editor.

Presenting yourself as the envy of everyone’s Facebook wall comes down to editing (that we’d want to do this is a foregone conclusion). As a colleague said recently, “Editing is the skill of the century.” Your digital life, unedited? So MySpace. This is Facebook, where the savvy Eye of social discernment is a requisite. You’ve got walls. Subscriptions. Integrated tweets. Photo albums. Friends tagging god-knows-what (probably your arm from the fat side). It’s a borg on there, and you’ll need to practice some serious curation of your life to be perceived like-ably. You want the highs to be high, the lows to be slightly less high, and the ex to know your arms are still skinny. As every good editor knows, the product is all in the packaging. Present your life from the most pleasing angle, and don’t forget the witty caption! Here’s how.

Lolcats

IRL: You’ve got guests in town. Your cat cannot handle the den of estrogen that your flat has become and meows – bleats, really – all night long, keeping both you and your guests in the other room miserably half-asleep well into sunrise. The cat settles in for slumber, of course, right at the time you all have to wake up for work on Monday morning. You find yourself wondering if your cat would even notice if you gave it away.

How to Facebook it: Cheezburger it up and put a caption on it. Lol all the way to the likes. Cats are hilarious, always! Suggested captions:

IM IN UR SLEEP, DISRUPTIN UR ZZZ

MEOWS-ON-REPEAT: EVEN MORE ANNOYING THAN DUBSTEP

HOSTESS KITTEH: TEH GUESTS HAZ OVERSTAYED TEH WELCOMEZ

Workaday Wonderful

IRL: You’re stuck in the worst-of-the-worst conference on earth, the kind for corporate types in need of the downlow, or lowdown, on how to do the Twitter. You sneak out of the “You Need a Social Media Strategy!” session with the Arial Powerpoint slides about engagement and channels delivered by the woman decked in menopausal jewelry wearing highwater gabardine trousers. You race to catch the de Kooning exhibit at MoMA for 30 life-giving minutes before heading back in for the rest of the sessions. At the break, you’re fed stale grocery store bagels slathered in Kraft cream cheese, and hi, you are allergic to gluten and also really prefer organic dairy. You’ll have to catch up on all your work that night where you’ll eat string cheese, also not organic, and alternate cans of Illy and Freixenet from the corner deli because you don’t have time to go to dinner. And, you did not bring enough pairs of underwear, because it’s suddenly your time of the month.

How to Facebook it: Snap and post a shot of the de Kooning sign in the lobby (angle: casually askew; interest point: allow single corner pop of color). Prepare for the “You have such a fabulous jet-setting life!” comments. You’ll need that validation to retain consciousness through “Is Your Website Sticky?”

Being Informed

IRL: Your teetering stack of unread New Yorkers threatens to knock a tooth out in your sleep any night now, you’re only halfway into the novel your best friend gave you for Christmas (and neither one of you even celebrates the holidays!), your bookmarks are so clogged you’re getting warning emails from Xmarks, and you still haven’t finished the latest Seth Godin bestseller.

How to Facebook it: Post the Portlandia “Did You Read?” clip below and caption as follows: “Funny because it’s so true!” You need to outsource your reading at this point. You just need to look like you read, except not so much that it looks like your career isn’t on fire.

Dining Out

IRL: The bread is a burnt offering, the hipster waiters do not approve of your lack of facial hair and you’re pretty sure there was just a shooting outside the vintage Ray Ban and ski sweater shop.

How to Facebook it: Just post a picture of the mussels and Cava, cropping out the bread and beards. Appropriate caption: “Just another night of foodie fun in the Mission!” #nofilter (#liar #andyouliveinPacificHeights #byachurch #notthecoolchurch #becausethatsintheMission)

Being Popular and Successful

IRL: No one shows up to your event except your staff and that one weird guy who always comes to your events. Your dad.

How to Facebook it: The bartender and most attractive bar patrons will never notice you’re taking pictures of them and claiming them as your own. Jen, right? She looks like a Jen.

Your Love Life

IRL: You’re being pestered by no less than six suitors you could care less about and the one you want (the cute one, of course) is totes noncommits. Or, you haven’t had sex in over a year and you’re 28 and even your mother who waited until marriage thinks there is something unhealthy about this. Or you’re using Facebook to stalk your ex. When he finally blocks you, you resort to pleading with your friends to let you comb his photos for signs of a new girlfriend via their accounts. So, you’re still stalking your ex. Any way you work it, the picture isn’t pretty. Or is it? No need for the cutting room floor: we can so save this content!

How to Facebook: Go out to dinner every night with a string of your 100%-just-friends male friends and check in to the restaurants anyway. “Lisa has checked into Gary Danko with Joe.” That’ll learn those pestering suitors, all right. To alleviate Mom’s concerns, post updates like “Yet another crazy night! Can’t wait to get some sleep tonight!” and let her find relief in her own conclusions. For everything else, post a humble brag about the neighbor spotting you naked through the kitchen window, tee-hee! Leave out the part about him being 99. Or gay. Or blind.

Family Fun

IRL: Your grandmother dies on Christmas Day, a cousin reveals the Alice-in-Wonderland extent of his mental illness to you over too many eggnogs, your aunt announces she is getting divorced because she’s actually lesbian and your uncle is also out – of work (again). You develop a raging yeast infection. On your face. Probably from all the bourbon you’re drinking to cope.

How to Facebook it: “Feeling so grateful despite life’s challenges this holiday season!” and bask in the approving likes.

Simply leave off the “to be alive…I guess” part.

Conclusion to Column

IRL: Love, loss, hipsters, hashtags. We’ve covered it all.

How I’ll Facebook it: As if I’d post this to Facebook!

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: Francisco Vargas

ColumnThis could be your reader. She deserves better.

Did you hear a funny sound or see smoke trickling out of your computer last week? That was the sound of lady website XOJane blowing up the internet by publishing a post by said site’s health editor on how using birth control such as condoms or the pill is, like, totes the pits, which caused just about the entire int-her-net to clutch our pearls and foam at the mouth.

I’m not so terribly offended that an adult woman writing for a professional website in the capacity of health editor would claim that only fat goody-goodies take the pill. What really offends me is that apparently this is what passes for good writing on the internet these days. THIS.

“Yup, on my bad days I am the glowering, self-critical too-much-eyeliner-on nightmare that terrorizes every workplace setting I choose to inhabitate with the kind of toxic insecurity that destroys … well, it’s not particularly compelling to anyone else or powerful in any way, so it doesn’t destroy much except my own self-worth and happiness, from hour to hour, until I hang out with a friend or something and the self-obsession and negativity recedes and I feel normal again!

(Does this stuff ever end? Do I have to hurl myself into a mirror? Why didn’t I watch that movie more carefully so I can reference it better? Jesus, mang. I’m so BORED of being UNHAPPY.)”

Is this good writing? Jane Pratt – she of Sassy and Jane – says it is and that it’s why her website is awesome. She says it’s “riveting and raw.” But really, is it good? I’m asking honestly. I’d form an opinion myself, but I have no goddamn clue what’s going on in that paragraph.  It was supposed to be about eye liner, and I’m confused.

As those of us who do it for a living know, writing for the internet can be challenging. We contend with a lot of prejudice, both from people who assume we’re not good enough to get into print (not the case) and from those who assume we’ve never heard of spell-checking (sometimes the case). But in our defense, online articles go from pitch to publish really fast, and humans make typos and mistakes. Very few websites have the leisurely pace or the proofreading staff of The New Yorker, is what I’m saying. We already have a bad rap, so writing professional stories like a teenager scribbling in a diary Does Not Help. Not to mention the fact – you read it here first – that readers don’t read dishy, confessional blogginess and think, “Wow, what a raw and edgy personality!” They read it and think, “Wow, that girl should book some extra therapy sessions.”

There’s wonderful writing on the internet, and it’s not all about the quote-unquote important stuff. I’ve read slideshows on the Top 10 Celeb Booby Shots and captions to cat videos that were so hysterical they made my eyes bleed. Great writing has nothing to do with being formal or stuffy or serious or even appropriate. But I think it’s fair to say that to be called “good writing,” something should meet a basic standard of mechanical proficiency, readability, and clarity. To call this kind of sub-grammatical apunctuated word salad “riveting and raw”… well that kind of chaps my ass on behalf of all of us who try every day to form complete and coherent sentences – maybe even good ones that make you laugh or make you think.  Because we do try. Very hard. “Inhabitate”? I mean, really. Come on, now. Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean you get to make up words.

Lo, our beloved English language, it changeth even as we speak. And that’s natural. But it’s under enough siege already, what with the all the textin n stuf. Must we now consider this acceptable, nay, better-than-average? Is this the future? A lazy future in which every professionally-written sentence sounds like a text from a thirteen-year-old girl who got hold of some Ritalin and marabou heels? (OMG you guys it’s SO awesome! Like, FOR REALS! HAHAHAHAHAHA I’M SO EDGY!)

As much as I feel bad for English-speaking humanity, I also feel bad for the writer herself. Because that’s another tough thing about the web: when you have a bad day, an uninspired day, and you churn out some junk because you’re on deadline and you have other stuff to get done (which happens to all of us), it lives forever. A clunker story doesn’t just disappear into the ether as soon as the next issue of the magazine hits newsstands. Nowadays, it’s always just a Google away, and that writer will forevermore be known as That Girl Who Wrote the Ridiculous Thing. It’s rough.

But maybe the joke’s on us. Maybe in twenty years we’ll be analyzing the sub-grammatical apunctuated word salad the way we analyze ee cummings or James Joyce or David Foster Wallace, even though now it seems like the unholy love child of LOLcats and Twitter. And if that happens, I think I speak for all of us when I say, “I can haz cynanide?”

Editor’s note: This latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, is penned by the fabulous Ms. Ford.

Women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media. What’s wrong with this picture?

Women and media are a common topic of discussion in my close circles, as it’s something that we all care strongly about. Be it the role of female filmmakers in a male dominated industry or the portrayal of women in television and film, when it comes to my gender and the media there’s never a lack of things to talk about.

Here at EcoSalon, where we are steeped in both worlds, things are no different. So when a good friend in the film industry posted a link to a trailer for Miss Representation - a documentary that explores the misrepresentation of women in culture and media and how that influences the under representation of women in other realms, like politics and business - it got my attention immediately.

Constantly inundated with all forms of media on a practically 24/7 basis, it is rare that something truly moves me. Call it desensitized, but in the era of short audio and video clips it’s easy to scan, fast forward and move on. But this trailer was different. It gave me chills. It left me staring at the screen frustrated. Some statistics that I couldn’t get over:

While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.

And yet there was a sense of empowerment to be garnered; the sense that rallying together we can make serious change.

That’s the idea that the film’s writer and producer, Jennifer Siebel Newsom wants to get across. In between dealing with her daughter’s bout of pink eye and breast feeding her 4-month old son, she took time to talk about the inspiration behind the film and why she is driven to work on this question of women and their portrayal in the media.

In the entertainment industry since the age of 28, Siebel Newsom knows what she’s talking about, having seen the portrayal of women and its effects early on. “I was [already] very very concerned about what it would be like raising a child in our modern culture… I had a daughter and my concern increased,” says Siebel Newsom.

That concern was fueled even more during the 2008 presidential campaign. “[I] witnessed all the campaigns directed against Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin and couldn’t help but recognize what was happening to them and what was happening to women aspiring towards leadership,” says Siebel Newsom, adding that those types of negative campaigns “would discourage anyone from aspiring to be a leader.”

Ultimately she saw the difficult cultural obstacles that women were up against, and tied them back to media. Why aren’t there more women in leadership roles? “It’s sort of a chicken and the egg, both the media and our culture don’t value women enough,” she says. That leads to an image that, as Siebel Newsom puts it, is ”disparaging and hyper-sexualized and ultimately relays to the culture that that’s what women are.”

Which means women are up against some very difficult obstacles when it comes to changing these embedded values. “97% of what you see and hear comes from the male perspective, I’m not saying that it’s wrong but it’s a limited perspective,” Siebel Newsom says.

Women’s portrayal in media, as well as their role in guiding it, is a multi-faceted issue, influenced by numerous factors. From education to commercialization of gender roles, women’s identities are shaped from a young age. As a mother, Siebel Newsom knows this all too well, “Disney is now selling to kids as early as newborns.” She adds, “your pink little onesie… reinforces gender.”

Start girls off with that role early, exacerbate it with an over sexualized image in the media, and the effects later in life aren’t pretty. Women end up “willingly thinking that it’s their role to please and satisfy,” says Siebel Newsom. With that idea drilled into our subconscious, it’s no surprise that we invest millions of dollars into making ourselves look better, going under the knife to attain a media defined ideal.

As the film highlights, the number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youths 18 or younger more than tripled from 1997 to 2007. Those are valuable dollars, and if we’re going to make change we need to rethink where our priorities lie. “Instead of investing that money in their own beauty and investing it in changing our cultural landscape, that would be huge,” says Siebel Newsom.

In the midst of a slew of disheartening statistics, it is easy to get overwhelmed, but if there’s one thing about Siebel Newsom, it’s that her energy and passion for this issue comes across loud and clear and it was hard to leave the call uninspired.

In the end, the answer may be as simple as joining forces. As Siebel Newsom points out, “We need a village of women supporting each other… to change the cultural landscape.”

I asked her if she were to give advice to three different generations of women, what it would be.

For younger girls, those like her daughter:

“[That] they’re each unique. Whatever is unique about us makes us special.”

For women in their 20s-40s:

“Figure out what you’re passionate about and go for it and don’t let anything stop you. Surround yourself with women that are like minded and supportive.”

For women in their 50s and 60s:

“Embrace your wisdom… empower younger women that need support.”

Siebel Newsom encourages people to take the Miss Representation pledge or host a screening of the film, as well as follow these five action steps:

1. Tell five people about the film and share one thing you learned from watching it.

2. Parents- watch TV and films with your children. Raise questions like “What if that character had been a girl instead?”

3. Remember your actions influence others. Mothers, aunts and loved ones- don’t downgrade or judge yourself by your looks. Fathers, uncles and loved ones—treat women around you with respect. Remember children in your life are watching and learning from you.

4. Use your consumer power. Stop buying tabloid magazines and watching shows that degrade women. Go see movies that are written and directed by women (especially on opening weekend to boost the box office ratings). Avoid products that resort to sexism in their advertising.

5. Mentor others! It’s as easy as taking a young woman to lunch. Start by having open and honest conversations with young people in your life.

Having already made the festival circuit, Miss Representation has its broadcast premiere this week. You can catch it on Thursday, October 20 at 9 p.m. on OWN.

Images: Miss Representation

Why men’s bodies are just as beautiful as women’s.

When women’s bodies are being used to sell yet another product, one of the most common defenses from both sexes is that women’s bodies are just prettier than men’s. It’s not sexism when a woman’s curves are used to entice us to buy toothpaste and batteries; it’s just that women are so much more lovely, you see. Implied is the idea that if men’s bodies were somehow less visually unfortunate, their bodies would be used, too. I call bullocks.

Men’s bodies are just as attractive as women’s. Certainly, the Greeks thought so. (Or, they are both unattractive compared to a truly graceful animal like a cheetah. My personal taste leans toward the latter – human beings’ patchy hair, awkward upright walk, and usually unfit bodies aren’t so beautiful compared to many other animals.) However you see the relative attractiveness of human bodies, it is a cultural idea, not an inherent truth, that women are more beautiful than men.

In feminist studies, the idea that a whole society learns to see through heterosexual, male eyes is termed the “male gaze.” How many thousands of movies have you watched in your life, how many photographs created from the male perspective? A movie with negligible female casting or character development is for everyone, and women and girls are expected to enjoy and empathize with male characters all the time  – reverse that and it’s called a chick flick. There are men who have no problem putting themselves in a woman’s perspective while reading a book or watching a film. These men prove that being only interested, willing or able to see from the male perspective is learned, so they are a good example (not to mention better dates).

That generations of women have grown up seeing the world through the lens of a straight male gaze would yield the unsurprising result of women considering women’s bodies to be more beautiful than men’s. But I challenge you to imagine a world where men’s bodies are used as commonly as women’s to indicate beauty, a future where perfectly sculpted men’s thighs and calves rather than women’s are used to hawk plasmas and sneakers.

As a straight woman, I have precious few opportunities outside company with my significant other to enjoy the male body as casually and as constantly as my heterosexual guy friends do. Yes, of course I can search out male art photography, but most of that is also from the vantage point of men (gay men produce some gorgeous male nude art, but it’s not from a woman’s perspective). And the few places where men’s bodies are celebrated and exemplified seem to focus on what men think women want to see, not what women actually like looking at. It helps when the photographer is a woman, like Lynda Churilla, whose work, shown above, is viewable at Robin Rice Gallery.

Gradually, we are seeing more attractive men’s bodies in media; perhaps this is a trend in the making? Until then, I always have the archives of hot soccer players from the World Cup (Jezebel’s “thighlights” being a particular fave of mine).

What we read, and what you should read, too.

As purveyors of conscious culture and fashion, our reading list is long (and our reading is never done). But these are the websites we find ourselves drawn to again and again. They’re bookmarked in our daily reads, noted on EcoSalon’s Reading List, and are worth getting to know. From some of the most-beloved print publications online to rambunctious upstarts and indie standouts, you won’t find a more dynamic reading feast anywhere online.

BEST ONLINE READING IN: FASHION

WWD – Women’s Wear Daily

Tagline: “The Fashion Bible” (and it is).

Publishing since 1910 (print).

Refinery29

Fashion news from everywhere.

Ecco Eco

News on eco textiles and art farming projects from fiber artist and writer Abigail Doan.

Publishing since 2006.

Social Alterations

A platform for design educators to benchmark themselves against other educators not only within their own field, but across various design disciplines.

Ethical Fashion Forum

The EFF delivers support and ethical news for fashion businesses and conscious readers alike and serves as a resource for connecting to sustainable sources.

Publishing since 2004.

Coco Eco Magazine

Coco EcoMagazine is a digital multi-media lifestyle brand celebrating sustainable fashion, beauty, celebrity, and culture.

Publishing since 2008.

Ecouterre

Tagline: “Green Fashion Is More Than A Passing Trend.”

Publishing since 2009.

Vogue.com’s Green Style Blog

It’s Vogue, what more is there to say?

Publishing since 1892.

EcoTextile News

News, comment and analysis on sustainable textiles and clothing.

Style.com

Vogue’s original venture into the land of HTML.

Publishing since 2000.

Josh Spear

The four corners of the world of design, and everything in between.

Publishing since 2004.

Organic Exchange

“Creating Material Change”: a non-profit committed to promoting sustainable textiles.

Publishing since 2003.

The Square Project

The blog of Tara St James, owner and designer for the clothing label Study.

Publishing since 2009.

Goodlifer

Inspiring news and articles on sustainable fashion, travel and food trends, shopping and living the good life.

BEST ONLINE READING IN: FOOD

Chow

News, articles, recipe-hacking and the ChowHound online community.

Publishing since 2006.

Chez Pim

Professional cook, professional eater and internet cult figure Pim Techamuanvivit’s food site.

Publishing since 2001.

Foodzie
“Taste Something Different” – an online marketplace connecting small-scale food producers & growers.

Publishing since 2008.

Delicious Days

“I Eat Merely To Put Food Out Of My Mind” – home of a food-lover based in Europe (and one of TIME’s “50 Coolest Websites”).

Publishing since 2005.

Foodspotting

“A visual guide to good food and where you find it” via user-recommended dishes.

Publishing since 2009.

Tastespotting

A user-built grab-bag of gorgeous images leading to recipes, articles, tips…anything goes. The ultimate in food porn.

Publishing since 2007.

Summer Tomato

Scientist and foodie Darya Pino shares nutrition tips, healthy recipes and farmers’ market finds.

Publishing since 2009.

Serious Eats

Sharing and celebrating food enthusiasm! (With some serious chef talent on the roster.)

Publishing since 2006.

Food News Journal

Articles, essays, blog posts – the best in food current events.

Publishing since 2009.

Civil Eats

Driven by the politics of food – and the need for a serious dialogue about the American food system.

Publishing since 2008.

Organic Authority

Everything organic! (It’s right there in the name).

Publishing since 2004.

BEST ONLINE READING IN: SEX

Jezebel

Tagline: “Celebrity, sex, fashion for women.”

Publishing since 2007.

Bitch Magazine

Providing and encouraging an engaged, throughful response to mainstream media and popular culture.

Publishing since 1996.

Ms. Magazine

The legendary feminist magazine in its online form.

Publishing since 1971.

Ad Age

Advertising agency and marketing industry news.

Publishing since 1992.

Feministe

“One of the oldest feminist blogs online designed by and run by women from the ground up.”

Publishing since 2003.

Feministing

Tagline: “Bringing you brainy, bad-ass feminist news.”

Publishing since 2004.

The Hairpin

Founded by Edith Zimmerman and Cassie Murdoch, Hairpin features writing by women for women.

Publishing since 2010.

Girl With Pen

Tagline: “Bridging feminist research and popualr reality.”

BEST ONLINE READING IN: SHELTER

Apartment Therapy

Aiming to make homes more beautiful, organised and healthy.

Publishing since 2007.

Dwell

“At home in the modern world” – promoting pragmatic, beautiful modern design.

Publishing since 2000.

Desire to Inspire

A showcase for the beautiful side of interior design.

Publishing since 2006.

Remodelista

Tagline: “Sourcebook for the considered home.”

Publishing since 2007.

Wallpaper

Tagline: “Designinteriorsfashionartlifestyle.” (Which rather says it all).

Publishing since 1996.

Not Cot

A growing network of design sites including the famous NotCot.com.

Publishing since 2006.

Better Living Through Design

Tagline: “Your guide to home, style, travel.”

Publishing since 2005.

Design Milk

A web magazine dedicated to design (and a favorite of Google’s engineers).

Publishing since 2006.

Rum Magazine (in Danish)

Interior design with a Scandinavian twist.

Publishing since 2006.

BEST ONLINE READING IN: NEWS & CULTURE

The New York Times

Still the best.

Publishing since 1851 (print).

The New Yorker

Commentary, reportage, criticism, essays, and fiction with a twist of wry.

Publishing since 1925 (print).

The Atlantic

The literary and culture commentary magazine.

Publishing since 1857 (print).

The Daily Beast

Tina Brown’s Beast recently merged with Newsweek. “A fresh take on the news from around the world with sharp opinion.”

Publishing since 2008.

The Economist

The week in international politics, business, science and culture.

Publishing since 1843 (print).

Treehugger

The most well-known green website.

Publishing since 2003.

Wired

Covering the impact of new and speculative technology on world culture.

Publishing since 1993 (print).

TechCrunch

Technology news and analysis, and everything regarding online startups.

Publishing since 2005.

Hacker News

From Ycombinator, aggregating the best news.

Publishing since 2005.

Ecorazzi

Tagline: “The latest in green gossip.”

Publishing since 2006.

Vanity Fair

Pop culture, fashion and politics.

Publishing since 1913 (print).

More Intelligent Life

The must-read quarterly lifestyle and culture magazine from The Economist.

Publishing since 2007.

GOOD

A magazine reporting on the people who are “moving the world forward.”

Publishing since 2006.

PSFK

Providing inspiration for creative professionals.

Publishing since 2004.

Laughing Squid

Featuring the best in unique art, culture and technology.

Publishing since 1995.

Gawker

Daily gossip/news on celebrities and the media industry.

Publishing since 2003.

Fast Company

Progressive business media, ethical economics, leadership and design.

Publishing since 1995.

TED

Tagline: “Ideas Worth Spreading.”

Publishing since 2006 (online).

Mother Jones

The nonprofit magazine specializing in liberal and progressive values.

Publishing since 1976 (print).

The Awl

Tagline: “Be Less Stupid.” Culture commentary and humor.

Publishing since 2008.

Recommend your own required reading in the comments.

Image: liquene

ColumnSurfin’ USA.

They say the internet is a radical tool for changing the world. Often cited in this lofty claim are Wikileaks and Twitter. The Internet-capitalized is also a scapegoat for the people with excess ear hair to blame the Websites for all that is wrong with The Youth, a disappointing step up from sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. For the inexperienced and Glenn Beck, the internet is a scapegoat for assigning blame for pretty much everything in general. For real journalists working in print media, the internet is a cesspool of aggregation and amateurs in pajamas – but then, we’ve already touched on the people with excess ear hair.

For everyone else, the internet is a sparkling tool of infinite practicality. It’s just not a sparkling tool of infinite practicality for the things you would assume, like online banking or changing your seat assignment. Useful is nice, but, like mayonnaise on a cheese sandwich, pointless is better. The internet serves only one purpose that truly matters, and that is that it is the most effective way in the world to avoid working while at work.

People like me who make internet for a living know that this is why the pageview exists and also why you get the most of them between 9 and 5. You have to entertain all the people manning the companies that don’t have the money to advertise on your website. Far from being the glamorous racket my friends in more respected professions like law and investment banking are convinced it is, media is really kind of a thankless gig.

In between their conferences and hearings, lurking behind their Powerpoint decks, the truth comes out: cute puppy pictures on Tumblr; ex-stalking on Facebook; browser-window shopping on Jcrew.com. They do not make the connection that while they are tremendously busy at work forwarding chain emails exposing the truth about that dangerous chemical compound that develops when cheese is placed on a saltine cracker in certain states during the months of August and September only, I am slaving over their next viral time-waster. Like this column, for example. But have they thanked me even once?

In a fit of jealous rage after my third sugar-free Hazelnut Vanilla cream latte yesterday afternoon, for which I’m sure there’s a chain email, I decamped for the other side of the screen. Wasting your day on the internet seems to be working for everyone, in the sense that no one’s working. (Which should anger no one. I cite the much-Facebook-liked fact that we are the most productive people on earth as argument. Google it.) It was time for me to give it a go. But where was I?

Oh yes! Here are the things I did on the internet instead of writing my column. I was careful to take scrupulous notes so you can experience the experience for yourself.

7:30 a.m. As the French press steeps my coffee, I stare bleary-eyed at my Facebook wall. A friend’s status update incoming! Something about his cat. Task put off for another time: checking work email.

7:35 a.m. Today I decide I’ll actually open all the email newsletters I subscribe to, and read them.

10:03 a.m. Amazed at the amount of time wasted, I sign up for 17 more daily deal newsletter services. There are more, but I decide I only need one yoga group discount offer a day. Taking a break after the first nine for a bit of aimless scrolling through The Sartorialist and Desire to Inspire, I am inspired to reorganize all my bookmarks into boards on Pinterest, but then I lose interest and decide to check out Facebook again.

10:40 a.m. After updating my Netflix queue and friending three new friends in the Flickr group Bacon Porn, I settle in for an hour of tearing through 30 tabs at the Huffington Post. I feel dirty and liberal afterward.

Noon. I check Facebook again. I am rapt to see my friend has posted three more updates about his cat.

12:03 p.m. Have deleted my first Reddit account after getting into a flame war about doughnut holes. Intense. Going to caption lolcats now. My submission: Kitteh Litter.

3:30 p.m. Facebook. Again with the cat. Of course. It all makes sense now.

3:36 p.m. Phone in to conference call with writers late, blame slow internet. Omit the part about it being slow because of the three browsers, 78 tabs, two streaming episodes of 30 Rock and (what else?) cat video I am watching. I hear the words “Find your own hyperlinks for a change,” which I say out loud in real life. While pretending to listen, I post my scrupulous day-of-surfing notes to the anonymous WordPress blog I built and launched during lunch.

3:49 p.m. My kid brother instant messages me a video about a guy with a bike, which I post on Twitter, where I learn that Jackie Chan has died.

4:00 p.m. The day has simply flown. With an hour left in the workaday, I tuck in for some more Huffington Post but am interrupted by a text from our managing editor: “What the hell was that tweet?”

4:20 p.m. Perusing Reddit, this time under the name surfinusatoday, I notice a reference to 4:20. I look up the meaning on Urban Dictionary.

4:47 p.m. An email from a physician friend who has just saved two people’s lives with her afternoon and wants to grab dinner. “What did you get done today?” she writes. “Oh, you know, the usual,” I reply.

This is the latest (quasi-fictional) installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Aine D

ColumnA comment on commenting.

In a burst of condescension so brilliant my lady-brain almost didn’t catch it, a follower on Twitter labeled our recent article about nuclear energy as stupid and ignorant. He then admonished us both there and on Facebook to be “ashamed.” Our readers deserve to know “the truth” of which he is evidently the arbiter.

I publicly acknowledged the one constructive point he grandly offered (I had loaded the piece with a deck referencing Japan’s nuclear “meltdown” which, 10 days out from the disaster, is at best totally accurate and at worst, no different from a similar usage by the New York Times). I did resent him mussing my hair with his virtual pat on the head, though. You see, the author of the article, Stephanie Rogers, has the misfortune of cultivating greenery in her backyard while simultaneously not being a nuclear scientist. In other words, despite her long list of environmental writing credits and the piece in question having 13 straight paragraphs of citation after citation, fact after fact, she is clearly not up to the task of considering the topic of nuclear energy because she gardens. That green thumb belongs nowhere near the red button, much less the Publish button.

Coincidentally, this is a subject that’s been on my mind. Class, it’s time for a little lesson called Stop Being So Shallow, You’re Hindering Actual Dialogue, You Insecure Nit.

If Stephanie Rogers, a professional journalist and blogger whom I happen to know as one of the more thoughtful and prolific green writers working these days (her articles have been syndicated by numerous print media during her tenure at EcoSalon), cannot write about the nuclear energy debate that’s been revived in light of current events in Japan because she has an affinity for growing tulips, that’s fine, but we’ll have to be consistent. Let’s just get this out of the way now: Sorry, President Obama, reading a memo here, talking it up with your science people there, does not entitle you to pontificate to the citizenry on nuclear energy. You’re simply not an expert, babe. Nice speeches, though.

In all seriousness, I think the only person who shouldn’t be talking about, writing about or otherwise bloviating about nuclear energy right now is Kenny from South Park, because we know how that ends up. For everyone else, there’s the readily available internet and the mere fact that The Nuclear Option affects us all – and I’m not just talking about nuclear power. I take our editorial responsibility seriously, so here’s me letting the cat out of the bag: we are professional writers and editors, but it is true that we are not nuclear energy “experts.” Few journalists are. Does this mean we cannot discuss one of the most compelling topics of our time?

Most readers are savvy enough to understand that every piece has its limits, if for no other reason than screen size, and are able to air their disagreement or call out an error without resorting to insults. But the world of new media is a Baker’s dozen: for every 12 mindful, sincere readers you get, there is the inevitable reader with a bleeding chip. Such readers react first – they take the nuclear option – and remember we’re all in this together second. And that’s fine. They do not trust their own positions very much, for they are hotly put out by ours. (Even more so when the writer is a woman. Somehow I doubt that Graham Hill or Mike Lieberman or any other green guy would face tweet-shaming for sharing a few well-sourced points about nuclear energy – at least, not because of a fondness for his homegrown tomatoes.)

But sexism is as old as the internet, and who cares? The truly tiresome thing about the not-an-expert slam is that it is so beside the point. Imagine a world where only experts were allowed to comment on a given topic. It would certainly take care of that little cocktail party problem known as Falling Back on the Weather (unless it’s a Weather Channel company party, obviously). The cable TV punditry would soon go extinct. An undeniable upside.

But there might be a few downsides. We wouldn’t be allowed to talk about our cars stalling, our flights being delayed, our computers freezing up, our cell phones dying, our teenagers refusing to shower, our neighborhood recycling program or the origins of thin-crust pizza. That is, unless we’re mechanics, pilots, programmers, engineers, psychologists, municipal administrators or culinary historians (for which there must be a program at Yale). Oh, we could recount these things happening, but analysis and debate, input from friends, indeed Googling would be off limits…even to professional writers. What great fun. The whole of human existence lived as a fourth-grade book report.

If there’s one thing we learned from Gandhi, it’s that change starts with you, and Gandhi? I am so going to be that change. Here at EcoSalon, no writer will be allowed to write on any topic unless he or she is a proven expert in said topic. Confirmation of expertise will be determined by a jury of your Twits and verdict will be rendered in 140 characters or less.

But wait, there’s more! Just think of how much value you will not contribute to your personal life. I won’t be able to offer insights to married friends because I am single, for example. The silver lining is that all this free time not being allowed to do or say anything because I’m no expert should give me plenty of time to become one. With any luck, perhaps I can even become a know-it-all. Better yet, a know-nothing! Sadly, I can never become a man, at least not without better health insurance.

It’s hard work actually thinking through the merits of what someone says instead of reacting based upon what box you’ve got them in, but every day, intelligent adults in possession of a heart do manage it.

Every day, good journalists can and do credibly contribute ideas and information to topics they may not be career “experts” in. But that’s not what it’s about, is it? It’s about a chick. And so some readers will resort to their lizard brains, reacting to their biology as fast as they possibly can to smother the itch, salving themselves with ad hominem.

How expert should we be when discussing topics that matter to us all? There’s a fairly wide field between being peer-reviewed in the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology and being an imbecile. Pretending that isn’t the case is dishonest and counterproductive. And coming back with a know-nothing defense – and it is always this defense – such as “I’m no expert either, which is why I don’t write on this topic!” is no comeback at all.

Abortion, war and technology, fertility, fast food, feminism, divorce, drugs, vegetarianism, porn, Peta, trashion, fur, ecosexism, sex, sex in advertising, death, things we want versus things we need, celebrity, nuclear energy: All topics allowed, all consciousness considered, all hyperlinks included, no green stone unturned.

If you’ve got a leg to stand on, stand on it. But if you’re going to take issue with a writer’s proclivity for raising oregano, we’re going to consider the source, as well. And we’ll take a gardener over a troll any day.

Image: Lara604

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Said Slate writer Arthur Allen as he was about to criticize Oprah Winfrey, “Chastising a celebrity is an exercise in futility. You feel like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck, scrabbling wildly in the air without drawing blood.” The man has a point. What other celebrity out there has a daily invitation into American homes, whose mere mention of a tip or product can inspire hysterics? Sure, one could argue that Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck might impose the same influence on a select group of Americans. But then, Oprah isn’t as politically polarizing as Palin or Beck. Or is she?

The career of a media mogul inevitably will be marked with scandal and lawsuits, particularly with a figure who commands as much influence as Oprah Winfrey. There is no denying that she can throw down some serious authority when she’s up for it. A mere mention of mad cow disease on her show in the 1990s brought on an infamous defamation suit from the Texas cattle industry. Angry cattle rustlers claimed her show caused the industry to lose 11 million. Free speech prevailed and Oprah was exonerated, but it showed the world that this woman has a voice that could be instantly magnified by millions.

Just how loud is Oprah’s voice? Just one example is her book club which got America reading and made instant celebrities and sometimes millionaires of the authors. (This includes EcoSalon’s January Man We Love, Jonathan Franzen.) Critics of her book club tutt-tutted what seemed to be blind masses following her every word. Even Franzen notoriously worried that her selections, essentially perceived as “chick lit,” may alienate a male audience. But others pointed out she was getting people to read. So what’s the problem?

And there’s the charm of Oprah. To many, she is “everywoman.” To others, she’s mocked as “everywoman.” With a media empire and range of influence that remains unchallenged, she still oozes reliability and empathy with every interview. You feel like you could tell her anything – and hundreds of her guests have done just that. And when she’s dealing with an uncomfortable subject, she is quick to express some variation of “we’re here to learn from your experience, not to exploit your pain.”

And, people respond. Hell, do they respond. Even when she gave away a car at her final “favorite things” show in 2010, she proposed that the utter hysterics in the audience, which she herself called a parody and Saturday Night Live skit, was really about the joy of something unexpected happening during the day. And not, you know, about the free cars.

But when has she gotten it wrong? She publicly scolded author James Frey for fabricating his supposed memoir of drug abuse, A Million Little Pieces. She later apologized for doing so, saying she had felt personally duped and therefore lashed out.

Oprah also infamously featured Jenny McCarthy on her show, an actress on a quest to link vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been completely exonerated in their connection to autism. But has the damage been done? David T. Tayloe is president of the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians. As he told Slate in 2009, even before this latest information came to light, “If you give her a bully pulpit, McCarthy is going to make people hesitate to vaccinate their children. She has no medical or scientific credentials. It disturbs us that she’s given all these opportunities to make her pitch about vaccines on Oprah or Larry King or U.S. News or whatever?”

For better or for worse, Oprah is a cultural force that cannot be ignored. Her power (or empowerment, perspective!) shows no sign of abating. As her epic show ends its run, the media mogul has turned her sights on an entire network, OWN. Now the world of basic cable can hold the hand of the media queen and her all-star spawns, such as Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Suzy Orman and more. Will it be a success? That remains to be seen. I’m willing to bet on the Big O before I discount her. Now excuse me while I get shaken like a kitten.

Image: Fuzzcat

ColumnAll the words in our language, and you have to keep using these?

Fresh. Fierce. Fabulous.

Smoldering.

Curated. Edited.

The New York Times, smarting from such journalistic inanities, has compiled a list of the most overused words and phrases in fashion writing. (The Times suggests “culled” as the curated of 2011. I vote for “distilled.”)

In addition to those words listed above, the Times takes umbrage at “DIY fashion,” though they must be all right with upcycling (alas, better luck next year, Etsy).

Also popular in a paragraph near you, everyone’s favorite suffix: [Insert noun of choice] -ista. At this point, we’re pretty much anythingistas. Retroista, travelista, foodista, fashionista. It’s surely a bittersweet irony for Scrabbleistas.

Meanwhile, the paper says prefix aggravation came to us in 2010 by way of eco-. Eco-kill me. Ecoista? Now you’re really smoldering, hot pants.

The gray lady is probably right: it’s all gotten a bit redonk.

What are we, Cosmopolitan? When not even Vogue can spell Lafite correctly, I fear for the future of fashion media. (In September Vogue‘s defense, the misspelling was just a hop skip and a bullet point down from a sentence that actually, swear-to-Tyra, contained the words “freshly fierce”, which is clearly to blame for the subsequent “Lafitte.” It’s hard to recover from stupid, even if it is for champagne. I can’t confirm without risking yet another debilitating episode of PTSD, but I am 99% sure there was a certain other f-bomb in that sentence, as well.)

To wit, most holy loathing goes to the most overused word in fashion: Fabulous.

Whenever I hear the f-word oozing from someone’s mouth, I cringe. Lately it’s escalated to full-blown wincing. I’m like Powder; I can pretty much psychically detect when it’s about to be uttered, and I shudder in spasms of editorial pain. You can imagine the situation following the release of Kimora Lee Simmons’ book, Fabulosity.

No really, that scarf is fabulous? An organic diaper is fabulous? Biodegradable picnic plates are fabulous now? Pumpkin. Let me tell you about fabulous, and how not fucking fabulous scarves are. Fabulous is a nine-carat cocktail ring. Fabulous is a trip to the Caribbean on a private jet with the Italian guy you’ve known for five minutes which you’ll never tell your father about. Fabulous is gloves that aren’t safe brown, shoes that aren’t bunion comfortable and dinners that begin at 10 o’clock. That’s a fabulous life. I’m not saying it’s a good life or a moral life or that I’m living it, I’m just saying a scarf by any other adjective is still a square of fabric you wrap around your throat when it’s kinda cold.

Fabulous is not a new tea strainer. It is not a pair of “stylish” comfort shoes that look marginally acceptable enough for public display on weekends with cousins from the weird side of the family. I’ll tell you what else fabulous isn’t: fresh. Used improperly, which it always is, fabulous more closely resembles flab, or flan, or fanny, and bloat and lousy and other words with too much saliva for my tastes. Unless it’s being used to describe something stunningly not normal in any way, you’re just making everyone think the word “bulbous”. Please let’s quit ruining fabulous.

Fantastic isn’t much better than fabulous, but at least it has the advantage of being accurate. You could genuinely find a scarf fantastic, if you’ve just spent the last seven hours freezing your tears out in New York because the airline lost your luggage and you foolishly forgot to stuff that scarf in your carry-on, for example. It’s pretty fantastic to be warm. It’s still not fabulous, though.

There are other words, and classes of words – whole families and clans, in fact – for which I suffer my craft. Portmanteaus reside in a very special tundra in the Arctic-most nethers of my icy heart. For the recent admission of “shopitude,” I apologize to humanity. Someone let the cockles out on that one, and we’ve put them back in the cage where they belong (the cockles!). Portmanteaus are especially insidious; they’re the puns of our time. Let’s stop aggregating syllables and calling it original content. “Refudiate” and “strategery” can be forgiven because they were invented by special people and are only baby portmanteaux anyway, but grellow? Not a value-add.

There are some very nice words out there, like spectacular and lovely and brilliant and modern (as long as it’s not thoroughly or bracingly modern). But so far, deletion hasn’t come to nearly enough worn words. In honor of a new year for new media, and also because this is my post, I’ll start.

Vacay. Die. Die a blunted backspace death right along with info, meds, mod and delish.

Douchebag. Douche. Douchey. Wait for it: Douchebaggery. Every time someone says this from now on, I’m going to respond with “Yeah, what a tampon.” “So tampony.” “Hey guys, I call tamponigans.” (Breaking the portmanteau rule there, but I believe it’s justified.) Think about it, people. Jon Stewart dropping the d-bag every other sentence is not only sort of disgusting, it’s misogynistic in a casual way that makes the “pussy” of 90s popularity seem downright affectionate. Women who can “hang with the boys” say it now, but so do moms. Wow, us.

It’s Official. It’s official: We need to say this next to true things about as much as we need to say “literally”. Which is never.

Superlatives. The Strangest 23 Spoons Found in a Drawer! The 10 Wackiest Drawings by My Cat…This Week! The Boss’s Craziest Text Ever! Let’s give the -est a rest.

Fun with latinates. It’s converse and orient, not conversate and orientate. It’s delicious, not deliciousness. When did we start piling on the extra endings like an order of supersized poutine? How I yearn for six-pack verbs.

Jeggings. Oops, sorry! How on earth and the laws of physics did those manage to squeeze into this tiny little post? God only knows.

Pop of color. It’s simply incredible how good colors look on things. Walls, rooms, outfits, floral arrangements, websites, salads, fingernails, porches, bathrooms, cheeks, children, mantles, macarons, irises. A pop of color as opposed to no color really shakes up the sad ubiquity of blank, empty, invisible and clear we keep seeing everywhere, just running amok. You might wonder how we ever discovered that a pop of color is a good thing? Fact: we still haven’t, which is why we should be grateful to style writers everywhere, teaching us about this fabulously fabulous trick. Life looking a little bland? Spice it up with a pop of color!

Shortcuts by Rachael Ray™. She had me at EVOO – had me middling my brow, and I haven’t the Botox to face the show again. But I wouldn’t be surprised if ready-chopped garlic cloves is now RCGC and one large can of stewed tomatoes is now OLCST and extra handfuls of salt and cheese is a given is EHSCIG. You have to admit, using letters instead of words is a real handy shortcut, sort of like throwing four or five processed foods together instead of cooking a recipe. Sadly, EVOO pops up all over, from mommyblogs to foodie sites to recipe databases. When I had to ask my mother on the fourth time hearing it this Christmas what “The BY” stood for, and learned it’s The Back Yard, I wept and then I drank and then I drank the Nyquil, all of it and then I slept the artificial sleep of morose spearmint misery. I fear this is a battle we’re losing. Well played, Rachael, well played.

This is the first in your editor’s new column for 2011, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, carbs and fonts. If she’s got the strength for it, there will be more to come. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: kennymatic

Dwell Magazine set out to stage a minor revolution in coverage of design ideas that plant seeds for universal results. So far, we have witnessed a successful coup, one defying the dark notion print is dead. The alchemy? Making the shelter book an indispensable object of desire – one that visionaries reshaping our mod-century landscape simply cannot ignore. It’s no small feat that the magazine keeps on trucking in a disastrous era for the housing industry, proof that visual stimulus propels progress despite the odds.

“Because we offer so much in terms of design, photography and stories being told, it lends itself to print,” observes savvy Senior Editor, Aaron Britt, who adds that the magazine’s tactile allure might not apply to other books, such as his favorite, The Economist. As he sees it, a magazine that seeks to inform without necessarily exciting the senses crosses over more easily to the screen with nothing lost.

“With Dwell or National Geographic, you want to leaf through it forward and backward and that makes it an object.” adds Britt. “It doesn’t mean it is the only thing we can be or are trying to be, but it something we are really good at being.”

Really good for ten years now, the shelter magazine just celebrated a decade in print (it has an online component), a tribute to the fact design professionals value old school reference guides that complement onscreen viewing. A vast majority of its readers are forward-thinking designers, architects, landscape visionaries, and design-oriented consumers. In other words, pragmatic artists seeking to dovetail pages that inspire. In the sense you don’t have to print out an item to tack it on your bulletin board - it actually conserves energy.

At the same time, Dwell considers sustainability in its publishing practices, bypassing a conventional paste and waste process by using certified recycled paper. Its pages feel good on the fingers, less processed than its flashy, glossy cousins. The good pulp might not put the kind of dent in paper use purists rant about, but at least it’s a conscious act which shuns the frivolous alternative (see Neiman Marcus seasonal catalogs). Most likely, Dwell couldn’t live with itself without this commitment.

“Moving to recycled paper is the key to our redesign but taking advantage of the fact that sustainability has always been something Dwell has focused on, we are moving that dialogue forward which is essential to our growth as a publication,” publisher and president Michela O’Connor Abrams told Green Biz.com in 2007 about the resign introduced in February of 2008. It also resized the format from 9″ to 8.375 and along with the paper, began sparing an estimated 930 trees per issue.

You might ask if down deep, Dwell functions as yet another shopping mechanism since it does rely on ads, like most other successful media (even PBS), and does list the resources for the minimalist masterpieces showcased in articles – the tidy prefabs, the highly coveted bedroom additions. The answer is that it cannot deny it is selling something, but along the way, it goes beyond pushing product to achieve behavior modification. Dwell prefers to focus on exceptional design, which just so happens to fall into the green category in most cases.

“In a perfect world, everything would already operate in an efficient minded way,” Britt argues. “If we are successful, we won’t have to have the conversation anymore. It’s like we publish houses that have indoor plumbing. All houses do. We want sustainability to be woven into the built world as broadly as an indoor toilet and electricity.”

Meanwhile, for those needing to go directly to LEED, bamboo and solar concepts, the magazine provides an Off the Grid section completely devoted to sustainability. Much of this content also is cultivated on the web where editors product daily features. “We understand the magazine to be the bedrock of the brand, but Dwell.com and Dwell on Design are important forums to talk about things in the magazine and not in the magazine due to space restraint,” Britt explains.

One is left questioning if this enviable success story would be played out anywhere but San Francisco, a leader in progressive conservation ideas and initiatives, not to mention plenty of money to fabricate what is conceptualized, namely some of the most striking examples of nature-nurtured dwellings in the country. While Iowa-based and NYC minded Metropolitan Home offered up much of the same in its day, it really didn’t do what Dwell does to make us relate. It didn’t capitalize as much on the human emotion driving the design engines.

“Being in San Francisco give us a different purview than other design press,” figures Britt. “We are happy and proud Californians and hope some of that California-ness comes through.”

Most likely it will, as long as those patronizing the book can keep erecting what they conceive. As Dwell reminds us, the bottom line is you can build the best house in the world but we still need a better energy policy in Washington. That, and perhaps a little help from our friends, like new governor, Jerry Brown. It isn’t just a field of dreams. If you build affordable, beneficial low-use – they will come. Read all about it.

Images: Dwell