#but wages are low and for most people it takes a lot of hours of work to save up any meaningful amount

[teenagefeeling]

how are name-brand frosted mini wheats 2 entire dollars more expensive than the generic? literally there's no difference between them 😭

[burins]

kroger shoppers and butch4butch: failures of categorization, failures of desire

(originally published in 2023’s yaoi zine 2: the analysis issue and I realized I never crossposted. you Should check out the full pdf. it slaps.)

I. Survey Fatigue

The year after graduating college, I spent about six months filling out online surveys. In between sending out job applications, I trawled r/beermoney and r/workonline for survey clearinghouse websites, where I could (ostensibly) earn money by giving various nebulous corporations a large amount of information about my preferences on everything from TV to deodorant.

Unfortunately for the me of 2016, survey clearinghouses are not actually a great way to make very much money. Most surveys with low barriers to entry don’t pay very well, unless you happen to stumble on a well-funded academic researcher. Even in a more naive era in which there was still an expectation that consumers should be paid for their data, the ecosystem of survey-based consumer demographics collection is deeply exploitative, with most surveys on public clearinghouses that aggregate many different companies together paying well below minimum wage for the amount of time they take to fill out. (We’re talking, like, $1 for 20 minutes.) Which makes sense, as their ideal candidate is middle-aged, upper middle-class or higher, owns a home and at least one car, has multiple kids, is considering upgrading every category of possession imaginable, and is taking this survey in her free time because she feels deeply passionate about shaping the products of the future. (Many surveys are aimed at women, because, you know. Women be shopping.)

What survey clearinghouses are, instead, is a fantastic way to spend a lot of time thinking about how others might categorize your identity. Marketing research focuses on particular demographic categories, and survey clearinghouse sites overwhelmingly use screeners to make sure that only people who fit that category take the survey. If you’re a marketer interested in the grocery habits of northeastern women with multiple kids, you don’t want some single guy in California’s data. But if you’re a single guy in California, or (just as an example) a nonbinary recent college grad in the south, trying to make some extra cash, and you know you won’t get paid for the time you spent taking the screener, it’s in your interest to try to figure out exactly what the marketers want from you, and adapt your profile accordingly. And this is the internet, so every survey clearinghouse has its own subreddit full of advice for newbies.

(Bear with me; I promise we will get to the yaoi.)

Of course, the posts assure you, you don’t want to outright lie. If you say you’re a retired white midwesterner with two grandkids on one survey, and on another you tell them you live in Seattle in an apartment making tech money, eventually the survey clearinghouse is going to figure it out, and they will ban you. But, the posts continue, it is in your interest to stretch the truth. After all, aren’t the survey companies exploiting us? Shouldn’t we get to, just a little bit, exploit them back?

So I put down the total household income of everyone I was living with, even though we paid bills separately; my kid siblings, who lived multiple hours away, suddenly became residents of this same household, as did my parents’ newly acquired dog; and I became interested in every possible purchasing category imaginable. Sure, I was planning to purchase a vacuum cleaner in the next six months. Yes, I considered myself a power beverage drinker. Yes, that one hookah session did mean that I smoked tobacco regularly, and also I drank a lot, and I was planning to buy a car soon, and a toaster oven, and I made business decisions at my place of employment (my bedroom), and also, also, also, I was a woman.

Back in 2016, very few marketing surveys allowed you to select any category except male or female on the gender question, which was usually the first question asked. I’m not sure if this has changed, but even when surveys did offer nonbinary as an option, I usually selected female.

As of 2021, 1.2 million adults in the US identify as nonbinary. This is a big number; it is also vanishingly small from a marketing perspective, especially when you begin further population segmentation, and especially because 68% of those 1.2 million adults report not having enough money to make ends meet. The majority of us aren’t exactly splashing out on vacation homes. Which means that very few surveys target us, which means, as a nonbinary person trying to make ends meet, I said “oh yes I’m a woman! please let me into your survey” all the time.

I could make an argument that this is an inherently transgender thing to do, that my choice to create a survey identity who crossed as many categories as I could feasibly claim was an act of transcendent self-creation and boundary-blurring. My drag persona, Kroger shopper [oldname] Shipyrds, created for a world that did not have a category for me. If I was writing this essay for Vox or something, maybe I would make this argument, and the essay could end here, on a vaguely triumphant note about the ways trans people manage to exist under capitalism.

But I don’t find the closet liberatory. Mostly, it felt kind of depressing, and also pretty futile, because– much like actually being a woman– I wasn’t very good at it. To make surveys into a successful career– well, first, I’m not sure it’s actually possible, unless you get hired by one of these firms to do blind shopping or focus groups, and even that’s pretty precarious. And second, you have to do it all the time, and you have to install a whole host of scripts and add-ons written by other members of the community to help you grab surveys quicker, to auto-input your pre-loaded information, to tell you which firms are reputable and which ones will trap you in endless screeners before kicking you out without pay after you’ve already given them the info they want. There was a kind of arms race happening between the marketers and the survey takers, because of course the marketers don’t want people who are doing this full time taking their surveys, because we’re not a normal representation of American society, and also because we lie. And I wasn’t particularly good at lying, and I didn’t want to put in the unpaid time to install all of these add-ons and tweak them to my exact specifications, and so as soon as I found other work that paid better, I laid Kroger shopper [oldname] Shipyrds to rest.

II. Lesbian Male Homosexual Sex

Now on to the yaoi. A few months ago, a quote floated across my dash, from Gayle Rubin’s “Of Catamites and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and Boundaries,” an article in the 2006 collection The Transgender Studies Reader.

“Although [butch-butch eroticism] is not uncommon, lesbian culture contains few models for it. Many butches who lust after other butches have looked to gay male literature and behavior as sources of imagery and language. The erotic dynamics of butch-butch sex sometimes resemble those of gay men…Many butch-butch couples think of themselves as women doing male homosexual sex with one another.”

As you may imagine, I found this delightful. And I think it is also applicable to the eternal question of why lesbians read yaoi. There’s been a tremendous amount of writing and handwringing on this elsewhere, both on social media and academically. Are lesbians who read yaoi fetishizing gay men? Are we betraying our lesbian identities by not reading yuri instead? (As we all know you can only read one kind of content.) Lesbians who read Kirk/Spock slash fiction popped up in 1980s-era writing during the pornography wars; Akiko Mizoguchi has been writing on lesbians who read yaoi (in the specific, not the generic) since 2003.

Lesbians who read yaoi is a thorny question from the outside, but from a butch perspective it seems very simple. A number of the arguments imply that lesbians read yaoi because we want to be men, which for a lot of (I would even go so far as to say most) lesbians is so untrue as to be offensive. The other side of the argument is equally bad: Joanna Russ’s 1985 Kirk/Spock essay has a lot of loving descriptions of the inherent tender and nurturing nature of K/S slash fic, which for anyone who has ever read pon farr fic is. Kind of laughable. The fic is nurturing, she argues, because K/S fans are writing Kirk and Spock as women, and thus the porn is actually fine to read, because it’s two women having beautiful life-affirming sex, in a way where everyone’s boundaries are respected and no one ever gets hurt. (As we all know lesbians never fuck nasty.)

The argument about the morality of pornography aside– that’s another essay– I don’t think either of these arguments are actually true, or at least, they’re not true for me, which after all is the only perspective I can give without doing some survey design of my own. I read yaoi because I enjoy it, because of the tropes and the angst and the stupid bullshit plot machinations, and yes, also because I’m not a woman, and I’m not a man, but I am a dyke and also a twink and when I have sex it’s gay and lesbian at the same time, and so sometimes I want to read (and write!) about gay male sex. (One of the joys of being trans is that you get to feel like the meme about the School of Athens just by moving through the world.)

III. Yaoi and Categorization

These are two different essays, sort of, but they are also the same essay, because ultimately both the entire field of market research and the question of lesbian yaoi readers are failures both of categorization and of desire.

Marketing research, much like gender identity, is an attempt to fit the vastness of human experience into a series of small boxes that can be easily quantified. This is by necessity: if your job requires you to analyze data, your data must be manipulable, comparable across categories, vaguely replicable. But you are also asking people questions about what they want. How much do they want a bottle of iced tea over a can of Coke? Does adding a leaf to the label change the intensity of that feeling? How do you put numbers on desire? How do you put labels on it, so that it can be compared to other types of wanting?

Desire in the world of marketing research is a deeply beige, wan emotion, limited to the constraints of the capitalist imagination. But it is the only emotion in that world, and marketers want nothing more than to make it stronger. They want you to feel the same kind of overwhelming lust when you see an ad for chicken wings that you feel when you see someone you want to fuck. They want your desire to be very strong, and they want it to be about consumption and possession, and they want you to feel it all the time. And also, they’d like you to answer some questions about it, please, and in exchange they’ll enter you into a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card.

This desire is impossible. There is nothing less sexy than a survey; even surveys about things like alcohol or makeup place their product designs on white backgrounds, devoid of all of the surrounding drivers of want– the hot butch at the bar drinking the green-bottled beer, the person wearing the maybe it’s Maybelline lipstick. We live in a society! Desire doesn’t exist in a vacuum!

And for that reason, the more ungovernable and uncategorizable my desire, the better it feels. There is no place on the survey for butch dykes having male homosexual sex; there is a place in the research for it, but always as a sort of curiosity, a quandary that requires explanation, because this type of desire exists outside of the researcher’s imagination.

And increasingly, I am unsure that I want a place in either locale. There is an argument to be made that by allowing ourselves to be studied, we normalize and cement our place in the world. To some degree, this is true. It is hard to accept something you do not believe exists. But also, I don’t believe that the answer to the unfulfilling and exploitative hunger of the marketing survey is to spend our energy advocating for more categories so I can be more accurately sold toothpaste. I feel more and more resistant to the idea (ironic though it may seem several thousand words into this essay) that I should categorize my desire at all. In the end, the best way to articulate my desire– to myself and to others– is to live it. And also, to go read some yaoi.

--

1 Some of these posts also advised fudging your race, as survey slots for more common (read: white) demographic categories tended to fill up faster, or at least the posters seemed to think they did. This was a line I was not willing to cross, but the prevalence and comfort with which some of these posters talked about racefaking for pretty minimal amounts of money could be an essay of its own.

2  The entirety of Russ’s essay is pretty interesting, not just for the Gender of it all, but also because towards the end she almost gets there: “Until recently I assumed, along with many other feminists, that ‘art’ is better than ‘pornography’ just as ‘erotica’ is one thing and ‘pornography’ another; and just as ‘erotica’ surpasses ‘pornography,’ so ‘art’ surpasses ‘erotica.’ I think we ought to be very suspicious of these distinctions insofar as they are put forward as moral distinctions.” 

--

Sources:

Bauer, C. K. (2013). Naughty Girls and Gay Male Romance/Porn: Slash Fiction, Boys’ Love Manga, and Other Works by Female "Cross-Voyeurs" in the US Academic Discourses. Anchor Academic Publishing.

Meerwijk, E. L., & Sevelius, J. M. (2017). Transgender population size in the United States: A meta-regression of population-based probability samples. American Journal of Public Health, 107(2), e1–e8. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303578

Mizoguchi, A. (2003). Male-male romance by and for women in Japan: A history and the subgenres of “yaoi” fictions. U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, 25, 49–75.

Rubin, G. (2006). Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries. In S. Stryker & S. Whittle (Eds.), The Transgender Studies Reader (Vol. 1, pp. 471–481). Routledge.

Russ, J. (1985). Pornography by women for women, with love. Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts, 79-100. Crossing Press.

Wilson, B. D. M., & Meyer, I. H. (2021). Nonbinary LGBTQ Adults in the United States. Williams Institute.

[black-fist-order]

BREAKING: Renowned business expert Scott Galloway hammers Donald Trump as "stupid" and says that he's "blackout drunk" at the "wheel of the global economy" as his tariffs destabilize the entire world.

He also alleged that Trump's sudden tariff reversal enriched his MAGA cronies in the "greatest day of insider trading and grift in history."

This is one rant that every American needs to hear...

During an appearance on The View, Galloway — who is a successful entrepreneur and a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business — was asked by co-host Whoopi Goldberg about Trump's recent behavior.

She slammed him for having "wreaked havoc on the global economy since his so-called liberation day last week with massive tariffs" and pointed out that he backtracked and lowered his tariffs on most countries to 10% while imposing an effective tariff rate of 145% on China.

"It would be hard to think of a more elegant way to reduce prosperity this fast," said Galloway.

"Let's talk about Apple," he continued. "The notion was we're going to bring back all of those great jobs? The average Apple assembly person in China makes $500 a month. The average Apple employee focusing on more high-value things like design, store management, makes $200,000 a year here."

"We want to wear Nikes. We don't want to make them," he went on. "We have outsourced low-wage jobs overseas such that we can create more profits, more investments, and create higher wage jobs."

"If these tariffs hold, your iPhone's going to go from $1000 bucks to $2,300," he explained. "To make an iPhone in the U.S. it would cost $3,500. As a result, the threats of these tariffs take Apple's stock down the value of Walmart in three days."

"If these tariffs hold... 80% of toys under the Christmas tree are from China," Galloway continued. "So 90% of U.S. households are budget-constrained. So we're talking about half the number of toys."

"We're talking about a destruction in shareholder value such that your parents can't retire as quickly and we're talking about the entire world rerouting their supply chain around 'brand America,' which, quite frankly, right now is toxic uncertainty — so they can bypass a series of unpredictable, epileptic, sclerotic decisions," he stated.

"What we finally need to acknowledge: We have someone at the wheel of the global economy that is blackout drunk right now," he continued.

Later in the segment, Galloway dismissed the idea that Trump's policy is setting the stage for the "economy of the future" by bringing jobs back.

"First off, America is the second largest manufacturer in the world," he said. "And the Cato Institute — we romanticize manufacturing — the Cato Institute did a survey, 80% of us believe that we should have more manufacturing but only 20% of us want to work in manufacturing."

"There is no line to get in and have work at an assembly plant in Lansing, Michigan," he continued. "What we want is high-paying jobs. Quite frankly, if this president cared about young men and trying to up-level people we'd go to a minimum wage of $25 a hour."

"And by the way, if minimum wage had kept pace with productivity and inflation it'd be somewhere between $23 and $27 an hour," he explained. "This is nothing but in my view—"

"Do you realize that yesterday about ten minutes before he put a pause on the tariffs and Apple skyrocketed, the market went up 2000 points, there was huge activity in the options market," he went on.

"Yesterday will go down as the greatest day of insider trading and grift in history," said Galloway. "Someone knew what was going on and made a lot of money and it wasn't us and we're going to find out about this."

"If you want to go back — he talks about the great era of the late 19th century — guess what? When we didn't have indoor plumbing? Where we had child labor? I'll take Netflix and novocaine," he said.

"We have a habit because of social media to talk about how terrible America is," he went on. "There are [one hundred and ninety-five] nations, they would all trade places with us."

"Do we have income inequality, we have polarization, do we have struggling young people? A hundred percent," he said. "But guess what? This nation is less bad than any other nation except if you want to take us back to the past. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

Galloway was then asked about America's image around the world under Trump.

"We have the greatest inflow of capital which drives our stock up which lets us borrow money at a lower cost," he explained. "We have the greatest inflow of human capital. What do the best and the brightest in the world have in common? They want to come to our universities, they want to live in America."

"And part of that is that the American brand is risk aggressiveness, it's rule of law, it's consistency," said Galloway. "Rule of law has gone out the window. Right? We've now decided to defy court orders. We're having used car sales on the White House lawn."

"We are rounding people up with the wrong tattoo and shipping them off without due process to essentially hellscape prisons," he continued. "Rule of law is gone. Consistency? The tariffs are on, they're off, the tariffs are on, the tariffs are off."

"We're alienating nations that love us and we love. When did we decide to go to war against Canada!?" he asked. "Canada!? You know what Canada did?"

"There's this great line that the Holocaust survivor talking to Warren Buffet said, how do you judge friends? V'ery simply, I ask a question would they hide me?'" he said.

"Canadians hid us in the [Iran] hostage crisis," he went on. "The Canadian embassy hid six Americans and if they'd been found out they would have been hung by cranes. We're going to war against Canada!? They are our true friends. We can't even articulate why we're angry with them. We are going to war with everyone at the same time."

"The big winner here, if there is a winner, is China over the medium and long-term, who says 'You may not like us, but you can count us,'" said Galloway.

"The damage here... When he paused the tariffs yesterday, he took the knife halfway out of the economy's back, but the injury will take years, if not decades, to heal," he predicted. "The definition of stupid is doing something that hurts yourself while hurting others. This could not be more stupid...!"

[chaifootsteps]

for anon who was frustrated - things have come a long way already, so don't lose heart

Most of Hazbin's reviews were lukewarm and a lot of Internet reviewers said it was a massive disappointment compared to the pilot. Helluva Boss has seen a massive drop in views and there's pretty clear signs that they're struggling to get the support they once did outside of that, given they're doing often subpar quality merch drops after every episode (even shorts!) now.

The Full Moon/Apology Tour releases have really turned off a lot of the audience who are realizing what others have been warning them about for a long time - Stolas is likely never going to be held accountable in a way that makes what a sucky character he is, instead Viv is just going to keep trying to retcon and engage in other bad writing to dig herself out of a hole of her own making in order to push an OTP that even some of its most die hard stans seem increasingly disillusioned with. I'm seeing a lot more discontentment with the show, especially the Stolas shilling, on the once positive Helluva Boss reddit. and once the rest of the episodes come out at the end of the year, if Stolas sees no meaningful consequences at all and is just woobified again then it's going to get harder for fans to keep coping and using the 'it'll get good if you just wait!' excuse

And I don't think people will forget the mess around Poison that easily, especially since the pile of evidence of unprofessional/exploitative behavior from Viv and Spindle is growing. Crediting and bad pay issues are increasingly common to hear about nowadays and the claim that Spindle is 'indie' is starting to ring increasingly voice now its own that outsourcing to Toon City is going on. Not to mention that Viv seems to get into Twitter drama every other month, which isn't helping

Meanwhile, all the pilot cast that everyone loved that she tossed to one side (which there's evidence of) are going on to do bigger and better things in communities that actually care for them. Lackadaisy and TADC are really stealing the indie thunder and they're far better quality made by (in LD's case, can't speak for Glitch) much more ethical and supportive production houses, and Far Fetched is coming along at some point, too

Viv may never flame out the way people might be hoping she will. It might not be a big explosive downfall that gets someone to do a two hour YouTube expose that causes general awareness of the whole mess of stuff around Spindle. But I think there are enough signs that things are going south to trust that she's not going to make anything that's a classic, she's not going to be respected in the industry and she's not going to be able to keep it up forever

People keep comparing her to Butch Hartman but I kinda feel she might end up more like RWBY/Rooster Teeth did. RWBY started out with this real indie underdog spirit and had talented people on the staff (Monty and Shane, one who died tragically young and the other who left the company) but it all got squandered by the other, more amateur writing. They shared Viv's tendency to engage with criticism poorly (in their case, only responding to the bad faith stuff), they too were way too precious about their characters to give them real flaws as well as having Viv's tendency to let self inserts and faves steal the show, plus the amateurish and bad worldbuilding

I don't know if Rooster Teeth ever crunched and underpaid the way Spindle seems to, but since people often seem to put art before their consideration of whether it was made ethically, I think that will ultimately be Viv's downfall. Some of her fanbase are happy to ignore allegations of credit issue, crunch and embarassingly low wages so long as they get their demon show. But if their demon show keeps getting worse and worse (and taking longer and longer to come out), their attention will probably wander elsewhere, which has already started to happen

Combine that with anything that comes out as a result of NDAs expiring and my bet is Spindle will face consequences mostly in the form of more and more fans just quietly turning away from their show and them bleeding money more and more until it's unsustainable to hope to make all four seasons of HB unless the venture becomes wholly outsourced. Same with Hazbin - it might get renewed for more seasons but that doesn't mean those seasons will be good. The love and optimism people had towards Viv's work is just gone now. And if we're being real she's been trying to coast on goodwill from the HH pilot for a long time now

All important things to keep in mind. Thanks for this, Anon.

I think a lot of people are counting on this big, dramatic downfall of Vivziepop and for HH to be cancelled and then none of us have to hear about her ever again -- which isn't impossible, nothing's impossible -- but it's a lot more likely that each round of drama takes something out of her reputation, and eventually down the line she just kind of putters out, replaced by bigger and better shows.

Whether it got 1 season or goes on to have 12, Hazbin's legacy was always pretty safe. Viv's is a lot less certain.

[delimeful]

Really? You don’t find passive aggressive comments, such as your tags, do be impolite?

And how, exactly, is an ask button (which YOU enabled) that is commonly known to be used for requesting stories on Tumblr from writing pages impolite? Are you new to writing Tumblr? What do you think a majority of writers on Tumblr use that ask button for?

I’ve been a follower for a while but I’m pretty dissapointed tbh.

Anonymous asked: I noticed a reply from @/gstash So let me address that as well. No, of course I don’t expect everything immediately and for free, and I initially requested this story over a year ago. I also spent over $50 being subscribed to Lime’s Patreon specifically for this story, but I had to stop due to low finances. I was just trying to check on when it may be up soon, but I felt the response was rather rude.

(the added slash is mine, i didn't want to inadvertently @ anyone else in this debacle lol)

this is gonna be my final word on the matter because im sick of getting home from work to asks like these. anything else is gonna be deleted. feel free to go ahead and use your actual blog to reply instead of anon if you still feel that strongly about it.

i dont think my tags weren't passive aggressive they were just plain statements. no, i don't think it's impolite to express a boundary irt people asking me for updates. your indignation about this reflects on you, not me.

to clarify, badgering me for updates (verbatim: "Could you please please please post chapter 7") isn't impolite, just irritating. it was the decision to send another ask chiding me for my response that was impolite. kind of a dick move, as most involved in the tumblr writing community know. i genuinely feel sorry for the writers you follow if you genuinely only see their ask boxes as an opportunity to pester them.

i'm disappointed too, anon. i hoped that maybe keeping calm and sincerely explaining myself would be enough to prompt you to respond with empathy in kind, but instead you doubled down.

it seems like there's been a misunderstanding in regards to my patreon; there is no tier that ensures a specific chapter of a fic is updated within a specific time frame. that would be a commission, which is explicitly listed as a reward for my $30 tier, because those take a lot more time + energy for me.

my $12 patreon tier offers early access to my writing, and the ability to request future chapters be moved up on my to-do list, through polls + priority continuation requests. i can't guarantee any specific chapter update in a month, and i'll explain why.

currently, i have over 50 total WIP fics being worked on. each month, i get around 25 chapter update requests. even assuming that each chapter is 2k, my usual minimum chapter length, i would have to write 50,000 words every single month. if i had the capability for that kind of regular output, i would be churning out books like stephen king instead of constantly struggling for my usual monthly 10-15k like a chump lol.

in essence, don't subscribe to my patreon for a specific story unless you know the next chapter for it is already up there. which it is, because i eventually got to your request. and it'll eventually be up on the blog for free. and during the months you spent subscribed to my patreon, you received at minimum tens of thousands of words of content.

finally, an earnest request: please stop acting like twelve dollars is an exorbitant fee when i'm literally making pennies per word written. like, i could have worked a single 8 hour shift at mcdonalds in texas for minimum wage instead and i would have ended up with $8 more than you paid me for four months of many hours of dedicated work.

(not even a joke: 7.25 x 8 = 58.)

in conclusion, i am a human person with feelings, just like every other writer on this site. please take a moment to remember that when sending asks in the future

[capitalism-and-analytics]

Idk if you ever heard of it, but usually people, who go for minimum wage do it simply because they don't have any other option. You seriously think someone will intentionally choose a job with the least wage? Ofcourse not. And that kind of jobs commonly require a lot of energy and physical effort or sometimes people who work in it have some other kind of work to do like students or mothers, that doesn't allow them to quickly improve their financial situation. Do you live in a world, where none of that exists?

I'm assuming this is in response of another post, so apologies, if I am missing some context, but I will still aim to answer your post/question.

"You seriously think someone will intentionally choose a job with the least wage?"

Yes, but not for the wage, they are choosing it for the other characteristics of minimum wage jobs: flexible scheduling, part-time hours, low or minimal qualifications, culture, development of skills/networking, and/or available in most areas. People commonly choose lesser paying jobs over higher-paying jobs for a plethora of reasons, at all income levels.

"...And that kind of jobs commonly require a lot of energy and physical effort..."

Relative to what? If you are comparing them to office jobs, then sure, but most minimum wage jobs aren't nearly as physically exhausting as you are trying to portray them.

"...in it have some other kind of work to do like students or mothers, that doesn't allow them to quickly improve their financial situation..."

First off, being a student is literally the worst example of someone being unable to quickly improve their financial situation. FYI, you don't need to graduate to be able to move away from minimum wage.

Second off, as much as being a parent is an appeal of emotions, that doesn't change the fact that outside obligations exist for everyone and hold no influence to the value of one's labor, except when improving one's qualifications.

The same way an accountant can't charge more for being a father, a cashier shouldn't expect more either.

"Do you live in a world, where none of that exists?"

I live in the same world as you. The difference though is that I try to look at the world critically and try to avoid letting myself being misled with blatant exaggeration and irrelevant appeals of emotion.

Many minimum wage jobs are tiring and physically taxing, but they are not as inhumane or physically draining as you claim.

The knowledge and skill barrier for escaping minimum wage is absurdly low. Life is a journey, it is okay to progress incrementally. People are too busy focused on the final destination without considering all the potential stops they can take along the way.

To be clear, I'm not saying we can't aim for a better world or better society, I am just saying we need to direct our efforts appropriately. In this case, it isn't just employers being greedy and selfish, it is society as a whole. Most consumers consider price to be the leading indicator for making their purchase decisions and changing minimum wage laws isn't going to change that belief.

PS: Not that it should matter, but I was a full-time dishwasher at a large buffet for the first two years of college (also as a full-time student). I then went on to work 60-80 hours per week for the first 2-3 years after graduation (70-90 if you count travel time). In both cases, I never stopped upskilling myself outside of work. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is not nearly as "bad" as you are trying to portray. Additionally, it has nothing to do with "I did it, so they should have to as well" and more to do with "It was my choice, therefore my responsibility."

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

INB4: "What about Jane Doe who has twelve chronic illnesses, three physical disabilities, four kids, and their husband recently got hit by a bus?"

I'm referring to the common scenario that describes 99% of people, not the 1% edge case scenario. For those 1% edge case scenarios, I'm more than happy to discuss alternative solutions, but that should define the exception, not the rule itself.

[honeybeeofficial]

okay I know your post was about how annoying it is when people make comments about selling your craft and while I certainly can’t speak for other people I would spend mmmmh I’d say $450 on horseshoe crab bag. I have $450 in my bank account right now and would use it to buy a horseshoe crab shaped bag.

This illustrates another piece of the issue that maybe I didn't fully spell out in my post about how badly people underestimate the cost of handmade goods– which is that even when a non-crafter hears "handmade crafts are expensive," they still often don't really grasp the scale we're talking about.

When the same friend I mentioned in the original post found out that I handmade the journal I carry around, he asked if he could pay me to make him one. He said he would happily pay $15–20 for a good journal. I laughed and told him that the labor involved would make it a lot more expensive than that, and he went "oh, like… 30–40? Yeah, that might be more than I'd want to spend." …The actual cost for that journal would likely be around $80–100.

What makes me think you didn't fully comprehend my original post is that in that post, I gave a rough estimated overview of what the cost would be. I said that if I'm charging what my labor is actually worth, $615 is the bare minimum for that item, and that it would likely be more.

After updating my math and factoring in things like packaging + shipping, the "fair price" for a horseshoe crab bag comes out to $780 USD. That's with me charging $25/hr, which is less than I make at my actual job even though leatherworking is more physically taxing. I made a post about how commissions would work if anyone actually wanted to spend that much.

I'm not mad at you, anon (nor am I mad at the friend I've mentioned), but it's clear to me that the original point about how expensive handmade goods are didn't really click for you. Fast fashion and mass industrial production have really degraded our sense of how much things are actually worth, because you can get just about anything almost instantly for a tiny fraction of what it would take an individual to produce.

For the same reason, I've ruled out ever taking my graphic design career in a freelance direction– anytime I've taken a freelance project, or considered it, I get to the point where I calculate what to charge and I just wince and shy away from the project entirely… because I have a gut feeling that something like a logo "should" cost around $100–200… but when I do the math for my time, I would actually have to charge $600–1000 (for a logo! Just a logo!), and I'm just mentally incapable of enforcing that for myself day in and day out to make a living wage.

If you have 5–10 minutes, I'd recommend this exercise to anyone:

Think of a project or task you've done lately. Pick something with measurable start and end points, such as an art project, folding laundry, washing the dishes, writing an essay, etc.

How much do you think you would pay someone else to do that task for you? Write that down. This is "A."

How long did that task take you to do? Write that down (in # of hours). This is "B." Approximate number is fine.

Did that task require any special tools? What about materials? Even basic things like sponges, paint, etc. Roughly estimate the cost of all the tools and materials you used. Because you'd likely get multiple uses out of most tools/materials, divide that number by 5. Write down the new number; this is "C."

What do you think is a fair minimum wage for your area? Many people have been fighting for $15/hr for a long time, but arguably this is still too low. If you're not sure, use $15/hr as a baseline. Write that down. This is "D."

Multiply B by D. Add C. This new number is "E."

How close is E to A? I'd be willing to bet that E is quite a bit higher than A. Remember, the hourly wage you used to calculate this might not even reflect what this work is actually worth. Does this give you a better idea of what you would actually need to pay someone to do that task for you?

Not all work is quantifiable in this way, and modern technology does allow for processes to be combined and optimized in ways that won't be reflected in your process. For example, buying a single bagel would not cost $60, because a bagel shop can make lots of bagels at the same time, using the same materials and equipment. But this absolutely does apply to things like hiring someone to clean your house, do your homework, or– of course– create handmade crafts.

[pathetic-gamer]

something about that "most expensive item of clothing" poll (and, in particular, the post responding to the many tags about $100‐$200 clothes) has been bugging me, and I finally figured out what it is:

you are on the Reject Fast Fashion Buy Sustainable Clothing And Support Small Craftspeople To The Best Of Your Ability website. how much do you think clothing costs? do you not understand the value of labor?

Obviously big fashion labels will mark up their goods to turn a huge profit (basically all labels will), but when you're looking at ethical/sustainable new clothing, you'll see the same prices for similar items. what you need to understand is that the company making those products is turning significantly less profit than the ~designer~ brand. you cannot avoid the higher costs!! growing the fiber takes labor and resources! manufacturing the textiles takes labor and materials! designing and patterning the garments takes labor and skill! sewing the garments take labor and skill and materials! the workers at *every single step* need to be paid a living wage, and all of the processes in general - from growing the fiber to dyeing the textile - take longer and cost more than the industry standard demands. It makes the clothes expensive!!

one of the biggest problems with fast fashion imo is that the obscene level of exploitation of people and resources has allowed giant corporations to drive prices so fucking low that no one understands the value of their *own* labor, let alone the labor of a seamstress they can't see in a factory they've never heard of getting paid 5 cents an hour to work her fingers to the bone finishing a $20 t-shirt.

Bernadette Banner explained once the reason she doesn't take commissions or sew clothing for other people: To use the materials she uses (high quality natural fibers) plus the hours and hours and hours of labor at a living wage, and then a small mark-up to turn any kind of profit, each piece would cost literally thousands of dollars. This shit is fucking expensive.

so anyway. yes, $400 is a lot of money for a pair of sweatpants, but for people who are interested in supporting sustainable fashion brands and who have the means to do so, $100-$200 is beyond reasonable for basically any given item, and the people who buy those clothes certainly aren't your enemy for it.

[seraphbliss]

feb 1st.

my first real blog here! neat :3

as of right now, this account is sterile and lacking all of the fun context needed for silly future shitposts. fixing that by explaining my week.

sunday was my most recent work shift. it's slow szn and i barely get hours. it's not really okay because wages are low too, but at the very least, i like my coworkers. most of them. i work today in about 4.5 hrs, but it would've been abt 2 if i hadn't swapped w/ someone. i only did it because i feel the need to prove myself reliable, since i turned down the same girl 2x already. at work, i carry around a pumpkin kitty plushie.

monday, i watched the stepford wives (2004). me and my friend meant to watch (1975) but it was a treat in and of itself. very on the nose feminist theory mostly and pretty progressive for a mid 2000s film. did not like the monologues, but claire's said a Lot about patriarchy. without reading into the gender essentialism littered throughout, she just wanted to stand at the top of her career with her husband and not have to compartmentalize all the time. to "be the man" is to lead a lonely, emotionally absent life and she didn't want that. she wanted to feel, and to run her world. people of all genders should be able to do that! claire just went about it so terribly wrong bless her heart. also adored nicole kidman with that short cut—an absolutely stunning woman. i also started teaching myself trad art again. i'll eventually take more pictures of my life with my digicam (that aren't obnoxious aurafarming self portraits). expect personal pics soon.

tuesday began my last semester of high school. i have no complaints. my teachers are fine, i get along with my classmates, the courses don't seem hard (little worried about math. never my strong suit.), and i get to leave early. the guy i used to fawn over in august was really excited to tell me about his crush. laughing at disappointment is great but you've still got to deal with your feelings.

wednesday, i listened to marry me by kanii. the temptations haunt me. you want me; girl, don't i know?

i opened my playlist in a bottle from 2024 on thursday. the song for my favorite person was from deathconsciousness and the song i planned to kiss someone to was strawberry cream by oeil. it's actually ridiculous how much changed within a year, often within the span of a week. the note i left read: i <3 u hope ur good. that night i had rice, tempura shrimp, and kimchi while i worked on finishing designing a magazine.

yesterday, i set up this blog and mentally prepared to be at home alone for another 2-3 months. i called up a friend to watch the substance (2024) together. i didn't have any expectations for this movie bcs i never saw any trailers, and i watched it terribly late. this was just evil freaky friday or any other bodyswap trope. it didn't explore the concept in any new way and was sooooo long for it not to, which was really disappointing. i found myself questioning why sue and elizabeth were at odds w/ each other so intensely from the start if "they are one." like shouldn't their motivations align, and they, like, find it in their best interest to keep each other alive and well? i understand satire and whatnot and i get the message (beauty standards bad. Okay.) but i just don't think this film really had anything important to say. the body horror was amazing and then progressively got worse and tacky and excessive and it made me sad bcs some of the scenes were especially uncomfortable. i dunno, this movie just wasn't doing it for me.

today, all is not lost. i'll play animal crossing with my friends, clean my room a bit, and close at work even though i hate closing on saturdays.

[eternitas]

Damn Lolo, that’s so much money gave for the sushi and tip. How much do you make?

(Ooooh! This is such an interesting question and I should make an official chart for it one day, but for now no art, sorry. I am also bad with numbers, I am that ''it's one banana michael, how much could it cost? 10$?" quote. I know how much I THINK is expensive when grocery shopping, but when it comes to wages? Not so easy.)

"Okay first of all? Don't call me that. Second: I am not supposed to talk about our wages. Third: it's around 350K a year, which is an outrage, but what do you expect in an organisation run by Mammon?

It can vary though. See, a lot of factors count into how the price is calculated. How many people are targeted? What is their threat level? Is it a mission that will take longer time? What team compilation needs to be made? All these things are calculated by the boss and Mammon, and then brought to the client who can take the offer or scram.

We Varia members then get payed on two different paytypes. The Flat Payrate and the Hourly Payrate.

An Hourly Payrate- well it's in the name. We count the hours we need for the mission and get payed a set hourly rate which depends on Mission rank. That's why higher ranks are usually send for really easy missions when it can be helped, because it wouldn't take as long as for someone with a lower rank.

The FLAT Payrate on the other hand is one set amount of pay for the entirety of the mission. It doesnt matter if the mission is done in 15 minutes, multiple hours or even a stake out with multiple days, the payment you get stays the same.

Mammon does that to minimize our wages and make sure most money can be pocketed by him and the other officers. While the boss SOMETIMES gets invovled and tells him to cut it out, he also doesnt particularly care and Captain Squalo cant be fucking bothered to always tripple check the books.

Sometimes the Clouds (and with "Clouds" I mean Maki) find some disparency in the archived reports and finance documents which is really satisfying, because it always ends up in Mammon getting grilled, but the Clouds are already busy as they are.

Aside of that whole ordeal-- I just don't have anything to spend money on so it kind piles up. People like Sergey who have so many social contacts, they constantly spoil with presents, will run low, even with that payment and Jaque puts most of his money back into the black community, but otherwise? What is there to put all this money to?

For the job we do and our Rank, its absolutely abysmally low money, especially compared to the entry wages the grunts get as an incentive to join, but its also not exactly little money to starve on. Especially if you consider that higher ranks get all sorts of accomondations like living, food, travel, gear repair and uniform maintenance expanses being taken care of."

[mercury-waters]

re: the 'socialist hopecore' post i made that has majorly broken containment and is now probs the most popular post i have made on any platform in my entire life;

there's basically two kinds of commenters on the post, one person who is like 'ugh i know it's so easy to fix but america will NEVER do it' and another person who is like 'lol u know how to fix this? *guillotine gif*'

and listen, my support for guillotines aside, not enough people know This One Weird Trick That Wealth Hoarders Hate!

unionize your fucking workplace.

Almost every horrible problem that US has can be traced directly or indirectly to the face that unions have never been as entrenched here as they were in some other countries. Union saturation got to like, 35% here, and was intentionally busted by the wealth in the 70s and 80s, and has never been in the double-digits since. You remember those cool years where the tax on big corporations was really high and a single good job could pay for a house and feeding the family? That was coincidentally the same time a lot of people were unionized and could collectively bargain for higher wages and better pay.

Today, even a lot of the standard benefits that union workers won, like the 8hr day, are nearly completely done away with. I work in an office, and I have a nine-hour day with an unpaid lunch. (And an hour commute each way!) That shit's gonna keep going if unions don't grow and stop taking garbage from bosses.

Unionizing is hard, don't get me wrong. But you have way more power at your workplace, with your coworkers, than you do at the ballot box or with your consumer choices. So here's a place to start:

Figure out who unionizes your industry. If you're in logistics and some other kinds of blue-collar work, there's the Teamsters. If you're in a creative field, there's IATSE. If you're in service work, there's Unite Here, SEIU, and UFCW. Some unions organize across industries (UAW unionizes auto workers and grad students, IBEW unionizes electricians and some coffee shops). There's almost certainly a union for your area of work, and if there isn't, you still have options.

Stop letting your coworkers justify to themselves the bullshit they put up with. If your coworker complains about PTO getting rejected, pay being low, unsupportive managers; support their complaints and don't just let them say stuff like "it is what it is." When they say something like that, you say, "it doesn't have to be." You don't need to talk about unionizing right away -- it's important to get your coworkers first to the place where they recognize that they deserve more and shouldn't have to put up with garbage.

Figure out what common complaints your coworkers have. Maybe your company pays you $20/hr when similar roles elsewhere start pay at $22. Maybe you're being artificially kept at 36 hours a week so they don't have to give you full-time benefits. Maybe your manager plays favorites on the schedule and you never have any consistency. If there's a consensus among your coworkers that there's a couple things that they all agree would make the job better, take note of those. These can be the basis of your demands for a contract later, and you can use that to convince your coworkers it's worth it to fight. (Don't forget, things like safety issues can be really unifying too. I once worked for a catering company where we were all ready to riot just to get a functioning chair dolly.)

Get to know a couple people outside of work. Meet up with a coworker or two that seem serious about wanting better. This is a good place to bring up the idea of unions for the first time. It's best to talk about unions in explicit detail outside the workplace -- retaliating against you for talking about unions is illegal, but bosses have a lot of tools to get away with it anyway.

If you have a solid core of people that are serious about changing things and are interested in unionizing, reach out to a union that handles your industry or a closely related industry. You can even reach out to several. They'll have more information for you and can support you fighting to unionize.

A lot of the time, changing the world feels like trying to swim upstream. Winning tiny defensive victories in an onslaught of powerful people making things worse. Unionizing, and using your union politically, is a different thing entirely. When you vote for people and ideas you support, you're wielding a baseball bat. When you unionize and use your labor power, you're wielding a goddamn rocket launcher.

Go forth, unionize, and change the world!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dave Jamieson at HuffPost:

A growing number of liberal states have passed paid sick leave laws in recent years, assuring workers get paid time off to care for themselves or their loved ones when they’re ill. Now some conservative states might be getting in on the act, too. Campaigns in Nebraska, Missouri and Alaska have secured enough signatures to put sick leave measures on their ballots this November. If voters approve them, the laws would let workers start accruing one hour of paid sick time for every 30 they work, capped at 56 hours per year at large employers and 40 at small ones.

More than a dozen states have similar mandates on their books, according to A Better Balance, a nonprofit advocate for fair and supportive workplaces. But none of those states are as red as Nebraska, Missouri or Alaska, all of which former President Donald Trump won handily in 2016 and 2020. If the ballot measures succeed, it would demonstrate just how popular paid sick days are among the general public. “What we’ve realized in talking to thousands of Nebraskans is that this is a really commonsense issue,” said Jo Giles, director of the Women’s Fund of Omaha, one of the advocacy groups backing the initiative in Nebraska. “Most people have been sick at some point in their working lives and have needed to take time off.” Giles said the typical voter sympathizes with someone who has to choose between a day’s pay and taking care of a child who’s home sick from school. The campaign, called Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans, includes small-business owners who haven’t balked at the idea of a new mandate, she added.

The U.S. is an outlier among wealthy countries in not guaranteeing workers sick leave or other paid time off. The lack of a federal mandate means employers don’t have to offer any paid time off unless there is a state or local ordinance dictating otherwise. (The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 guarantees extended leave under certain circumstances, but it doesn’t have to be compensated.) About 80% of workers have access to paid sick days, meaning 1 in 5 don’t, according to estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And those who lack them fall disproportionately near the low end of the pay scale: Only 40% of workers in the bottom decile of wages can call out sick and still get paid.

[...] Polling shows that voters tend to really like the idea of requiring employers to provide workers with paid leave and that support for the policy tends to cross party lines, much like boosting the minimum wage. A majority of states, including some red ones, now mandate a higher minimum wage than the federal level of $7.25 per hour, thanks in large part to statewide referendums. This year’s sick leave initiatives in Missouri and Alaska pair the proposals with minimum wage hikes that would send the state rates to $15 per hour within a few years. The current state rates are $12.30 in Missouri and $11.73 in Alaska. Using ballot measures makes a lot of sense for paid leave advocates since the strategy provides a way around Republican-dominated statehouses that won’t advance paid leave legislation. Such proposals have fared well when put directly to voters in other states, though not all states allow referendums.

A few states will have paid sick leave ballot measures this fall to vote on, such as Missouri and Nebraska.

[separatist-apologist]

Totally agree that nonprofit work is not really all it’s cracked up to be. I’m currently working in a position that college me would have thought was my dream job, and despite fully believing in the mission, the office politics and sexism can really drain away all enthusiasm for the work.

Fully understand how hard it is to walk away but I’m so glad you found another exciting opportunity. You deserve all the best and I hope this new job is everything you want. Also hope you have some time to decompress before you have to start! ❤️

Working for non-profits is sold to passionate, bright-eyed grads as working for a cause. They don't mention that the cause is capitalism dressed up like social justice. I don't regret my time at one, but I wish I would have known what I was getting myself into. Not that for-profits are any better, but they're honest, at least. Non-profits operate on shoe-string budgets and are designed to suck as much out of underpaid people (often who need the job in order to gain licensure, which they take advantage of) and then spit them back out, burned out and disillusioned while they continue the cycle.

It used to frustrate me that we spoke so often about ending cycles of violence for the community, when the community made up the non-profits staff to begin with. We could start ending those cycles IN our organization and instead upper leadership (who makes over 6 figures) created the most abusive atmosphere. On paper we'll say we respect transfolks, in the office people are endlessly misgendered and there is no accountability because its the CFO/CEO who are constantly doing it.

I thought becoming a manager would make me a more effective advocate for my staff and instead I sat in meetings where our CEO would tell us that she wanted our staff members to be scared and feel like they were being watched 24/7. I sat in board meetings where our lowest paid staff member (who was not making a living wage even in the Midwest where cost of living is low) was told she was greedy for wanting more staff members to help her fulfill a grant that tripled her caseload.

I think I did good things during my time here- I negotiated pay raises for my part time staff who were making $13 an hour when I started when both the fastfood place across the street AND the gas station advertised paying their staff more for a job that was a lot less traumatizing.

I expanded our programming and brought us into the vastly underserved, rural parts of the state where I grew up. And I kept my department consistently fully staffed by creating a culture in which (I hope) people felt respected and valued.

I still believe in the mission. I still think the work is important, necessary, and worthwhile. And I would never advocate for anyone to work in these places unless they absolutely had to. My advice will always be to stay just as long as you have to, and prioritize yourself first. Don't answer the phone when you're off work, don't take it home, don't let them put their deficits on you because they'll take and take and take and it'll just never be enough.

[mcalhenwrites]

I am still alive but have no spoons to directly reply to anyone right now. I'm working on stuff with roommate and therapy, but... unless the money situation improves, my life won't. There are no good days to return to. The problem is, I have a collective 39 years that have added to nothing. And I have still tried to be optimistic. To work through the chronic pain to write, work, and be there for my friends when they need me. (But it all gets harder the more time that passes.) When people still say I'm a good friend, I'm baffled. I don't see it. My writing isn't working out. I need it to, or I will not survive financially, and it just seems a little cruel to ask me to hold out and hold out for something that's never going to happen - all so I can die the hardest possible way in the end, bc I fought like hell to still be at the bottom. I'm not currently suicidal, but I'm pretty much just going day-by-day, trying to find improvements and realizing it all comes down to the same issue: I have no money. And the issue isn't "fix health to work more at a job that isn't writing" - I can manage fibromyalgia and IBS, and the latter costs money to obtain the correct food to do so. I qualify for medicaid; I don't qualify for food assistance now that I work a job! I quit crochet and people threw a tantrum, and if you want to see my self-defensive "I CANNOT DO THIS AND WILL NOT AND FUCK OFF" as a tantrum... go ahead. I do not give a fuck. I love writing. I did it even when I knew it was awful, bc I figured the more I did it, the more I would improve. I worked hard. It just isn't good enough for the world. That's okay. I have always been a loser at everything. Everything ties back to writing: I need to do it for my comfort and therapy. I want my stories out there bc I want to be able to offer other people that comfort. Too many of us come from abusive households, and some of us had it shape our mental health and our sexualities. I need to publish to make money to survive, bc I can write while bedridden. I can write while most of my body is sore and my eyes are half-closed and I'm bored but unable to play games or read or clean or anything else due to physical pain/exhaustion. (And yes, there are times writing is also impossible, and I'm crying in bed bc of the pain intensity levels.) Unless you have a chronic pain issue coupled with comorbidities, I don't want your lectures or assumptions. I don't want to hear that there is "help" while I watched the system try to push my autistic brother into a goodwill job that falls below min wage, and when he wasn't able to handle the responsibilities, they've basically refused to help him otherwise. Even though my brother is capable of many things, he is "disabled" in the system, and they want to insert him into a fixed situation they put all disabled people. I'm doing better than him financially, but when my parents go, he has no one. And I can't be that person, ever. I can't even get my dog back right now. I can barely afford to visit him, but I'm going to anyway soon bc I need to hug him or I really will fucking off myself. I need a lot of support to get my writing off the ground, and I'm never going to deserve it. If I did, it would have happened by now. My roommate wants me to keep trying, but... I don't have hope it'll work out. Right now, I'm so overworked I can barely get any writing done. And I'm working about 15 hours a week. At a low-demand job where I sit most of the time, and cleaning maybe takes 40 minutes at its WORST. Yeah. I'm pathetic indeed. I can't help but feel that way. And when I give myself a little treat to survive the next day, it's at a steep cost to my future. I can buy a book and go to the library, but at the end of the day, that's all time and money that should have been spent on work and saving. Life is punishing, and I just don't know if I can keep being punished. I'm not even this kind of masochist lol

[drill-teeth]

To every company saying or has said “people just don’t want to work”, go fuck yourselves.

Plenty of people do want to work. I believe people by nature are social and kind. And people who can’t or don’t want to do physical labor aren’t lazy. They’re not bad people. They’re not “not contributing to society”.

This society fucking sucks especially when it comes to work. Especially low wage work. Companies will make candidates go through a cumbersome application process, once you get hired you usually have to have a shit ton of availability and agree to lots of hours (and do overtime more than you think so many places are understaffed), the conditions at most low wage jobs are exhausting and demanding mentally and physically, and then you finally get to your pay period and the amount you earned isn’t enough to make a single rent payment. It’s bullshit.

So many low wage jobs are essential by the way. It’s fast food work. Retail work. Grocery store work. Etc etc etc. Services people rely on every day and take for granted. Low wage employees are treated like shit by entitled customers and entitled management and are expected to give up so much of their mental and physical health for their job and aren’t given enough money to take care of themselves in return.

And you can say “well if you get some roommates you can find a place and make it work if everyone has a job” all you want, but that’s not the point. The point is that this society loves to say “you can achieve your dreams if you just work hard and earn it”. And that’s a lie. People are manipulated into believing the value of their life is tied to their ability to work. It almost doesn’t matter if you have a roommate if you still have to work a 40 hour work week plus overtime at a job that is so exhausting on your mind and body that you go to bed in pain and cry in the morning before work.

Plenty of people want to work. They just also want to live. They don’t want their job to kill them.

And I know sometimes you gotta play the capitalist game. I know sometimes you have to suck it up and go to work to take care of your loved ones because that’s how this society operates. I know sometimes you just have to.

But the point is that you shouldn’t have to. This society could be better. Treat its workers better. Not kill them. And we should put the pressure on companies as much as possible for a better future because THEY need US. Not the other way around.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Grow Up

So I've been seeing a lot of people commenting as a reply to me about "boo hoo 40 hr work week too long" and I want to throat punch people.

First and foremost, we live in a system where you work for IOU's. That IOU is Money. Let me explain WHY you work for IOU's today.

We live in a society now where there are far more people and far more connections in today's world. Combine that with modern technology and you have more than a few issues when it comes to archaic trade and barter. We no longer live in a world where you can just farm and trade wheat for a chair and table. You can't just trade a few gems for tools. That world is LONG since past. And even if it had not, we'd be babysitting a large chunk of society.

It's a pretty basic reason why too. Only so many people can farm. Moreover, there are SO many people that have ZERO real world skills and certainly no trade skills. IE: A lot of you produce nothing of ACTUAL tangible value. And while you might be insulted by that, it's the truth. If you create content online, you do not create tangible value. You might entertain people or make them happy but that's it. It's a feeling. You create a feeling. But in the broader scheme of things what you do does not have tangible effects on the world.

And even if I look at this from a philosophical bleeding heart point of view of "UwU well actually feelings are tangible" I'd be lying. We have tried so fucking hard to make everyone, in every way feel special. Thing is? There are jobs out there that are far more important than some of the others out there. That's just a fact. (Moderate clarification here. If you are a content creator or a job that does not produce tangible value that doesn't imply your job or whatever it is has no worth. As I'm sure that will be the take away. That's not what I mean. Value vs Tangible Value are not the same. Take that however you will.)

Here is the other thing that pisses me off though. This bitching and moaning about 40-hr work weeks. Maybe you are too young to know this but back in the day work weeks were MUCH longer. This until Mr. Ford decided that he wanted to make the work week shorter for his company. He did this while not reducing the pay or benefits of the people working for him. And people might say, "Well I should be able to work LESS hours today because I'm lazy and can't time manage". I'm sorry but that's not my fault.

And before I get the "Wage slave" or "minimum wage" bullshit I'll go ahead and address that next.

Wage Slavery is what you would refer to someone who is BOUND to their job and can't get another job. Effectively an actual slave. In the US and most Western Nations you always have the ability to either get a new job, or move up in your current job. Or worst case, to work more than one job. Something that people have done for actual years prior to now. You existing in today's world does not mean that you get things handed to you on a silver platter. And what's more, you have the ability to work for what you see as what you are worth. The issue? Most of you value your work far more than it's actually worth. Because we live in several generations of entitled shits that are lazy and demand the world cater to them.

And I refuse to keep sugar coating this. Life isn't fair. It will NEVER be fair. Now to address minimum wage. Minimum Wage is now and always has been for low skill jobs. Jobs that you can get in High School or right afterwards while you are still figuring things out. M.W. is not meant to be lived off of. And this idea that "Well uhm akchewally it used to be the min needed to live well off of". No it didn't. Businesses that do well, and need people that are educated or experienced will pay you more to work for them. Like take Walmart for instance. They currently pay 13$ an hour starting. I think with POTENTIALLY only being cart pushers. And that might not even be the case because they may actually get the 13$. And while I hear you WHINE like a child that it's not enough money to live off of; You'd be wrong.

Well partly wrong. Fact is politicians on both sides at least in the US and the current sitting president have DECIMATED the economy. However if you look to California what you will see is what the disgusting nature of the Democrats looks like. What do I mean.

That would be this. Here is the kicker though. You know who got a pass on this bill? Panera. Do you know why? Because they donated 150k to his campaign. This bill also ended up costing over 10k, workers because people, mostly the ones that complain about all of this stuff don't understand jack shit about economics. Not shocked by this because most of you are lazy Marxist FUCKS. You think people should be slaves to YOU and what you want. You demand other peoples labor as if it's YOUR right. It's not. And the Gov pushing for higher wages don't make people's lives better. It makes them worse.

Because it puts the bar for starting a small business so fucking high that it's near impossible to do. All it would do is create a system in which only the exceptionally rich are able to start businesses. IE: Corporatism. Wages being controlled by the state more or less makes it so that businesses will ONLY hire the VERY best people. No interns. No way to come in and learn. You would be a burden on their system when all they are trying to do is pay to run their business.

Stop working Min-Wage jobs. Start looking for higher paying jobs or go into jobs with the intent to move upward in those jobs. Take on more responsibilities. Work later hours if you have to. Stop relying on big daddy gov to do everything for you. They are not and SHOULD not be your babysitter. You see that they screw up most EVERYTHING and you want them to ruin more shit? Sure hand them more power let's see how that pans out for us. Watch as the rich flee from the country and we end up with less and less jobs in the US. Also let me address one last thing. 40 hrs a week is basically nothing. That's 8 hrs a day, out of a total of 24 hrs in a day. Meaning probably 2 days off. But also what is 40 hours a week? 168 hours exist in a week. And most jobs offer vacation time AND benefits. Benefits you would pay much more for if you didn't get it through subsidy of your company. That factors into your wages.

But the reason this post is called GROW UP is because I'm tired of you fucking CHILDREN worshiping systems like Marxism (Communism and Socialism) when if you were ever put under those systems you'd be slaves TO those systems like everyone else. And you are too indoctrinated to realize it. Economics is actually a relatively easy thing to grasp if you start learning about it. Most people don't care to learn about it though. They just want to whine.

Finally the last point I will cover is one I have made posts about on their own. Minimum Wage and Minimum Living Wage are NOT the same thing and never were the same. Minimum wage is the least amount that the USG says a business is allowed to pay you. You a US citizen. (They can pay illegals less but that's not the point of this post......LOOKING AT YOU TYSON) Minimum living wage is a joke of a concept because you can't gauge it. Because no two people have the same amount of bills.

What's more, there's a bigger issue in the fact that rent isn't the same in any two places. Car prices are not identical between same year cars. Phone plans are not created equal. Some people have kids. Some have spouses. Minimum Living Wage is a fucking gimik. Because that number is not only different from person to person but from city to city and from state to state. Legislating it would not just be impossible but it would make our system as a whole crumble.

Because imagine that you decide to move into the most expensive houses that you can, get the most expensive everything else, keep your lights on all day and your water running. Why should your company have to pay for that? They shouldn't. Because that's you taking advantage of them. AND what's even funnier is the fact that they would ONLY hire people in the WORST and cheapest accommodations and avoid hiring people in more expensive places with higher bills. IF by some way it was able to be legislated. Which it can't be.

It takes minimal thought to get through all of what I just went through. VERY little critical thinking is needed to get this far. Sure things back in the day were cheaper and yes you could live off one person's wages. Except the moment that women got equal rights to work and legislation started being pushed to make sure the workforce pushed them into jobs you lost that right. Is this me shitting on women's rights to work? No. This is me making a statement of fact that the west got duped. Effectively, 50% of the population of the US was not being Taxed. Who do you think actually benefited most from women's equal rights to work? The IRS and the USG. We expanded the US workforce from 50% of the population the 100% in the span of a month. The market could not compensate. And frankly speaking with the intake of massive amounts of illegals into the US it STILL can't.

People seem to think that everything "Progressive" is a great idea but they never think through the unintended consequences of pushing certain things. Women can be self sufficient now and that's awesome. Sadly that comes at a cost. The cost being that there aren't enough jobs to go around in some instances, and the fact that prices actually have to go up to compensate for that hit to the market. Prices going up after the 1980's make sense for that reason.

Critical thinking is a skill. And not everything is just "Corporate Greed" or "Sexism" or "Racism". Sometime things are just a result of changes in culture. This is a change that everyone today seems to mostly endorse, so guess what? You will never again be able to live off of one income unless it's over 80k and you pinch pennies. Or unless you make 100k and make sure to invest in things and monitor you money. Or you could live in places with lower living costs, but most of you don't care to do that because you'd rather just bitch until the place you live changes for you.

The real world doesn't work like that. You are not wage slaves. 40 Hours a week isn't long. Kindly get your head out of your asses.

@capitalism-and-analytics Feel free to gloss over this and add anything even if you do or don't agree.