#FADs

[todayontumblr]

it's not hyper specific, but it's the best we got

[lackadaisycats]

What did Rocky think of the cornflakes?

It's not a Kellogg reference - not directly anyway. Kellogg is remembered because it was one of the few lasting things that emerged from an otherwise sprawling wellness fad. There were mineral spring, hot spring, and medicinal spring resorts, spas, retreats, and hotels all over the US in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some were small and are all but forgotten to time. Some ended up with whole towns built up around them. Ultimately, the trend dried up as trends do, making way for the next thing. Its end may have been hastened somewhat by the government cracking down more forcefully on snake oil medicine starting in the 1900s, though. No doubt some people gained some easily explained benefit from vacationing away from city air thick with coal dust to relax in a naturally occurring pool, but some facilities were also doing things like bottling and selling such waters without proper sanitization, and claiming it had vague yet miraculous curative properties. Here are the ruins at Welch Spring - one such example in the Ozarks. It's an off-the-beaten-path place I went to check out while the pandemic was at its peak.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

A slave to fashion: this young lady has all of them--all at once, ca. 1926. They are: a pair of bell earrings, a dog collar worn as a necklace, a large beauty spot on her cheek, an ivory cigarette holder, a design to cover the vaccination mark on her arm, heavy slave bracelets, a slave anklet, a photo of a boyfriend on her stocking, an anklet watch, fancy garters worn below the knee and a mirror fastened to her wrist.

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images/Fine Art America

[bitchesgetriches]

Investing in Cryptocurrency is Bad and Stupid

I know what you’re thinking: How could we say something so controversial, yet so brave?

Did we just help you out? Tip us!

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Carol Courtney and Freddie Diaz, marathon dancers, 1932, Albany.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Gender Identity: The Latest Social Contagion - Andrew Doyle

One of my shortest-lived jobs was as a teacher at a school for girls near Sloane Square in London. I resigned after just two weeks because the headmistress was a religious zealot who had objected to me teaching a text which featured a gay character. In my resignation letter I explained that I wasn't prepared to work at a school which fostered such antediluvian attitudes. I stayed on to finish the term, but I was delighted when I eventually made my escape.

I had previously worked at a boys' school and I soon noticed that there were some broad differences that manifested in an all-female environment. One of the most concerning was that many of the girls were engaged in what can only be described as competitive starvation. During lunch duties, I was warned to keep an eye out for pupils who had taken just a single lettuce leaf from the salad bar. If I saw any girl doing so, I was told I must immediately intercept her and demand that she return and fill her plate. My first teaching post had been at a mixed-sex school in which cutting one's own skin was the fashion. We even had a visiting expert telling us how to encourage these pupils to hold ice cubes in their hands until they felt shooting pains as a substitute for the razor. I remember at the time thinking this wasn't the best advice, but I was too green to raise an objection. Besides, this speaker had spent a considerable part of the session reminiscing about a shepherd she had once counselled who had over the course of many months on the hillside, used a sharp wire to whittle his penis so that it eventually became forked. To this day I'm none the wiser as to the purpose of this anecdote.

But the shift from cutting to starvation was striking. At the former school, pupils were not refraining from food, and at the latter there were very few who were injuring themselves with blades. It was almost as though only one form of self-harm could predominate at any given time. And when a small group started doing it, the trend spread with remarkable rapidity. I hadn't seen an equivalent back when I was teaching boys.

And I've since learned that social contagions are especially common among teenage girls and that there are numerous historical precedents for this. I've written elsewhere about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in which a group of girls began seeing demons in the shadows and accusing members of their own community of being in league with the devil. Then there were the various dancing plagues of the Middle Ages which seemed to impact young women in particular.

In 1892, girls at a school in Germany began to involuntarily shake their hands whenever they performed writing exercises. And when I visited Sweden last year, I was told about a local village where during the medieval period, the girls all inexplicably began to limp.

It's perfectly clear that the latest social contagion to take hold in the western world is that of girls identifying out of their femaleness, either through claims that they are trans or non-binary. Whereas in 2012 there were only 250 referrals, mostly boys, to the NHS's Gender Identity Development Service, or GIDS, by 2021 the figure had risen to more than 5,000 mostly female patients.

Gender activists like to claim that this is simply the consequence of more people "coming out" as society becomes more tolerant. And at the same time, they insist that it's never been a worse time to be trans. Consistency is not their strong suit. Of course, there are no easy answers as to the explosion of this latest fad. But surely the proliferation of social media has something to do with it. Platforms such as TikTok are replete with activists explaining to teenagers that their feelings of confusion are probably evidence that they have been "born in the wrong body."

For pubescent girls who are uncomfortable with their physiological changes, as well as sudden unwanted male sexual attention, the prospect of identifying out of womanhood makes complete sense. These online peddlers have some snake oil to sell. And while a limping epidemic in a medieval village would be unlikely to spread far, social contagions cannot be so confined in the digital age.

Much of this is reminiscent of the recovered memory hysteria of the late 20th century when therapist cranks promoted the idea that most victims of sexual abuse had repressed their traumatic memories from childhood. It led to numerous cases of people imagining that they had been abused by parents and other family members. And many lives were ruined as a result. One of the key texts in this movement was "The Courage to Heal" by Ellen bass and Laura Davis, which made the astonishing and unevidenced claim that, quote, "if you are unable to remember any specific instances... but still have a feeling that something abusive happened to you, it probably did."

A common feature of social contagion is that they depend upon the elevation of intuition over material reality. Just as innocent family members were accused of sexual abuse because of feelings teased out by unscrupulous therapists, many girls are now being urged by online influencers to trust the evidence of their emotions and accept a misalignment between their body and their gendered soul.

We're not talking here about the handful of children who suffer from gender dysphoria, but rather healthy children who have been swept up in a temporary craze. Activists have been quick to demonize the entire notion of social contagion as a transphobic talking point, but the evidence for it is now pretty much indisputable.

The author of a recent review into pediatric gender treatment, Dame Hilary Cass, has recommended that schools stop the social transitioning of children. The Cass Interim Review had already pointed out that enabling pupils to adopt alternative names, pronouns and dress codes was, quote, "not a neutral act." And there is mounting evidence that such an approach consolidates a child's psychological conceptualization of herself as a member of the opposite sex.

While social transitioning is seen as compassionate, in reality it causes long-term harm. It would seem that teenage girls will always be prone to these social contagions, but some are more damaging than others. Whereas limping and dancing and trembling can be overcome, the lifelong impact of puberty blockers, cross- sex hormones and surgery will not be so transient.

Let's hope this particular hysteria soon goes the way of all the others.

==

The idea of a "gender identity" that's separate from and transcends sex - that is, biology - is as supernatural and magically thinking as the idea of an eternal Xian soul that transcends death.

We are not in our bodies. We are not separate from our biology. We are not ghosts inhabiting meat prisons. We cannot have "the wrong body." We are what our bodies do.

One of the most disconcerting things I've seen over the last few years is (some) atheists who laugh at the notion that some aspect of human existence transcends our human bodies, somehow embrace the equally magical notion that some aspect of human nature transcends human biology. Which means you believe in magical gender spirits. Get help.

[arconinternet]

The Milkcap Stack: The Internet Archive's Milkcap/Pog Collection (Images, various companies, ~1993-~1998)

Hundreds and hundreds of the collectible little cardboard discs - most famously Pogs - from the mid-90's fad. You can view the collection here.

[feyti-odinsdottir]

I am unique, and yet I am not. I am just like all the other girls, and yet, I am nothing like them. My life is cottage core, dark academic, kidcore, and grunge. My mind is an emo, a clean girl, a mob wife, and a van lifer. My clothes are the 80s, my shoes are the 90s, my hair is 2015, and my jewelry is 1910. My piercings look like 2010, and my mind looks like a victorian housewife. My hair grows long, and then it's a bob. Yesterday I was grunge, today I am everything. My life does not fit within the boundaries of society, the boxes of the internet. My life is massive and all encompassing, it does not fit in the barriers of aesthetics and fads. Life is not a box to fill with pretty things, the colors and choices that everyone likes. Life is a kaleidoscope, don't waste it doing what everyone else does in the little screen. Life is more than the aesthetic it seems.

[the-psudo]

Susan and I were talking, and we realized that we interpret the word 'cool' differently.

Where I grew up, the cool kids were the ones who had tried everything first. Every movie, they'd seen it. Every video game, they'd played it. etc. They'd done it all.

Where she grew up, kids were 'too cool' to jump on trends. People who jumped on every trend were sheep following the herd, and the cool kids had too much taste for that.

After discussing it a while, we decided that the cool kids at my school must have been the rich kids whose families could afford everything, and the cool kids at her school must have been the poor kids making excuses for why they didn't even want to do the things they couldn't afford.

Apparently class matters, even to elementary school kids.

[courtingwonder]

Food Fads 2011 - 2021

[stevensavage]

Technical Fads And Those Who Benefits

Guess which tech fad I’m talking about?  Doesn’t matter.  I’ve been in IT nearly 30 years as of this writing and not much has changed, it just goes faster while the ephemera of it all becomes more obvious.

Every industry, community, etc. has its fads. Thats normal, humans love new stuff, humans are social, and humans innovate.  A seemingly trite fad today could be the foundation of great future potential.  It could also vanish, but that’s just life.

In tech fads - hell, most fads - one of the issues is money.  Fads can make you money especially if you jump on them, create them, support them, or exploit them and tech lets you do it fast.  Tech has been wildly successful the last few decades and has lots of money, attracts money, and attracts people who want to make money.

Past a certain point, the money starts to matter so much the reason for the fad - sometimes good reasons - doesn’t matter.  At that point I find you end up with really two populations jumping on fads.

People with money:  You got money, you can make money - and when others are making money, you want to run up the score or have more power than them.  You can invest in many fads and hope one pays off.  Of course this distorts the actual value of whatever new ideas are out there as you can take over a market (leading to enshittification) or just keep it going long enough to cash out.

People looking for a quick score:  Jumping on fads in tech - and elsewhere - can be profitable or can seem to be.  Everyone’s ready to try and make a quick buck and fads promise a lot of opportunity.

So everyone jumps on a fad, someone gets rich, and the fad either fades, breaks, or actually becomes something solid.  Then the next fad starts and here we go again.

Thing is, two results tend to come out of this when there’s lots of money to be made.  First, some people make a lot of money, and some people get hosed and lose out.  That distorts the next fad when it’s involves a lot of money (like we see in tech, film, etc.)

First, the people who made a lot of money can jump on, take advantage of, or start the next fad easier.  They have money, they can now multiply it again!

Second, the people who didn’t make a quick score or didn’t get in on it get more desperate for the next fad.  Why miss out?  Why not try to make back what you lost?  Why can’t you be like the people who won last time?

So the next fad is more funded - and more desperate.

Where does this go?  Honestly I think this happens in many areas, not just tech, but it’s all so intertwined maybe that doesn’t matter much.  But one thing it’s not to judge by environmental pressures and economic issues is sustainable.  Winners win more, losers get more desperate, and more and more fads don’t make anything.

I suspect at some point you either see the fractures above rapidly shatter systems, and probably causing that or around that time, there’s one big fad everyone bets on.  For that one, few to no one wins and a lot of people lose.

Just staying that with our environmental problems, that could be geohacking (which I support to an extent).  Chew that one over.

Steven Savage

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

[todayontumblr]

Monday April 24

Hyper Specific Polls: they are polls, and they are pretty specific

Forget fidget spinners, Flossing, The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Heelys, The Mannequin Challenge, Gangnam Style, and Avocado Toast. This is the latest fad. It's so on-trend, everyone is doing it. You wouldn't want to be the one not doing it, would you? It would be social suicide. More important still you must let everyone know that you are doing it, at least post about it, for goodness sake, lest you be in on the trend but unaware to the similarly on-trend masses. If a fidget spins in the forest, but no one is there to know, has it really spun? After all, if everyone is in on it, who are we to argue? When it comes down to everyone vs. not everyone, there can only ever be one winner. So you're either with us or against us, and the choice is yours. Because when everyone is casting their minds back to the Halcyon days of Late-April 2023, they will reminisce on one thing, and one thing only: #hyper specific polls. 

So if you're looking to get down with the kids or, like Principal Skinner, fretting that you may be falling out of touch, we have the answer. And it's very simple: you've just got to load up a post, select polls, and get hyper specific with it. Voila! Taco eating? Middle names beginning with E? Severe allergies to stone fruits? Taxidermy? Beating old schoolmates with purses? Going to Colorado? No subject is off limits. And now you too are a hallowed member of the masses of Everyone.

[severecatcloud]

Out:

Dead salmon hats

In:

Sinking sailboats

[priestessofthepoeticprophesy]

[alwaysalwaysalwaysthesea]

GIRLS' NEW FADS, June 26, 1939 cover of LIFE.

(source: LIFE archives)

[regularsizedsally]