#gosh i hate being serious & not goofy & exuberant on the internet

[storybookprincess]

I agree with you so much, one girl on Instagram just said “I don’t wear makeup” that’s it, that’s it, no follow up insults, nothing and yet she was still treated like a pick me and got a bunch of “ooooooh quirky 🙄🙄” or “it’s always the ugly bitches” responses. It was painful to see.

i’ve seen similar things & i think it mostly just boils down to the fact that the social internet is where nuance goes to die

the original criticism of the “not like other girls” mentality does have merit. it’s basically just an identification of a common form of internalized misogyny—lumping all other young women into a shallow monolith with little to no differentiation or depth & identifying yourself as one of the few girls with any sort of complexity or value is indeed a shitty, misogynistic, and self-aggrandizing paradigm. but instead of actually analyzing why statements like “i’m not like other girls bc i don’t waste time doing my hair. i read books instead 🙄” are harmful & coming to that conclusion, the entire thing gets flattened into “a young women saying she struggles to fit in is bad & worthy of scorn!!!!” we’ve completely lost the plot by that point. we don’t actually understand why the “not like other girls” mentality is a problem, so we can’t determine when or if any sort of criticism of a similar sounding sentiment is warranted.

on a similar note, i saw a creator i follow online draw some fire for selling pride flag merch back in june. they got a pretty hostile anon along the lines of “i really hope you’re donating the proceeds you get for that merch to give back to the communities you’re profiting from,” to which the person was like, “i’m a queer small business owner. i’m giving back to the queer community by making sure i can pay my bills this month.”

more or less, the person who sent this anon had clearly seen criticisms of big corporations, like disney, selling pride merch & then pocketing the profits, which are fully warranted. but instead of stopping to think about why that’s actually a problem, they flattened the entire thing to “anyone who sells something with a rainbow on it must donate the profits!!!!!” there was absolutely no nuance or appreciation that no, a queer small business owner selling some pride merch is not the same thing as a megacorporation engaging in rainbow capitalism.

anyway, sorry you got more than you bargained for in this answer. this is just something that’s been brewing in my mind for a while & i wanted to express it. at the end of the day, i think all of us need to think about, analyze, and understand ideological positions before we just mindlessly adopt them & wield them indiscriminately against others, bc i am getting very very tired 😂