Longtime readers may know that I attended two universities here in the Cincinnati area: Northern Kentucky University (NKU) and the University of Cincinnati (UC).
I have pleasant memories of both of them, but I especially enjoyed my time at NKU. I was a student there during the 1986-1987 academic year. The university had been founded the year I was born (1968). NKU felt like a dynamic academic institution that was rapidly growing.
Oh, what a difference 39 years can make. NKU is now suffering from a budget shortfall and declining enrollment. The university recently announced that it will eliminate 1% of its existing workforce. An unspecified number of vacant positions will also be eliminated.
I saw the news on Facebook, where the rule of thumb is: Don’t read the comments. But of course I did. There were plenty of people blaming both Donald Trump and “woke” professors. Continue reading “NKU staffing cuts, and my college days”
Target’s sales are in freefall. Brian Cornell, the company’s longtime CEO, has fallen on his sword and stepped down.
There is no shortage of glee in the press about all this. Target was one of the companies that abandoned DEI policies in the wake of Trump’s election, and the general shift in the national mood.
I have been watching some old movies from the 1980s recently. Some have been movies that I saw, but have long since forgotten. Others are iconic films of that era that I never got around to seeing when they were current.
For example, I recently wrote a post about Mystic Pizza (1988). Last night I watched Risky Business (1983). I will have a post about Risky Business soon.
A scene from Mystic Pizza (1988)
One thing I’ve noticed is that many films created in 1980-something as disposable teen comedies were actually pretty good. In 1985, did anyone imagine that people in 2025 would still be talking about The Breakfast Club? Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) has been recognized by the American Film Institute for its merits.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the diversity in movies from that bygone era. In 1985, an original movie, properly executed, could make a lot of people rich. But the economics of the 21st-century box office encourage conservatism and a tiresome emphasis on franchise films. Continue reading “The comparative joys of old (1980s) movies”
This is a story of anti-immigrant backlash involving the USA and Mexico. But this is not the story you’re used to hearing.
In Mexico at the moment, there is a ¡Fuera gringos! movement. (But this movement is not limited to Mexico. I have also seen manifestations of it throughout Latin America in recent months.)
The translation is: “Gringos, get out!” A gringo, in Spanish, is a (usually) light-skinned person from the United States.
So a more complete, if awkward, translation would be, “Light-skinned Americans, get out!”
Or maybe: “Yankee, go home!” or (the more racially charged version) “Whitey, go home!”
Whatever the translation (there is no concise, universally agreed English translation of “gringo”), the message here is not subtle.
I think it’s time that I,a 50-something GenXer, admit that I do not understand TikTok culture, and never will. I am hopelessly out-of-touch with the younger generation. No matter how I contort my brain, I can’t understand how these youngsters think. Young people were a lot simpler in the days of heavy metal and mullets—though perhaps my grandfather would have disagreed. Continue reading “Sorority TikTok, and my decision to stay as far away from today’s youth culture as possible”
There is one ironclad rule of business: turn an MBA loose on an otherwise healthy business model, and he or she will screw it up.
It took a Wharton and Harvard graduate, Alissa Heinerscheid, to concoct the transgender marketing plan that destroyed Bud Light’s position in the marketplace in 2023. Bud Light had been doing well since Anheuser-Busch introduced it in 1982. Then Heinerscheid (with the help of Dylan Mulvaney) decided to “rebrand” the beer.
As Ridley points out, where mating strategies are concerned, gay and straight men have a lot more in common with each other than do heterosexual men and women. Heterosexual women, likewise, have more in common with lesbians than they do with straight men.
Gay men are notoriously promiscuous. (Here “promiscuity” is defined not in moralistic terms, but as “being open to a wide variety of sexual partners”.) This was even more true in the pre-AIDS era. (If you don’t believe this, research the gay bathhouse scene of the 1970s.)
Heterosexual men, on average, are more promiscuous than heterosexual women. Not to put too fine a point on it, heterosexual men are open to boinking a comparatively large portion of the female population, if the opportunity presents itself.
Lesbian relationships tend to be monogamous, and most lesbians have few lifetime sexual partners. Heterosexual women are selective where their partners are concerned—when compared to heterosexual men.
Now let’s apply this to the economics of dating apps.
It has recently been reported that the heterosexual dating apps are in trouble. Bumble has laid off a third of its staff. Match and Tinder are losing their user base—especially their paying (male) user base. Continue reading “The Red Queen and dating apps “
Xavier University was one of the universities I actively considered back in the mid-1980s, when I was a high school student shopping for a college. XU has long been one of Cincinnati’s major institutions of higher education, along with the University of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University. I’ve met many people over the years who attended Xavier. All of them have had good things to say about the school.
But Xavier University is anticipating a 17% drop in incoming enrollment during the 2025-2026 academic year. The university will be making some cuts to cope with the shortfall.
While poking around on Amazon this morning, I noticed that the electronic version of Stephen King’s 2018 novel, The Outsider, is now available in Kindle Unlimited (KU). This means that subscribers to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program can read the electronic version of the book for free.
(Note: At least for now. Kindle Unlimited terms run for a period of 90 days. So if you’re reading this post a year from now, The Outsider may or may not be in KU.)
Amazon launched its Kindle Unlimited program more than a decade ago. Since its inception, there have been arguments for and against the program.
On one hand, Kindle Unlimited is to books what Netflix is to movies. KU thereby allows subscribers to discover new books and authors for free (aside from the KU subscription fee).
On the other hand, Kindle Unlimited requires books to be exclusive to the Amazon platform. (More on this shortly.) This creates a “network effect” that arguably disadvantages other stores like Apple Books and Kobo.
Another concern with Kindle Unlimited is that it tends to be skewed toward certain kinds of genre fiction, like romance, urban fantasy, and space opera. In the past, critics of the program (mostly book reviewers) have complained that Kindle Unlimited doesn’t contain enough titles from bestselling, household-name authors.
Well, you can’t get any more household-name than Stephen King. If a Stephen King title is available in Kindle Unlimited, then the program has all the bona fides it needs.
There is one important catch, however. And this quibble comes (mostly) from the perspective of an independent author/publisher like me.
The Outsider is still available on other platforms, like Kobo and Apple Books. (I checked.) Stephen King’s title is not subject to the normal rules of KU exclusivity.
This is an important exception. If I place a book in Kindle Unlimited, I have to agree to make it exclusive to Amazon (not available anywhere else) for a period of 90 days. This means that readers can’t find it on other platforms, and I can’t sell it on other platforms during the Kindle Unlimited enrollment period.
So Stephen King gets different, more preferential treatment at Amazon than I do. I’m neither outraged nor surprised. Having spent many years in the corporate world, I know how the corporate world works.
As someone once told me, many years ago: “Rank and status have perks.” At the time, we were discussing the egalitarian implications of reserved parking spaces for top managers in the company parking lot. The corporate world is far from egalitarian. It would be naive to think that book publishing and retailing are “special” in this regard. Business is business.
On the contrary, I might benefit from this. The placement of The Outsider in Kindle Unlimited will bring new horror fans into the subscription program. After they’re done reading The Outsider, some of them may read one of my horror novels, like 12 Hours of Halloween, Revolutionary Ghosts, or Kuwa 6226. They may even give my historical horror series, The Rockland Horror, a try.
Yes, that was a little self-promotional plug, tongue-in-cheek though it was. Like I said: Business is business.
I’ve been aware of Johnny B. Truant for years now. I was a long-time listener of the (now defunct) Self-Publishing Podcast. Truant cohosted this podcast with his writing partners, Sean Platt and David Wright.
The Self-Publishing Podcast was quite informative. I really miss it.
Truant and his two cowriters provided instruction on what quickly emerged as the “standard” way to do indie publishing in the era of Kindle Unlimited and increasing competition. But now Truant has become a critic of an overheated indie publishing ecosystem, dependent on high ad spends and mass production techniques.
I recently listened to Truant being interviewed on the Self Publishing Info with the SPA Girls podcast. What follows are some highlights from the interview, with my own editorial asides liberally sprinkled in.
Two trends have distinguished indie publishing for at least a decade: a focus on high-volume output (aka “rapid release”, and a doctrinaire conformity to “tropes” within a very limited range of genres (aka “write to market”).
The dating app Bumble has lost over half of its value since going public in 2021. The company recently announced plans to cut 30 percent of its workforce.
Bumble is not the only dating app that is in trouble. Tinder is also hemorrhaging members. So is Match. Almost all dating apps are losing paying members, otherwise known as “men”. What gives?
Women almost always get a “free ride” on dating apps. In other words, they almost never have to pay for memberships.
This isn’t because of some feminist conspiracy. It’s because of simple laws of sexual economics. In the human world, as in the animal one, males are in supply, and females are in demand.
If you don’t believe this, and you would like an extreme example as proof, announce online that you’re going to host an orgy at your house. A hundred men will show up, and not a single woman. Continue reading “Bumble and the death of the dating app”
This is a promotional ad that McDonald’s ran in 1980. Breakfast customers were given a free Bic razor with the purchase of any breakfast entree.
1980 McDonald’s print ad
I don’t specifically remember this promotion, and my guess is that it didn’t last long. This is also one that you’re unlikely to see repeated in the twenty-first century. Clearly the ad appeals to one specific gender. (And in 1980, no one disputed the notion that there were only two.) But as we all know, women eat pancakes, too. So what’s going on?
My mother worked outside the home in 1980; but that was the very beginning of the Boomer-led “working woman” trend of the 1980s. The McDonald’s marketing folks probably figured that men would comprise the main market for fast-food breakfasts, presumably on their way to work.
The post-COVID era has been tough for all restaurant chains, but for some more than others. In February we learned that Hooter’s was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. To avoid that, the company’s corporate owners are attempting to refurbish the brand with a more-family friendly image. They are calling this, whimsically, the “re-Hooterization”.
Hooters was founded in April 1983. The business model was simple: somewhat overpriced, okay food, served by winsome young ladies in short-shorts and form-fitting tops.
The clientele in 1983 would have been mostly Boomer men, who were then entering early middle age. The early 1980s was an era of socially conservative backlash. The Moral Majority was campaigning to ban girly magazines from convenience stores—often with success. There was no internet. In that environment, the bar for titillation was set decidedly low.
I was a freshman in high school in April 1983. As a 14-year-old boy, I would have been all over the idea of going to Hooters; but there was even less titillation in my part of the world, the conservative suburbs of Cincinnati.
About 20 years later, circa 2003, I did have lunch at a Hooters with a group of [male] work colleagues. I recall the waitress doing her best to get with the program: she made a point of sitting down beside each of us as we selected an item from the limited and overpriced menu. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. It came out dry and rubbery, as if it had been microwaved. That was my first and last experience with Hooters as an adult.
Regular readers of this blog will know that political correctness for the sake of political correctness is not my thing. Nevertheless, even I can recognize that a business model based on young women in skimpy attire has its limits. I like attractive women as much as the next guy, but when it comes to lunch, I’m much more easily sold on the quality of the steak, and the size and savoriness of the baked potatoes.
But what about this plan to rebrand Hooters as “family friendly”? I’ve heard reports (no doubt fed to the media by the company’s corporate owners) about an increase in Hooters diners with children. Coloring books available for the kids! (Yes, really.) Is Hooters now trying to compete with Chuck E. Cheese?
Here’s the question: once you take away the mildly prurient appeal of Hooters, what does the chain really have going for it? A family-friendly version of Hooters strikes me as an oxymoron, the equivalent of a vegetarian steakhouse, or a fast food restaurant with the motto, “We take our time while preparing your meal!”
We could have a spirited debate about whether or not Hooters was ever such a great idea to begin with, or whether such a concept has a place in the twenty-first century, which is simultaneously uptight about everything, and saturated with porn.
But who is the target market of a “family-friendly” version of Hooters? And why should anyone not take their family to Texas Roadhouse or Applebees instead?
