Things I Love to Hate

Photo by Bruce LaBruce

You don’t have to be a hater to hate. Hate is a perfectly valid feeling or response to something you don’t like. In fact, I would go so far as to say that hate is necessary. Strong emotional responses to things help to define you, to stake out your personality. Without hate, there would be no love. We all know how quickly love can turn to hate, and that somehow the two are inextricably linked. Erasure said it best: “I love to hate you.”

You don’t have to be hateful to hate. Haters are hateful because hate is their prime motivation, their modus operandi, as opposed to a natural feeling that comes to them spontaneously, or one that is balanced by feelings of love. I hate haters not because they hate, but because how they hate is hateful. They hate without purpose. They hate without style. Their hate is vulgar. There are many words for hate—loathe, detest, despise, abhor, execrate, abominate—but when push comes to shoving Justin Bieber off a cliff, it’s all simply hate. So in the pure spirit of hate, I present a stream of consciousness shit list of some of my latest least favorite things. I hope you hate it. Hate comments welcome, but not from haters.

Beyonce, baby bumps, Liz and Dick (Cheney, obviously, not Taylor and Burton), narrative fallacy, CGI, professional gays, hip-hop, Simon Cowell, gays in the military, artists, Republicans, Democrats, cops, television shows about cops, movies about cops, contemporary Hollywood movies, Paris (the city), Paris Hilton, vampires, advanced capitalism, Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, The Situation, Radiohead, the war on terror, American exceptionalism, Canada, Kanye, Carson Kressley, rhododendrons, contemporary late night talk show hosts, entertainment reporters, infotainment, the entertainment industry, judges, escapism, the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, conservative female politicians, fiscal conservatives, blond conservative female Fox News anchors, Toronto, Toronto architecture, fashionistas, heteronormativity, homonormativity, recent Tim Burton movies, any Osbourne except Ozzy, anti-feminists, counterrevolutionaries, reactionary revolutionaries, Obama, Reese Witherspoon, drugs, the war on drugs, Whoopi Goldberg, bad remakes of good movies, car commercials, new model cars, celebrities, TMZ, bottom feeders (unless you can eat them), the British Royal Family, royalty, nepotism, the nouveau riche, arrivistes, neo-colonialism, the new austerity, Entourage, Mad Men, corporate welfare, the Chilean miners, the Bieber, Beliebers, Smiley Virus, Snooki, misogyny, Burning Man, the Kardashians, New York, Broadway, Baz Luhrmann, Donald Trump, Germaine Jackson, Muammar Gaddafi, Real Housewives, Mob Wives, talent shows, Civil War recreationists, Creationists, marriage, the military, GLAAD, historical revisionists, players, Tyrese, Trick Trick, Bow Wow, all homophobic rappers, Calvin Klein underwear, people who wear Calvin Klein underwear, fundamentalists, fondue, rom-coms, real estate porn, luxury condos, luxury, cancer comedies, stand-up comedians, fat actors who become famous and then lose weight, Botox, celebrity marriages, people who care about celebrity marriages, sports, Ellen, Glee, Gleeks, politicians, polls, pundits, ass-kissers, Ryan Seacrest, Piers Morgan, Anderson Cooper, tabloid journalism, branding, clowny couture, cyborgs, celubutantes, Twilight stars, Taylor Swift, swiftboaters, libertarians, liberals, neo-liberals, Wall Street bwankers, nationalists, rationalists, celebrity-owned restaurants, recycled Keyensianism, survivalism, post-feminism, French post-structuralism, political correctness, anonymous online commenters, people who walk really slowly in the middle of the sidewalk, people who talk really loudly on their cell phones as if they can only be heard by their interlocutor through sheer lung-power, people who know all the intimate details of the lives of celebrities, people who take offense when you make some offhand negative remark about one of their favorite celebrities as if they know them personally or have some sort of direct connection to them, people who push ugly baby carriages around as if they own the world, couples, monogamy, breeders, Coldplay, house music, reggae music, trustafarians, Renee Zellweger, the Batman franchises, Inception, teal, pastels, and hustlers who complain about biting before you even put their cock in your mouth. To name only a few.

Previously - Escapism Is the Order of the Day