#it's all capitalism's fault

[tarriecat]

I don't know how coherent this will be, bear with me, I'm writing while stricken with the plague and all.

So I'm sitting here with a thankfully mild case of covid and because I soothe my anxiety with information, especially my medical anxiety, I've been doing a lot of googling about like, how to take care of yourself while you have covid, details about this variant, all that stuff. And I've come to this conclusion that's very sad and kind of interesting. (Please note that I'm dealing with the English-speaking mainstream internet as a white American, so any generalizations in this post are through that lens.)

All our instructions for how to care for ourselves seem to stop after "don't die."

I've found lots of articles, especially from earlier in the pandemic, that say about what you'd expect. A lot of isolation guidelines and encouragement to get your vaccines, and very little "hey this is what over the counter cold med might make you less miserable" or "this kind of juice is best for a sore throat." And it matters that they're mostly from early in the pandemic, I think. They're all aimed at "here's how not to die and how to help other people not die." Which, please don't get me wrong, is fucking important. Please do isolate and wear your damn masks and get your damn vaccines.

But like...why do we stop there? (I know why, it's capitalism and the calvinist work ethic, it's a rhetorical question.) Wouldn't it be nice to talk about prevention of disease and amelioration of symptoms even when they're NOT fatal? Why is that our line?

Earlier this year my husband got a norovirus. It sucked. And I had already resigned myself to "oh, we're in the same house, it's inevitable I'm going to get it too" when we thought, hey what if we actually looked up how it spreads and if we can do things to minimize it? And we did, and I didn't get sick. That was nice! We're a pair of well-educated thirtysomethings from middle class backgrounds, how did it take us this long?

It feels like, culturally, we treat minor illness like an inevitability and an inconvenience. We push ourselves through migraines and go to school with full boxes of tissues instead of staying home with "just a cold." Which is awful for two reasons. First of all, it puts the immunocompromised at risk of ACTUALLY DYING, please fucking care about that.

Second of all, how sad is it that the standard of comfort we aspire to is "not dead"? That the standard for not calling out of work is "standing up and not vomiting"? I'm unlikely to get seriously ill from my current covid infection, just like I wouldn't have been sick more than a couple days if I'd caught that norovirus. But it still sucks! I don't want to be stuck in my bedroom coughing and wondering if I'm going to miss Christmas! I don't want to inflict that on anyone else either! I want articles telling me about how to make this week not suck, and I want a cultural narrative that cares about protecting people from feeling bad!

And yes I know some parts of our society it's a hard enough fight getting them to care about the not-dying, not-killing-people part. But I still want us to strive for better than that.

[shadesofyoos]

See; I can logicaly connect this to capitalistic assholes manipulating the media. It's sad, it's pathetic and it's moraly fucked up. That's why we should all make an anarchy group and destroy it :D

someone: hi

me: did you know the narrative that school shooters in the US are all bullying victims is false and originates from inaccurate coverage of one of the most infamous school shootings, the columbine shooting? in reality the columbine shooters were reactionaries who isolated themselves deliberately and followed an ideology that positioned them "above" the rest. so, a lot of school shooters are actually ideologically motivated rather than revenge motivated. no one knows this and the media paints these murderers as victims. do you want to know what the columbine effect is? also I have a lot to say about "stranger danger" as a conservative fear campaign to promote the isolated nuclear family

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[t4tails]

i bring a sort of "there would be no problem whatsoever if we lived in a society with a universal income that didnt depend on wild variables to get jobs that are our only lifelines yet are still willing to fire us at the drop of a hat for something more profitable" vibe to the ai conversation that both pro and anti ai people dont really like

[annabelle--cane]

I think I'm particularly pleased about the celia reveal because, as someone who was raised by a single mother, I don't think I often see single mothers in fiction who are reasonably well adjusted and actually care about their kids? I feel like I see happy couples, tortured but loving and soulful single dads, and unstable/abusive single mothers. which isn't to say I think any of those situations are invalid to represent or anything, but when single mothers are always shown as uniquely awful in comparison to married mothers and single dads, the message starts to feel very "women are irresponsible and need a strong man to balance them out."

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

fucking bullshit how when a member of the working class isn't thriving in a system meant to exploit them it's somehow their fucking fault because one way or another they've somehow Done Something Wrong.

"you should have asked for more hours" what if you're working all you fucking can while still being able to stay awake on the job. which we shouldn't have to fucking do.

"you shouldn't have spent too much on things you don't need" you should be able to spend on one or two nice fucking things without being broke

"you should get store brand instead of name brand" getting the store brand of everything still amounts to hundreds of fucking dollars for a week's worth of groceries

"you should have listened to the financial advice you got as a teenager" we did. we fucking did.

"you shouldn't have spent so much in loans" we did so we could get those Good Jobs You Need Degrees For like you fucking told us to

"you should have gotten a better degree" I shouldn't fucking need one to have a job that I can live off of

"you should have started working sooner so you could have saved up" not every teenager has parents that will fucking let them work and even then you should not have to work on top of school as a fucking child

"you should have listened to this financial coach" I am not fucking poor because I didn't listen to some grifter trying to sell me a fucking "course" that I can't afford. I fucking promise you that.

"you should have" "you should" "you shouldn't have" "you shouldn't" you should maybe fucking consider that this is bullshit. jumping through these hoops is bullshit. trying to do everything you were advised to just to still end up in shitty circumstances is bullshit. trying to prove you've made all the choices you were told were the right ones just to try to get people to believe your struggling isn't your fault is bullshit. still being told it's your fault because you didn't do this Secret Financial Life Hack or whatever is bullshit. it's all bullshit.

[uncanny-tranny]

I was always enraged at the way capitalism has devalued some of the most important labour in human history, but now I'm even more angry since I have started getting more into crafts.

So many people are alienated from the world to such an extent they don't realize how fucking important textiles and construction and art and culinary labour is, because its all ubiquitous under capitalism: it is all profit, and if it isn't profit, then it is worthless. People don't realize just how revolutionary all of the labour was, how important it is, and was, to our survival. And that enrages me.

[lez-exclude-men]

Today I fucked up by accidentally lading myself in an argument with a business major after trying to make small talk at a student org meeting. I walked away once he whole chest declared that billionaire ceos are worth more than 100 employees, actually, and that they deserve their money. I *should* have walked away much earlier when he said 18 year olds are smart enough and have all the resources to make fully informed decisions about debt, after I explained that paying your own bills gives you a much different understanding of money than if you go straight from high school to college. But no, I kept wasting my breath on that capitalist scrote. No empathy to be found there, nope.

[junedug]

sometimes i get sad thinking about the blobfish because everyone only knows what it looks like at sea level and they make fun of it for looking stupid but the only reason it looks like that it because it was ripped out of its habitat. when it's at the proper ocean depth it's a beautiful fish. and it makes me wonder how many people go through life getting treated like a blobfish and they don't even know it's not their fault. you're not broken or disgusting or wrong. you just need to find the environment you were created to be in

[monzterzack]

not to be a boomer on main… but i think children should adequate to the online experience instead of every site having to shift and model themselves to whatever the fuck children consume the most

im sick and tired of everything nowadays being made “with kids in mind” because CEOs have figure out thats the demographic they can exploit and get the most money out of

today is the tiktokification of every social media site, tomorrow who fucking knows, we should fucking stop this

[fellhellion]

Something something the spot’s goofy antics distract from how dangerous his own entitlement and resentment is

[moeblob]

OK I swear the reason I'm showing you this will have context in a couple days! But also, the fact B&N has a section dedicated to "well he may be a ten buuuuut" and included my current crime of "he's blonde" is like. Dang. Called out.

Didn't help I saw this with a guy and I said "oh no, my blonde enjoyer crimes called out!" and he said "better than redheads" and I'm like. "Sir, I have to inform you of my previous crime." and he was not pleased as he said "Fish... why....."

[nomairuins]

i like overthink everything now it makes me feel so dumb. i used 2 be able to just talk 2 ppl but nowadays every single thing im like Is that actually going to make them hate me. Yes probably. and then i just dont respond which makes ppl hate me. this is how it is

[sonics-left-shoe]

Tired of living in a period of enabled overconsumption and the quality of everything being replaced for cheaper alternatives with only higher prices. Tired of corporations being able to get away with selling products that won't last. Tired of unnecessary mass manufacturing. Tired of trends and impulsive purchases being encouraged by companies. Tired of celebrities being worshipped whilst they help destroy the environment. Tired of micro transactions and blatantly invasive advertisements everywhere. Tired of false advertisement, misinformation and clickbait being normalised. Tired of corporate fear mongering and blatant disregard of human livelihoods.

I'm so tired of all the wastefulness and cruelty and how corporations can just get away with it.

[gabs-magical-abs]

Love living in constant fear that we'll get kicked out of our rental at the whim of a landlord. This is a very reasonable and not at all stressful and fucked way for 30% of the population to live.

[svampira]

friendship ending vacations real cause we didnt even fight i just came home and realised i do naut like this bitch