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NYT's Wirecutter jumps the shark

Mr Person

A Little Bitter
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I present to you.... the Dog Psychic review.


The beginning is just as cringey as you might expect.

Is he actually happy here? Does he even like me? Thanks to Nina Luczyszyn, a vet tech turned pet communicator, now I know (or at least now I think I know). “You’re always so happy and trying to stay so positive. He really loves that about you,” she said in our 30-minute Zoom session, during which she acted as a conduit between Buddy’s thoughts and feelings and my innumerable questions about his health and mental well-being. “You don’t let people take advantage of you. You’re a tough cookie.”

It's full of stuff like:

"Apparently, sleeping 16 hours a day is an excellent way to recharge his social battery, because he told us he needs a bit more mental stimulation than we’ve been giving him."

And:

I asked if Buddy was happy with the toys we’ve given him. “It doesn’t feel like he’s too big on toys, but he does say that he likes anything that he can really use his teeth and kind of pull. But he’s not showing me, like, stuffies or things that he wants to, like, rip open, or like squeakies or anything,” Luczyszyn said. “He’s just saying he wants something sturdy that he can play tug with.”

It's a pit mix! Of course it loves pull toys! Of course it loves vigorous play! (And since when is a pull toy mental stimulation? It's physical stimulation).

I could have told the author this. Hell, my BIL's pit mix needed so much physical stimulation that on top of all the playing and walks, he loved to use their treadmill (and at their vet's suggestion, he had a little weight vest he could strap on ... that dog needed a ton of physical exertion)

When I asked the communicator about how we can make visitors feel more welcome, Buddy suggested we ask the guest to interact with him and give him a command. Dogs can exhibit a variety of behaviors when someone comes to the door: barking, jumping, running in circles.
See, this is just insulting. The person putting themselves forth as a "dog psychic" and as reading the dog Buddy's mind used to be a vet tech. They're naturally going to have a general sense of what different breeds are like and they have to be good at assessing the particular animal quickly in the context of vet care, to avoid problems.

The Wirecutter puts itself forth as a group of product reviewers. And they're going to go on about a 'psychic' reading some clueless dog owner's dog's mind, as proven by that psychic giving generic advice?



Imagine if it was a chihuahua. "He's saying he doesn't like 3/4" rope!" Gee, ya think.



It continues to amaze me that humanity has gotten as far as it has, and yet countless people think the world is ****ing magic... a literal fairy tale. Pyschics, mediums, good luck charms, magical sky fairies, even magical sky fairies who they think perform miracles to save an 85 year old couple who ignored an evacuation order but chose to let Hitler happen and who they worship as purely 'good' anyway despite this complete inversion of the concept of good. (I call it self-gaslighting).
 
People believe the stupidest things. One of my favorites is the psychic Kung Fu guys that get demolished by reality.
 
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