I almost didn’t do the Stereogum Douchebag of the Week this week. Here’s why.

This has probably been the busiest week I’ve had since I came to school, and I’ve responded by multi-tasking, at which I am terrible. Nevertheless, the past few days have found me grading papers on the bus, eating a microwave cheeseburger while blogging with my other hand, and writing a paper while also simultaneously napping, doing my laundry, and watching “Lost” DVDs. So it naturally follows that, when I have to write a paper, plan a class, attend readings, and balance the federal budget (I think), I should prioritize the post-midnight completion of a petty blog entry written solely for my own benefit. Right?

Another reason I almost didn’t do the SgDbotW is that this week’s threads have been surprisingly and uncharacteristically positive, despite boasting a plethora of divisive indie-rock minefields including Pink Floyd, Sufjan Stevens, and the Lemonheads.

Granted, the Neil Young-calling-for-Bush’s resignation thread yielded this gem:

… Neil Young sucks ass.

It doesn’t matter what the President has done. Neil Young is a talentless hack.

It doesn’t matter if some people support neo-conservatism. Neil Young is a canuck who should be shot.

It doesn’t matter if the threat of Australian iconography is so dangerous and we all hate Australians so much because they are indeed all horrible people and the spawn of prisoners; Neil Young has never ever written anything worth listening too.

never.

Posted by: villalobos at April 25, 2006 05:56 PM

… But comments like these are so trollish, so nakedly incendiary that they’re not worth responding “too.” Any fucktard can go to an online forum and make insulting, nonsensical comments about a sacrosanct musical hero and/or left-wing politics, and people will take the bait and run him out of Dodge on a rail. Too easy.

No, this week I would have to dig deeper to find the secret laboratory where they’re building the Douchetron 3200. And it certainly didn’t help when Scott invited a veritable online love-fest by posting about “Mr. Show” and inviting SGers to list their favorite sketches. (This, by the way, is an ingenious way to generate lots of comments: Make a list of your favorite things and encourage your readers to submit lists of their favorite things. It’s so stupidly simple that it’s almost Pavlovian.) As of this writing, 99 people have responded to this post, and nearly all of them are die-hard MS fans. (That abbreviation denotes fans of “Mr Show”, not the significantly smaller faction of degenerative-muscle-disease enthusiasts.) The haters steered clear of this thread, as if they knew they’d be powerless when pitted against the sheer might of Van Hammersley and Byron D. Labockwith the VII. (“Keep ‘em comin’, Gleep Glop!”) Sure, there were a couple of parade-rainers who tried to assert that “mr show gets wayyyyyy too much love (Posted by: vinnie at April 24, 2006 04:11 PM),” but such Negative Nellies were quickly shouted down by the next ninety-two posters. Which they should be, for they are simply wrong.

So, given this week’s relative lack of outright, easily mockable snarkiness, I thought I’d depart from form (if one can really do so after only three weeks of form) and present a Special Edition of the SgDbotW. Ready? Here it is:

You know what Internet sound I could go the rest of my life without hearing/seeing? “Meh.” This is the laziest of lazy dismissals. It sounds like burping, for Christ’s sake. And as you might suppose, it’s generously applied by the Stereogum set, as in this post about the new Secret Machines single:

meh..I found it boring. But that’s just me.

Posted by: alexis at February 7, 2006 07:35 PM

Well, alexis, aka “alternagrrl,” I find your comment portrays you as an eructant moron. But that’s just you.

By the way—and I realize I’m definitely picking nits here, so you can just add this my already-mammoth pile of pet peeves—can we just all agree that ellipses contain three periods? ….. Gosh, I hope so.

Anyway, here are the Top 5 Stereogum Meh Posts of All Time:

5. Regarding the eminently clever Flickr video, which combines about fourteen different Internet memes into one:

Meh. I don’t get it. Bad music, banal lyrics, random images, so what?

Posted by: rocky at March 11, 2006 09:50 PM

Rocky, you’re absolutely right. You don’t, in fact, get it. You should stick with boxing, because decocting the humor of the mundane is definitely not your forté. Also, make sure you never watch “The Office.”

4. Among the comments for the Stereogum Readers Poll: Miss Indie Rock 2005, a thread which reached heretofore unfathomed non-depths of shallowness, was this one regarding Emily Haines of Broken Social Scene:

meh. still, i dont know how a backup singer, or frankly, Emily Haines (very meh) did better than Meg…

Posted by: Goon at December 23, 2005 03:52 AM

Kudos to the aptly-pseudonymed Goon for adding nuance to the “meh” declaration. Ms. Haines would be thrilled to hear your appraisal of her “backup” vocals on “Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” and about a dozen other BSS songs. Also be sure to save up some “mehney” (get it???!??!!!???) to buy yourself some apostrophes.

3. Awesome! Tag-team “meh”!

Meh.

Posted by: David at April 3, 2006 03:42 PM

ive been waiting for the single… and your right David… it is meh…

Posted by: felster at April 4, 2006 02:31 PM

Hey, “felster,” why don’t you use some “mehney” to buy the correct contraction of “you are”?

Ah, that’ll never get old.

2. No SgDbotW would be complete without an SNL-by-way-of-SG reference. Hey, remember a couple months ago when Natlie Portman did that rap song on SNL and even though it was rehashing the formula wrought by “Lazy Sunday” and, before that, the Chris-Parnell-gangsta-rapping-about-Britney-Spears-on-Weekend-Update sketch, Nattie P was still cute as hell and the writers got in some good lines? Yeah, me too.

I speak for oh so many when I say: meh.

Posted by: LL Cool F at March 5, 2006 09:14 PM

LL Cool F, your Internet pseudonym is trying so hard to be clever by being unclever that it passes clever once, sails past unclever, and misses the second exit for clever, causing the driver to swear and pound the steering wheel when he sees the sign that says: “Next inspired Internet trope: 32 hours.”

I’m glad to hear you advocating for the people, though. Since you speak for “oh so many,” perhaps you can lead a march on the Arbiters of Hip in oh, let’s say, Columbus Circle, and stand boldly in front of a tank like that one dude did in Tiananmen Square when you were like three years old, except instead of a tank it’ll be a record-store clerk and instead of standing defiantly in front of it you’ll shrug your shoulders and shuffle off to Barnes & Noble to buy the new Magnet.

1. Hey! Two indie-rock heroes formed a supergroup! I’d better make sure I’m the first to dismiss them!

Meh, I like the Stripes and Brendan Benson but this song is nothing special.

Posted by: thilly goose at March 22, 2006 10:46 PM

Picture an unemployed 28-year-old with a beer belly, uncombed hair, and a PBR shirt sitting in a ratty old papasan in his girlfriend’s studio apartment, smoking pot with his former co-workers from the liquor store and watching Adult Swim on mute and listening to this song, and you’ll hate “Meh” as much as I do.