#American generational shifts

[organicbeing]

"Crack Babies vs. Percocet Babies: The Hilarious (and Slightly Terrifying) Evolution of America’s Toughest Kids"

Let me start by saying, this blog isn’t meant to offend anyone, just to shed some light—with a healthy dose of humor—on the generational shift in American kids from the crack baby era (pre-Y2K) to the percocet baby wave (post-Y2K). It’s no secret that certain American children, particularly those born into more challenging circumstances, have developed… let’s just say, unique survival…

[sh1-n0bu]

im not even in the america continent but this dumb-dumb sentient orange with pipes for throat and the thing used for curling in the olympics for brain extremely getting close to being chosen as the us president is making me fucking nervous

[stuckinapril]

About to deep clean & rearrange my bookcase …… I am about to be a girl reborn

[wickershells]

pissing me the fuck off honestly

[abdullahbroshairif]

[daily-uquiz]

i know I don't usually make text posts, but I feel like I have to rn. don't know what to say really, but have at least some hope. keep living with as much dignity as possible, and don't stay silent, even if you just speak to your loved ones. there are many things i'd like to express on more philosophical and academic lines around American national identity and how it wove into our government's structure and the authors' intentions, along with the centuries-long descent of the supreme court of the United States' democratic integrity. but to ensure my heart doesn't explode, I will just say that we the people, including those at the very top, almost completely removed from our culture and identity, have an inherent right and duty to uphold our fellows' inalienable rights; it is not wrong, out of place, or ungrateful to fight back in whatever way you can, no matter your past mistakes or loyalty to nation, not to mention past protection by the constitution or feeling of stupidity and awkwardness that comes with being a single person with no projection power to speak of. we must all support each other, and goodness gracious if no one already in power finally puts their foot down, then shame on them and may their failure haunt them for the rest of their lives.

i also can't believe i'd ever involve personal religion with this basic-and-incredibly-unreliable-attempt-to-spread-a-bit-of-joy-and-amusement blog, but I must say, truly and from the bottom of my heart, may the lord's love be with us all, and may each one of you feel supported inherently from somewhere.

[topnotchquark]

Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

This article by Kate Wagner on her INEOS sponsored trip to the Austin GP at COTA last year was commissioned by Road and Track magazine and then taken down. Presumably because Kate has was pretty staunch in her opinions about what was essentially a paid trip.

It is exactly the kind of thing I have wanted to read about the felt experience of the money business of F1. It doesn't get into technicalities and does not produce any spreadsheets for reference. It's just, her experience of the presence of wealth in the sport.

She starts off by talking about how she has been covering cycling and NASCAR for a while now and both of those, in comparison, are scrappier sports with smaller sponsors and cheaper tickets.

What I also especially loved was how fascinated she was with the cars themselves, and how they seem like a true marvel of human engineering. She almost described the cars like these alien beasts that came into this dimension out of nowhere and were being constantly monitored and dueled with to furnish wins and glory (and shareholder value for sponsors).

I think I always had an understanding of the weird myth making surrounding F1 and the kind of media attention it attracts, but someone like Kate (who I have loved reading for a while now) putting it into perspective really made it click for me. This sport thrives off of the kind of cocoon it has built around it and understands exactly the certain exclusiveness it needs to maintain to keep the story alive.

Anyway, give it a read, especially because Road and Track is trying to bury it to not piss off sponsors.

[supremenadeem]

bro.. it's looking like kamala didnt even win the popular vote, even hillary won the popular vote, when's the last time dems lost the popular vote? bush's reelection in 2004? and before that 1988? this is a historic failure

[knxfesck]

There is definitely a line between chronically online and chronically in a bubble of well informed people but both sides of it were viscerally erased today when I overheard an old white guy arguing that mexican is a language

[quoththemaiden]

I saw your tags in the poll comments and I had to jump into your ask box. If you want to reply to comments, don't be afraid to do it! People love nothing more than to interact with the author. People comment to express their love for your work, and I can promise nothing make them more happy than to have a reply from the author!!! It's a "my comment had been seen and made them happy, yeah!" feeling.

My tags, for context:

This poll is wild to me. Tumblr's interpretation of fanfic etiquette seems completely backwards from my internet upbringing.

Back on ff.net, where the number of reviews wasn't even a sortable field, it was still uncool for authors to respond to the reviews. Every fic would end with "Please R&R!!!" but actually interacting with reviewers was the kind of thing you were supposed to grow out of as you went from a socially clueless young teen to a socially competent older teen. Saying "That's exactly what I was going for!" or "Oooh just wait, you'll love it!" or "I'm so glad you liked it!" was really just patting yourself on the back for being awesome, and saying "No, you don't get it--" was too defensive. (Putting "I've been blown away by the response to this fic" in an A/N is sufficiently self-effacing if used sparingly, though.)

On AO3, looking at the comment section of a fic and seeing that an author has responded to every comment with "Thanks!!" or "❤️" feels similarly desperate to me--

--and not just cringey, but also vaguely unethical because it's artificially doubling the number of comments on a site that does allow sorting by comments. Like, let your fic stand on its own merits instead of trying to game the system with fake reviews.

But on Tumblr, there's those AO3 etiquette posts going around saying "kudos are for if you finish reading a fic; comments are for if you enjoyed it." And that just feels backwards. Shouldn't kudos be for if you enjoyed the fic enough that you think it should be boosted in the rankings so more people read it? Comments, on the other hand, are mandatory on every fic you read unless you can't find even a single good thing to say about it. (And you're still obligated to rack your brain a bit to see if you can at least pull out a "Wow, that was an interesting premise!" or "I really love this trope so thanks for writing this!" or "This was such a fun line!" and just try not to be too obvious about damning with faint praise.)

I've had authors respond to say, "Hey, sorry I haven't responded to your comments yet, but I've been reading them" and I'm always like... my dude, that's not how this economy works. You write fics and I leave comments. You don't have to write fics and respond to comments. Take a load off.

Obviously if I say something particularly insightful it's nice to hear the author's thoughts back, and I've had some cool conversations about their inspirations... and the friend I talk to literally every single day is someone where we both loved each other's fics 20 years ago and we got started talking because of it... so it's not like I think it's never okay to respond to a reviewer.

(And, frankly, a lot of my comments are a couple paragraphs long or I'm leaving a dozen comments in a short timespan, so it hasn't usually felt weird when authors do respond to me to comment on some highlights.)

It's just absolutely baffling to look at that poll and see that 88% of authors do or think they should respond to comments, so I'm clearly in the vast, vast minority.

It's absolutely, mind-bogglingly wild. And since it's purely a cultural thing, being in the minority means I'm wrong, and I need to come to grips with that. Like, I'm going to need to actively, consciously work on flipping my judgement-o-meter from "responding to comments is inappropriately clingy and must be actively avoided" to "responding to comments is good and expected" because the former is a social norm I internalized decades ago and now I need to go through the active work of completely flipping what's rude and what's polite -- which is a thing that happens all the time as we get older, of course, but it was a shock to encounter it here.

[catbleps]

At this point (in AZ) Starbucks breakfast is cheaper McDonalds. Girl what

[frownyalfred]

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.

[medicinemane]

Make Puerto Rico a state already, don't like having second class Americans, and that's how I'd describe it when they're out there paying taxes, contributing to the good of the country, but they don't even get representation via things like a senator

Like I'm sat here thinking about it and... do Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico even get to vote for president? Cause... that's never listed in the electoral college vote count, so I'm gonna guess no

Seem to remember hearing somewhere something about "no taxation without representation", sounded pretty good I thought

Make Puerto Rico a state, make them a state. Every year I get more and more pissed off as I think about how fellow Americans are treated like this. I'm extremely pro Puerto Rico, they're clearly a part of the union... you either make them a state or make them their own country, you don't keep people trapped in this limbo state where they've got less rights than I do

[bendgineer]

I think one of the reasons the Harris / Walz ticket has so much momentum is because the campaign is genuinely trying to put out this vibe of fun. Like that's all the "brat" thing is, the coconut jokes, just being kind of silly and fun.

And I think it's working, because let's be real, we are all exhausted. It's been all about preserving democracy, defeating fascism, the past eight years. The message has been "vote for us because the country is literally on the line". The vibes are not good when we are stuck back at that fight, and not even discussing trying to make progress on things like housing, healthcare, education, etc. And the fight to just stop fascism? All still true. Project 2025 is real and is extremely scary. We can't let that man back into office.

But the vibe was "vote for us otherwise we're all fucked :(" and now has shifted to "get in, we're making popcorn and then bullying fascists." Like a lot of the issues conservatives bring up, the Harris / Walz is just not engaging them in good faith, as they shouldn't. Republicans bring up abortion, and the Dems are just like, "you want 14 year old to give birth? Weirdo" and just leave it at that. Like YES, that's what you should do. Because it SHOULDNT be a debate. And it's working. This is how you defeat the identify politics thing Republicans have been trying to push for a while. Just mocking them for the stupidity of it all. "Like seriously? You think a book can make someone gay??? Hahaha." None of the Republicans are reacting well. They can't stand it. Vance even complained about bullying!!! Like do you KNOW who picked you as vp??? It's actually laughable, because they have no room to stand on when it comes to bullying.

And a huge part of the mocking and dismissing of Republicans is that the message is clear - were done debating all this stupid stuff. We've won the last two elections' popular vote - most Americans do NOT want christo-facism. It's time to move on. And that's what gives me hope, and the feeling of hope I think a lot of people have picked up on. It's time to address all the issues we've all wished we've been addressing the past decade. It's important we move onto that, and that's the message I'm getting from this campaign (We're not going back). I think it will resonate with a lot of people, because plainly, we're all just sick of this same old news cycle and fake rage bait over things like "should women have rights?", "Should gay people be allowed to exist?" The general populace have answered YES to both these multiple times, and it is time to move on. Maybe I'm being naive, but I am genuinely excited at the idea of putting to bed these debates (it's exhausting trying to fend your very existence) and moving on to actual economic and social policies that could fix a lot of deterioration over the last 2 decades.

[tshifty]

kamala harris is electable. more so than joe biden. yes this country is racist and sexist. and kamala harris IS still very fucking electable. "she's a cop" yeah! everyone who serves as president of the united states fucking sucks lmao. but yk what?? she can beat trump. she doesnt wholly embrace fascist policy. she generally aligns with a lot of important issues-- abortion, the green new deal, lgbtq+ rights, fact-based public education-- and that buys us time to organize our communities, to improve safeguards and community care and uproot the fascism taking hold without a fully fascist president breathing down our necks. "the democrats suck too" yup they really do!! and yet i still prefer that to the gop's wholehearted embrace of true fascism, of overturning free and fair elections and shifting power to unelected federal judges. so!! enough of the hand wringing please!! we need to buy some fucking time so yes kamala harris will need to win and yes she is very capable of winning there is strategy there, there is money there, and the american people above all rn want someone who isnt decaying into the literal ground thank you that is all.

[thursdays-adult]

That’s actually probably largely dead on the money, and I love your interpretation of the family dynamics, valid.

The Consolation by JC Leyendecker, oil on canvas.