The818: It's ten degrees hotter here.

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The Trivial

Last week I wrote a post claiming that “that’s my jam” no longer meant “I love that” but rather, that kids today were using it as a euphemism for spanking the monkey. Which, you have to admit whether or not that is totally accurate (which I will get to in a second) your day to day life has probably gotten just a little bit funnier since I put the notion out there as you inevitably notice people using the phrase ad nauseum. It’s like adding “in bed” to the end of your fortune cookie fortune, but people have no idea they’re doing it.

Anyway, almost simultaneously because the universe is kind to me, Ben & Jerry’s, purveyor of delicious and cleverly named frozen desserts, released a new line of flavors, one of which is named…you guessed it…THAT’S MY JAM.

Now, some may point to this as evidence that I am wrong, and looking to single handedly ruin the phrase “that’s my jam” for my own personal gain (delusions of grandeur aside), but I would remind those nay sayers that Ben & Jerry’s has also at various times in pop culture history released flavors called “Schweddy Balls” and “What A Cluster”, amongst others.

Some folks have suggested that Pitch Perfect scribe Kay Cannon gave new meaning to the slang when she inserted “lady” in to the phrase, indicating what kind of jam Brittany Snow’s character was talking about. I think that could be true, but I’d rather not because pretending it means masturbation is so much funnier when people use it in daily conversation.

My friend Neal says the definition isn’t in Urban Dictionary, which, he insists is his jam, but the video of the Pitch Perfect clip is included in the entry which I suggest is because it’s the most relevant current usage in popular culture and therefore indicates the direction the slang is heading in. Also it’s Urban Dictionary, so I just submitted my own updated meaning because I like to be right, even if it’s retroactively.

And in conclusion, Key and Peele. Take from it whatever you will.

Instagram is fun.

Feed Me Seymour

Get Your Zen On With Grown-Up Coloring Books

Feb. 25, 2014

by Morgan Shanahan

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It’s a sad day here in the San Fernando Valley — our local Sanrio store is going out of business. Gone are the days of Kerokerokeroppi and 20 color pens within walking distance, and so when Delilah and I discovered the news on a recent trip to the mall, I decided we could each choose one thing to remember Hello Kitty’s motley crew of friends by.

Delilah choose a stuffed animal I didn’t recognize. I went with one last 20-color pen.

Then I got home and found this coloring book I’ve been using for a coffee table book for a while, and well…let’s just say I found my daily zen with that pen. Wait, let’s not say that because it sounds gross. Let’s just say I sat down and started coloring this page by Tanya Newton John (title: Petit Roi) with that pen and got totally zenned out in doing so. And Delilah, who usually balks at coloring and has the fine motor skill to prove it grabbed her jumbo Sophia The First coloring book and joined me. And so I realized coloring can be an awesome family activity. Here are some coloring books that might inspire you to create some daily family coloring time. Or at least to do it once.

Outside The Lines

Curated by Souris Hong-Porretta, this collection includes the black and white outlined works of Shepard Fairy, Exene Cervenka, Keita Takahashi, Jen Corace and over 100 more amazing illustrators for you to fill with your imagination. It’s where the above Petit Roi image came from, and I could easily fill my walls with its blank pages. …continue reading…

Feed Me Seymour

There Is Beauty In Acceptance: “Bearded Lady” Harnaam Kaur Sets Stunning Example

Feb. 20, 2014

by Morgan Shanahan

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Harnaam Kaur is a 23-year-old woman living in England. Like many women (between 10-20% of those of childbearing age), Kaur suffers from PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) which has been known to cause excessive hair growth in some patients. In Harnaam’s case, her PCOS meant that with puberty came an unexpected development … she began to grow a beard.

After years of attempting to hide her facial hair and enduring name-calling and bullying despite her efforts, even to the point where she contemplated taking her own life, Harnaam decided to live as she is, beard and all, and she says she has never felt more feminine. With unwavering confidence, Kaur told Barcroft TV:

“This is me, this is who I am, it’s my inner beauty, it’s my outer beauty, it’s my oneness, it’s my wholeness, I’m different, and I’ve learned to accept it, fully.”

Watching Harnaam speak (and I whole-heartedly recommend you take a moment to watch the video above), it is obvious that she is absolutely at-ease with her decision to let her beard grow; she laughs easily as she talks about the confusion her excess facial hair can cause. By the time I was about a quarter of the way through her interview, I found myself focusing on her eyes and admiring her eyeliner, already forgetting about the thick beard just below. (She does do a really damn fine job with that eyeliner … I’m envious, I have to say).

I do not have a beard. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the way I look. I was not bullied as a child for my appearance (well, there was a short stint in kindergarten where I was called Spock for my pointy ears, but my teacher quickly put an end to it and it never resurfaced). Still, I’ve never felt inherently feminine, as Harnaam now describes herself, and I’ve never felt completely at ease with my body and my wholeness, as Harnaam so eloquently put it. …continue reading…

Feed Me Seymour

And Then I Was An Old Person Using Slang That Made Me Sound Crazy (And Kind of Gross.)

Feb. 19, 2014

by Morgan Shanahan

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In the late 90′s and early aughts (when I was a wee teen) the phrase “it’s my jam” was common. It meant “oooh, I love that!” or “this is my favorite song” or “I am really good at that.” I’m not wrong. Please, observe the use of the phrase by the lovely Busy Phillips in the 2004 classic piece of Wayans Bros cinema White Chicks.

That clip was shot ten short years ago, and here I’ve been using the phrase like it’s my job ever since. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably seen it in writing. In fact, when Babble named The818.com one of the top parenting blogs of 2013 and asked for a few quotes from me including my favorite Disney movie, one of the things I told them was that Hercules had such great music, it was “my jam” and I wondered why they’d shortened my quote to simply say “Hercules” when it was published. Ah well, no harm no foul, right?

I’ve used it frequently on Twitter too, for thousands to see.

I made jam for the first time ever. And now I can’t stop running around yelling “it’s my jam!”. Damn I’m so old and so 90s it hurts.

— Morgan (The818) (@the818) August 27, 2013

And then this weekend, I called something “my jam” to my Sister and Brother-in-law, and watched both of their jaws drop in abject horror. (It’s worth noting that my Sis is four years older than me, but apparently way more hip. Or maybe it’s that she and my brother-in-law are raising a teenager. Either way thank Moses they were there to stem the flow of me embarrassing myself by mis-using slang any longer.)

Do you guys know what “it’s my jam” means to the kids today? SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT. They sat me down to watch Pitch Perfect (which I know I should be shot for not having seen already, especially as a Teen Movie junkie of epic proportions) and OH THE HORROR. There was no question they were right. I give you, the shower scene from last year’s Pitch Perfect –

Are we all caught up now? I’ve been telling people I masturbate to any and everything, including Disney movies and my own canned preserves. Did you not get that that’s what Brittany Snow was saying in that scene? Then I’m sorry to inform you that you are also in danger of becoming old and out of touch.

So…this is a public service message to my GenX/Millenial cusp contemporaries: Check that the go-to slang of your youth hasn’t changed in meaning so you don’t freak out the entire internet, or at least your own kids. Y’know…kind of like how our parents thought “gnarly” was still a bad thing in the 80s, except way worse.

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