National Post from Toronto, Ontario, Canada • A10

A10 nationalpost.com NATIONAL POST, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022 MOST MEN WILL BE SNARED BY ONE OR ANOTHER OF LITTLE TRAPS. COSH he magazine GQ has had a viral success, perhaps the only kind of success now open to most writers, with Chris new feature on the little-known world of elective surgical leg length- ening. Gayomali spent some time at the LimbPlastX In- stitute in Las Vegas, which, for will break your femurs for you (along with your tibias, if necessary) and length- en your legs by three to six inches by means of re- mote-controlled titanium prostheses. This experimental pro- cedure, based on a tech- nique developed in the old Soviet Union for the treat- ment of catastrophic injur- ies and birth defects, in- volves months of pain, along with a prolonged blizzard of anal- gesic usage, the inability to walk for many months and a risk of disgusting com- plications. But in the end, by God, you will be taller although only through the thighs, which will leave your body proportions a little weird.

a fascinating story, predicated on the under- standing that men can have psychologically significant body-image issues; one al- most feels this truth is ap- pearing in a prestigious magazine only because the writer accidentally discov- ered the lengths to which some people will go (pun half-intended) to resolve them. A few women receive the procedure, but mostly men who plunk down the cash and undergo the tor- ment and lost work, as you would expect if you still hold to superstitious beliefs about the existence of two sexes having secondary bio- logical characteristics in- cluding a large difference in mean height. Gayomali dis- close his exact height, which is significant in itself, but confesses to being a who is by his 5-foot-9 wife. (She misses wearing high heels.) His own story of subtle psychological conflict adds as much to his feature as the stories of the perpet- ual micro-insults suffered by height-disadvantaged males. This is where I get to say specifically that as someone who can admit to being midway between 5-foot-11 and 6-foot, learn- ed a lot from the article.

Or maybe better to say I was usefully reminded of a lot. Almost everybody gets handed a certain quantum of physical challenges and flaws by life, and most men will be snared by one or an- other of little traps: if tall and you have all your hair at 50, you may al- ready be in a privileged min- ority. This is not just a mat- ing-market question, either, although you would be naive or insane to take the seriously, considering how much human behav- iour falls into that category. The advantages enjoyed by the tall in every corner of human life, from lifetime income to U.S. presidential elections, are abundantly documented.

The scientists in my audience will be quick to point out, as a (taller) friend of mine did, that there is a statistical con- founder here: height in both sexes correlates with innate genetic health and IQ in myriad ways. The an- swer to this is: why value in faking it, Gayomali hints not too subtly that the steady flow of patients through the LimbPlastX Institute is a social indicator of rich tech- bro excess at work a lot of the patients are people earning money from an al- gorithm and a roomful of engineer-stewards some- place, rentiers who can af- ford to punch a year-long hole in their work lives to chase a dream. You can take this as a hint that getting your legs broken and reset is a crazy, distasteful thing to do. You could also take it as a hint that it is something millions of men would do if the con- sequences were less serious and painful and the surgery were more affordable both of which are bound to be the case eventually. The obses- sions of loony early adopt- ers have a way of falling into lap a couple of decades later, as everyone reading this on an iPhone ought to know.

I talked to some women and men who had seen the GQ piece and were dismis- sive of the idea of receiving a species of cosmetic sur- gery that seems barbarous. If you talk with friends in the same way, bound to find that nearly 100 per cent of the women you know are in the otherwise smallish group of heroes who care at all about a height, and if their boyfriend or husband hap- pens to be a couple of inches taller than themselves, well, just the way the cook- ie crumbled. (Note: crum- bling is kinda built into the nature of cookies.) What struck me, as the notably woke and accepting tall individual I am, is that this is a variety of cosmet- ic surgery that does what it says on the tin. The patients who get limb lengthening will get what they asked for, whether or not the result takes some form. Most likely they will enjoy interest from a wider range of women if single, and Gayomali rec- ords their positive delight at discovering trivial disadvan- tages from greater height that replace the sense of natural grievance they felt as shorties.

In any event, most can have no long-term com- plaint with the surgical intervention re- ceived; the medical conse- quences lifelong and fertility-compromising, as they are with, say, gender reassignment, which went from curio seen in trendy to much a secular in a handful of years. GQ, against all odds, helped me understand this social process a little better. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. National Post Get taller, attract women Most concerning is insist- ence on applying broadcast-era Canadian content (CanCon) rules to a digital age where they not only make sense, but could cause harm to those they suppos- edly seek to protect and promote. This is either lazy legislating or reflective of being entirely out of touch with how social media and streaming actually work the equivalent of grandpa trying to fix his iPad by sticking an anten- na on it.

On social media, the Online Streaming Act plans to influ- ence which is how platforms like YouTube and TikTok surface content to users, populate their personalized feeds and curate their home pages. The Liberals would like Canadian content to be more discoverable, which they reason will lead to more views, more engagement and more cultural influence at home and abroad. At last Senate hearings, Tim Denton, former CRTC chair- man and current chairman of the Internet Canada Chap- ter Society, called the bill lazy continuation of a dumb and a grab over human com- munication across the internet that deserves our distinct The problem is two-fold. First, C-11 assumes social media com- panies can simply be directed to magically tweak their algorithms in favour of Canadians. While they can certainly force feed more Can- adian content to users, the move would likely backfire.

This is be- cause the path to virality on You- Tube, TikTok and others depends on watchtime and engagement. If platforms serve content to users just because Canadian and not because relevant or in- teresting to them, they click, watch it through, like, comment or share. In the eyes of algorithms, this will mark the content as low value and ultimately suppress it from reaching a wider audience outside Canada. Creators could ac- tually see their content do worse, not better. This is particularly harmful because the path to social media success, both in terms of cultural impact and income, largely relies on reaching global audiences.

simple math: there are a lot more international viewers out there than Canadian ones. Larger mar- kets also tend to have more lucra- tive advertising and sponsorship deals. Whether algorithmic meddling backfires or Canadian content is forced to become less interesting to non-Canadians, the damage is the same. This brings us to other major issue. It define what qualifies as Canadian content a problem that already plagues the film and broadcast industries as productions that star or are writ- ten by Canadians often con- sidered CanCon while those that train themselves to tick a rigid list of boxes are.

The question becomes even more impossibly complex online. Is Canadian content simply made by a Canadian creator? What if a non-Canadian who pro- duces their content in Canada? What if the Canadian creator trav- els or shoots videos abroad? What if their podcast or video editor is overseas? Does the topic have to be Canada-related? What exactly is Canadian culture? Add to that thematic focus on and promoting a plurality of racial- ized communities, ethnocultur- al backgrounds, socioeconom- ic backgrounds and more, and the issue muddies further. Will French-speaking creators receive disproportionate simply because of the language they speak? Will this in turn dis- advantage them if their videos are surfaced to non-French audi- ences? The questions are prac- tically endless, which is not the sign of a bill ready to pass the Senate. Handing the government more power to decide Canadian and who gets to represent Can- adian ideas and culture is an obviously treacherous path that imperils the free speech of all Canadians, but especially young- er generations built their voices and businesses online. And little evidence Can- adian creators need the govern- help at all.

There are many successful YouTubers, TikTokers and more gained massive influence and wealth inside and outside borders. Some of our biggest, and most diverse, cultural exports got their start on social media including Justin Bieber, Lilly Singh, Gigi Gorgeous and Tesher, whose music gained a global audience via TikTok and landed him not just a Pun- jabi-English collab with Jason Derulo on the hit song Jalebi Baby, but a 2022 Juno nomination for breakthrough artist of the year. In a recent opinion arti- cle about Bill C-11 for the Re- gina-Leader Post, Tesher, whose real name is Hitesh Sharma, writes, passed as is, it could prevent digital-first Canadian art- ists from achieving that same suc- cess and joy I are no gatekeepers on TikTok. If your content is good and engaging, it finds an audi- wrote Sharma, who de- scribes himself as a Indian kid from Saskatchewan, with no industry Because he sings in Hindi, Punjabi and English, he benefited greatly from his music being discovered globally and first built a fan base outside of Canada. Had Bill C-11 existed when Sharma began creating music on TikTok, would he still be the emerging star he is today? Would his content have been Canadian enough? Maybe not.

C-11 threatens that low-barrier path one based on talent and audi- ence preference, rather than gov- ernment-established he writes. If the Senate is supposed to be a check and balance on the House of Commons, this is a prime oppor- tunity to prove its importance to Canadians. Bill C-11 just ob- viously flawed, it stands to active- ly harm free expression and eco- nomic opportunity. With Pierre Poilievre siphoning younger support away from the left, think the last thing Lib- erals would want to do is to erect more gates to their success. National Post C-11 presents more holes than solutions TROY FLEECE POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES Tesher, pictured, a Regina product, gained a global audience via TikTok.

He later landed a Punjabi-English collaboration with Jason Derulo and a 2022 Juno nomination for breakthrough artist of the year. ASSUMES SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES CAN SIMPLY BE DIRECTED TO TWEAK THEIR ALGORITHMS. MADDEAUX Continued from A1.