#IT IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE

[2022dirt]

Outlines of two alligators that slept through the rain.

[bumblebeebats]

There's a tourist attraction in Glasgow simply labelled "Freddie" and when i clicked on it it turned out to be dozens of pictures of the same orange cat

HE'S GOT 77 REVIEWS

[getrope1]

You cant make this shit up

[ladyhoneydarlinglove]

RIP to all the people upset about what jayce did but i’m different. i’ve never loved him more. that was literally the most homoerotic thing he could possibly have done. like oh you thought viktor leaving him was the divorce era? babes that was just a little lovers spat. welcome to the REAL divorce era.

[inkskinned]

the tradwife movement is the same as it has always been - back in the kitchen, back to breeding - it just has better branding.

when i was younger, i hated pink. i was not like other girls. this is now something i'm embarrassed of - this was not me being a "girl's girl."

but it was expressing something many of us felt at the time: i literally wasn't what girlhood was supposed to be. this is a hard thing to explain, but you know when you're not performing girlhood correctly. it isn't as easy as "i liked x when girls liked y" - because there were other girls that liked x, too - but i never figured out exactly the correct way to like x, or to be interested in y.

now there is the divine feminine. this is the same rhetoric it has always been: women are biologically driven to like pink and ribbons and submitting to our husbands.

the problem is that the patriarchy found a better PR team. because yes, actually, i want every woman to have the choice to be a homemaker. i also want her taken seriously for her legitimate home-making labor. i want her to be recognized as also having a job, just unpaid. i want men to have this opportunity, too.

but it is no longer "i made this choice and I love it." instead it is a sixteen-paragraph rant about how selfish it is that my generation isn't having kids. instead it's long videos about how if you feed your children processed foods, you're going to kill them. instead it is "this is what womanhood is supposed to be. i feel bad for any other choices you're making."

the shame spiral is just prettier. it is large houses devoid of personality. it is the implication: if you don't have this, you aren't happy. the solid, everlasting assurance: women are actually supposed to be submitting. this is the default. this is the natural state of things. all other attempts inflict suffering.

but you can no longer say i'm not like other girls. you can no longer reject this image completely. you cannot find it revolting, even if you know that the underbelly is toxic and festering. sure, it is the same repackaged patriarchy. but the internet does not have shades of grey. you should support and reward other women! your disgust is actually internalized misogyny. not because you are seeing a vision of yourself the way they're trying to train you to be. not because you feel her ghost pass within an inch of your earlobe. not because your father will eventually ask you - why can't you be like her?

because they figured out how to make it beautiful: women will sell other women on this idea, and we will find the singular loophole in feminism. sure, she's shaming you in most of her videos. sure, she implies that a different life is obscene. but she just wants you to be happy! you'd be happier if you were listening!

and the whole time you're sitting there thinking: i'd actually just be happier if i had that kind of money.

[valtsv]

are we still doing this because i have a late submission

[littlemizzlinguistics]

Studying linguistics is actually so wonderful because when you explain youth slang to older professors, instead of complaining about how "your generation can't speak right/ you're butchering the language" they light up and go “really? That’s so wonderful! What an innovative construction! Isn't language wonderful?"

[iwieldthesword]

I need to talk about this because it's making me feel insane.

Last week, my white leftist goyisch friends sat me, a wholeass antizionist Jew, down for a "talk" because they "needed to check in about Palestine" and make sure "our values aligned before we hung out again". They apparently needed to "suss out" where I stood on Palestinian rights, despite having had several conversations about Palestine and them being some of my closest friends. They needed to check, to search for and uncover my true values, because I had said some "disturbing things" that had made them "suspicious".

Disturbing things included:

Supporting IfNotNow which is a "liberal zionist organization" because it normalizes Jewish heritage in the Levant

Not bringing Palestine up enough, despite them also not bringing it up (this was apparently a test)

Mentioning that the Houthi's flag talks about cursing all Jews

Saying Stalin was antisemitic because of the "all the paw-grihms"

...and apparently other things they wouldn't specify, but had been tracking for months.

To clarify, I am an antizionist Jew from three generations of antizionist Jews. I have been vocal in my support of Palestinian liberation and in my condemnation both of Israel's actions and its violent founding as a state, and of zionism in many of its forms. I am a regular donor to Palestinian and Jewish NGOs and advocate for Jewish antizionism in person, at temple, and online. I have been talking about Palestinian liberation before they could point to Gaza on a map. But they needed to make sure, they needed to "suss out", they needed to check. And it's notable that the majority of moments that made them suspicious of me were times where I talked about antisemitism: not about Palestinian liberation, not about Israeli decolonization, not about anything actually relevant to Palestine. It was talking about antisemitism that made them check to see if I was a cryptozionist.

One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of antisemitism is the idea that Jews are inherently untrustworthy and suspicious. You have to constantly be on guard, track what they say and do, "suss out" the real truth. You have to keep them in line and and watch them carefully because they're liars and sneaks, and if you're not looking closely they'll return to their real values (and drag you down with them). This is where the idea of "cryptozionist" comes from and what it's directly building off of: the inherent untrustworthiness of Jews and the need to check. Because no matter how close you become you can't actually trust them, and any upstanding gentile should make sure to avoid associating with Jews before "sussing out" their real allegiances and intentions. You have to make them turn out their pockets, just in case.

I'm the first and only Jew they actually were friends with; I know because they've told me (strangely proud of it in the way white Americans are proud of that kind of thing). They've asked me questions about Judaism and fawned over how beautiful and unique it was for me to be connected to my community and culture. Pre-October 7th, one of them had even mentioned being interested in coming to services at my temple. She still has my copy of our siddur. But now she needed to "check" before she could be seen with me in public. Which is what it was: it wasn't a "you're my friend and I need to give you some feedback because you're fucking up" kind of intervention (which is normal and important to have), it was a trial. It was a last chance for me to prove to them that I'm clean-enough that they could afford to risk being seen with me in public, just in case someone noticed them fraternizing with a hypothetical Enemy and their leftism was compromised. It was a test to make sure that I behave properly when required to, that I'd play along and do what I'm told and turn out my pockets if asked (because any refusal would validate the notion of having something to hide). And above all it was an opportunity for them to reaffirm their own cleanliness by putting my imagined immorality in its place.

I did what I needed to do: I smiled. I apologized. I "didn't know that". I "appreciated the feedback". I turned out my pockets because what else could I do? They'd decided who I was and what I believed, regardless of what I said or did, so there was no point in explaining that they were wrong about me. If I had told them they were being antisemitic, it would just have been proof that they were right. Caring about antisemitism is a dogwhistle in the spaces they've chosen: it's not a real form of oppression, it's a tactic for sneaky, lying Jews to weasel out of admitting their true alliances. There was nothing I could say.

Nothing's really changed for me. I'm going to continue my activism for Palestinian liberation rooted in my culture and my faith. Antizionism is still not antisemitism. But I got a reminder that many white goyisch leftists fundamentally just don't trust Jews, and that the activist spaces they're in not only exacerbate their antisemitism in an increasingly insular echo chamber, but also allow them to finally vent their internalized bigotry in a socially-acceptable way. In my former friends' eyes, what they did was activism—disavowing a Jew (and making me feel humiliated, scared, and unclean in the process) as a cathartic stand-in for doing fucking anything for actual Palestinian liberation—but for me it was a grief that I'll be feeling for a long time: not only over losing friends I loved and trusted, but also over my sense of belonging and security in leftist spaces.

[sleepyjuniper]

WE DID IT Y'ALL

[2022dirt]

Years of pressure and heat can cause the ink in photos to transfer directly onto plastic, a process known as image bleeding.

[nebulousfishgills]

Listen, Otto realizing that he helped put a moron on the Iron Throne and then going through the five stages of grief before dipping is peak comedy, bro really fucked around and then found out.

[stil-lindigo]

Ahmed Saad, a Palestinian man who had to jump through an insane amount of loops to get the funds necessary for escaping Gaza, is asking us all to donate to his friend’s family fund.

Mohamed is a hemophilia patient who needs access to medicine and to do surgery on his knees, his 11-year-old daughter also needs thigh surgery (she was supposed to do it outside Gaza in November but couldn't travel due to the border issues). Mohammed’s condition is worsening rapidly and, with Israel destroying the last functional hospital in Gaza, things are looking dire.

Please donate generously!

[iishifishii]

okay but can we talk abt the minecraft movie’s complete erasure of the personality of steve???? like that is not even steve minecraft that is just fucking jack black with a blue shirt on.

have yall have seen the cinematic trailers for mc updates? steve literally has a completely different personality. steve is just a silly lil guy. hes just a curious dude who loves building and exploring! hes not jack black, or a wackjob who went crazy from being isolated for too long. he loves and parktakes happily in the world hes in.

i know we only saw one real scene, but i can already tell that jack black is not going to be playing steve minecraft, he is just going to be playing jack black. its so intensely disappointing when they had the opportunity to employ a new actor to bring to light like. imo steve minecraft should have been cast as just an average looking guy. just some random dude. BC THATS LITERALLY WHAT HE IS.

anyways tdlr the real steve minecraft just simply just a lil guy and he is NOT JACK BLACK

[daenerys-targaryen]

I HATE YOU SUPREME COURT!!!

[blueskittlesart]

i hope everyone in nintendo’s management department dies and goes to hell no matter what and i’m not kidding

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.