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Upsetting Day: For Girls Only (No Boys Allowed!)š
🕑 Added 2025-11-18 13:00:17 +0000 UTC
Did I give VHS a fair shot? Dad had a VCR, so I thought of backwards violence by default. Then nude tapes of pastors kept leaking, souring me further. But thereās decades of culture and philosophy on tape. Smart people I respect rewind every week. And modern alternatives arenāt perfect. Bots keep whispering sad kids to death, and that feels like a bug. Maybe Blockbuster held the Good Future.
One more try.
Radical.
Still radical! Just the dictionary kind. Acquire the Fire took the culture war more literally than 2027. Ron Luce wanted teens to be ready, which is pretty generous. Though I canāt remember which side of the Kidz Trenches he recruited for.
The packaging might have been a hint.
You might ask: can a black clown review this? Well, my pastor took what he could get, and the Lord transcends redlining. Iāve heard Revelations in Latin, Korean, and song.
Right, the other thing. Acquire the Fire measured gender in boot camp push-ups, and I stick to barbells like a warm blanket. The boyās compound looks fun, but I prefer suffering with central air. Itās like I told Pastor Lane: āWhen the Childrenās Do-Over kicks off, Iāll be cheerleading, not dying.ā
Take the goofy cover art in: that strain of failure's extinct. The Borg have eaten the joy in sloth, driving me back to retired madmen. My ruined eyes like this drawing, since someone fucked it up themselves.
Meanwhile, Ronās still talking.
Nice nod at the secondary audience. āNoā draws godly men like unburned books. Ron promises to teach boys how to ātreat a lady,ā showing a relatable attention span. Despite the title, todayās only requirement is negative self-esteem.
As a holy war deserter, Iām excited. Evangelical God has excellent spokespeople, free of worldly charm and insight. Ron wields sheer volume of noise, punctuated by Christ and vague swipes at the media. In the pile, you might miss nods at holy war. Watch those: theyāre a metaphor for holy war.
His copilot has a similar flow:
Katieās a bit less teleprompter-y than Ron. I donāt know if that speaks to improv or a modicum of ability, but the Luces arenāt the first mixed talent couple Iāve found preaching. Divine womanhood means dragging a hack across the finish line.
Quality grifts season insanity with truth, so ads catch strays today. Thereās some stopped clock value, if you ignore the Action Bible Camp ads. Acquire the Fire pitches feeling good about yourself in Crusades chainmail. While Katie knocking the media sounds like Ted Kaczinskyās rants on political correctness, itās more like demons fighting Illithids.
I like New York as shorthand for trends. We donāt get enough credit for defining imperial chic. Call it arrogance, but one island spawned, molded, and whitewashed our first dictator. Everyone screaming about Gomorrah from Fox HQ has an F train story.
Sometimes I miss that desk. If Iād known the Great Grifter Era was coming, I mightāve stayed and worked my way up to Sith Lord. Though I hear black copywriters struggle a bit under the āNo Spadesā royal decree. Along with non-tanning people in every industry but clown. Iāll count my blessings.
I think we all know whatās next.
I think a lot of things.
To clarify: those shots are untouched. My photoshop game isnāt that good. Iām taking notes from Acquire the Fireās ability to mock God with WordArt. Clearly, this is a genius at work. Our new themeās Christian sketch comedy, and Iām laughing exactly as much as they hoped.
Though my New York bias hurts this setup a little; nothingās scarier than failure. Iād rather be a proud corpse than a living senator. In fact, Iād trade my immortal whatever for a badge that said You Did It, You Can Sleep Now.
āEVASION of the MASK PEOPLEā lampoons the phonies a Holden might find/imagine outside of youth group. While I play social interactions on āDante Must Dieā difficulty, itās a bit much. E.g., perfect for pitching imaginary teens.
Though Iāll give the un-acting and reverse writing this: itās much less on the nose about faith than expected. Experience shows. By now, the Luces know fear of The Beast colors every word they write. Pointing at the cross would just crucify a risen horse. By talking about something else for even a second, āEVASION of the MASK PEOPLEā ascends to sub-mediocrity. Iām telling the truth in workshop: just keep writing. Consistency separates the Luces from the Ludys.
On to the next sketch:
ā¦Power? I bet powerās next. It has to be power.
Shit. I really need to get off Polymarket.
This sketch looks a bit avant-garde, but comedy always has room for surprise.
Like that joke. A year under Ron Luceās unsupervised crazy eyes? Can you imagine that? Or the consequences? Survivors of that hell would hold positions of power today. Things would get real fucky, real fast.
For Girls Only pivots into an ad for your new family. The Quadforce above doesnāt quite capture the tone. Itās more āGo Army.ā Acquire the Fire mightāve thrived on Twitch, if New York didnāt get antsy about junior paramilitaries.
The few. The proud. The unfucked.
In 1999, Ron Luce was a universal strawman. The saved said āIām no Ron Luce.ā The godless called you Ron Luce. Spiritual entrepreneurs said āMy compound looks sketchy, but itās not Ron Luceās.ā Simpler times. Now cults hunting teenage girls are all political.
Today, like many serial heroes, Ronās crime-doc famous. As you can see, he spoke at The Kids. A cynic would call For Girls Only a bait and switch, but the bait comes after the crazy. For all the Madison Ave in my heathen blood, I canāt figure out why this spot comes before the disarming fluff.
Meet the Unspiced Girls. Better known as The Darins, 1999ās most diverse gospel rockers. They live in a rotating three-way splitscreen that my attention spanās finally ready for. I donāt know how pre-fall teens coped with frames playing musical chairs. But Iām free from the scrolling urge for the first time in five years. A miracle.
Four speakers share three mobile panels for two minutes to make one speech about delegating self-love to God. Five minutes into For Girls Only, and Iām closer to permanent vertigo than finding Christ.
The sequence makes even less senseāFor Girls Only has negative flow between segments. Thatās why this recap exists: I canāt figure out whatās happening or why Iād pick it over smiling. This tapeās like WarioWare for cults.
Nice one. Letās give their single a shot.
Or another group entirely! Why not? A band interview into a music video is still the straightest line of logic so far. Iāve already forgotten the Donners.
Truthās āWonderful Worldā is as dull as C-Span used to be, and thus a Christian rock triumph. Godās playlist has annoyed me since I lost two nights (2/265ths of an Honor Academy semester) to McDonaldās GospelFest. But āWonderful Worldā feels tolerable, like carb-savvy bread. Maybe Truth was the Huntrix of music no oneās danced to.
If thereās a title-relevant point, itās here. Katie sits real teens down to get real about body image issues and their real cure Jesus. Iām told no one reads extended quotes, so Iāll paraphrase.
Isnāt sharing fun?
Another dime-stop turn: we get two profiles in suffering, to match the comedy sketch, celebrity cameo, and music video about life on Godās Earth kicking ass. Trish and Carrie deserve betterāspeeches on bingeing and abuse get 3 AM infomercial presentation. Premium savings hide somewhere in these broken childhoods.
The editingās another tragedy, and I donāt mean choosing picture-in-picture, or the background crawling up a stairwell. To fight Hollywood, For Girls Only apes MTVās style. The Luces cut ED and DV survival together like quips on Next or Room Raiders. While anorexia gets a sunny field and full color, battery gets washed out black metal tones. I think Jesus wouldāve tried harder. Or at least ditched the motion-sickness stairwell.
A strawman might accuse Teen Mania of targeting minors on the brink, isolating them for a year, and milking them for content/money/[free space]. So would I. Iāve finally made peace with straw. We need each other. Straw is my only friend in a world gone mad.
In short, For Girls Only cures low self-esteem the way loan sharks cure debt. And ends dark. Which, if nothing else, works for escalation.
Hwuh?
I donāt understand anything, anywhere. I canāt blame the video, or even Ron. Every headline or conversation feels like this. Everything outside my room is Mars.
Before youāve processed Trish and Carrie, the idiot above jumps into a āman on the streetā bit. Sort of. Most responses are edited in. Iām guessing he only bothered three women in that hat before shame sent him into shock. Weāre decades away from TikTok turning parks into tall grass for hacksāhis survey was a novel experience, and people hate those.
The better of the Darinās two cameos. The shot merely wanders, instead of splitting into fractals. And thereās a nice bit about self-esteem. See, God made all of you by intent, and youāll love it or Acquire the Hellfire. Including your broken self-esteem. Which I guess you love too? Dick move by God, but some denominations leave room for pranks. Stop crying.
While I donāt know what madness this will end on, I understand the impulse behind modern feeds a bit better. Tapping the gamblerās impulse. It takes a few billion dollars to match finding an old tape, but it seems lucrative.
Hopefully weāve looped back to sketch comedy. I can tank a cultās tilt at comedy. A cult aiming for darkness does spiritual damage. The intent and fuckups form a tag team.
Balls.
This roundās a letter to God, behind the filter flatscans link with art. Judy Blume mustāve been pissed. Letās see if Ron siphoned a talented member of the flock:
Behold: grungeface. If a child wrote āinvisible,ā Iāll legally change my name to Alternahippie X. Teen Witch. Iām confident enough that Ron Luce delegated this to another predator, that Iāll risk answering to Prof. Teen Witch for the rest of my career. Presumably a week.
Technically, thereās still three minutes of Ron Luce hawking books after this. Along with one-way flights to undisclosed locations. But this semipoem captures the project. Random swings at capturing the emotions of teenagers, women, and humans. Evangelicals havenāt improved since.
Tape, however, seems fun. Iāll try to collect more before the Guard touches down.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Russell Bauman, who read the article and watched the tape even thought the title EXPLICITLY forbade it.
You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM
Comments
Amanda of the Rosemire
Picking a favorite line from this feels impossible, but, āDivine womanhood means dragging a hack across the finish line,ā made me literally whoop out a laugh. And I mean literally literally, not figuratively literally. I whooped.
dirtygremlin
Carb Savvy Bread really had my toes tapping. Thanks, DJ Denny D.
