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By David Futrelle
Right-wing grifter Jacob Wohl may not be big on honesty, or integrity, or “not breaking the law,” but he apparently feels very strongly about privacy — at least his own, and that of men cheating on their partners and/or going to hockey games.
In a recent Instagram post, Wohl offered a strangely impassioned defense of the locking briefcase, declaring that its current unfashionableness is the result of a dastardly feminist plot against, I guess, men who want to keep their affairs hidden from their wives or girlfriends.
Wohl, who used to portray himself as a finance whiz, is currently facing felony charges in California for alleged “unlawful sale of securities,” so it’s not hard to see why he might want to keep a whole lot of things about his life secret.
H/T — @AsherLangton, who reposted Wohl’s little manifesto on Twitter
I was thinking about how briefcases aren’t really a thing anymore the other day, and I concluded it was for the same reason I haaaate clutches. I like having both hands free.
Backpacks 4 life.
Also, did we have cellphones (extras of them?) and locking briefcases at the same time???
Apparently, this gobshite has never heard of dual-SIM phones…
I, too, remember back in the 1950s when locking briefcases were all the rage and we would put our extra cell phones in them.
I used to have a rather nice Samsonite briefcase, until one day feminists held me down and replaced it with a pink handbag. It’s not even a real Givenchy, just a knock-off!
I take it you need a locking briefcase to hike the Appalachian Trail?
Okay. Something kinda seemed off about this. So, I decided to hit up Amazon (Because they sell everything but souls, and some have concerns about that) and checked on briefcases.
With almost nary an exception, true briefcases (The things with shoulder straps are more properly called messenger bags) all had one thing in common.
They had locks. Most had two. Some had three. They ranged from simple keys to multiple digit combination to one I honestly couldn’t identify. So, for that matter, did a fair number of the above mentioned messenger bags, and those that didn’t could easily be locked by buying a goddam lock and putting it on the bag.
Mr. Wohl, I have to wonder where you live and work where they have vanished, because they’re certainly still here.
You know where his locking briefcase gets the most compliments? Hipster coffee shops.
I have an old-timey Samsonite suitcase with locks that I lug along hwen I travel; my hands are locked in a claw position and beet red by the time I get through security. I like the “aesthetic” but it is a miserable experience.
Papers giving evidence of your fraudulent actions? Locking briefcase.
My question is, how did this feminist conspiracy even accomplish this? It has to be by convincing people to switch right? You can still buy a locking briefcase. So the task of subtly changing the purchasing behavior of millions of Americans is really hard. I imagine the leaders of this conspiracy would be courted by the heads of marketing companies pulling off this feat would be like their holy grail.
I suspect no-one uses briefcases any more because no-one uses paper files any more. Hasn’t he heard of laptops?
I prefer messenger/duffel bags on my shoulder. Keeps my hands free and IMO is more stylish than a backpack or briefcase.
I own a locking briefcase that I bought at a rummage sale a while ago, but never use it because it’s too big and unwieldy (about the size of a large suitcase but without wheels, just a handle). I also have a locking guitar case that looks rather like an elongated briefcase, but much bigger to hold an electric guitar. Mysteriously, these were not confiscated by the feminist conspiracy.
I’ll keep an eye out for the briefcase confiscation squads, though. Hopefully they won’t take the guitar case and force me to use a soft case. /s
I would guess the reason briefcases fell out of fashion has more to do with the fact that people carry less to work now that a lot is digital, and that it’s uncomfortable to carry them with one hand. I’m not much for them, but if Mr. Wohl wants to use a briefcase, he can knock himself out. Hopefully it contains evidence which can be used to convict him and send him to prison, where he can instead go to the hipster prison dining hall.
The only person I’ve known to carry a briefcase in the last few years was a teacher I had in high school, who circa 2012 still carried a steel locking briefcase.
@Rhuu
Maybe he’s talking about this:
If you have one of those, you will likely need a bag or briefcase of some sort to carry it in, as it probably won’t fit in your pocket.
The other thing to note is that Jacob Wohl is 21. Cell phones have been around his whole life, so he probably doesn’t remember a time without them.
@Not Edward
You’d think he’d have seen some in the hipster coffee shops he frequents.
Yes, women did away with locking briefcases. Which is why every high-ranking British politician gets a locking despatch box with government papers, including the Queen. A woman. Dear God, how can that be? Women killed locking work cases for everyone everywhere, especially teh menz, yet women politicians get them. How is this possible??
If you need to lock your work up so that your spouse can’t see it, either you have a super high security clearance and better not drag sensitive documents home, or you’re a sketchy asshole and your spouse knows it. Possibly a criminal. Just like Wohl, here.
OT, but this is too good not to post: I (21M) laughed at my girlfriend’s (21F) use of Microsoft Powerpoint during sex. How do I rekindle our relationship?
I really shouldn’t kink-shame, but I can’t tolerate Powerpoint use.
@Moggie
PowerPoint fetish? That’s a new one. I know about Wikipedia use during sex, though:
Whenever I have locking things, I happily lock them just because I can… then I promptly lose the keys.
@Yutolia, briefcase locks are rarely any good. I’ve picked a couple, and my lockpicking skills suck.
Do lawyers still use briefcases? Lil Jacob’s father is a lawyer, and he’s desperate to be a grown-up like daddy.
@Moggie
Don’t know about most lawyers, but I just texted a friend who is a lawyer to ask if she uses a briefcase. She does not.
But she does have 2 cellphones, so one wonders where she puts her other phone.
@Naglfar, she probably has an associate carry all her stuff.
Love notes from your secretary? Somehow I don’t think he’s going to have to worry about that.
You know what else you don’t see much of anymore? Locking diaries. Did the feminist conspiracy destroy those too? Even though they were marketed at girls?
@ moggie
There’s a rather weird convention that barristers don’t use briefcases. Which is especially ironic bearing in mind the derivation of the name.
Some people do of course; but technically we’re supposed to use these things.
https://www.stanley-ley.co.uk/acatalog/barrister-bag.html
The tradition is that the bags are supposed to be a gift from a more senior barrister.
I’ve always just used an assortment of rucksacks though.
I tend to assume any locking briefcase I see is full of stacks of hundred dollar bills that somehow fill up the volume of the briefcase perfectly.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee:
You know what else you don’t see much of anymore? Locking diaries. Did the feminist conspiracy destroy those too? Even though they were marketed at girls?
Mind if I use that as a springboard to launch a grumble (admittedly culturally dated) about the arbitrary gendering of things you wouldn’t think would need to be?
Some years ago, a young man of my acquaintance requested a diary for his eighth birthday; what I found in the way of cover patterns were flowers, kittens, cosmetic and women’s fashion items, female-targeted licensed characters, and pastel color schemes out the wazoo. (Note that if he were himself okay with such motifs, I wouldn’t have hesitated to get him some.) It took me a mile-and-a-half walk and no fewer than eight stores to find something that wasn’t stereotypically “girly”, settling for an anchor upon a ground of blue-and-white stripes.
Way to encourage boys to Use Their Words.
Briefcases use to have locks on them?
@Full Metal Ox
It’s also hard for people who are gender nonconforming or who are of a certain gender but not interested in those things. My younger sister always found it annoying when she was younger that everything she was given (diaries, toys, books, etc) had sparkles and princesses when she was instead into sports and yaks.
@Lainy
Yes, and a lot still do. I somewhat doubt the quality of the locks, but they are there.
@Moggie: you could argue that a PowerPoint fetish is a form of masochism.