#I'm not trying to discount the internal experience of people who feel they changed their gender when they transitioned‚ but it's a little

[contagious-watermelon]

it's all "trans men are men" and "trans women are women" until someone says they were never a girl as a kid, or they never got "male socialization"

saying that you had the experience of a cis person of the other gender as a kid is all well and good until you don't believe anyone when he says he was always male, or that she were never treated as a boy

[thatswhatsushesaid]

no i'm not done including excerpts from this article because it's so fucking right:

As every single platform we use is desperate to juice growth from every user, everything we interact with is hyper-monetized through plugins, advertising, microtransactions and other things that constantly gnaw at the user experience. We load websites expecting them to be broken, especially on mobile, because every single website has to have 15+ different ad trackers, video ads that cover large chunks of the screen, all while demanding our email or for us to let them send us notifications.

Every experience demands our email address, and giving out our email address adds another email to inboxes already stuffed with two types of spam — the actual “get the biggest laser” spam that hits the junk folder automatically, and the marketing emails we receive from clothing brands we wanted a discount from or newspapers we pay for that still feel it’s necessary to bother us 3 to 5 times a day. I’ve basically given up trying to fight back — how about you?

Every app we use is intentionally built to “growth hack” — a term that means “moving things around in such a way that a user does things that we want them to do” so they spend more money or time on the platform — which is why dating apps gate your best matches behind $1.99 microtransactions, or why Uber puts “suggestions” and massive banners throughout their apps to try and convince you to use one of its other apps (or accidentally hit them, which gives Uber a chance to get you to try them), or why Outlook puts advertisements in your email inbox that are near-indistinguishable from new emails (they’re at the top of your inbox too), or why Meta’s video carousels intentionally only play the first few seconds of a clip as a means of making you click.

like i beg your fucking pardon, since when are dating apps making you pay more money to see the people it believes you are most compatible with? never before have i been more grateful to be out of the dating scene as a boring old married person, because this is just... cruel.

Our digital lives are actively abusive and hostile, riddled with subtle and overt cons. Our apps are ever-changing, adapting not to our needs or conditions, but to the demands of investors and internal stakeholders that have reduced who we are and what we do to an ever-growing selection of manipulatable metrics.

yeah. yeah.

well i had a whole post written about this subject, which tumblr's mobile app promptly deleted when i had the gall to look at another app for exactly 0.2 seconds, so that seems very on brand for what i'm about to share:

In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting worse, despite what tech’s “brightest” minds might promise. More regularly than not, I’ve found that the answer is fairly simple: the tech industry’s incentives no longer align with the user.

i'm not a tech blogger, but being in fandom in the 21st century means this impacts all of us, no matter where we fall on the "jgy did nothing wrong" to "jgy is an evil monster" spectrum, so maybe we can stop arguing with each other long enough to read this and get mad at the people who actually deserve it: apple, microsoft, google, amazon, meta, tiktok, and all the corporate shills and grifters who have made the experience of being online in the 21st century such a unforgivably goddamn miserable experience.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hello! I was wondering if you could help me with (MBTI) typing myself since I've been struggling with it recently. Note that I'm a teenager + I'm rather bad at differinating certain traits in myself so I'll rely on what people usually say about me and/or things that nobody beside me can know or judge. When younger I was considered to be introverted/a loner although I'm not sure if it's caused by my natural introversion or by certain circumstances that lead me to lack close friendships.

I’ve been kind of enjoying the answering each part at once method, especially when the answer is going to be a variation “not sure, and this could use a lot of work,” so:

I know I have said multiple times that if you do are not fairly well able to talk about yourself and differentiate your traits, MBTI is not a good idea for you right now. This is fine and normal! Particularly if you’re a teenager! But the best thing for you to do is drop it and come back when you have a good sense of self. I think a lot of people come to MBTI with the attitude of “I don’t know who I am very well and this will tell me” when the fact is you need to know who you are to be able to type with any accuracy.

Also, for teenagers, this goes double, because when you say “when I was younger” you’re often talking about a point where you flat out didn’t have a clear type because you were a kid. Wait instead of asking.

           Most people I befriended back then didn't interest me much so I gave up on those friendships quickly. That made me accept my loneliness - I thought I will be alone forever. At the moment I'm starting it all over again by connecting to people and the perspective of being alone started to be frightening.  I'm rather indecisive, I'd been trying to come up with projects and ideas for a long time, I procrastinate and ignore my bodily needs often.            

This is something where it makes a huge difference if you’re talking about when you were like, 12, or when you were 15, for example. I mean, probably introversion but I wouldn’t discount other causes since this seems pretty intense in general.

Re: indecision, procrastination, bodily needs - probably high extroverted perceiving.

           When it comes to projects, my most craved perfect quality is novelty, originality, something that would twist expected lines of storytelling. I also like to tie them up with certain 'themes' so I have an excuse to learn about the topic as much as possible and make it educational and insightful for the perceivers.  I'm not sure if I have high Fi or Ti, but I lean for Fi for now.             

Also fits high extroverted perceiving. I have serious doubts about high Fi; high Fi users tend to have a good sense of who they are, even while fairly young, but also this could vary depending on if “I’m a teenager” means you’re 14 or if it means you’re 19. If 14, maybe. If 19, not unless you are incredibly unhealthy.

I deeply value knowledge and a lot of my goals and dreams were related to being skilful and knowledgeable about something, to be the master of my activity. So I'm a perfectionist and have rather high ambitions. At the same time it's mixed with insecurity and anxiety: I fear mistakes, prone to overthink, think lowly of myself and can't get motivated enough to do something. In the end if I'm motivated I get impressive amounts of work done in a short span of time but it happens only under stress.            

I am not a mental health professional and I may just be reading this wrong, but there have been a couple things now that make me think you may have some kind of anxiety or depression which also might be messing with your sense of self, and I cannot stress this enough, I think focusing on MBTI is probably not the right thing for you right now. All of this sounds more in line with anxiety and/or depression than high perceiving (except the motivation part, which tracks) and isn’t tied to an introverted judging either).

           I usually enjoy ignoring or rebelling against the rules. I used to be rude and oblivious of social norms so I had a few bad experiences with that. It made me hyper aware of implications of words so I act incredibly polite and awkward at first but grow more rude and straightforward when I get used to people. I can violate my personal borders of rudeness and make comments that come off as non-intended offending so I both make the person feel worse and get away with nothing but I rarely do that.             

Again this is something where if “used to be rude” is referring to when you were 11 means something very different than if it’s referring to when you were (for example) 15. This fits with low Fe more than high Fi; high Fi users can be introverted but they tend to have more people skills, but again, there’s so much else going on here I can’t say anything with much confidence.

People say my writings are focused on introspective thoughts and feelings a lot and the characters sound realistic but that my ability to properly understand people in real life is way more poor.  I'm told I'm very private. I can be incredibly helpful and accepting when my close ones are facing struggle but I don't know in-between so I either pay too much effort or ignore the bad signs. I rarely act on my thoughts although I can be impulsive. I wasn't sure whether I use Fi mostly because             

 Probably aux Ne, given the low understanding of surroundings and lack of action combined with the other extroverted perceiving signs, but also again, a lot of this just sounds...young.

myself internally (not all the time).  I think about improving and changing myself a lot. I tend to be oversensitive but it might be the teenager years.  I quickly engross in new hobbies and ideas with an intention of using their fullest potential/going in-depth of them but get detached from them quickly. I have a good memory for things I'm interested in - overall I'm ditzy and forgetful.   Sorry if it was not organized properly. I hope I gave you all the necessary information.    

yeah, more of the same - aux Ne.

------------------------------

So in summary - honestly, I think there’s two potential root causes at work here with a few effects that are going to make it incredibly difficult to type yourself:

1. There are several things that I cannot say with any reliability are depression or anxiety, but do sound like it to me, a layperson - isolating yourself from all your peers at a very young age is not really something most healthy people do - and if you are able to get that checked by someone who would know, I would recommend it.

2. If that’s not a factor, it’s also somewhat age/maturity level dependent. If you’re 14 or 15, either INFP or INTP are possible. If you’re 18 or 19, Fi-dom seems really unlikely. If you’re in the middle, it’s still kind of a toss-up based on maturity level and honestly I’d hold off until you’ve found out about potential mental illness.

But in general, it’s hard for a number of reasons for many teenagers to type themselves because a lot of late adolescence/early adulthood is inherently figuring out who you are when you don’t have constant supervision. The amount of change many people undergo their first year of college or in the work force is staggering because they’re to an extent making their own schedule, dealing with real responsibilities with severe consequences*, and making difficult choices possibly for the first time ever. My advice is to give it some time, especially if you’re a younger teenager, and get to know yourself better. MBTI is not going to disappear in the few years that will take.

*occasionally I’ve run into questions from people who are older who do not have many responsibilities, for whatever reason, and there are plenty of good reasons why that might be the case, but it also makes it really hard to type them. It’s not a bad thing or judgement necessarily, but an acknowledgement that again, if you don’t turn in an assignment on time, it’s a different scale of consequences than if you don’t pay rent or buy food for yourself on time.