#american white people culture

[ooc-themis-cattails]

I mentioned the song everyone was obsessed with at my late 90s high school, but when I went to look it up, it wasn't just ten, more like TWENTY years older. I'm not sure why it was a thing at my school and I also remember it was driven especially by the boys (although everyone would join in). So instead here are a few dance favorites from the actual 1990s that were popular at my school. Starting with the most 90s sounding band ever: The chic-a-cherry-cola song (I Want You, Savage Garden) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQt6jIKNwgU I saw the sign (The Sign, Ace of Base) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqu132vTl5Y Eyyyyyy macarena! (Macarena, Los del Rio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPYw3jXjd74 Some other 90s artists that were HUGE at my school: Alanis Morrissette (harsh pop rock) The Cranberries (floaty dreamy rock) No Doubt (bubblegum pop) aka Gwen Stefani's band Please feel free to add more-- for one thing, this is skewed towards what the girls were into and idek about the guys. Probably rap or R&B-- the latter was HUGE even at my mostly white school-- but I don't have any recs for that. Also obviously it's specific to where I lived etc etc so it's American white people culture but anyway that's what we had. Also remember, do NOT wear 80s fashion in the 90s. Neon is OUT, and do not wear patterns; solid colours ONLY. Nothing that looks technological or futuristic-- if you need to do sci fi in a music video, you do either all white or all black. Ideally you should be wearing all black anyway; if you are not in grunge you need to be slick and sharp. Your makeup can (and should) be a mess, but your outfit should be neat and smart-- the price tag doesn't matter anymore, this IS the grunge era, but you have to either be all grunge or differentiate from that by being extra tidy and clean and almost robotic. You and your friends will probably be going to the mall to have fun, but if you want to seem cool, you can go to coffee shops and carry a small silver cell phone (in this era, most people still speak on the telephone instead of texting). Actual time travel however is not recommended, as the culture was extremely unkind, and highly toxic by today's standards. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to call out anyone's behaviour unless they owe you money, because you will be roasted, dressed, and served up as a mockery for caring about anyone's feelings. No lie, it really was that harsh. It's like how the 1950s had awesome fashion and industrial design, but the culture was shitty to live in? The 90s were like that in their own way.

[zevranunderstander]

number #1 tactic that people use to not sound as racist as they are when they talk to black people: 'uhh so you AMERICANS need to stop pretending everything is about YOU. why should i know this im not from the us :/' (= is talking about like. a phenomenally internationally well-known black artist)

[kirby-the-gorb]

[finelythreadedsky]

Ursula K. Le Guin, interview with Brian Attebery (2007)

[afriblaq]

Given the results of this election, i wanted to resurface this idea about American identity 

[thedreadvampy]

The thing is. Bad/gross food is rarely a DISH - when food is bad it's because it's been badly made, whether because of skills or available ingredients. but a dish p much only exists recognisably and has a name because someone likes at least one version of it.

which is to say. there isn't really a way of naming a dish, school of dishes or specific food culture and going EW ISN'T THIS DISH UNILATERALLY CONCEPTUALLY DISGUSTING without denigrating quite a lot of people.

like you don't have to like it in any form. but it's eaten and shared because it's good to a not insubstantial number of people when cooked right.

(and I don't really understand how you approach that with total incuriosity when it's a dish you haven't tried like. ARE rocky mountain oysters good? Maybe! I would very much eat some to find out!!!!)

this is actually something the British food poll did in a way the American ones I've seen haven't really - they described how the food they're imagining is, specifically, badly prepared (grey meat and veggies; unseasoned shepherd's pie). which is wildly tipping the scales by calling it British Food but. like. that is an on point definition of why that food is gross.

(this also applies to American chocolate, which like. Broad category but I think most of us understand this refers to low-cocoa high-sugar chocolate, probably with bucolic acid. so we are being invited to imagine Badly Made Chocolate not. the concept of chocolate)

personally I just think it's very rarely a good or funny idea to shittalk how gross any given food culture is. partly because food is important and culturally evocative for most people, partly because it's very...alienating? to be like WHO COULD EAT SUCH A THING? just because you wouldn't, and largely because to be frank it says more about you than about the food that you have so little imagination or curiosity that you can't imagine why a food might be enjoyable to folks who aren't you.

yes this includes jello salad, I would like to try it. ONCE. if it wasn't appealing to someone it wouldn't be so widespread.

[bonefall]

looking at the nutrition guide posts again, and you say that the clans' territories are bigger than one might think.... how big do you imagine they might be? the book maps always make them seem smaller than they probably actually are due to art scaling

There is no way to give a perfect number, because productivity of land depends a lot more on what's on it rather than raw size. An old-growth oak forest will have more squirrels in an acre than a sitka spruce plantation will in miles.

But this is an aerial photo of Peng Chau island, which is a landform notable for being almost EXACTLY 1 square kilometer.

That's 10 million square feet, for those of us burdened by imperial, and 247 acres, for... farmers idk. Or, 100 hecatares for those who are aware that most UK nature reserves measure their land in hecs.

(does this seem big? it's not. this is merely two 18-hole golf courses. or maybe we should destroy all golf courses. who knows :P)

According to the John Muir Trust, which researches red deer density and conversation, 1 square kilometer can sustainably support 5 red deer; more deer than that and they will begin to damage the environment. Britain is so ecologically devastated that the deer density is more like 10 to 1, but this is what apex predators like boars, lynxes, and wolves are SUPPOSED to be for.

(Remember: the ratio of 5:1 is still an average. The TYPE of land is going to matter A LOT MORE than the raw size.)

So if you're asking me, who has ruled that the White Hart/Forest Territory has an entire herd of red deer which hunters come to shoot at, I'd say the area was at least 3 square kilometers. Enough for a sustainable herd of 15 deer.

(But I imagine the Windovers sometimes toss hay out at them, to sustain a pretty sizeable herd. The map names the WindClan territory the "Windover Moor" so I imagine they actually own the majority of the area. I also write the entire White Hart being MUCH larger than the minimum 3 sKM, more like 10 sKM counting all the territories put together. BUT I don't think about it too much-- I just know it's not a tiny little backyard area.)

(Also Sanctuary Lake is even larger.)

[bayetea]

seeing non-black people critique rick's portrayal of black characters is interesting sometimes. only like 30% of the critiques I see make any sense to me to be honest

[brown-little-robin]

oh I just realized that my interest in anime and my interest in clowns are linked by the concept of "exaggerated silliness". hmm!!!

[bywandandsword]

Since Hazbin Hotel popped off, I've seen a few times people asserting that there is something racist about Alastor's backstory, given that he is canonically a Creole from New Orleans, but his demon form does not have any overt indicators of his being a person of color

So here's a gentle reminder and clarification, as a Louisiana Creole myself;

"Louisiana Creoles (French: Créoles de la Louisiane, Louisiana Creole: Moun Kréyòl la Lwizyàn, Spanish: Criollos de Luisiana) are a Louisiana French ethnic group descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the United States during the period of both French and Spanish rule. They share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism. Some mistakenly think the term is a racial designation, while in fact people of European, of African, and of mixed ancestry have all been termed "Creole" since the 18th century." (x, emphasis mine)

Please pay special attention to the last sentence. While many, probably most, Louisiana Creoles are of mixed-race ancestry, not all are. I'm not saying there aren't valid critiques of Alastor as a character, this just isn't one of them

[realbeefman]

i know chase obviously wins the religious trauma competition but can we please talk about how foreman was not only raised by a deeply religious father, but was most likely raised BAPTIST. no wonder he’s so repressed. the baptist experience is like. you’re in church every sunday listening to a man scream about how love is something that should hurt. you believe in a good, loving god - but to believe, you have to accept that true love is painful. that to be a good person, you must suffer. to love is to endure it, to work mercilessly. you’re not worthy of the love of The Almighty, and you never will be, and that sense of unworthiness is fundamental to having faith. when you sin, you don’t just hurt Him, you hurt everyone around you. you make the world worse because you have dared commit the sin of existence — to be human is to be sinful. to be loved is to feel unworthy and pathetic and hopeless. like YEAH no wonder foreman self isolates and is emotionally closed off. he was taught from BIRTH that he is fundamentally unworthy of love, and that in accepting love, he is also accepting that he truly is worthless.

[mintmatcha]

no joke in my anthropology class we had to look at white american culture as consumerism & i’ve never been able to shake that lens

i have a really weird concept that i cant quite explain, but the assimilation that white families put themselves through when they moved into america really fed into this consumeristic ideal, objects filling the void where traditions should be. its why elf of the shelf so easily took hold of (white) american households. white americans, even the ones that faced prejudice upon arrival, had the privilege to shed their traditions and homelands to become an accepted part of america,

elf on the shelf was marketed as a long standing tradition that parents were missing out on-- even though it simply. wasn't. a woman in a marketing firm made it up. but the idea of tradition. something that could be bought to create memories. fills a place that american families don't really have.

anyway i just am blabbing

[thinkingofausername]

are poverty, crime and domestic abuse really a part of certain cultures or were those people forced into those circumstances

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[melmedardasworld]

What was Inadu's purpose? She was this big hope meant to bring her parent's tribes together. They did all sort of rituals and blessings, it seems, and that resulted in her coming as some pure evil devil child out of the womb.

Why?

Does having or getting power turn witches crazy or something?

Why is that the default the writers always go to? Is it the power rush or their 'dark' desires get heightened or something similar to vampires. There is no explanation at all.

Qetsiyah, Dahlia, Eva, Bonnie... they were all wronged. I think the only one witch that didn't really have that until Elijah killed her was Celeste. But also, punishing them cough... cough... Bonnie... for choosing what they want to do and showing that agency. Even with Davina, her ancestors punished her cause she wanted to reach her goals, and she had to beg them to help her because... what? They could demand that from her? Those dead witches were bitter ass hell, I'll tell you that.

Back to Inadu, it's also unsettling how they white washed the werewolves in modern times. They were Native Americans, and the only thing we get for that is a NA girl as this evil witch who just destroys stuff and wants to be revered cause... why? It was never explained. Ansel, Klaus, etc. Shouldn’t they have been NA? Like, realistically? I understand how ancestry works, so I’m not discussing that, but to see none at all?

It reminds me of people claiming NA ancestry when they aren't for... reasons... because then Inadu's (yt) descendant(s) were the only ones to stop and kill her because Inadu was after Hope and wanted to be this revered being that was horny on death and destruction. It was one of the worst storylines, and it got dragged out until S5. The show should've stopped at S3 and be done with it because things just went downhill and the writers were clearly ot of ideas and just fucked up the established lore they set up in TVD (it started around when Silas cam back alive, which I have my qualms about).

[visenyaism]

“america has no culture” and yet when americans visit other states or regions of america they get culture shock. when I was in college, my group of friends loved to compare dialects, religions, and cultural practices because we were from very different places (New York City, Vermont, Texas)

well we’re easily startled but like. I hate many things about living in this country most of which have to do with our evil government and history of extreme violence and oppression that we continue to this day. but the amount of cultural diversity in terms of regional and immigrant cultures (and where those intersect!) is like. easily the best part of being here