#as he usually posts the same memes on fb/insta

[rogers-attic]

forgot abt this screenshot my dad sent me like a month ago if this meme a family friend of ours posted on fb 😭😭

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Do you have any advice for greek people in diaspora who want to de-assimilate? My family immigrated to america when my great grandparents came over, and im kinda struggling to reconnect with my heritage when everyone in my family likes to pretend it doesnt exist. I grew up speaking some greek but even my parents admitted they want to forget all their greek and its really heartbreaking to see

I am sorry your parents treat Greek culture like a secret in the family. :/ It breaks my heart as well. But I am actually amazed that some Greek has stayed in the family from the time of your great grandparents!

To begin, assimilating isn’t exactly bad. Many people through the centuries have moved to other countries and became citizens of the new place in every way. Sure, you leave your old customs behind but you get new ones and you become part of a new community. It’s a natural process, happening since the beginning of humanity. Of course, it comes down to personal choice. Your parents want to not stand out. You want to keep the best of the new culture and the old culture. 

I don’t want to assume things about you. Ι am saying this just in case you feel this way: please do not scorn the culture of the place where you live. Every culture is different and interesting, even if it seems mundane to you. The new culture is most likely the bigger part of you and it needs some care, too.

For example, I have spoken to many immigrants in the US and most of them dislike the US. At the same time, through our dicussions, they show me - and tell me - they couldn’t be less American. They had a very different upbringing than the people from their parents’ motherland. 

I think it would be best if you got comfortable with both sides of you, the Greek one and the assimilated one. If your children and your children’s children live away from Greece, they will get more and more assimilated. It’s impossible to de-assimilate completely and forever. As many other Greeks, I am planning to leave Greece in a very short time. It’s sad to think my traditions won’t continue to the next generations. But it’s a reality we must face - and we should probably try to be positive about it. 

That being said, it’s perfectly fine to have the desire to know more about your roots for whatever reason. So here is my advice to you:

1) You may want to read the history of Greece. All of it, not just from 300 BC to 100 AC as most foreigners do. Preferably, find works that have someone Greek as a writer or supervisor (because Greeks usually try to depict accurately what happened), or writers who truly feel Greece, like Richard Clogg. Our history and pain has shaped the way we look at the world and it’s a perspective you should be familiar with, since you are driving in! (Yes, more depression for everyone!)

2) Learn where your family comes from. Maybe by asking your grandparents or your parents you can learn the exact place/town or the geographical compartment of your family. Look for the specific dances and traditional costume of that area from YouTube videos or a Greek community in your area! See if the people there were great warriors, great merchants, great wine producers. See if there are any Greek heroes of the 1821 revolution coming from your place! 

That may need lots of Google searching but I think you will get somewhere. I am also availiable if you want me to give you more information about a specific place.

For every Greek tribe there is a tag on my blog, like #macedonia, #epirus, #thrace and more. I have tags for most of the towns, too! You can also search for the different Greek “tribes” (Pontiacs, Kappadokians, Thracians and so on) which are often named after the place they lived. Everyone falls into some of them and you probably come from one (or two) as well! 

3) Learn some more Greek. I suggest that because learning Greek means learning how Greeks think. I suppose you know the basics but how about the 20+ weird phrases we have to playfully say someone is gay, like “he flogs the dolphin”, “he shakes the pear tree” etc. What about the Greek phrases which stem from war and pirate raids and… hating the Turks?? How about the Mediterranean expressions like calling a mole “olive” or saying “I am in an open sea” when we feel lost, or saying “he pressed my oil out” when someone tires us?

Greekpod101 on YouTube will help you learn the basics and a little more! They also have a site. But basically going on Youtube and typing “learn Greek” will do the trick. For more weird or advanced stuff you can look at my tag #learn greek and #greek language.

4) Greek memes - Greek diaspora social media. They are surprisingly educational! @hooplagreeks on instagram is one of my fave meme profiles! Watch youtubers of Greek diaspora as “Greek in the City” or the Greek comedian Basile! On instagram you may want to follow @greekfestvictoria (videos of Greek dances and people, and photos of the community) and @newdiaspora (“a digital storytelling platform, focusing on the new generation of Greeks living abroad during the crisis in their homeland”) and @ greek_diaspora (some things for Greek culture).

On my tag #greek diaspora you may find more people like you! Some have asked me similar stuff so I may be repeating stuff in those posts as well.

5) Cook/eat Greek food. If your grandparents and mum know recipes, take them as if they are gold. It’s a great way to get familiar with the local Greek ingredients and the Greek palette. Heck, look for Greek recipes on the internet and cook them! If you don’t know where to start, my tag #greek cuisine may be helpful.

6) Read Greek classic literature (in Greek if you can, but you can also find works translated in English). Elitis, Sahtouris, Seferis, Venezis, Papadiamantis, Mirivilis, Delta, Empirikos, Zei, Kazantzakis are only a few of the literary gems Greeks have to offer. Enjoy good writing, the Greek perspective, and get to know the newer Greek society in a unique and authentic way. Here is a list with more of them (link).

7) Meet more Greeks! Through groups on insta or fb, through Tumblr blogs etc. Watch youtubers of Greek diaspora as “Greek in Town” or the comedian Basile! Maybe there is one Greek community near you area and you can pay a visit for festivals! (No day, Independence Day, 1st of March, Easter meal, Dance festivals etc). Don’t be shy to go there. From what I have seen, people from all backgrounds are welcome there. Plus, Greeks LOVE showing their culture so you are going to learn a lot of things from them. 

8) Be proud. I know it may sound kind of weird but I feel being proud is one key element of being Greek. In every anniversary wars we won, in our schools we sing prideful songs and hang posters with our war heroes, always standing proud. The students and the army parade in the streets the small children wearing traditional costumes (parade is kinda of a facist remnant - ew - but it shows that we want to instill pride even in our children. It has a few positive elements I guess :P). To sum up, be proud of a people who endured natural catastrophes, wars, genocide, famine, occupation, slaughters and slavery and can still stand!

9) Travel to Greece? I don’t know how affortable it is for you and how easy it is but I recommend it. Your tickets don’t need to be for summer. (Honestly, you may want to avoid summer. It’s too hot and too crowdy in tourist areas. Spring is our best season ;). You can come off season and just see the place and meet the people. See the species Grecus Hellenicus in its narutal habitat! Maybe you’ll make some new friends to discuss about Greek culture!

10) Search the tags on this blog. In #greek people you will see Greeks of every era, in  #vintage you will find old towns and traditional settings. In #paradosiaki foresia await some of the Greek traditional clothes. #greek language, #greek culture and #greek tradition, #greek festival, #greek music are self explanatory. 

I think that’s all I’ve got! Good luck in your journey and I am here if you need anything else :D You can dm me and ask stuff, anything you want! I would be happy to help you get in touch with your roots!

[rongasm]

What's your headcanons on stydia on social media? I feel stiles would go on rants alot on Twitter.

Facebook

Lydia-- Only responds to comments, never makes them. Keeps her pictures updated reasonably steadily, but doesn’t caption them. Just tags who needs to get tagged, gets in, gets out. 

Stiles-- Forgets he has a facebook, mostly because he doesn’t have a lot of family. Posts three times a year. Usually it’s something stupid. He uses FB messenger a lot, though, especially before he and Lydia exchange numbers and he has to use it to contact her.  

Instagram

Lydia-- The true queen. Instagram was designed by and for Lydia Martin. She pops on and makes that app her bitch. Queen of the silent likes. Queen of the silent judgement. Every moment, every picture, every filter, every selfie, is perfect and paints a picture of exactly who she wants to be. It’s where she lets her control-freak flag fly. 

Stiles-- Doesn’t really use instagram except to silently stalk people who live better lives than he does. When he starts dating Lydia, he actually does start posting whenever they’re in the same place during college, but most of his instagram is pictures of her and the occasionally pictures of Scott and his dad. Stiles is, like, never on his own insta unless he’s smacking a kiss on Lydia’s cheek or vice versa. 

Tumblr

Lydia-- Study-blur. She reblogs pictures of bullet journals when she uses her tumblr once every six months. See you in another six, she says at the end of an hour and a half. 

Stiles-- A fuckin’ mess. Has a crappy blog with a crappy theme, just reblogs pictures of weird shit, memes, the occasional fandom post (and a hell of a lot of Star Wars kick-up when new movies come out) and pop-punk song lyrics. The true definition of a piece of shit. Really only nightposts, so all of his friends are Australian and all 500 of his followers literally think he is from there because of the hours he keeps. 

Twitter

Lydia-- Uses it because she likes the brevity of life updates, but will unfollow you in about two seconds if she gets annoyed by you. Follows more accounts about politics, news, pop culture, and snarkiness than actual people she knows. Twitter makes Lydia laugh through her nose, which is not an easy thing to do.

Stiles-- Does not grasp the concept of twitter. 140 characters was bad enough because he just had a chain of five tweets in a row talking about how hard he’s been trying to find where his dad has hidden his Christmas gifts. When the 280 characters come along, it’s the same five tweets but now he already knows where the gifts are so instead he likes to rant about topics he knows almost nothing about, usually because he’s impassioned but slightly because Lydia will break her tacit rule of twitter silence and break in and fuck him up if he says stupid shit and it amuses him greatly. Twitter is the place Stiles goes if he needs to goad his girlfriend somehow. Meanwhile, the rest of the pack watches with a mix of exasperation and amusement as they bitch each other out on their timelines while simultaneously playing footsies under the table. 

Whoever wins the twitter fight gets 140 minutes of oral time, divided the way they choose. Scott used to be the judge until he found out that the prize was his best friend going down on his other best friend.

[findgstop]

He looks for portals which have potential and buys them cheap and builds them up with following and then sells them to bigger companies which are into online influencer marketing for 10x. WTF!?? Wow! I didn’t even know a business model like that existed! He said 99% of the meme pages or quotes pages are ‘reblogs’ or ‘reposts’ and still he’s able to get this level of following and it’s rare that he’s found a page with 450+ original quotes and memes. As per him usually a small studio or company delivers 3/4 original memes / quotes a day whereas here I am, lying on my bed and churning out 4-5 a day, everyday for 3 months on my own! As per him, 450+ original posts is more content than what he needs for a full year of republishing on his pages and that’s why he wants to buy the page as well as rights for all my original content. He asked me if I had ever even looked at the statistics of my page.. I had not ... he taught me how to check and this is what I found - while only 4000 followers across FB and Insta but in last one month itself I had 100,000 post reach, 13000 post engagements. Average age of people interacting 21-29! Supposedly that’s quite good for someone not doing ANYTHING to add followers. I told him I’m not selling as it’s just a fun thing for me and he said sooner or later one of the big pages is simply going to copy my stuff and make money and I won’t be able to do anything about it. It made me feel like those poor artists/writers whose story is stolen by big producers who make the money and the writer starves to death somewhere on the roadside! The creative writer inside me ached for such an end and I visualised myself in torn pajamas and banyaan (maybe the same ones I wear today) being forced to sell the page for £100 and then he would renegotiate and offer only £1! He asked me why won’t I give it to him?? I said ... Like when I couldnt find the Gspot when I was younger but didn’t give up and kept trying even though I didn’t have the knowledge, skill set or experience or time! Did I just hand it over to someone else?? I didn’t! Same logic....! And yeah.. this time it was Gspot and not Gstop. But I like how you think! https://www.instagram.com/p/CBXluFFJZrm/?igshid=9ytykwldy4j7