The Top Ten Worst Sentences From Paul Aguirre-Livingston’s Dawn Of A New Gay

Rather than analyze this article–which is in fact not an article but rather a personal essay, if not a teenage girl’s diary entry, disguised as Journalism covering the state of gay men today–here are the top 10 worst sentences from Dawn Of A New Gay, 20-something Paul Aguirre-Livingston’s (of course his last name is hyphenated) unbelievably appalling 3000+ word nightmare that was posted to Toronto’s Grid yesterday.

If you haven’t already read it (it’s been in the Stall Wall since last night), it’s here, and I encourage you to read it not just because there’s something oddly enjoyable about reading bad writing. You should read it to see an example of how not to act if you don’t want to be the most hated gay hipster on the internet. You should read it to see an example of how not to live your life as a human being in this world!

As one person in the comments wrote, “This article is the Showgirls of our time”:

10. If I had to, I would trace the beginning of the post-mo, and our true introduction as functional members of society, to the premiere of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace in 1998.

9. I didn’t own anything rainbow-coloured nor did I want to, and I stopped going to those youth meetings because, hey, I’m just a boy who likes other boys, and what else is there to say, okay?

8. Online, more and more, the words “straight acting and looking” or “masculine” have popped up in “Looking for” boxes.

7. We vacation with our boyfriends in fabulously rustic country homes that belong to our parents, who don’t mind us coming to stay as a couple.

6. Recent news stories about gay-straight alliances, a cause du jour this second wave of post-mos has taken on, are a sign that gay activism never went away at all.

5. I am a writer who happens to be gay, not the other way around.

4. From San Fran’s Castro District, gay heavyweights like Harvey Milk emerged to fight for our rights.

3. While I was making Girl Power t-shirts in computer class, I was also learning how to navigate websites to see my first penis, set up a Hotmail account and get an ICQ number.

2. We don’t march in Pride and we probably never will. (After-parties only, please.)

1. I suffer from online dating fatigue already and haven’t held a guy’s hand in almost three years.

Dear Mr. Aguirre-Livingston: Never mistake selfish self-indulgence as some new wave of homosexuality. That’s just called being an asshole. To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with the notion of a “new kind of gay,” but Dawn Of A New Gay wasn’t about a “new kind of gay.” It was just about you. Also, I’ve never seen someone try so hard (3000+ words!) to convince me of their apathy.

 

11 thoughts on “The Top Ten Worst Sentences From Paul Aguirre-Livingston’s <em>Dawn Of A New Gay</em>”

  1. This does scream hipster to the Nth degree but there is a point in there about the “gay mainstream” culture that I must admit I do appreciate. I’m definitely out and about walking down chelsea or hells kitchen, but I’ve never felt the desire to wave a rainbow flag go to a pride parade. Most of the clubs and circuit parties are more than I know what to do with. If I am to be identified with anything it would be geek or gamer (mayber even gaymer). I spent high school reading all the game of thrones books. my friends and I have parties to watch the latest doctor who episodes. I have a secret plan to kidnap Bryan Fuller and leave him in my basement while I do naughty things to him until he writes me a new star trek series. and as much as I swoon over Ryan Reynolds in spandex, I keep arguing that he fits more as a Kyle Rayner and not Hal Jordan.

    It has been my unfortunate experience that if I try to talk to a cute boy about anything that doesn’t involve glee, lady gaga or something doused in glitter, it goes over their heads.

    None of this is to say I don’t see the appeal of the parties and fashion and the weekend brunches, but there is a pressure to be a certain level of fabulous that has never been me.

  2. What so many people are missing..particularly those most upset… is the term used above….gay HIPSTER.
    We all know hipsters…gay and straight. They’re the ones that work SOOOOO hard on being different and obscure and everything that isn’t what everyone else is. If more than 2 of their friends like something, the hipster (according hipster law) must reject it. A hipster is only allowed to be different. There shall be no mainstreaming.

    How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

    It’s a really obscure number, I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.

    1. “It’s a really obscure number, I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”

      Hahahahahah!!! I think I LOVE YOU!!

  3. I can understand why Zach would post this. Elie has a good mind to post a reply that he did not agree with this writer who happens to be gay.
    This Paul Argue-his gay life is living his life outside the shell of homosexuality. In other words love me as a sinner but not my sin. So he wants to live his life like Will from “Will and Grace”. A guy who does not want to follow a cause. He must be sooo protected that he doesn’t know anyone who died of AIDS, cancer, or prejudice?
    Is this guy Asexual? Living his life without sex? Because it does not define him? He did admit he was a Metrosexual. But then again sex does not define him. Does having sex with another man makes him gay?
    (Queue Cody Cumming) But then again. We run into guys who say that sex does not define who or what they are. They are the ones I like to tie up and give a good whipping to. Does that make me prejudice? Do we allow straight guys to sing with our Gay Chorus?

    Argh!! No wonder I hate this post.

  4. If you look past the inflammatory rhetoric and poorly constructed arguments, the writer is merely acknowledging a state of transition, growth and enlightenment that is happening across the land. Moving beyond a marginalized existence into the light of equality, one begins to leave behind certain behaviors that were means of survival in the past, such as the example of affected speech patterns (passed on from generation to generation as an inside code of membership). That is all.

    1. Maybe, but at the same time, no. This was written and presented as a broad, sweeping look at all young gay men, and we all know that it was not an accurate depiction. Had he taken the time or had the guts or had the intelligence to say, “Hey, this is what’s going on with ME, not everyone else,” then maybe (but not likely) he could be taken seriously.

      1. Like most deluded hipsters, he knew that taking that line (here is MY story) would be met with a collective “so what?” so he transferred this (I have to steal this adjective from Lars because he’s spot on with it and I can’t think of anything better) appalling and NASTY little piece to be representative of a “new wave.”

        By the way, “straight acting” still means what it did 20 years ago…”I am an internal homophobe.”

  5. Feminism is suffering from the same kind of activist fatigue, and the accompanying self-indulgent essay. I don’t know what it’s going to take, what with the Religious Reich breathing down all our necks and our economic prospects slipping away, to get everybody’s butts back in motion.

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