ANYWAY, they started a Tumblr called Thank You Brooklyn, and it’s about music, boys, fashion, and being young and cute in a big city. Read it.

So in case you haven’t noticed, things have been pretty dead around here. It’s not because I hate you, it’s because I have a job where I get paid to write now. And being paid to write is better than not getting paid to write. But don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned this entirely. I’ll still post random things I enjoy that Thought Catalog doesn’t. In the meantime though, I’ve made a mini-portfolio for you guys to peruse in my absence. It’s like a greatest hits record or something. Anyways, enjoy.

How-To’s

How To Be My Boyfriend

How To Appear Cooler On Facebook Than You Actually Are

How To Fall In Love With A Boy For The First Time

How To Get Your Heart Broken By A Boy For The First Time

How To Be Gay

How To Be A 20-Something

How To Live In New York City

How to be a Funny Person

How to be Celibate for an Entire Year

Fake Interviews

James Franco

Mary-Kate Olsen

Real Interviews

White Girl Problems

No Joy

Todd Solondz

The Shining Twins

TV Recaps

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

Intervention. Episode 1: Season 9.

Intervention. Episode 2: Season 9.

Intervention. Episode 3: Season 9.

Jersey Shore. Episode 1: Season 3.

Jersey Shore. Episode 2: Season 3.

Miscellaneous

An Obituary For Myspace

What Your Favorite Magazine Says About You

What Your Favorite Magazine Says About You: Part II

The Five Original Hipsters

A Typical Conversation on Cocaine

An Examination of Sofia Coppola’s Career (Thus Far)

Three Bands Everyone Pretends to Like More Than They Actually Do

Why Being Gay Is Gay

Top Ten Celebrity Excuses For Acting Batshit Insane

Drugs I Will Never Try

I want the following things for Christmas:

1. Lena Dunham’s career. Please, Lena. Just give it to me. I’ll nurture it and be a great caretaker.

2. A winter boyfriend who will love me in the spring and eventually forever!

3. A Los Angeles winter in New York.

4 . The ability to tie my shoes. Ever since I was hit by a car, I can’t do it and it has negatively affected my life and my shoe collection.

5 . Lots of $$$ because who doesn’t want that?

6. The people I like and make me happy to be all living in the same city.

7. To have seen Blue Valentine and Somewhere already.

8. The best fitting pair of jeans ever. I just want my body and jeans to get along, to be friends, to understand each other.

9. To be able to read Joan Didion’s “Goodbye To All That” for the very first time again. NERD NERD NERD.

10. And most importantly, I just…I would really love….I need…it would be really great if I had more followers on Twitter. Don’t look at me like that! Stop it!

http://twitter.com/ryanoconn

Sorry for the lack of activity over here. I’m blogging full-time over at Thought Catalog. Check my posts out here!

Teen Female Friendship # 1: My Best Friend is a Bad Influence But I Love Her Anyway.

Example: Angela Chase and Rayanne Graff from My So-Called Life

The friendship between My So-Called Life’s Angela Chase and Rayanne Graff was so real that it was almost unnerving. Lets face it: every girl has had a Rayanne in their life—a self-destructive best friend who sometimes OD’s on Ecstasy and manipulates you but deep down, really does love you. They cone from opposite backgrounds-Angela from a nuclear family in the suburbs and Rayanne from an absentee single-parent household–.but they find that, despite their differences, they both need each other. For Angela, Rayanne is a girl that can jumpstart her dull life. She inspires her to dye her mousy blonde hair red because if she doesn’t, she “might die or something” and takes her to crazy parties where she can talk to cute boys. For Rayanne, Angela represents innocence and stability—qualities she’s undoubtedly envious of. When she does that really shitty thing and sleeps with Angela’s crush, Jordan Catalano, their friend Rickie makes the astute observation that it was just Rayanne’s way of becoming Angela for a moment. These kinds of quiet moments made My So-Called Life a brilliant study on the complexities of teen relationships and one that has yet to be replicated on TV today.

Teen Female Friendship # 2- My Best Friend is Super Embarrassing But I’ve Known Her Since I Was A Kid So Whatevs.

Example: Kimmy Gibbler and D.J. Tanner from Full House

Kimmy Gibbler and D.J. Tanner were an interesting duo. Like a true Tanner, D.J. was boring and self-righteous. She got good grades, had a hot jock boyfriend and by the end of a 22-minute episode, always did the “right” thing. In fact, the only bad thing she ever did was over-exercise and starve herself and even that was only because she was stressed out about getting a good score on her SAT’s.  Kimmy, on the other hand, was a hurricane. She came into the Tanners’ house in bizarre loud outfits hurling insults at everybody. In one hilarious episode, she even got totally wasted. If this were real life, Kimmy would probably be too busy hanging out with the artsy drama freaks and listening to music like CocoRosie to even bother with D.J.’s imminent Adderall addiction and holier-than-thou attitude. But because this is TV, D.J. and Kimmy had to disregard their inherent differences and represent the power of childhood friendships. Later in life, it won’t matter if one votes Democrat and the other worships Ann Coulter. They played with Barbie’s together when they were five and for some female friendships, having that kind of history is enough.

Teen Female Friendship # 3: My Best Friend is Totally Rich And Loves to Party Like Me!

Example: Nicole Oakley and Maddy from Crazy/Beautiful

This reference is admittedly a little obscure. After all, who actually watched the 2001 teen drama, Crazy/Beautiful, besides me? No one, that’s who, so let me fill you in. Kirsten Dunst plays this Malibu brat, Nicole, who falls in love with a hot poor Mexican guy, Carlos, from “the other side of the tracks.” The twist here is that the hot poor Mexican guy actually has his shit together and the rich white girl is the one with problems. Is that even really a twist? Maybe it was in 2001. Anyways, Nicole’s BFF is a girl named Maddy (played by the insane Taryn Manning) and in the beginning of the film, they are the ultimate bad girl duo– running wild on the streets of Los Angeles wearing only their bras and ditching class to get drunk. However, when Nicole starts dating Carlos, Maddy disappears from the film entirely, only to re-emerge in the break-up montage when she consoles Nicole by playing a song on the guitar. Her absence says a lot –mainly that their love of partying isn’t enough to keep their friendship flame burning. When teenage bad girls combine forces in T.V. and film, the result can often be a fast and furious destruction. Eventually though, one of the friends gets off the bad girl rollercoaster ride and realizes that she doesn’t have much in common with her partner in crime. Such was the fate for Nicole and Maddy. R.I.P.

Teen Female Friendship # 4: My Best Friend Won’t Stop Trying to Kill Me!

Example: The girls from The Craft

The Craft may not be the most realistic example but beyond the magic, murder and eyeliner, there’s a lot to be learned here. Sarah (Robin Tunney) moves to L.A. not knowing a soul and is taken in by the class witches (Fairuza Balk, Rachel True, Neve Campbell). At first, they do normal girl things like watch movies, braid each other’s hair and talk about boys. But when they start to get serious about witchcraft, they begin to make animal sacrifices to the Gods, cast love spells and seek revenge on their classmates. This understandably freaks newbie Sarah out and she decides that she wants out of the coven. Her decision doesn’t fly with Nancy (Fairuza Balk), however, and she tries to kill Sarah-earning herself a lifetime stay at the mental hospital.

Despite the campy supernatural elements, this film is a nice example of how the pitied outcast girls can become just as ruthless as the popular kids they despise. Rochelle (Rachel True) is taunted by the token popular girl (Christine Taylor) and retaliates by casting a spell that makes her hair fall out. Nancy is treated like crap by popular jock, Chris, (Skeet Ulrich) so she decides to throw him out of a two-story window. Their feminism becomes, quite frankly, scary and it doesn’t take long for jealousy and competition to tear this once-strong sisterhood apart. Next time, I would recommend sticking to harmless games like “Light as a feather, stiff as board.”

Teen Female Friendship # 5: My Best Friend and I Hate Each Other

Example: Nicole Julian and Mary Cherry from Popular

WB’s teen dramedy, Popular, may have been short-lived but it left a lasting impression on me and many others. Created by Glee’s Ryan Murphy, the show brought a much-needed dose of absurdity to the high-school hallways with gay icons Mary Cherry (Leslie Grossman) and Nicole Julian (Tammy Lynn Michaels) at the forefront.  These girls were the ultimate frenemies– sabotaging each other’s homecoming campaigns, plastic surgery and love lives-all in a futile attempt to be popular. Even though their behavior was over-the-top (I did mention the plastic surgery, right?), it was also oddly refreshing. At the end of the day, neither of them truly succeeded and they were stuck with each other as two desperate social climbers. They brought high school cattiness out of the closet and into the hearts of many. In the words of Nicole Julian, “Thank youuuu.”

So there you have it. Five sweeping generalizations about friendship, gender and adolescence. What did we learn today? We learned that although some friends treat us like crap, they still totally care. We learned that a friendship’s history can sometimes trump personality differences, rich party girls don’t always stick with rich party girls, black magic can lead to attempted murder and last but certainly not least, that Popular was one of the best TV shows of all time. Now. don’t ever say TV and movies didn’t teach you anything because that is obviously a cruel disgusting lie.

People’s negative perceptions of Beverly Hills are deserved. In fact, I’d venture to say that it’s more terrible than you imagine. The plastic surgery, the grandiose yet lazy California fashion, the groomed pets: it’s all on display here like rare artifacts in a museum. Its primary residents are mistakenly thought to be WASP’s but are in fact, Persians. They own the city with a bejeweled fist. One time, I was eating lunch on Beverly Drive and a gaggle of middle-schoolers were socializing next to me. At one point, a girl screamed, “Raise your hand if you’re Persian!” The pre-teens went into convulsions, jumping up and down, raising their fists. I bowed my head down, ashamed of my undesirable lineage, and returned to eating my Greek salad.

Watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was like running into an old train wreck of a friend: uncomfortable, surprising but ultimately intriguing. So far, my favorites of the season are Kim and Kyle Richards.

The city’s answer to Mary-Kate and Ashley! Kim and Kyle were like, may-hay-jor child actresses back in the 40s’. Er, I mean the 60s’ and 70s’. They were Disney girls, the original Lindsay Lohan, and they want you, dear viewers, to know that. Today, they are full-time moms but that’s their choice. They could work but they choose to be mothers. Did you hear that back there? CHOOSE TO, DAMMIT!

I’m obsessed with Kyle. The only person who’s more obsessed with Kyle Richards is Kyle Richards. As aunt to Paris Hilton, this woman would show up to every and any TV show about Paris. The Simple Life? There. She stopped by Paris’ house to say hi. She didn’t know the cameras would be there, okay?  Paris’ E! True Hollywood Story? Kyle was front row, giving expert testimony to the cameras about her delicate flower petal of a niece. But don’t think that she’s using Paris.  The only crime she’s guilty of is loving her niece too much.

Kim Richards is this season’s Girl, Interrupted. She’s fragile like imported china and has crazy eyes that look like they either know too much or too little. On last night’s premiere, she was totally needy to Kyle, all up in her business and Kyle’s just like “Can you not? I have to go get filmed for a making-of documentary for House of Wax.” And Kim was left there to just freak out about her freaky life and her sagging neck. If only she could get tapped for a lead role in the remake of Escape to Witch Mountain. No, wait. She’s a mother, dammit!

The Huffington Post published my experience with The Real World!