You'll never win a best blogs contest with that attitude, Mister. ;)

Somehow I got on the Instinct mailing list. I've been getting the magazine for free for the last two years. From time to time they try to trick me into "renewing" and actually pay for their publication. But why would anyone support a magazine which epitomizes some of the worst stereotypes of gay men.

this made me laugh. but isn't genre the poor man's genre?

I miss the subjunctive.

The only reason I've read Instinct in the last year has been Dave White. He's a great writer and the "fag versus fag" music reviews are delightful.

u know instinct mag had 2 reach the bottom of the barrel and what a way 2 start out a new year for them if this is only the guys to come this year i think i should just cancel my subscription.

Clearly Toby doesn't like girls. Which I probably could have guessed.

Come on Toby, time to let this one go. Knocking bratboy's blog is like looking at a six year old's creative writing assignment and saying "I can do better."

What's more interesting to me is how the malcontent, BfT and other normally respectable bloggers are bragging about this 'accomplishment.' No, they're not bragging about how they personally landed the cover of some gay magazine most of us haven't heard about. They're bragging about how some 'friend' of theirs landed that unknown magazine's cover.

Reflected glory can be sweet, no?

Until the magazine hit, I'd never actually gone to Brat Boy Skool (or whatever). To be honest, the name sort of implies that it is a 'barely legal' gay porn site. Having seen it today, it can be said that this site is a more comfortable fit for my tastes.

Granted, I've shown my ass on my site too. But it was once. And self-deprecating. And a touch ironic.

There often seems to be a fine line between self-promotion and self-loathing. Perhaps a more nurturing approach is needed here?

Yeah, because the first thing that comes to mind when I think about vividblurry is "nurturing." There's something to be said for not having a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent, but there's also something to be said for staring at train wrecks.

So you are saying three years from now you are not going to be doing the same things you are doing now? Good for you little one.

Sorry, my bad on clarity:

"Perhaps a more nurturing approach is needed here?" manhattan offender said in his most Oprah-esque tone.

that really depends on how much he would pay me...

pic? i wanna see a glittered gay!

I don't really get it.

I mean, is this bratboy person a bad person? has he done anything exceptional to better anyone's life or something? i mean, why are we talking about him? i'm just wondering. so, he's on the cover of instinct? have you SEEN some of the boys they've had on that cover? not much to brag about, really. no offense to anyone.

i checked out his site tho and i mean, not for nothing, but it was about as interesting as a root canal. i'd much rather read vividblurry (kisses Toby's ass lol)

Ok ... so I'm hardly the most vocal of bloggers, nor remotely the most well-known ... hell I haven't updated mine in a month ... but catching up with yours today, I'm compelled to express how turned off I feel to find you sloshing around in this mire of egregious bitchiness about another blogger. I mean state your opinion by all means, but do you need to get so mean and personal? People may say that Ethan's bubble gum gay boy cover for Instinct is disappointingly stereotypical (I thought it served its purpose but I don't buy that magazine), but so are your highly personal, catty harpoons directed at a guy you don't even know ("For someone who looks like he's been operating a crystal meth lab out of his brother's trailer in central Florida.") I hear gay guys doing that all the time and it's sooooo fucking ugly and juvenile. I'm disappointed that you would write such catty crap ... and I doubt you care that I am. But there, I said what I have to say and thus unloaded, I am going to get on the road to Dallas.

Full of season goodwill otherwise --

Merry Christmas,

J

i mean, yeah! who wears bubble gum lip gloss nowadays anyway? everyone knows cherry is better.

OH SNAP! Damn Toby, that doesn't sound at all like the green monster got the better of you! Let's be happy for our fellow bloggers and publicity they get. However, I think that you would be a great candidate for a little photo shoot of your own! You are hot, have a lot to say, and hell, I'd buy the magazine with you on the cover!

Toby is just like all the other faggy ass queens who bitch and complain about other gays as if they're somehow immune from all the flaws they criticize others of.

Toby, your recent posts are rank with hypocrisy. You probably don't agree with me, but hypocrites don't know they're hypocrites because they operate under the illusion that their own beliefs and forms of expressions are superior to others. I think you proved that by attacking that bratboy blog, but nonetheless continue to list some of the shittiest, crappiest blogs on your site. I don't read your blog because it fulfills my intellectual thirst for literature, but because it fulfills my desire to read about some gay guy rattle on about incessant, meaningless bullshit. Why isn't Ethan entitled to do the same thing in his own way without being attacked? Evidently he has a following, just like you.

Steve

i asked this over at mal's site also... from blowing up the pic of ethan standing up - you can definitely see a bit of a bulge. however, i still can't tell which side ethan dresses on?? what do you guys think? tia.
j

Merry Christmas Toby!

merry Xmas kiddo.

It's Toby's site and he should make whatever comments he feels like.

But, this BBS-bashing should be laid to rest (make it a new year's resolution, or something).

You already have tons of fans.

Be humble and move on.

I just turned 25 about a week ago, and I would never do such a thing. As my summer tan has faded this fall, I've realized how damn good I look with paler skin. It makes my dark features stand out more, and my skin looks a lot less leathery.

I agree with the negative criticism surrounding Ethan--particularly Toby’s--from that self-infatuated pseudo-porn-woe-is-me Brat Boy School. I have waited for some time now for another Blogger to take on this one man self-absorbed cottage industry, to challenge and expose his relentless adolescent guilt-mongering. Other Blogs have substance and intellectual fodder; Brat Boy School is an utterly boring show. Ethan’s posts make me laugh because they remind me of a twelve-year-old on the brink of puberty. Ethan means well, but he succeeds in talking to one audience--himself. He advocates the practice of ethical and moral behavior—all those posts about what good person he is and the good deeds he does for colleagues and other people; he shuns anything or anyone who is superficial, and he manipulates his audience to feel sorry for him on almost every post. Poor narcissist: we are constantly being reminded that his mother kicked him out of the house after his prom or his high school graduation; that his only family consists of his close friends; that he never has any money and is thus on a budget; that his car breaks down every other day; and that he has stalkers at the gym and at work, which he loves to share with us, by the way. Self-infatuated Ethan even re-enacts his encounters with these “stalkers” on his Blogs by providing us with the actual dialogue that occurs. That is so hysterical it astounds. He could publish a play entitled “My Stalkers” if he wishes.
Oh, and did I mention that he is as conservative as his acceptance of a self-imposed stereotyped 80s Gay identity? Poor guy, and amidst all this he throws us a hit-or-miss guide to [his] half-naked masturbatory-promoting pornographic body shots while cooking, cleaning, in the shower, while brushing his teeth, at the park, at a high school, looking into a mirror, gazing intently into a camera, or in bed with his stuffed animals or colorful bedspreads. Remarkably, rather than addressing his detractors in an intellectual manner, Ethan’s response is that of a typical twelve year old girl—he can’t argue or defend himself, and he throws in a tacky “I Am Not Giving Up” poem that his teacher or mother taught him to say when he was being picked on in the playground. The acute embarrassment generated by Ethan’s Blogs could possibly be regarded as naiveté, but they frequently register as one of many reasons why, despite some progress, we still have the all too 80’s stereotypes of Gay men pervading our media: young gay men who are still trapped in adolescence, who exhibit contradictory ideas and impulses, who are mindless and obsessed with being cute and adorable, and most frightening of all, who have nothing to contribute to this world because they are insignificant sex toys. It’s difficult to know what is more disturbing, these images themselves or Ethan’s complicity in willfully embodying the very images he claims to negate.

For Whom Ethan Reynolds Tolls: Voyeurism and Blogosphere Prostitution

Congratulations to Mr. Reynolds for creating a new genre: Blogosphere Prostitution. Ethan’s latest drama revolves around him, of course, and an poorly-written incoherent summary of a joke about President Bush The Washington Post mentioned. Once again this self-proclaimed model is doubly damned by his own prostition-esque discourse. As usual, he cannot offer a rebuttal to his detractors. Yet Ethan doesn’t ignore them. Indeed, his line of defense is to project more images of his body, which only confirms the logic—or lack thereof—that traps him: self-indulgent drivel. Ethan supports—even promotes—our president and the military establishment. Perhaps he should join the trenches so that he could realize that he is not special, and that he would not be exempt from homophobic violence and the possibility of being burned at the stake—just as any openly gay male. We all know that he cannot comment on social issues without being exposed as thinking like a seventh grade student. But then it is never in the expectation of beautiful writing or subtly nuanced analysis that we turn to Ethan Reynolds. Given the commentary his fans post about him, he does a fine job of soliciting voyeurism, fantasies, empathy, and compliments. Ironically, when he is “hit on” in person at the gym--as he claims--and treated like the prostitute that he projects himself to be, he deems himself a victim and solicits empathy from his target audience.
What is particularly astonishing—if not deliriously frightening--about Brat Boy School is than Ethan believes that he is part of a serious Blogging Community. On the contrary, rather than extending inquiries into the discursive possibilities posited by Blogging, such as polished dialogue and commentary on just about anything, Ethan Reynolds misuses his status as an alleged “Blogger” by projecting his internal sense of emptiness and shallowness. In fact, much like a prostitute, Mr. Reynolds’s self-esteem can only reconfigure itself around the intended voyeurism he constructs. Walking around and cooking while showing off his uncut, chubby body and knowing that he has his own passive, celebratory audience (much like him and whom he manipulates) that worships him is how he achieves self-worth. Perhaps he should be honest and admit all this, but that would defeat the purpose of Brat Boy School.
Ethan Reynolds is not a Blogger; he is an Internet prostitute—simple as that. Gracing the cover of an unknown, laughably brainless magazine does not translate into model status. Real models do not run scamming sites like Brat Boy Schools because they are too busy doing what they do best--modeling. And if they do run websites, they do not use them as narcissistic, self-indulgent engines to achieve self-esteem and self-worth; that would be too humiliating. However, on a positive note, Ethan’s consistently self-indulgent Blogs has at least two distinct registers, the disarmingly playful and the overwhelmingly comical.

Hawke