Big online site for uploading photos and memes / WED 5-5-21 / Wyoming town named for frontiersman / Separate into groups that don't communicate

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Textbook example of a "feat of construction" that has zero relationship to actual solving pleasure. The concept here is undeniably clever, but on the page it's like being bludgeoned while you wait for your final surprise and then your final surprise is just ... NUMBERS? That's your revealer! That's the Great 40-Across that every, single, clue has been telling me I need to go see? NUMBERS!? I laughed when I wrote that answer in. Look, if all you care about is whether your number types run through the correct boxes, then let's be honest: the only one of these answers that you are going to have real trouble with, the only one that seems genuinely inventive and possibly tough, is FIBONACCI, and since I don't even know what a FIBONACCI number is, the effect on me is nil (I am aware of the concept of a FIBONACCI series ... or is it sequence ... but the actual numbers involved, shrug, no idea, I'll take your word for it). Meanwhile, the theme clues are all identical, ugly and mechanical and dry and cross-referenced ... how is any of that pleasing on an aesthetic level. There's no pleasure here in actual words. The gimmick is merely mechanical. And the mechanics of the theme, again, clever, but solving it was a chore with no payoff. I guess there are some bonus number-related things here (UNO/ONE, OCTUPLE) but I don't care so ... moving on.

I'm going to say about IMGUR what I said about JUUL yesterday and what I would've said about CRAPO the day before if I'd written Monday's write-up, and that is please think about what kind of "fresh" fill you want to put out in the world. I'm only vaguely aware of IMGUR (see "Word of the Day," above), largely because I have studiously and almost completely avoided Reddit for its entire existence (though there are Reddit threads ... subreddits? ... about this blog; I read one once; it was ... something!). IMGUR, however popular, is not great as fill. First, is there an uglier letter string? How do you say it? Do you say it? I think it actually anagrams to "uglier," and if not, well, you see the resemblance. Second, for people who *don't* know it (and I absolutely guarantee you that I'm now talking about a huge segment of NYTXW solvers), every one of IMGUR's letters is meaningless, and there's no way to infer any of them. So it's just letter soup. I think of the tens of thousands of people who are going to "get" that answer and think "well that ... that's awful, that can't be right." The fact that it runs through CUTLET (clued in a really difficult way) (17D: Tonkatsu, in Japanese cuisine) which cuts through LOUIE (28A: King in the "Jungle Book" films) (who?*), which cuts through a very oddly-clued STEREO (4D: Binaural), is only going to make matters worse. That CUTLET area is the only section of the puzzle I really struggled with. The rest was pretty normal. I did have to pause to figure out how [Balance] = REST, but I guess if you're talking about a thing sitting ATOP another thing, then sure.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*King LOUIE is apparently an orangutan, voiced by Louis (!) Prima in the animated movie. King LOUIE does not appear in Kipling's original work. I never saw "The Jungle Book" as a child, and knowing about the imperialism / racism of the extended Kipling universe has kept me away since

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