Mad Libs, Tom Scocca, Tommy Craggs and why everything doesn't suck
It's a pity Leonard B. Stern, creator of Mad Libs, died earlier this week , as he's not around to see how his invention is still being used in the media. The most persistent offender on this front is Slate , the remarkable Internet outlet that seems to largely thrive on finding things people like and writing contrarian pieces on why they're really awful . In the past, they've taken bold stands against such horrors as pie , criticism of Creed and hand sanitizer . As Jonah Goldberg once wrote (in a piece for Slate itself, which must have set off some sort of contrarianism loop), "Freelancers especially seem to have figured out how to get through Slate's editorial defenses: Pitch a story, any story, that's counterintuitive, and someone on the receiving end will say "brilliant!" The idea seems very Mad Libs-inspired: "[Group of people] likes [noun], therefore it is [derogatory adjective]". This approach is now spreading thanks to former...