#Negative Imagery

[blk-chauvinist]

At HoochieCon, Black women’s sexual power and agency take center stage

(I did not make this up. This is an article taken from the LA Times 

Event creater and curator Zorine Truly dances at the HoochieCon party on Saturday in Glendale. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

BY MARTINE THOMPSONJUNE 23, 2023 9:53 AM PT

When taking in the images of Black women that adorn the gallery space at HoochieCon, it’s clear the creator and curator, Zorine Truly, 37, has a major soft spot for hoochie mamas — fly Black women who harness the power of their sexuality and creative expression as they see fit. Photos on the walls of the Glendale event space Junior High depict women with artful multilayered updos reaching for the heavens, big smiles sparkling with gold embellishments, vibrant acrylic nails as imaginative as they are long. Nostalgic portraits of friends turning up before the social media boom are spotlighted along with cherished TV and movie characters.

These women may not have an abundance of money, but they draw on their unique flair, swagger and innovation as a tool to show up authentically and claim space in a society that tells them they should shrink. Truly knows these women — often classified as hoochies — have always been more than a punchline in a movie or a mood-board fixture divorced from their humanity. Hoochies flip narrow, misogynoir-fueled ideas of what a good or respectable or fashionable woman can look like and look damn good while doing it. And as Truly explains to The Times, hoochies — in their many iterations over the decades — have long set the blueprint for popular trends and it’s high time they received their flowers.

“Simply put, hoochies are pioneers — for so many different genres of things,” says Truly, a North Memphis, Tenn., native and self-anointed Hoochie Historian who translates her research on hoochie culture into bite-sized videos. Interspersed with glimpses into her personal life and adventures around Los Angeles (like casually cutting up with Janelle Monaé at their Age of Pleasure party), Truly’s posts range from celebrations of prominent women and rituals in hoochie culture and their undeniable impact on fashion, beauty, art and pop culture to thoughtful deep dives that contextualize significant cultural moments, like Brandy and Monica’s ’90s smash hit “The Boy Is Mine.”

Graphic art on display Saturday at HoochieCon, a gathering celebrating Black style, culture, femme artistry and sexual freedom. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

The pull to honor this rich legacy in a major way compelled Truly to launch HoochieCon, a group exhibit featuring mixed-media art and music honoring Black women pioneers at the center of hoochie culture. The exhibit, which was co-organized and hosted by the popular queer community space Junior High last weekend, kicked off with three days of activations. The exhibit’s opening day featured the type of moody bisexual lighting that promises a good time. Attendees from near and far came decked with joyful energy and their interpretation of comfortable hoochie attire, and a stripper pole that was added to the gallery for the special day was put to good use thanks to the trio of dancers (Phoenix, Ziyah, Brooklyn) who blessed the space with their skills.

The intention at the heart of HoochieCon resonated with a range of Angelenos on their own journey of discovering and embracing their authentic self and sexual agency, including Earyn McGee, 28. “I am the oldest daughter in a Black family and definitely felt like I had to perform a certain way of being and show up physically a certain way,” she says, noting the baby steps she’s been taking toward less filtered self-expression now that she’s grown. “Even with my outfit for today, I was a little bit nervous but I was just like, ‘I’m trying to be in theme. This was an idea that I had and I’m just gonna go with it.’ I’m trying to do all the things that would’ve made kid-me happy.”

The next two days had a little something for everyone: a panel discussion moderated by Truly, a dance party (more on that shortly) and an outdoor market featuring Black vendors. Chef Rochelle Tyler of Selah Bakery served up vegan cookies with flavors like Hollaback Girl (banana pudding) and Babycakes (strawberry shortcake), while Cake Chemistry offered its boozy miniature red velvet cakes with Hennessy-infused caramel sauce and cream cheese buttercream. There were beanie purses and clothing designs by Beautiful Soul Childz for the avant-garde fashionista who’s gonna serve a look if nothing else, handcrafted jewelry by Skiin & Tones and Studio Ebunoluwa, Hooch Juice travel tumblers by High Standards Cosmetics to help the hoochies hydrate in style, and more.

With music being so deeply intertwined with hoochie culture, Truly knew she had to have space devoted to everybody coming together, dressing up and having fun on the dance floor. The experience of dancing and moving her body to good music in the company of new and old friends makes her feel tapped into a particular feeling of power. “There’s something powerful about dancing despite everything that’s going on outside and despite what’s in the news or maybe what’s happening when you go back to your house,” Truly says. “There’s freedom in getting together in community and seeing Black faces celebrate, regardless of what circumstance they face every day. There’s power, there’s freedom and there’s happiness in it for me.”

DJ Space Age was on music duty for HoochieCon’s dance-floor celebration and did not disappoint. Bangers from the ’90s and early 2000s that stand the test of time boomed through the speakers, eventually teasing out the most committed of wall huggers to let loose and shake a little something.

Dani Daniels poses for a portrait at Hoochie Con.(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

For Danielle Daniels, 29, the visual nods to the ’90s throughout HoochieCon resonated instantly. “My style of dressing is ’90s style so I love the environment of HoochieCon. The bamboo earrings, the jackets, the clothes and the nails — it’s nice to come out and see a lot of girls with the same culture and idea of things and to be able to express ourselves together as Black women,” says Daniels, who considers Halle Berry and Natalie Desselle’s iconic BAPS characters major hoochie inspo for herself and her best friend. “I wanted to come and celebrate ourselves and the beauty that we bring to beauty culture and everything.”

Art on display at HoochieCon.(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

As Truly takes in the fruits of her labor, and the community that has formed around her first HoochieCon, she’s mindful to acknowledge the importance of giving respect and reverence to women who have pioneered and “touched popular culture for so long” without reaping the benefits or even receiving credit. “Not only did they pioneer it, they also had to suffer for it,” Truly says. “They had to suffer to wear their hair the way they wanted to. They had to suffer to wear their nails the way they wanted to, and gold teeth, and to be sexually liberated. They had to suffer to shine.”

One day, years later, people will look at images of Truly’s HoochieCon celebration. “What do you hope they take away?” I ask the Hoochie Historian.

“I hope they take away from HoochieCon the importance of being yourself, no matter what people might judge you by,” says Truly, releasing a deep exhale, eyes watering as she processes the idea of HoochieCon reaching people generations into the future. “It’s important to be happy with how you look, how you feel, how you dress, and the choices that you make, and that is the most important thing. I want people, especially Black women, to take away that they can be fully themselves no matter what that looks like and still be worthy of all the good things.”

[butchbird-art]

Yeah, last night's mascara's such a wonderful thing

It's as dark as my heart, yet it's sparkling

. . .

I'm rubbing it off like it's a memory of you

Oh, would you look at me now? (Would you look at me, would you look at me?)

. . .

Oh, and Sunday morning, got me looking crazy

I'm on my knees at the altar, baby

Asking God to wash you from my soul

———————

Heard this song and the brainrot is so real I couldn’t stop thinking of Harrow and griddlehark and I just had to draw her

[whegan]

rolling

[ronkeyroo]

Hanging On ✄ - - - A Thread

[darkwood-sleddog]

Based on the recent staff post i sent the below concerns to staff in the feedback form. 1.) does opting OUT of third party sharing protect content that is reblogged by blogs that are opted IN? Will content from opted OUT blogs on opted IN blogs be scrape-able? 2.) The staff post says "We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner." Does this mean that opting OUT of third party sharing does not apply to companies tumblr has partnered with? Or does the opting OUT toggle mean that opted OUT blogs are protected from third party sharing even if that third party is partnered with tumblr? 3.) Can tumblr please address the rumor that data has already been scraped from tumblr and given to an AI tool? 4.) Will the opting OUT of third party sharing toggle have to be re-toggled to maintain opting OUT like the tumblr live toggle?

These are questions that to me must be without a doubt answered and even then tumblr does not have my trust to implement it well and keep my opted out content out of data sets.

[year2000electronics]

oddly specific fandom phenomenon i have where sometimes ill find rly cool people whose art and writing and thoughts and ideas and passion etc i really like its just that they happen to hate a specific adaptation i like (a lot of eggman fans wrt the movies arent fans of it which i can totally understand! they dont share some important core traits!) and i respect the hustle i respect the grind i respect the hating but every time i read a post musing about it im like 'ah jeez this is so awkward. but dw about it im already sentencing myself to ritual exile for you, friend. dont even worry. blessings.'

[giaffa]

concept for Olwë, Finwë and Elwë

[nwarrior777]

about finale: this. and no more

i am not in the fandom now, this is my last ofmd post

[getmenaced]

i may be the first bitch to ever include the fabricated arbalest in a fanart. im very into drawing objects lately. ignore the boobies

[swords-of-a-soilder]

I don't like talking about Palestine issues, mostly because I don't believe I should talk about issues I know nothing about and add to the misinformation or fuel xenophobia but this fandom has gotten political omg.

Anyways noticed a trend of drawing a egg eating watermelon to show support for Palestine. Hi, black person here born and raise in Jamaica, we where taught about slavery in school.

Do you know what I see when I see a drawing of Richardlyson (or anyone for that matter but Richardlyson in particular makes my stomach turn.) Eating a watermelon

I'll show you

Yeah.. Can we use something else please?

Like idk the flag is just fine, oh even just have it in the background, Like I know what the watermelon means I know it's because its all the colors on the flag but a black brother asking y'all to please choice another pose for the love of God.

They are some art that fine like just drawing watermelon or having watermelon in the background, but none of you who drew this thought to yourself "wait maybe I shouldn't draw this it looks too much like something else?"

Like really..?

[esteemed-excellency]

I made a bunch of doodles of Hiram meeting my other ocs, a hellfire tiefling from dnd and a kiber from @planes-of-fate

I'll probably share some more art of them all together in the next few days but for for now enjoy the silly expressions

[vulpixelates]

god. i would recognize ma/tt mer/cer's generic deep bad guy voice (derogatory) anywhere lmao. sometimes recognizing a VA adds to the experience but every time i recognize his voice in a game i'm just ripped out of it and immediately get the urge to clown on whatever character he's voicing IOJFAOEIF

[kenromewound]

I really love how Kendall and Roman half-enacted Oedipus gouging his own eyes out in With Open Eyes. In this case, our masochistic and submissive queen Roman used his brother as a weapon against himself the same as Oedipus used his mother's brooch. Old power dynamics. Besides, in the brothers’ case both of them had a common goal because Kendall couldn't handle the truth facing him (Roman locking eyes with him right after dropping that bomb).��Just like Oedipus when he decided to make himself blind.

Because Roman eventually kept his eyes, he was the one to see the reality and the futility of their situation, and to force it upon Kendall too.

Playing Oedipus together, peak codependency.

[runawaycarouselhorse]

Israel's still playing the same tactic, telling civilians to evacuate one way, then shelling them there... they did the same with the tunnel they told them to pass through. Ethnic cleansing is the goal. Genocide is the goal. The two state solution was a lie and a temporary ruse from the very beginning and was never going to happen, that's why these ceasefires will never last. Even during "peace," they're actively stealing homes and displacing the Palestinian people, burning down their olive trees, etc.

And yes, they're still signing off these leaflets with the same ominous message that drone used:

لقد أعذر من أنذر

"The one who warned is excused," A.K.A. we're excused whatever we might do to you because we warned you beforehand. Monstrous.

(Political cartoon by SerajToon)

[jewishregulus]

Jeee wonder why bunch of queer people look negatively towards religion lmfao also no shit there would be a lot of Christianity trauma considering the amount of followers it has

that sounds like a you problem ! other queer people looking negatively towards religion has nothing to do with me . not all queer people do and it’s insensitive as fuck to project that.

if ur this mad i want to talk more about judaism on MY BLOG you can just not look at my blog . and leave ur complex somewhere else bc judaism is more than just religion and i am allowed to talk abt it on my account!

[mollywog]

The way Cissy is described makes me feel like she was viewed more as a pet project/cause rather than a child/human.

Abel had seen that Cissy was properly baptised—jovially drunk at the same time himself. He made her go to church and Sunday School regularly. The church people took her up and she was in turn a member of the Mission Band, the Girls’ Guild and the Young Women’s Missionary Society. She was a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little worker. Everybody liked Cissy Gay and was sorry for her. She was so modest and sensitive and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion of beauty which fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness. But then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces like hungry cats when the catastrophe came.

This part in particular

She was so modest and sensitive and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion of beauty which fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness.

Reminds me of Uncle Jame’s wife

No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered her. A pretty, sensitive thing. Uncle James had denied her everything she wanted and showered on her everything she didn’t want. He had killed her—quite legally. She had been smothered and starved.