#i wonder if people even consider what the tiktok phrases they use mean

[danandphilplay]

*just want to clarify that by short form I mean youtube video uploads not youtube shorts. like videos to the channel not to the shorts/tiktok like content bit.

my answer to this is kind of one long yap. also did not put a third option for no preference bc ik a lot of answers will be ill watch anything from them and whilst i get that i want to see if there is an actual preference between the two so pls pick which u like/prefer or even engage with more

I think generally I prefer long content but it is also very dependent upon what the video is about. what I am trying to get at tho is I would love to see dan and phil play some different longer game series. yes I am thinking about life is strange AGAIN but I really would like a series like that and I genuinely would not mind if the wait between videos was longer than more frequent short form videos

just my opinion tho bc obviously we have no say over the dnp games channel but I feel long form game series may be a popular move?? but at the same time people may not have the time to watch and keep up with long videos/series. in the example of life is strange I guess the actual first game is quite old now but I still see people playing it on youtube for the first time and it’s still a popular game so I don’t really think that is an issue. obviously dnp know what sorts of games and uploads get more views and engagement (not saying that that’s the most important thing about uploading but it is definitely important to consider) so that impacts what they play too. hmmm I don’t know how to phrase it so I hope it sounds alright buttttt I do wonder if long form content or just a new series would do better on the channel and bring in new viewers? there is obviously a huge nostalgia factor with dapg and there’s still the core fandom that engages but I wonder whether content length impacts any growth in new viewers?

there is clearly the issue with long form content simply taking way longer. it obviously takes longer for dnp and their editors but also for viewers to have the time to spend on a series so maybe long form is not a popular move bc of that reason

nowww this also leads to a 4th option I wanted in the poll but I took out is whether people would want dapg youtube shorts. because reallllly super short content like shorts reels tiktok whatever else is so popular atm and so many highlights or funny moment clip things exist I wonder if that is a direction dapg will go in. I know dan isn’t rly a fan of all that especially tiktok but imo some of phil’s youtube shorts on lessamazingphil are still funny I just wonder if dapg shorts will ever become a thing and not even necessarily new content just like highlights or idk outtakes of a video like the ones anthony posts from his interviews. the highlights of the vid with dan seem to have got a lot of engagement too although ik anthony is a very popular creator still and his rebranded content continues being popular so I just wonder if dapg will ever have that kinda shorts thing going on??

I also think the times they’ve used the community tab to do polls or just general discussion has been fun and it just kinda gives the channel more personality imo!

again I just wanted to yap there is like 0 seriousness in this or what dapg should post bc I do watch whatever they put out I just wonder if there will be a shift in content and if that would impact the channel overall. idk!!

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

December 19th, 73 days since October 7th

TLDR- I am sick of seeing Hamas propaganda here. People here are posting literal blood libels and mistranslated quotes.

After taking a break from social media for the rest of Chanuka, your favorite Zionist is back. Don't worry though, once again, people who never had any interest in this tiny piece of land, continue to tell me, a Jewish Israeli, that I have got my history and facts wrong, while they know better than I do. To that, I have 2 answers: 1. I am just a student who wants to live in peace. I am not a "zionist demon" or a "genocidal killer".

When I call myself a Zionist, all it means is that I'm a Jewish woman who would like to live peacefully in her homeland. I don't inherently support war or death from any side because I am a Zionist. 2. I actually live here, born and raised, and so were my grandparents. How delusional and condescending can you be to suggest that you, a Western person who only found out about this conflict a while ago on Tiktok, know better than an Israeli??? More on double standards Sometimes I wonder why most of you didn’t have such a strong reaction to any other war & civil war going on right now: in Ukraine/ Yemen/Congo and Syria**, etc. Considering the amount of antisemitic hate anons I've received I have a feeling why...

**Which directly affected the lives of most Palestinians.

As I've said in previous posts- It’s easy to throw around big words you don’t understand. There is no apartheid as all Israeli citizens have the same rights. - Gaza is not occupied by Israel- it’s been returned multiple times in history ( just to name a few: 1956,1987,2006...).

*Even when it was under Israel’s control, all it meant was that there were approximately 10 Jewish settlements in Gaza*. The Israeli military presence was to protect those people& prevent terror attacks.

Blood Libels

In addition to the lies and the poor mistranslations from Hebrew, I have also received \ seen an alarming amount of Nazi Propaganda. -you say that you’re anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic, yet you use antisemitic rhetoric…

Comparisons between Israelis and Nazis -Comparing Israelis to Nazis is wrong on so many levels.

In case you aren't aware, the holocaust was a premeditated and carefully planned genocide, that lasted 6 years. 6 MILLION Jews were killed and all of their possessions were stolen. It followed hundreds of years of persecution, violence, and discriminatory laws. They were also starved and enslaved in different sorts of manual labor, in addition to being experimented on. They were held in Ghettos and concentration camps. In the aftermath of the war, Jews were completely driven out of their land and face prosecution across the world to this day. The existence of Israel allows Jews to live free of that. The Israel-Hamas war following October 7th is a war against a terrorist organization that invaded Israel and massacred its civilians. Unfortunately, due to Hamas' tactics, there are a lot of Palestinian civilian casualties. While they are wrong- the treatment of Palestinians and the bombing of Gaza are nothing like what the Nazis did.

Debunking some misconceptions I've seen on Viral posts here: -No, we Jews do not control the media and global banks. At least invent something new, this is giving Medivel blood libels used by the church lol. -We do not go around killing innocent Palestinian babies for fun. We have laws and a moral compass (Shocking I know). We do not go and kidnap people or rape women for fun either. Do you know who does that? Hamas, the terrorist organization. -We're not all white, this conflict does not revolve around race: There are many Jewish Israelis from the same countries that Palestinians originated from (i.e: Egyptian & Jordanian Jews ). -Israelis perceive Palestinians as lesser human'- This claim is usually supported by mistranslation of Hewbew and out-of-context Interviews. The phrase חיו�� אדם (Chayot Adam, savages, acting like animals) was obviously often used to describe Hamas terrorists who took part in the October 7th masssacre. We do not call or treat Palestinians as "animals" or savages. All of the referenced instances were about those Hamas terrorists.

-There isn't a 'Gaza Ministry of Health', it's all Hamas. The number of Palestinian casualties and other claims they make are not to be trusted. Most of the casualties are terrorists.

So what is my point?

It is important to note that am not ignoring any of the Palestinian deaths. I’m not saying they should die either. Please stop assuming I do!!

All I’m saying is that Israeli victims matter as well. For some reason, some people cannot comprehend that Israeli civilians do not deserve to die just because of where they live.

You wouldn’t call for the death of all Americans/ Europeans/ South Africans etc… while they committed actual genocide & apartheid.

[katholicguilt]

“do you think you fell out of a coconut tree? you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you”

these words recently became a meme through going viral on x/twitter and then becoming a popularized sound snippet on tiktok and the meme taking off on other platforms as well.

the context of this phrase is kamala harris giving a speech at the  swearing-in ceremony of commissioners for the white house initiative on “advancing educational equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for hispanics.”

the full phrase being:

“part of the extension of the work you will do is, yes, focused on our young leaders and our young people, but understanding we also then have to be clear about the needs of their parents and their grandparents and their teachers and their communities because none of us just live in a silo. everything is in context.

continuing she added: “my mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘i don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?' you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you."

these words have been echoing in my ears for reasons beyond the meme’s popularity. for one, the context itself is interesting. after reading up on it on knowyourmeme.com i learned the origin of it started through being posted by a far right platform on youtube. from there mostly far right white nationalists used the video on x/twitter until eventually it was posted by larger humor accounts on x/twitter and then used de-contextualized from it’s original space by the general population. i had started using the meme, and thinking about it, because the phrase itself is pretty grave and wise and humorous. however realizing how it originated forced me to draw comparisons to wojaks, meme characters that originated from alt right 4chan users, or the “reject modernity, embrace tradition” meme which also originated with fascists and then got picked up out of context after increased popularity and use. 

thinking back to the meme in question, do memes exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them? 

i question the severity of the impact of fascist memes on popular culture, seeing as much of the election was also influenced by his meme-ing, and twitter(since being bought by loser technofascist elon musk and becoming x on july 23, 2023) has become even more openly overrun by white supremacist fascists. considering this, memes created by fascists seem to tend to serve as propaganda, infiltrating the sub-conscious of popular culture. 

i wonder how long before the state itself picks up this meme, as a way to try to feed into celebrity-dom and infantilize itself with  perceived lightheartedness to cover for directly being  involved with upholding ongoing genocides and slavery. there are implied respectability politics involved in the phrasing of the event, of “equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for “hispanics”” what does the state mean by “excellence”? what does economic opportunity mean, at who’s expense it ? for what? “hispanics” ? another ambiguous term which says nothing about the positionality of someone outside of having been geographically been born in so-called “latin america”. representation politics within representation politics. 

when reflecting on cultural shifts since the uprisings in 2020, there are many ways in which representation politics shape and inform the political landscape under a liberal fascist president like genocide joe. what does it mean for kamala harris to bring up her mother’s phrase in this setting ? it means everything and nothing in the context of destruction, co-optation and decay by the empire, changing very little only because it is now at the hands of a woman of color. the world we hope to build shouldn’t mean diversified oppressors, but rather complete liberation and release from oppression, hierarchy, and the death cult that is white supremacy.

[lorbanery]

Not me subtweeting another youtube video

Listen

One of the things that I really really appreciated about Hbomberguy's plagiarism video was his pointing out that sometimes people lie because of the attention it gets them. Which is something that a lot of people seem to, like, willfully ignore.

Like, back in the mid-00's there was a common phrase people threw around on the internet: "Why would anyone lie about being [oppressed identity]?" Usually followed up by a sarcastic list of the "benefits" of being said identity, which was just a list of the bigotry people with said identity face.

This argument always rubbed me the wrong way, for two reasons. 1) Pretending to be something you're not on the internet is (and was especially back then) really easy, as easy as saying "I'm [identity]". Any bigotry they might face online is, under normal circumstances, much easier to disengage from. And, crucially, just because they're presenting themselves in one way online doesn't even come close to meaning that they're doing the same thing IRL. 2) In the right circles? It actually does come with benefits! Folks with marginalized identities are often given a bit more grace, they're given sympathy, they're treated as experts in subjects surrounding that identity, and, in some cases and again in the right circles, they might be treated as just a little bit special or unique. And like yeah, that's kind of rooted in bigotry, the idea that being something other than cis, het, white, able-bodied makes you ~*Special*~, but that's beside the point.

This attitude that, unless money was involved somehow, there's no possible thing that anyone could get out of lying is so prevalent to this day that hearing HBG push back against it even gently even briefly was a huge breath of fresh air.

Because of course it's not about money! Or at least not entirely. If all Somerton had wanted to do was become rich off of low-effort content, he could've just started a shitty reaction channel where he just watches Tiktoks and makes the :O face the entire time. But no, the other thing he wanted was community and more than that, to be a respected figure in said community. He fashioned himself an intellectual with a lot of community-specific knowledge and Correct Opinions. He specifically courted an audience who would look up to him for that and brutally attacked anyone who threatened it. It was the status and respect as much as anything else that he sought out.

Now why am I rehashing all this.

Because I was watching this video about a guy who was considered one of the greatest players in the world of a particular video game until people caught him cheating.

I don't really want to go into too many specifics because it's not important. But the narrator of the video wrapped it up by wondering why the cheater did what he did, why he spent 4 years and so much time and energy faking his play footage. Because he only made a couple thousand dollars and it isn't a very popular gaming community.

And while I was listening to this, I was just sitting there and wondering if the narrator had actually listened to his own script, because it seems so obvious to me.

The cheater was a teenager when he posted his first legit video and it garnered a lot of attention from some very high-level players in the community. He spent the next few years legitimately collabing in person with some of those people, and uploading faked game footage. It barely took any time at all for him to be declared the greatest player in the world.

You see where I'm going with this, right?

Like, being a teenager is fucking lonely for a lot of people. It's isolating on a profound level, even for those of us who actually had a relatively good experience in high school. I don't find it odd at all that a teenager who was suddenly inundated with excited comments from a small but passionate community telling him how great he was and inviting him into their spaces would then start fudging some shit to keep their attention and praise until it gets way out of hand.

The fact that the second he was caught without a shadow of a doubt, he deleted his videos save for the explanation video he made, deleted his social media, refunded the money he did "earn", and just left the community. Because what's the point when he's clearly lost all of their respect. Because if there had been any other reason for him doing it, he might have tried a little harder to come up with reasons why the oddities that were noticed were actually just video glitches or his software acting up or whatever.

But no, the community and the support were what was important, so when he lost that, of course he just disappeared.

And you know what? I might be completely wrong, at the end of the day neither I nor the youtuber knows what was going through this guy's head.

But it also leaves a bad taste in my mouth for the subject of this video — a guy who was a teenager for the majority of his transgressions — to be treated the same as a grown ass man in achiever of their videos who appears to lie like it's his favorite hobby that he can't put down and has been lying about his video game accomplishments for like forty years and has garnered things like professionally produced documentaries about him because of those alleged accomplishments.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Kinda makes me sad that u reblogged a post where op was bad faith bashing my identity and generally twisting around why people id as queer :(

Hey there! I'm genuinely sorry that you feel sad and my intention was not to make anyone feel bad. That post was a bit harsh, and I would not have written it exactly that way, but I don't think it was entirely in bad faith. Parts of it really resonated with me and the reason I chose to reblog it despite having some reservations about the tone was that I rarely see those feelings articulated by anyone on tumblr. So I'm going to do my best to explain some of the nuance I felt was missing from that post but that is part of my personal thoughts on the matter.

First, I don't have a problem with the word queer. I think there is a diversity of experience with that word and its history within the community and that it is possible to be mindful of all those experiences. If you identify with queer I'm really happy for you!

I should probably add here as a personal note that I do not consider queer my identity, nor do I consider lesbian my identity. "Identity" is a big word in the queer/LGBT community right now, but I don't relate to that. Being gay is one part of me, but no one part is my identity. My identity is me.

What did resonate with me about that post was the frustration with the reductionist framing of "queer" as inherently more revolutionary. I see it a lot. "Not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you" "not gay rights, but queer liberation." As someone who does identify with the word gay, both of these are a little bit hurtful. It's not as bad for me, because I'm at peace with being called an assimilationist. But rights and liberation are not mutually exclusive, and neither are being happy and a "fuck you" attitude. Furthermore, if you look at the radical history of the movement, you see both gay and queer used. "Gay liberation" goes way back.

I think both gay and queer are increasingly stripped of their meaning in mainstream usage, and I think that post probably focused too much on queer, but it did appear to be made in response to a discourse that does not address the involvement of queer at all. We've seen the defanging of gay over the last few years, but OP was absolutely right that it's happening to queer too, and it is fairly frustrating to see queer held up as the more revolutionary alternative.

I do see queer increasingly used by corporations, by websites like Buzzfeed, and if you really want to wonder "wait, what does queer actually mean?" I invite you to academia. And then you have the influence of tiktok on primarily younger generations and the way everything is turned into a meaningless aesthetic. I absolutely see this happening to the word gay on tumblr--this website is even de-sexing the phrase "gay sex" which is impressive--but it's definitely happening to queer too.

I don't think there is anything wrong with either word or that either one should be abandoned. I think both words losing their radical edge is a consequence of more mainstream acceptance which I do believe is a net good.

I can't speak for OP, but I did not read that post as particularly focusing on why individuals identify as queer, and I certainly did not reblog it with that in mind. I certainly don't see it as universal; at most it's saying some people identify as queer for the wrong reasons, which is something I have thoughts on that I choose to keep private because I do not believe speculation about other people's identities is appropriate for discourse. I did not read it as painting queer-identified people with a wide brush and I did not intend to send that message by reblogging!

I think about the political climate right now, where as an American I can't be entirely sure Obergefell and Lawrence are secure, and I think there are some of us who don't want to lose the emphasis the material experiences of oppression that bind together the original LGBT coalition.

Queer is a wide umbrella and that's a good thing, but it does mean that someone saying they're queer tells me very little about whether we share experiences or can relate. The vagueness and ambiguity of queer is why I no longer identify with it. For many people, maybe including you, that is why they do identify with it. That's great!

The point, as far as I'm concerned, isn't "queer is a meaningless identity" or "people only identify as queer to be more revolutionary" but rather that some people who identify as queer claim they are more revolutionary for doing so and in general the idea that queer is more revolutionary persists, despite the evidence.

This is getting very rambly so I'm going to stop here, but I just want to reiterate that my goal is not to attack anyone's identity or reasons for choosing to identify with it, but rather to engage on this subject in good faith.

[gardenofthearkane]

LET'S TALK EPITHETS

I've been seeing epithets being talked about a bit more than usual on my side of tiktok and I was just wondering if people actually knew what epithets actually are.

Epithets are an adjective or adjectivel phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as a characteristic of the person, place or thing that helps make the characteristic of the thing mentioned more prominent. These descriptive phrases can be used in a positive or negative way that benefits the one who gave the place, person, or thing the epithet.

An example of that would be how old men are often (and sometimes unfairly) awarded the epithet ‘dirty’.

Epithets are essentially a descriptive byname, nickname or title of the place, person or thing mentioned and some examples of this would "Catherine the Great" , "Ivan the Terrible" , "Alexander the Great" , and "Richard the Lionheart" their epithets being "the Great" , "the Terrible", "the Lionheart" and so on.

When it comes to epithets they aren't necessarily an entirely different version of the place, person or thing the epithet is for, it's just a title, nickname, or byname (sometimes a surname is considered an epithet for certain people) that adds more prominence to a characteristic of said place, thing or person.

Everyone can have an epithet, all you have to do is just find a distinct characteristic of yourself, whether it's a positive characteristic or a negative one and there you have your epithet! For example an epithet of mine would be "Korvid The Diviner", because studying and practicing divination is an aspect of who I am.

When it comes to spirits and their epithets I've seen some confusion on what people think epithets actually mean and I've seen some moments where people have confused another spirit who might be an equivalent of a certain spirit with being epithet of said spirit. Epithets and things, places, persons, spirits etc. that are an equivalent or similar to something (or even each other) aren't synonymous. They don't mean the same thing.

Sure some spirits, persons, places etc. might share epithets, for example with Anubis and Hermês both sharing the Psychopomp epithet, because they're both a guide of the dead, but that doesn't mean they're the same spirit. They just have similar duties.

Like I mentioned before, epithets aren't necessarily a completely different person, place, or thing than the person, place or thing the epithet is used for, it's just a specific aspect and characteristic of said person, place or thing. The same goes when it comes to talking about spirits and their epithets.

We're not talking about a completely different spirit, but just a specific aspect and characteristic of the spirit. We're talking about something that the spirit has dominion over, something the spirit is known for or even where the spirit is from/a place the spirit was known to be worshipped in.

Sure, some spirits might appear differently depending on their epithets, especially with epithets to do with places and locations because they're seen differently depending on the location and place (e.g. Artemis of Ephesus), but at the end of the day they're still the same spirit and you're just interacting with a specific aspect and characteristic of said spirit.

In some cases there are spirits who have an epithet that's an actual name for another spirit, but it doesn't mean that the spirit whose name is being used as an epithet is the same spirit as the spirit who's epithet it is (e.g. Hegemone and Artemis Hegemone). They're completely different spirits, it just means they have overlapping duties, characteristics etc.

More examples of epithets would be:

Helios Phaethon (The Shining)

Helios Hyperion (The one above)

Artemis Potnia Theron (Patron of wild animals)

Artemis Kourotrophos (Nurse of youths)

Apollon Kynthogenes (of Mount Cynthus)

Apollon Aegletes (Light of the Sun)

These are just some examples of the many epithets that exist! If you have any questions feel free to ask them below!

[kyndaris]

Laughing Queen

In school, I was the quiet one. With my head down, I wasn’t really one to draw anyone’s eye. Nor did I see the point of being popular. I suppose you could say that I was more a wallflower than anything else. Even among the circle of friends at high school, I was somewhat on the periphery. My interests were always a little niche. It’s not every little girl that likes to pretend play Neopets or Zoids or Dragonball Z and gallop around the playground. And in high school, I suddenly found interacting with the boys that were my own age just wasn’t as fun as it used to be.

So, it’s been a little strange that as I’ve entered the workplace, I’ve seemed to adopt the persona of a ‘social butterfly.’ I say this with quote marks because I don’t really consider myself a social butterfly. Rather, I’m curious about the lives of those around me and want to foster a sense of camaraderie that seems lost now that my life is on such a different trajectory than those I might have considered close friends in the past.

In fact, I’ve become such a ‘social butterfly’ that I’ve basically become the office clown - joking around with my work colleagues or deadpanning with perfect timing about something deprecating because my humour seems to skew towards the black. It’s made me wonder if maybe I should take up stand-up comedy. 

Would I be any good? I certainly make people laugh in the office and sometimes through my blog. I’ve had friends or workmates send me sentences I’ve written followed by the laughing emoji face. That means they think it’s funny...right? RIGHT?!

Honestly, one of these days, I need to get past my fear that everyone around me thinks I’m nothing special and secretly hates me. What happened to the debonair child that didn’t care what others thought and who marched to the beat of her own drum?

She’s gone. Crushed by the weight of anxiety and depression and the impending destruction of the planet. 

That aside, I don’t feel like I’d make a good stand-up comedian. First of all, I’d need good material. The only things that immediately spring to mind would be talking about my experiences and probably leveraging the racist angle. But that’s not always everyone’s cup of tea. My worldly experiences are quite limited. And my jokes aren’t truly jokes but observations said in a funny way because I haven’t thought too hard on how I should phrase things. Sometimes it’s just me perpetuating a stereotype that I’ve adopted. For example, heightening my stalker tendencies by reciting whole addresses or birthdays. 

Other times it’s me just remarking on the stark nature of our reality and dropping truth bombs. And in these times of great distress, if we don’t laugh, we’re crying. So, why not laugh to bleed out the tension?

Maybe one of these days I should actually attend a comedy act. Get a feel of what it means to stand in front of a crowd of people and simply lay out the tragedy of our lives to them. It’s said that the best comedians are the saddest and loneliest people on the planet. So, yes. Perhaps I’ll play up the misery that came from attending a competitive high school or use the intergenerational trauma that has trailed me for years as fodder.

Life is full of ups and downs. Rainbows, sunshine and roses might be how the optimists of the world like to see their lived experiences but it’s the realists and (more importantly) the pessimists that bring out the laughs when the glass is half-empty.

So, should I pursue a career in comedy?

Maybe. 

But probably after I’ve tried out proper gainful employment, make a living as a YouTube/ Twitch star and then falling back on becoming the next viral TikToker. For a Millennial that’s about to hit the big 3 0, it’s the only viable pathway to success. My suffering shall be the fuel that lights the fire the world over! And when I tell you all to LAUGH, YOU WILL OBEY!

This is Kyndaris, signing out.

*cue uproarious applause*

[vaspider]

I just sat here after reading this and stared off into the void for a while.

I've mentioned more than once that my father is the one who inflicted shit on me like 'William F Buckley thinks that HIV+ men should have their HIV status tattooed above their assholes'. He's a homophobic Boomer who ran a 'Reagan for President' club at college in 1969. Okay?

That man is the person I learned the phrase 'limp-wristed' and the little gesture that Gen Z associates with the nail-painting emoji from. He's the one I first heard refer to a gay man as 'fruity' and 'light in the loafers.'

I love y'all for reclaiming it, but you need to understand that what you are doing is reclaiming things. That isn't new, and to some of us, those phrases are more liable to cause us to recoil than 'queer,' because 'queer' has already been reclaimed for us, whereas stuff like 'fruity' less so.

It would probably behoove younger queer people to, when they hear "new slang" on Tumblr and TikTok, spend a moment Googling that shit. "Fruit" means "queen" in Polari, in reference to a drag queen/trans woman (remember during Polari's peak usage there was little to no linguistic demarcation between the two) or a gay man. And because homosexuality was considered a mental illness at the time, there's a direct linguistic link between "fruit" and "fruitcake," directly calling gay people mentally ill in the phrase "nutty as a fruitcake," which was also common when I was younger.

I love that y'all reclaim this stuff. Really, really I do. I'm all for reclaiming words, but, and this is important: you need to know what you are reclaiming and why it is a slur in the first place, what it implies and the weight that it carries. For all that y'all are so "queer is a slur and you need to respect your elders," too, the lack of even a cursory "hunh I wonder if this really is new" is so disappointing.

You cannot properly and meaningfully reclaim what you do not understand. Please, I beg you, learn the words and their weight so you can reclaim them with your eyes open, with full understanding of the implication of what you're saying and how it might land on others.

It's just common courtesy.

It's really fucking weird seeing people reclaim "limp-wristed" and "fruity" while also screaming about how horrible and offensive the word "queer" is.

It's almost like "queer is a slur" was never about protecting people, and has always been about gatekeeping who "really belongs" by making our most all-inclusive term into a controversy.

[tjh3]

OK, I know this is a really bad idea but...I'm already here so...

...here we fucking go.

That's a line from a TikTok meme that I thought was very fitting. So, here I am again at another online journal, that I am sure no one is going to read just like the last one at LiveJournal. So why am I here? Well a few years ago someone who is very important to me, who means the world to me, asked me to read her online journal, here on Tumblr. So I downloaded the ap so I could read her journal and then never did any thing with it. I would log on from time to time to see if she posted anything new, and about a month ago I decided that I was sick and tired of the generic orange and blue profile page. So I found some images I wanted to use and then changed the background color.

After I changed all of that, I thought why did I really do that if I wasn't going to post anything? So I thought "I'm already here, so maybe someday I'll post something." Well today became that day, and as you can imagine that phrase was what immediately came to mind when I was thinking of a post title.

So, it's Memorial Day and I don't have to work. It's a beautiful day out and as I lay in my bed thinking of what I want to do today, I can hear the neighbor kids outside playing. Two little girls, about 6 and 1 years old. They are so adorable! I love the sound of kids playing outdoors. But it also reminds me that I have always dreamed of having kids of my own, and that I had hoped to have them long before now. As it is now, it seems like I am never going to have a chance to ever have any children and get to listen to them play in the yard, or hear the daughter I've always dreamed of having call me "Daddy." That depresses me a little.

And I'm no where even close to finding a girlfriend to even consider such a future with. I thought that after all these years things were starting to turn around with the aforementioned girl who had asked me to read her Tumbler. I've been head over heals in love with her pretty much since the day I met her. That's a long long story, and maybe a future post. But, she has all of a sudden stopped talking to me again. I really thought that she had finally realized that there has never before been two people who were so perfect for each other. I saw her recently, and at one point I caught her staring at me and she had the most wonderful and beautiful smile I have ever seen. And the look in her eyes, no one has ever looked at me the way she does, not even any of my ex girlfriends. It's as if she were looking into my very heart and soul. And it's not the first time she has looked at me that way, she used to look at me that way back when we first met too. Only this time it was so much more intense then before. I could barely look back at her at that moment because I felt like every second she would learn too much and know every thought and feeling I had for her that very moment. Things I wasn't ready to reveal just yet. She has the key to my very heart and soul and with it access to places I've never let anyone go before. I don't know where or how she came to have that key, but she has it. And every time, every time she's used it to just stroll right in and start looking around, even if she doesn't realize it. But I mean, she has to know right? She has to know she was staring at me, right? That she had the most wonderful smile on her face when she was? No one has ever smiled at me like that before either. How could she not know? And if she does know, then why isn't she with me, why is she with someone else? And if she truly doesn't want to be with me, then why does she, of all the people in the entire world have the key to everything, one that no one has ever had before? Why?

And I don't even know that she may want to have kids some day. Even though I know she would be such a wonderful mother, and I would be honored if she were the mother of my children. But I have thought about it, and even if she didn't want children or wasn't able to, I still want more than anything to be with her and to share everything in life with her.

I just don't know anymore. Am I worried she will read this? No, not really. For starters, I am horrible at hiding how I feel, and most likely especially toward someone who has access to everything about me. So I am sure she knows that I am still in love with her. And I suspect this is probably why she has suddenly stopped talking to me again. Secondly, she hasn't posted to her tumblr in something like 8 to 10 months. So I doubt she'll be coming here any time soon. Lastly, even if she does check into her tumblr again, I doubt she'll be interested in what I have to say, at least given her current status of not talking to me. And if she does, and she does read this, then so be it. And maybe she'll be forced to ask her self why she does care so much what I have to say or how I may feel. Maybe, just maybe she might finally realize what I have known since the day we met all those years ago. I doubt it, but it's all I have.

[keshajanaan]

Why Black Lives Matter? An explanation for those who do not understand.

Photographer: Clay Banks | Source: Unsplash

What does Black Lives Matter mean?

Black Lives Matter simply means that the lives of Black people are important. It does not mean that Black people are more important than others. It serves as a reminder that they are important. If you feel that Black Lives Matter is an unfair statement remove the invisible “only” from the beginning of the statement and add an invisible “also” to the end (Only Black Lives Matter versus Black Lives Matter Also). Here is a chart to help explain this further.

The movement vs the organization

There is a huge misconception on multiple fronts regarding Black Lives Matter (BLM), so I am going to try and clear up some of the confusion. On one hand many believe that Black Lives Matter is an organization that is behind the movement Black Lives Matter and many do not want to participate in the movement because they do not agree with the tenants of the organization. While there is an organization called Black Lives Matter and it does support the Black Lives Matter movement, it is not entirely responsible for the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement.

While the organization does support the movement that shares its name, the org does not own the phrase Black Lives Matter. There are many organizations and individuals involved in and supporting the movement who have nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter organization. A person can attend a march, protest, or even say Black Lives Matter without agreeing with or supporting the organization Black Lives Matter. For those just learning about the Black Lives Matter organization and wondering what they are about and what may be disagreeable or controversial about it, I will give more information and try to remain unbiased.

Here is a history of the BLM Movement through the lens of a British news channel. I chose this because I felt that having a foreign perspective would help remove some bias.

Black Lives Matter organization

The Black Lives Matter organization was born from the #blacklivesmatter movement. In fact, one of its founders came up with the hashtag. Here is what the organization is according to its website BlackLivesMatter.com/About

Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.

What the Black Lives Matter organization believes

Here are the tenants of the Black Lives Matter foundation also found on its website at blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities.

We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.

We intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting.

We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.

We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.

We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.

We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.

We embody and practice justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another.

Is Black Lives Matter a Marxist organization

One of the biggest problems I’ve heard people say that they have with the Black Lives Matter organization and movement is that it was founded by a Marxist. While there have been interviews where the founders have mentioned that they are trained Marxists I have not read any particularly Marxist ideology in any of the literature about the Black Lives Matter organization and I do not see any Marxist ideology reflected in the movement. I do think that the average person does not understand what Marxism is so I will provide a definition. Marxism is a doctrine developed by Karl Marx that included economic and political ideology that is considered the foundation for socialism. Where Marxism gets its bad wrap is its variation, Soviet Marxism adapted by Vladamir Lenin and Joseph Stalin that became the foundation for communism. While I do not know which type of Marxism the founders of the organization were trained in; I will assume it was the original version that gave way to socialism. I came to this conclusion because many of the policy changes both the organization and movement are advocating for, involve reallocating government funds to programs and resources for communities. I am including two short videos one explaining the original form of Marxism and the other explaining Soviet Marxism.

An introduction to Classical Marxism

An explanation of Leninism or Soviet Marxism

Why is it not alright to say All Lives Matter?

While answering this question I am making one assumption about the person asking the question and that is that this person truly believes that everyone’s life has meaning and is important so they believe that Black Lives Matter is an extension of All Lives Matter and therefore saying All Lives Matter includes Black people. While this sentiment seems obvious it is not that simple. All Lives Matter has become a phrase that is used in response to Black Lives Matter in order to discredit issues brought up by the Black Lives Matter movement. The analogy I find helpful is saying All Lives Matter in response to Black Lives Matter is like saying all diseases are harmful when someone is talking about the dangers of breast cancer. Here are a few other analogies others have found helpful.

Takin from Ben Brainard on TikTok

Taken from a Law Professors Response to a BLM Shirt Complaint

What about black on black crime (aka crime)?

After hearing about the Black Lives Matter movement many people ask about black on black crime and what the movement is doing to solve this issue OR why it hasn’t done anything about this issue. First, as someone who has studied the migration and settlement of people and people groups as well as community and economic development I would like to say, backed up by all of my formal and elective education, that black on black crime is not real. It is just crime. Black on black crime is a concept that was created to support the stereotype that black people are inherently more violent than others.

In America, crime is committed by people in close proximity. This means that the majority of crimes are committed by people in the same community as their victims and unfortunately (at least in my opinion) many communities are still segregated. This means that most white people live in communities that are predominantly white, most black people live in communities that are predominantly black, most Hispanic people live in communities that are predominately Hispanic, etc. This means that white people are more likely to commit a crime against another white person, black people are more likely to commit a crime against another black person, and so on. Many people know the statistic that one is more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know than by a stranger, well this statistic holds true across all types of crime.

With that being said, I would like to address the portion of the argument that asks why BLM is not addressing crime in the black community. The answer is because this is not the mission of the movement or the organization. There are specific organizations such as the National Urban League that actively address issues that cause crime in urban areas. Here are a couple of videos that provide additional points of view.

Takin from Ben Brainard on TikTok

Conclusion

I just wanted to add a bit more of my opinion. While I attempted to remain unbiased I’m sure some of my own implicit biases made their way into this article. I would like to add some context so that anyone who reads this may see where I’m coming from and understand those biases. I am a 34-year-old black woman who graduated from the United States Military Academy (GO ARMY!) and served for 5 years on active duty to include one tour to Iraq. I love my country and desire for it to be everything and more than I could ever imagine.

While I have not experienced first hand some of the experiences of those who are active in the BLM movement, I have experienced overt racism on many occasions in my life and I do believe that less obvious forms of racism, such as systemic racism and unconscious negative biases toward people of color, exist in our country. I recognize that I grew up privileged in that my parents made the decision to give me a private school education, even though it made things more difficult for them financially. I had the privilege of growing up with a mother who went to college and was very active in helping me take the necessary steps to apply to and get accepted into one of the best institutions of higher learning in the country. I recognize that as a heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied person I have the privilege of fitting into society’s idea of what a “normal” woman’s life looks like. In acknowledging the ways that I am privileged I am in no way saying that my life is easy. I have had many struggles and hardships but none of them were because of my gender identity, sexual orientation, physical abilities, or education.

That being said, I will do everything in my power to make this country one where every person, regardless of their identity, is treated with the dignity and respect that every human life deserves.

if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://kesha-janaan.storychief.io/en/why-black-lives-matter?id=2038645149&type=27",title: "Why Black Lives Matter?",id: "2f87ac84-0907-4b5a-922a-1efc62960e90"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk'))