Having had to work on patent drawings for the last week, which is kind of a boring, donkey job, I usually put on podcasts and try to learn something. But I ended up watching a “discussion” between some men and three OnlyFans girls on a channel called the Roommates. (Just for context, I have mentioned I had been watching a young woman recently named Courtney Ryan. She was invited to be on the Roommates channel, and that’s how I ended up running across their video.) Anyway…. Roommates is, so they say, dedicated to helping men becoming the best version of themselves etc.

I have to admit I watched this in part because I wanted to hear what the pretty girls had to say, though I was expecting it to be dumb. Sure enough, they trotted out the usual platitudes about being strong, independent women…. financially able to make their own way in the world, and they don’t need no man to help them because they can do it themselves, blah, blah, blah.

The men were insisting that while these girls were making money now, it was trading on their looks and wouldn’t last, blah, blah, blah. It degenerated into a mess, as maybe I should have expected.

While I hate the term “mansplaining”, because it is often a way to just shut men up, these guys were genuine examples of the phenomenon. They repeatedly spoke over the girls, they were demeaning to them, and yeah, point taken, the girls ARE trading on their looks and that’s not going to last forever. The girls countered with- well, we’re making boatloads of money how we can while we can.  

While the men’s point is taken- they’re making short-term money but selling out longer term options, there are only so many ways that can be said. I gotta say: I did NOT think I would be taking the girls’ side on this one, and in one way I can’t. These girls are essentially online strippers, and it’s not a healthy way to make a living, even if it’s effective. But I feel like the two sides were talking past each other: Yes, the girls are making short term money. They COULD invest the money, if they’re smart, and set themselves up for a longer term. Will they? To be honest, listening to these girls, probably not. but to the girls point, they could. The men were stuck on this point of it not being “long term”, and to be fair to the girls, a lot of things people end up doing for money are not “long term”, or particularly effective, so it felt like the guys were just sort of picking on these girls as easy targets. I’ll clarify that I don’t think what these girls are doing is healthy, for them or society, but the men were only slightly less shallow.

Why was I watching this?  
I admitted part of it was because it involved pretty girls, but part of it was because I was expecting the discussion to be a cautionary tale. That’s the nice term. Train wreck, Springer-esque, and cluster**** are also terms that might be applicable.  
This morning as I was getting ready to come to the office, I was thinking about this kind of negative inspiration, by which I mean watching failure for various reasons.

I think part of the reason for the popularity of reality TV is that we like seeing people do dumb stuff because it makes us feel better about ourselves. In the best moments, we’d learn from watching other’s mistakes. This of course has a long history.  

I was reading the prophet Joel this morning and 2:17 says “Do not make your inheritance a byword among the nations”. This phrase- I will make you a byword, happens in the scriptures. It is the Lord telling the people- I will make an example of you- a cautionary tale- so that people will look and shake their heads.

The Greek tragedies were sometimes about this, though the reasons for watching tragedies were more complex than just cautionary tales.  

Books like 1984 or Animal Farm or any number of others are written in the same sense- to warn us of the ways in which things can go wrong.

It is, as I mentioned, a way of learning from other’s mistakes.

I have read/watched all kinds of things that do this. One of the reasons I like history is to learn the ways in which prior generations tried to cope with situations; sometimes successfully, but often failing. As the old saying goes- those that fail to study the past are doomed to repeat it. The saying presumes that not learning from mistakes means repeating them.

I’m sure there’s a real term for the idea of negative inspiration- looking at the idiocy of others and being inspired to NOT do that! The Germans probably have a 25 letter word for it. But until I learn what it is, I’ll just use negative inspiration.