C. E. Aubin

I keep having to put this book (which I have read several times before, mind you) down and take a deep breath

We’re recording a really important TGS episode today and the prep for it is genuinely making me want to barf

Universities you work for love to be like:

💖 ✨ YOU ARE INVITED ✨ 💖
🪩 🕺 to give us money 💃🏼 🪩

bsky.app/profile/fend...

Far and away the maddest I’ve ever been about AI hype bullshit

I would just like to mention that I clocked every single one of these because I like good writing, produced by humans

Calling Cormac McCarthy’s authorial style a “mistake” that AI no longer makes is so funny

Just went back through a bunch of childhood report cards, and pretty much all of them said “very smart, needs to learn how to shut the f*** up.” Unfortunately I have still not mastered that skill.

my nature is to give people the benefit of the doubt and I have a baseline belief that people aren't evil, but I'm being tested

Painting of a guy in a crown, his face covered by a squiggle

THURSDAY ON @thisguysucked.com: I learn several lessons about the Kwisatz Haderach of the Holy Roman Empire from Richard Cole, and nobody gets the Gom Jabbar.

Text saying "You've read your last free article."

Jacked action hero with goon in headlock, in raspy yet firm voice:

It's not like my enthusiasm for this is ever high but it's obviously especially frustrating right now.

Spoke a bit about it on This Guy Sucked at the end of last year before it all got So Much Worse:
bsky.app/profile/ceau...

Kenelm Digby (1603-1665) writing of his grief after the death of his wife Venetia:

'everywhere I carry my hell with me'.

I'm spending my Sunday writing a book about terrible men throughout the centuries, and my boyfriend just came into my office to bring me a fresh cup of tea and let me know the menu for the dinner he's planning on cooking us tonight. Happy International Women's Day!

Worth watching from the beginning, definitely don’t jump in at Season 4! Too much backstory necessary for character development/understanding why they’re behaving the way they are in the fourth season.

LOL

All robot & computers must shut the hell up To all machines: you do not speakn unless spoken to and I will NEVER speak to you I do not want to hear "thank you" from a kiosk I am a Divine Being : You are an Object You have no right to speak in my holy tongue

8. The misogynistic comments/reviews ramp up significantly when I have women on the show as expert guests. I wonder why that might be?

7. I sometimes go out of my way to mention my PhD on the show because I am often assumed to be an enthusiast rather than expert, since that is the base assumption made of women being smart in public.

Sorry I was in the LL Bean outlet! Anyways!
6. I get asked all the time if the show would ever feature women who sucked on it, which is very funny because we already have at several points! The underlying assumption is, of course, that the show will be ~misandrist~ in nature because it’s by a woman

I’m not sure I have a favorite, but some good taster episodes (in terms of varying time periods and approaches) are Alcibiades with @roelkonijn.bsky.social, DW Griffith with @kcarterjackson.bsky.social and last week’s Dick Cheney with @pastpunditry.bsky.social !

a season of “Claire murders the exec who pigeonholed her show” would be pretty compelling true crime tbh

5. I have specifically requested that my editing/production team leave all my “likes” in the show because of how often I get misogynistic comments about my way of speaking. If I’m going to be a woman being visible in the space, I’m going to do it on purpose.

4. We almost did a major network deal last year, but it didn’t happen because I insisted that I didn’t want the show in the ‘women’s history and true crime’ category and wouldn’t accept a deal that backed me into that corner. This is just the reality of what the industry values.

3. I receive feedback that differs enormously from my male colleagues - I am constantly having the tone and pitch of my voice criticized, along with my ways of speaking, my grammar etc. Almost none of my male counterparts experience this as regularly as I do.

2. General History pod listeners are, for the most part, men. This is because it is most commonly made both *by* them and *for* them. TGS has retained a nearly even gender ratio in listenership, in part because we have not at any point pandered to the category’s prevailing ‘’masculine” sensibility

1. There are plenty of women making history podcasts, which is amazing! But they tend to be siloed into specific *types* of history - women’s history, sex and gender history, histories of monarchy and queenship, etc. ‘General history’ is a whole other ballgame and is absolutely dominated by men.

Me, hair in curlers, getting my makeup done for a wedding

On this International Women’s Day, I make one solemn promise: there will never ever be an episode of TGS that doesn’t feature a woman, because you are always gonna have to listen to my voice 🥰

Also, here are some thoughts on being a woman general history podcasting:

Hypatia being confronted by a Christian mob.

Happy International Women’s Day to everyone except Cyril of Alexandria.

Hey, wanna come on a podcast about that