ottoherbalee

[ottoherbalee]

saw a tiktok by a male elementary school teacher about how he's realized one issue w/gen alpha boys saying all these awful things is they aren't facing social consequences for it. so much of "boys will be boys" approaches and appeasement have created this. I think one of the reasons my younger brother never engaged in this sort of behavior is because of me rejecting peer pressure and choosing to distance myself from my dad. the worst thing you can do is stay quiet. the fact that teachers are having to come on social media and say "perhaps tell your students it's WRONG to joke about toddlers being raped" or whatever is fucking insane. call me crazy but I do NOT remember it being this bad when I was younger. there was edgy humor yes (for example the r slur was way more normalized) but the type of humor discussed in this post is something i'd typically associate with like, frat guys. I do remember when I was maybe around 6 years old I stumbled across pedobear and thought it was hilarious, problem is the teacher lectured me without even telling me what the fuck the meme is implying or why it's bad. so in part over-sanitizing topics makes things harder as well.

anyway, one teacher mentioned he's been asking the boys why the jokes are funny. this is actually somewhat similar to what I do with my adult coworkers when they say something awful as a joke; I pretend I didn't understand the joke and ask them to explain it. they go quiet and get uncomfortable every time.

cognitive empathy is learned and not born, so speak up whenever you can encourage it, with adults or children.

[ottoherbalee]

not really sure what else to say at this point. these opinions being platformed in the mainstream media is just so catastrophic for the way that people view minorities in this already extremely racist-by-nature country. gasoline on a bonfire.

[ottoherbalee]

it's Roy!

[ottoherbalee]

[ottoherbalee]

every time i see someone call kirk and spock the oldest ship, i'm filled with the urge to go "hmm actually the holmes and watson girlies have been here for a hundred years now", and i refrain because i know the natural conclusion of this game is gilgamesh and enkidu

[ottoherbalee]

"Trans women are actually women for real, not in a metaphorical sense, not in a "anyone can be anything" sense, but genuinely actually make more taxonomic sense to classify in the category of women than any other group" is a position you'll find is pretty radical even in queer spaces

[ottoherbalee]

[ottoherbalee]

[ottoherbalee]

[ottoherbalee]

not naming names but i hate this character design trope

[ottoherbalee]

me at work thinking I look nonchalant and approachable

[ottoherbalee]

reminder that if you like k/l/l/i/n/g/s/t/a/l/k/i/n/g every single character from steven universe hates you

[ottoherbalee]

[ottoherbalee]

[ottoherbalee]

The thing about small towns is people who don’t live there will tell you they’re safe and quiet and people who do live there will tell you the average persons hobbies include owning illegal weapons and being a functional meth addict and somehow every street has some sort of horrifying unsolved murder however the police are too busy walking into walls and contaminating crime scenes and playing candy crush on their phones to look into it. And despite all of this you’re still probably fine spending hours in an empty abandoned park in the middle of the night

[ottoherbalee]

“THERE ARE NO QUEER FRIENDLY COPS,” Heritage of Pride, New York City, June 2017

Photography by William Volcov