#i block somebody but if someone retweets them then i see their posts anyways in the Lists

[gradelstuff]

If only blocking ppl on twitter meant i won't see that person in my lists anymore too 😔

[centralkvetchmonolith]

The following post is in its entirety a transcription of the images from the post linked to by these words, which images are screenshots of a twitter monologue.

@gravislizard retweets @Avik (a verified account for someone named Avik Roy) saying "I'm very open to thoughtful critiques of the Senate bill from the left. "MILLIONS WILL DIE" is not it."

They react to it with the following 38(?) tweets, which have been formatted into paragraphs for, hopefully, ease of reading: over the last century our shitty politicians fucked up politics so much that people forgot that decisions can have serious consequences. the american people got completely inured to the idea that politics is about tariff disputes and inconveniences. (white, straight, etc.) americans came to believe they have no real problems, that society is a solved problem if only politics would stop. politics!!! BIG eyeroll for THAT shit, folks. a waste of time, ugh! we have to listen to these BUREAUCRATS just talk and talk and talk

meanwhile, we didn't have any civil wars. and we continued to not have any civil wars.

americans don't actually think that mass death is real. this is a fact. they have abstracted life itself. they have abstracted disaster, in fact. because, by and large, we don't die in floods. our children aren't killed by epidemics. the idea that people can die on a large scale is not real to most people. so any form of panic is 'hysteria'.

the most relevant onion article in existence portrayed it thusly:

[screenshot of the Counterpoint half of a Point/Counterpoint article from The Onion, where fictional white man in a suit Bob Sheffer says "No it won't. It just won't. None of that will happen. You're getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine, okay? You're really overreacting. 'This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames even higher'? It won't. 'It will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence'? Not really."]

The problem with the healthcare shit is in fact that millions will die. They were slated to, and then we fixed it. We took a ton of peoples heads off the chopping block and now the GOP is trying to put them back on. There is no nuanced argument and /that is a huge fucking problem/ for us. The problems that we are facing as a society /do not seem realistic/ to the right. They think these things can't happen.

[Note: the following three lines are sarcastic imitations of conservative reactions] Millions dead of preventable disease? Oh come on. Are you even listening to yourself? Look nobody's going to kill you for going into the women's bathroom if you have facial hair. That just doesn't happen. Are you kidding me? We're going to heat up the *entire planet* and cook ourselves? What is this, a comic book?

I...maybe I'm being naive here but I feel like these arguments would have been MUCH easier back when people died en masse constantly. "You remember when the entire city of East York died? 4,300 people all killed by a plague? they say this will be ten times this bad" (no i do not think this is a realistic number for any single mass tragedy but anyway)

Anyway the point is what we're up against is a lot of people who have never faced adversity worse than double billing by the power company. There are a ton of people in this nation who *literally* have never suffered any worse than "I had to argue with a clerk". how do you convince that person "no, no, you don't get it, there are people being shot right now. RIGHT now". how do you convince them that random acts of violence are real? that people are born with horrible illnesses and have *no* solutions?

The entirety of reality has been abstracted in their eyes, reduced to a lot of squabbling and he said she said and who wins or loses. But life ALWAYS goes on. Politics just means the gas prices might go up and your tax return might be smaller.

Politics never means watching your sister die in a hospital bed while the drugs that will save her are locked up in a cabinet 10ft away. Politics never means a person watching their lover bleed out on the pavement while the cops huddle and get their stories straight Politics never means entire cities being swallowed by the ocean.

It took us less than a century to forget, culturally, that bad things are real and that we have to work to prevent them. That's WHY Americans are so quick to blame black people for their own deaths, addicts for their suffering, queer people for persecution. Because they ALWAYS see it as "everything's fine for me and everyone I know, i've never seen any of this. YOU must be doing SOMETHING"

It's not where these prejudices started but it's why they're so easy to keep alive. Keep all this in mind before you tell somebody "but if we don't fix this then people will DIE." they literally don't believe that's possible. death isn't real to americans. Death is something that happens to other people, or happens when you're old.

I don't have a solution. I'm sorry. But you should at least understand the scope of the problem, why we keep failing to sway people. This applies to so many problems - the "i don't see it so it can't be THAT common" phenomenon. I've still never seen a catcall but every woman I've talked to swears to me they're regular occurances. It was so hard to accept this. A lot of gay people who live in gay-friendly cities don't think homophobic violence is real.

It's just so easy to become convinced that this shit only happens in movies and to other people in other places

[localteaparty-blog]

Dear creative people,

Dear creative people,

Run.

Please do it right now. No no I am not asking you to do the half/quarter/peg marathon and all like how your million facebook friends are doing all the time, effortlessly collecting badges while you urgently scroll past their feed lest you feel even more shitty. Already nothing is happening in your life. On top of this, seeing your friends do achievements like this means 1.5 ton pressure on blood vessels only. I am telling you to you run away from here. Go away from social media. Do not even attempt to see or engage with other people about your work.

Realise this. Nobody in your social network is interested in giving you constructive feedback. Constructive.ROFL. No chance. Every single nonsense fellow out here is only here to point out what is wrong with your work. Agreed boss, you come to social media to get instant gratification. But those days are over. All Youtube comments have become verified accounts. The only people who will say nice things about your work are your close friends. But they are your friends and they will anyway say nice things to you.

So run.

Run because there is only one kind person waiting online for you. The whiny nitpicker who will consume your work with the sole intention of hating it and write whiny articles that start with 'Why I have a problem with so and so'. As if you went and asked them. Arey they have a problem means what to do? I also have wheezing problem. Am I writing blogposts about it? No na? Oh wait.

Simply coming online and spewing hatred on other people's work. And that too it is not some time-pass hate articles. These are proper articles commissioned by idioters who pay just to hate your work. So while you are slogging your backside and underside off begging and doing backflips just to get one opportunity to showcase your talent, there are people who get paid to hate your work. So remember that. And run.

Boss there are 50-year olds bullying 20-year olds straight out of college for some work they put online, without even realizing how much mental trauma such things cause.

Best is the whiny nitpicker will attempt to criticize anything and 'review' everything. First of all such things are not reviews. It is simply a running commentary, like how my grandmother used to give while watching India West Indies Test match without even understanding anything about cricket.

These are the kind of people who will go to a restaurant and comment on food like 'lol this noodles has no coconut. We are in 21st century and yet our chefs do not have the balls to push the envelope and try new things. Tch tch tch.' Bloody nonsense. Ask them if they are qualified to give opinion about it, their answer - they consume food, so they can talk about the chefs. Besh.

So run.

Especially you, story-tellers. The entire burden of solving all societal problems and cultural issues has been successfully taken off politicians or their own families and placed on your shoulders. Because you see, since you are influencing the society with your stories, you must always be 100% accurate in portraying humans, animals, bacteria, dung, solar system etc. Boss they are asking stupid questions like 'If you take that left Anna Nagar wont come, what bullshit story telling is this?' What?! One creative liberty you take and they come crawling out of the burrows crying 'How can you tell a story like this?' Your story. You tell however the cow you want to tell.

And you don't pay any attention to these nitpickers ok? I know these fellows. These fellows will shout in ALL CAPS IN FACEBOOK saying your story or video is perpetuating all kinds of social inequality while they sit at home and buy phones made in China by child labourers. 'What to do yaar? The phone has fantabulous features and it was a steal!' These are the same people who will write long long posts about how your story is problematic because it 'normalises bad behavior' and then step out to buy Patanjali products making Baba Ramdev, the champion of social equality, richer. 'What to do yaar? The products are soooo good.'

For all the online warriorism they are showing, the only people outside their economic class that they talk to are their maid, driver, and watchman.

If they bleed, it is blood, if you bleed, it is tomato chutney, no?

And snarkiness. Oh man that snarkiness. LOL used to mean that you are happy. Nowadays lol is used only laugh sarcastically at somebody's work. Completely sucked away the joy from those letters. Rascals.

So run.

If you listen to all of this you will go insane. Next time you sit to do something creative all this nonsense will plague your brain. And that is how your talent dies. Self doubt. Why the hell should you go through such torture, just to get a few likes and retweets? Not worth it.

If you tell all this also they will come bawling saying ki 'Boss if you get instant fame online you must also be prepared for instant hate.' Is it? Then you also be prepared for instant block and report for spam, you silly goose.

That is why I am asking you, the creative fellows, to run. And don't look back.

I leave you with my favourite line from Steve Jobs. "They don't get a vote. When Dylan wrote "Shelter from the Storm" he didn't ask people to contribute to the lyrics. Plays don't stop so the playwright can ask the audience what scene they'd like to see next."

As Sorkin advises, if it is someone you respect, take their feedback. If not, dumbo@dumbo.com doesn't know what he is talking about. Ignore.

Stay honest to your art. Stay honest to yourself. That's all that matters.

Now, run.

Yours angrily,