word count




Both Are True



most hated essays from last year (also the ones you loved fine)
2023's flops and favs, bombs and bangers, yucks and yums, duds and dopes, bads and goods, letdowns and legends, etc.

Alex Dobrenko`
Jan 17, 2024

Lotta new cats in the house and to you I say meow. A list of my worst posts from last year (and my best) to follow. First, something that actually matters

important
Our son Wilder went to a little in-home six kid daycare in LA called Honeysuckle House. It’s run by a couple named Sarah and James and two of the six kids were theirs - Wolfie and Wilder. Yep, 33% of the children there were named Wilder. The other one was a girl though so ours became Boy Wilder.

One day Wolfie hit his head and threw up so they took him to the hospital just to make sure everything was fine. It wasn’t. They found cancer masses on his brain and spine. At the start of December, he started chemo.

He’s four fucking years old.


Nothing I write feels adequate. The words ‘it isn’t fair’ don’t even scratch the surface. Him and our Wilder were pals. They played. And now he’s getting chemo? How? No one should have to go through that. And yet they are. That’s their new default.

The family is raising money to help pay for the medical bills here. On behalf of BAT I’m gonna donate $200 right now to help Wolfie and his fam. Donate if you can, share it with your people etc.

Thank you for letting me share.


interviews (2)
In case any of you nerds missed it, i’ve recently been interviewed in TWO newsletters I read and respect.

A personal Q&A about body image for Body Type with Mikala Jamison where I talk about growing up chubby and finding my shirtless photos listed on a nude pics website recently (I got 3.5 stars!).

A super fun (and weirdly deep) questionnaire about books, my style (“slouch social”), and being an incredible dancer for Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe.

So please read them if you want! idk could be a terrible idea but I am proud of both pieces so it could be a cool idea to read them actually if you want no worries if not!

An image uploaded by kemmotar on Jul 23, 2023. May present: monochrome photography, forehead, hair, nose, face.
the duality of man
now I present BAT 2023 bombs & bangers
Everyone posted their highlight reels from 2023 and frankly i thought that was a good idea. Except I missed that opportunity so instead I thought i’d take a stroll down memory candy cane lane and make a case for some 2023 BAT flops. these are flops for no reason other than I thought they’d get more engagement and they didn’t! which is definitely fine with me i’m for sure over it and not harboring any grudges or bringing the pain of their underwhelming number of likes into 2024. i’m also gonna include some that you guys liked so I can leave this post with my dignity intact.

anyway let’s start with the ones that absolutely bombed.

THE STINKERS
maybe the title “13 things I like (sex robots…” was a bad idea

I can see now that my mistake here was to not talk enough about sex robots. Lesson learned. i’m actually posting an entire essay about sex robots! just kidding i’m not doing that and i’m also never posting another roundup again (but if I did what would you guys wanna see lol)

I am the captain of the Titanic

First of all this is the piece my wife references whenever I tell her about a new weird essay idea. She says, “ok but don’t make it weird like the titanic one.” Second of all this is a masterpiece. Here I’ll show you, this is me (the captain) after my second-in-command tells me there’s an iceberg ahead:

I'd then fetch the new 2nd sailor (the old one, Mikey, quit after a rather out-of-character disagreement about whether the Jacks of any card deck are the sons of the King and Queen or are they not related at all — obviously they are related is what I said, he said ‘no way you can't be sure of that with 100% certainty’ so I said ‘is this the hill you’re gonna die on??’ 

And he said ‘yes’. and then I said, looking out to the crowd just a wee bit, cheating as we say in theater and therapy, ‘ya know what little guy (which was funny because he was a very tall man), this hill just became a mountain. You made a mountain out of a mole hill.6" and then I threw him off the boat. My boat. The Titanic.

Is there an open parenthesis with no closure?? yes! does this make almost no sense? no it makes perfect sense maybe you just have to read it again (and again.

notes from 24 hours of my life, what could be better?

here you should see the whole image because it really sells it:


frankly I don’t know why this incredibly detailed, completely unhinged, and much-too-long “day-in-the-life” of me and lauren and our toddler and my OCD was a flop lauren doesn’t know either.

actually I had her read this and she said “oh I have some ideas.”

“You basically wrote about poop the whole time,” she said, as if I had any choice in the matter (I was reporting on the day?)

“And you look like an asshole.”

“That was the point!” I remind her.

“Well, it didn’t work.”

and neither do the engineers at nasa, by all the projections it seemed like everyone on earth would be really into thisI mean just look at the nuggets (heh) of wisdom:


Anyway yea not sure what else you guys were hoping for! nailed that one.

and now for the posts that are certified bangers…

3 Bangers
I Ihink my son hates me

A story about trying to get my son to call me ‘dada’ and also admitting that I said “I love you” for the first time to my college girlfriend and then took it back because I wasn’t 100% sure and didn’t want to lie. So basically, my toddler brought me to my knees. if you can get one to do that to you (they will, undoubtedly), all the better for your writing and readership.


beautiful disasters

If you’re an addict, you’re like… seconds away from getting Internet famous and securing a movie deal. all you have to do is what I did, which is write a fever dream of an essay about your addiction! it’s very easy actually at least it definitely was for me. a breeze. a vacation. a piña colada.

This one became my most read post ever!

hello i love you won’t you pick up your phone

In this one, I out my parents for being annoying and then I become them!!

Also featured: me report my wife as missing to the police!


Let’s talk i guess?
what were your favorite BAT moments of the year? Any posts you loved? Any you hated?

Besides BAT, what were your bangers and busts from last year?

Thanks for agreeing with me that the Titanic piece is a work of straggling genius. Say more on that?

if you’re new here say hi! who are you what’s your favorite restaurant to eat food at ?

subscribe I guess?
I’m a writer and this newsletter is how I make a good chunk of my money. Please consider becoming a patron of the BAT and getting a paid subscription. All the cool kids are doing it even jacob biraldi and that sweeney girl and glen powell too all of them did it.

sure i'll support!

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