In the interests of helping the ever-evolving English language keep pace with the technological revolution — and with apologies to Germans everywhere — I offer this humble addition to our collective vocabulary.
Moylanfreude (noun)
The slightly shameful enjoyment derived from watching a once-great internet destination painfully and gracelessly tumble down a seemingly-infinite flight of stairs, precipitated, in no small part directly by, but certainly (via an internal company culture dedicated to many parallel and unfortunate characteristics*) encapsulated within, a particular writer who, for reasons upon which I decline to speculate, remains oust-proof in an organization demonstrably dedicated to a philosophy of near-recreational and self-destructive oustiness that verges on the whimsical.
*including but not limited to:
- Shamelessly extolling one’s own personal quirks and ironic fetishes and modes of enjoyment as self-promotion, while carrying on a jihad against “hipsterism” with an awe-inspiring lack of self-awareness
- Not getting jokes, then mocking the rest of the world for not getting jokes
- On those rare moments when it becomes apparent that a line of propriety has been crossed from within, addressing that breach in the most half-assed, non-apologetic, too-cool-for-school, Y SO SERIOUS manner available to whoever happens to be on editorial guard duty at the time of the backlash
- Persistently fixing what isn’t broken and advertising it as evolution
- Perpetually promising the readership new and better changes to come, while actually delivering changes apparently designed with the specific purpose of driving “patience and wit” out of the commentariat in exchange for “youtube-commenter-quality bloodsport”
- Using occasional clumsy attempts at self-deprecation that are as well-crafted and effective as that guy you work with who tries to be “the funny one” by quoting lines from How I Met Your Mother to the point where you start finding ways to avoid ever walking by his desk
- Mistaking “one great piece out of every fifty” for “high-value star quality”
- Mistaking “everyone will watch a trainwreck” for “stable readership stats and reliably consistent pageviews”
- Cultivating and maintaining such an aggressive official editorial position of self-satisfied detachment, facetious concern-trolling, disingenuous statements of principle, and opportunistic disregard of cultural context that they may as well adopt Lana Del Ray as their mascot and spirit animal
The More You Know.™
