#so there's NO fuckin sense of a community
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I'm trying so hard not to give up, trying so hard not to start everything from scratch again but god....I hate art.
#I hate art#i hate being on that damn site bc so many artists have no fuckin sense#so there's NO fuckin sense of a community#everything's a competition or people feel like they have to have the last laugh instead of using their fuckin brain#and have to witness people enable that stupid ass behavior like everyone can fuck off.#I really gotta learn how to just stay in my own lil spaces bc I hate everyone rn#and now I'm starting to hate myself bc it feel like#DAMN I gotta be weirdo bc I don't have SHIT#meanwhile all them can have a whole fuckin audience#and that shit doesn't matter IT NEVER DOES#but shit like that sure knows how to make you feel like it does matter lol#I wanna give up but...I'm not#I'm so close to just stopping but...I know I just gotta find my footing#bun talks#vent
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I gotta ask, do survivors really hate playing against modern Skull Merchant? I find her aggressive setup playstyle really fun, and putting drones in unexpected places and then mindgaming survivors into going through them and injuring themselves I find super duper fun. Other setup killers like Trapper, Hag and Singularity rely really heavily on maps, while SM is workable most places (which is great for a dumbass with absolutely no ability to remember map layouts lmao)
Point is, I think that in her current state she's super fun. I played a round when she was first released and yeah, it was kinda lame, but I gave her another go recently and got completely hooked, pun entirely intended. I still see a lot of people hating her though and I try to make matches fun for everyone, so. Is she actually unfun to play against? Or is it just a bad reputation?
#dead by daylight#dbd#skull merchant#this is a genuine question btw! i really enjoy her weird aggressive trap kit she has now#but i see a lot of people despising her pretty violently and don't really get why outside of her (admittedly pretty shit) original design#i know. dbd community is the fucking worst. don't pay attention to it#but also I wanna know any specifics that survivors don't find fun to try and play around#that way we can all have a good time in this silly fuckin slasher game and this lame ass elon musk ass bitch!#(she is SUCH a dweeb i love her so much. she makes no sense whatsoever. girlboss behavior tbh)
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if u make a one piece college au and u don’t make all of the strawhats students then u r a fucking coward
#like i can maybe give u robin bc she is the smartest and canonically has a degree#so making her a professor does actually make sense#but for franky brook and jinbe?#that’s just a cop out bc u think they’re ’too old for college’ or smth#esp if it’s a community college bc i know u get so many diff types of ppl there#hell i go to a fancy expensive school and i still see diff ppl#not as many but still my brain fuckin exploded#when as a freshman i assumed everyone was my age in my major#only to immediately meet a 28 yr old who had been in the military before this#or the guy around my dads age (40s-50s) in my astronomy class#and lbr i don’t think any of the strawhats are affording fancy colleges#but give me robin who has like 20+ degrees already and no one is sure what she actually does for a living#but just keeps taking more and more classes bc she likes learning#give me franky who had a rough childhood in and out of juvie after an accident with his foster father#he fell in with a rough crowd but is now trying to get his life back together#taking classes whenever he can find time in between working as a mechanic#give me brook as a retired musician who never got to go to college when he was young#bc he was busking to afford his bills and once he got discovered and became famous he didn’t have the time#but he’s retired now so he’s taking some classes at the local college bc he has the time and money now#even tho he’s like 80#give me jinbe who went into the military right after high school#but became disillusioned with the military after the death of his commander and decided to leave#and now he’s trying to get a degree and readjust to civilian life#college is so much more of a flexible setting than high school so have fun with it!!!#posts from the ocean#one piece#college au#tag rant#one piece au
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i think sometimes people forget that there's more than one way to be trans & that bigots Do Not Care what flavour of trans you are, they want us all dead so can we please stop arguing over things that literally dont matter and lift each other up instead of tearing each other down? im sick of this afab vs amab, tme vs tma, transmasc vs transfemme, the total erasure of transnonbinary & trans intersex individuals (or just nonbinary & intersex ppl in general). im so so so sick of all these new boxes we're trying to stuff each other in when elder trans ppl fought so hard against those boxes!!
for fucks sake, no one trans group has it any better or any worse than any other trans group, we just have it different, the transphobes want us ALL dead - whether its for different reasons or by different means, dead is dead. they dont care if youre tme afab transfemme or if youre tma axab transfemmasc or if youre a god damn clown fish. its all the same "agenda" to them.
im so fucking done seeing posts saying "trans women have No idea what its like to deal with....." or "TMEs fuck off! you're not welcome here!" or any of that shit because THAT is exactly how white supremacists get a foothold in. THAT is how we lose this battle. fucking THAT is how we get divided and conquered. they want us to split up into smaller groups and fight each other, they want us to be too weak to fight back and the way to do that is to wittle down our numbers & until they can get away with outright killing us in broad daylight (more than they already have) they have to make do with splitting us up and turning us against each other
im just sick and tired of all the infighting, you're either with ALL of us or you're with the white supremacists, idfc if you are trans yourself. we need all of us to work together and put our differences aside. it is not that fucking hard to sit yourself down and go "ok well they may not know what it's like to be me, but i dont know what its like to be them either" and realise that turning against other trans ppl just bc "they dont understand" is ridiculous and just a bad move when we're in the middle of a fight for our fucking lives. who cares who's "more oppressed" this isnt the god damn olympics, this is the fight for human rights and right now we need to focus on keeping all of us alive. save your petty irrelevant fucking discourse for when we aren't focused on trying to keep our community ALIVE
#bug talks#bug rants#this is inspired by being transnonbinary & experiencing transmisogyny as well as transandrophobia and they are both equally bad#& way too many of yall binary trans ppl seem to forget about those of us who Do experience what its like to be treated as both#ive been mistaken for a trans woman & a trans man more times than i can fuckin count#they are both insidious#but way too many of yall are too busy arguing over who has it worse and whos forcing who out of what space#yall dont even realise that its a community wide issue & people are guilty of this on all sides#but sure keep reinventing gender norms trans edition that's fine#and when we get our throats stomped on and our intestines pulled out by our mouths im sure itll Really matter whos tme or tma#which btw is a term that doesnt even make sense because any person on earth can be a victim of transmisogyny bc transphobes r idiots???#you cant tell who's trans and who isnt by looking at them and so even cis women and cis men and trans men and intersex folk can experience#transmisogyny so i dont understand what the point of that label even is
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In another universe Gavin king got to play Orpheus on broadway and had the time of his fucking life
#Orpheus come back….#PLEASE DC HEAR ME#I think he could be great commentary on the futility of respectability politics#smth smth he literally fuckin died and got forgotten to make white girl sad for two seconds#but also I just wanna see him#he and Duke would have the funniest dynamic#DUKE RADICALIZES HIM!#btw i think while it was touched upon in dance in his story#in modern day i think he’d be a big advocate for the breaking of gender roles for young black boys specifically#and In my mind Duke helps him with the self hatred and trauma that causes him to so heavily scrutinize his community and Gavin helps Duke#with his sensitivity and emotional connection to himself and others#I think it could be a great story on black generational trauma and how we react so differently to racial stress and communal violence#and how even when we have disagreements on how things should play out at its core it’s love for eachother that makes progress#for example different stances on the war on drugs; they both know it’s government sanctioned but Gavin gives off slight pull yourself up by#the bootstraps vibes that duke doesn’t fuck with and they talk about it!#I don’t think any writer rn could handle that without doing some shit like involving Jason tho sorry#like yeah it makes sense kind of but I don’t want to see it bc white fans have proven again and again they can’t be trusted with a good#complex nonwhite storyline#uhm anyways Gavin and Duke paining their nails together#Gavin telling Duke he can wear whatever he wants but he himself is a little too old and Duke immediately taking him on a shipping spree#shopping#whatever
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#cyberpunk fandom so weird man yalls pictures are so fuckin stale mods are fucking stale yall are stale as shit#mod for a community for 3+ years and get blocked by the most random ass people ok makes sense 💀#yentas all of u i s2g
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hi. unlabeled person here. i consider myself a part of the LGBTQ+ community. i don't identify as queer. come at me, bro.
#i am SO SICK of the way everybody has to fuckin' gatekeep EVERYTHING#even among a community that's meant to be about feeling safe and finding support for those of us who don't conform to a “norm”#but it gives some people out there some kind of sense of superiority to FORCE other people into labels they are NOT COMFORTABLE WITH#for no other reason than it makes you feel you're in the RIGHT#listen. i'm a science person. i understand the urge to want to categorize everything.#but people's IDENTITIES are not something that fit neatly into boxes#let alone a single specific box#some of us have really good reasons for not identifying as queer and those reasons should be respected#and fuck. even if we didn't. THAT STILL DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT#just FUCKING ACCEPT PEOPLE AS WHO THEY TELL YOU THEY ARE#just nod your head and move the fuck on#plus as i have said a bajillion times and i'm sure will say a bajillion MORE times: CELEBRITIES DON'T OWE YOU THEIR SEXUALITIES#CELEBRITIES DON'T OWE YOU SHIT#STOP ASSUMING YOU KNOW THEIR LIVES AND THEIR REASONS BETTER THAN THEY DO#oh my GOD i'm so angry#i'm gonna stop tag-ranting before my head explodes#thanks for coming to my TED talk k bye
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maybe i’m just being a Bitch about it but like … is anyone sad at how lesbian is mainly used as an umbrella term? like. we don’t even really have our own term
#lesbian#mine#text#like. i honestly don’t really care that gay and lesbian are used as umbrella terms. i’m just#thinking in the sense of like. we don’t even have our own term that encapsulates our experiences#specifically#and i GET sexuality and lesbianism can’t be fit in a simple box. but we all have that one thing in common. yknow?#i also get that we’re meant to be a community. but sometimes it’s nice to have that. Label. yknow?#and that often erases the use of the word bisexual. but i can’t really speak on that bc i wouldn’t understand personally#but it’s just …. idk fnsjfjd i get it doesn’t fuckin matter in the real world but gosh ……..#being a lesbian can be so ….. alienating. idk#and i don’t really like talking abt shit like this. let alone publícly. but. yeah#to end on a nice note. saw a comedy act tonight and i really liked it :]#got me thinking abt stuff fnsjfnd she’s made a bunch of comments abt being queer and being asian and stuff#sorry if this makes me seem bitchy. i’m just. tired#there’s inherently so much dumb fucking discourse around our identity and. gosh. augh#it’s TIRING#my thoughts#[emma mountebank voice] ok :) i’m done#misc tag
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like I'm not even sure what it is but across so many work industries it's always the grunt level worker who is to blame apparently. any excuse in the book to counter what you say or did. you feel like you're going nuts, I'm reasonably reflective and can see where something went wrong or where I can do better. does this make any sense?
#the main thing i keep getting pulled up on is my lateness or lack of communication with management#also that i tend to step over perceived boundaries according to managerial points of view/standards#idk it's hard to explain when you're hearing like#oh you're great but keep doing these things and we know you do it on purpose#also you don't know the secret old people cleaning code that only old people know#well why wasn't i told? why is it when i ask they say yes but there's actually something else they need#everyone is different i am giving you the option to express that need and if you say no how is this my fault for respecting that?#what is common sense?#which seems to be more in line with the like. can't please everyone thing TBH#maybe just want to take me down a peg and assert managerial dominance on the lowly barely above minimum wage (like fuckin $24 ph lol) staff#i don't intend to stay long or try ladder climb#also when i said that they said well you only work like part time why should you get more#i said then it'd be even more negative as I'd be getting underpaid doubly so for extra work#i try to say i hurt myself with all the cleaning but yeah nah other staff don't have this issue it must be you#i don't believe that#hell it even pissed me off when i said i wanted to do psychology/mental health#and maybe I'm wrong to say this but that mental game of saying ah well are you sure you could do that?#not to be twitter but it reminds me of abusive relationship power dynamics
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#another vent! don't read if you don't want to! it's long.#so um. my mom and i got in a small fight while out shopping. not anything extraordinary just a regular small dispute and she got#kind of annoyed. and whenever anyone annoys her she *always* says 'it's fine' or 'i'm fine/over it" and it has become noticeable to me#over time. so i told her 'i know you're annoyed with me' and she literally told me 'fine. do you want me to just start telling me that#i'm annoyed with you??' and i was like 'what? yes! why wouldn't i want you to??' but she didn't really answer it. we got into the car#and i said 'sorry i didn't mean to upset you earlier' and of course she was like 'oh it's fine' so i just said to her:#'what i wanted to say was that telling me how i annoyed you and told me what you thought would get us a lot further than just covering your#emotions with a constant 'i'm fine' and not telling me anything.'#and was just like: 'i love you madison but that's not how it works.'#like ????? girl yes it is how it works!! good communication strengthens trust in relationships!! how is this a foreign concept to you??#but something clicked when she said 'look your father hates it when people talk about their feelings or how actions and words#make them feel. if i get used to telling you how you made me feel then i'll start doing it to your father.'#and i just fuckin. sat there. i didn't even say anything for a good minute bc i was so astonished but everything like. made sense.#this house is so full of 'i don't care' 'fuck you/off' 'i'm fine' and so many other harsh words and careless but hostile name-calling—#we don't even know how to tell each other how we feel and think. there's no healthy connection. whenever someone gets emotional by#crying or saying something about how they feel they're called 'soft' 'snowflake' 'sensitive' or sometimes worse names i won't mention#but it's all the same shit. the shaming of being human is revolting but it also shows how dysfunctional this household is. like#it seriously checks every. single. mark. i don't even tell my mom about my problems because all i ever get back is a 'just relax' or#'stop being ridiculous' and there's no sign of comfort or trying to problem-solve anything. it's just 'get over it you'll be fine.'#it made me realize that everyone in this house doesn't know how to properly communicate or work through emotions- thoughts- and conflicts.#myself included. ever since the age of 9 i had such a hard HARD time showing and receiving affection (physical and emotional) from friends#but i didn't know why! it just felt so goddamn foreign! but now it just. now i understand where my deeply rooted#emotional unavailability came from. healthy communication of affection and conflict was never shown to me and all i ever saw from#my parents were fights. lots and lots of fights. i think i thought that's all normal relationships looked like. i thought any affection or#display of healthy communication was fake and a trap of some kind so i just never even chanced a good friendship. i started having healthy#friendships just in late 2020 when i started realizing what in the fuck was going on. i'm more mature than a reserved 9 year old girl now#of course so i'm learning how to be more emotionally available but. i just need a minute. what the fuck.
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insert rant about the devs only caring about discord here
#lightkid rambles#some of us are unable to use discord and it would make sense for a company to be able to be contacted through ways other#than social fucking media#you don't see Kroger sending you a help form from their instagram. you don't see amazon funneling help services through twitter#but yeah let's make the only method of really communicating with the people in charge of running the game. a way that only some people have#access to#fuckin stupid if you ask me#how the fuck am I supposed to get updates. the support tickets don't do SHIT (took them a literal year to get to the first one I ever sent)#'follow them on social media' you know. most games. have their own websites. with updates and news and bug reports and help forms. most#games have a modicum of professionalism#'oh but kids these days only use social media' WHOSE FAULT IS THAT. FIX IT. ACTIVELY. MAKE THAT SPACE FOR THEM/US#I swear if I wasn't on Reddit I'd be so goddamned confused. I imagine moths that stay away from socmed for fear of spoilers are#having a Bad Fucking Time
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going to go eat dinner and see how i feel about my roommate after
#jaytalking#our ra wants to do like. a check in meeting which makes sense#but like. my roommate went back home for an orthodontist appointment and was like. tonight won’t work#but is back now. and got back to the dorm before i did from class. and it’s not like the meeting is meant to take forever#so it’s just like. ugh. now i have a very small window to get dinner in before i work tomorrow and also im like. playing fuckin intermediary#bc my roommate doesn’t have the app we use to communicate with our RA so i’m bringing that up tomorrow!!#bc i don’t want to do that shit for any other potential meetings. bc i also did this for the roommate agreements#it’s like a punishment for wanting to have thing planned#though also fuck my RA for just randomly texting me about it last night like dude. you know what else is possible? a timesheet for this shit#anyways. we’ll see if the time even works tomorrow#godddddd i want to scream but i think it’s just because im very hungry#i did survive class though. was not hungry then#though i am pissed off about this person who complains about doing critique like it’s an ART CLASS#EVERYONE ELSE CAN GO WITHOUT COMPLAINING. SHUT UP!!!!!!
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I agree that tumblr should try to get growth from artists not just whomever wants to try the trendy things (aka users who will get an account, try for 5 mins, abandon when they realize it isn't like their preferred site) but literally. tumblr isn't looking for new users because more users is the end-goal. Tumblr. Does. Not. Make. Money. Tumblr spends a LOT of money hosting all our fuckin content, and running a website about it, and so far, thats been """subsidized""" by investors who sank money into a pit hoping that one day it would give something back to them. Tumblr TRIED monetizing the existing userbase, without being total sellouts. The reason none of your ads are relevant to you most of the time is bc they dont sell your data to advertisers for targeting. They tried blaze, and ad-free, and crabs, and a merch store, and check-marks. And those are all used by a *portion* of the userbase, but not a *large* one. So tumblr still doesn't break even. They need to find some way to make enough money that the website can keep going once the game of money-pit hot-potato comes to an end. One day, if tumblr continues to be a money pit, tumblr's current owners will have to make a choice. Sell it, or shut it down. Selling it would only be possible if someone is willing to pay for it. Someone would only pay for it if it seemed like it could make anyone any money, ever. So tumblr has to make money. Or at least convince someone that it COULD make money. And having users makes it easier to convince someone you can make money off those users.
i get the point of the polls informally showing that the vast majority of tumblr users have been here for years and barely anyone is new. the problem is that the suits don't look at that kind of data and go "ah, we understand. the majority of our users are oldheads who want things to stay the same. we misunderstood our audience." they absolutely have hard numbers on these things. they surely know most active users have been here forever. but they look at these stats and go "wow, our growth rate really IS shit. we're still relying on an ever-dwindling pool of users who have been here since they were teenagers in the early 2010s. we need to be working even harder to make this place appeal to new users"
the higher ups and investors on sites like this want infinite growth forever. this is why they keep changing the layout to make it look like other, more popular sites, even though we hate it. this is why they try out shit like tumblr live that doesn't appeal to the established core userbase in the slightest. it's not for us. it's also not for the ~5% of active users (if the poll going around is to be believed) who signed up within the last year. no, they're chasing after the hundreds of millions of people who use twitter and the BILLIONS of people who use tiktok, hoping to appeal to them and make tumblr more popular again
this is, of course, deeply stupid. nobody is leaving tiktok to hop on tumblr live. they already have tiktok. and we're on tumblr because we like tumblr, not because we want it to morph into something else. but i'm sure automattic's got venture capital investors breathing down their necks going "why isn't tumblr more like twitter or tiktok or facebook or instagram or" etc. etc., and so here we are
#listen i hate a lot of the changes too - i submit feedback when i feel strongly about it#especially if its something that isn't purely visuals#like the removal of icons from the dashboard is an atrocious move that destroys my sense of community on here tbh#but this is a company with a shockingly small number of employees#desperately trying out as much as they can to see what works#do i like being a guinea pig for every little thing they decide to launch? not really#is it ruining my life? no#would i do the same if i knew i had an insanely loyal userbase who wouldn't leave my site#even if they hated my guts every time i so much as changed the shade of blue?#let alone changed actual features of the site? fuckin absolutely#tumblr users please remember: if a service is free then YOU are the product#tumblr has resisted selling your data as a business strategy for a while now#it would be oh so easy to make money if they just did that instead#every post promising that tumblr users would pay up to keep the site running if only it ~stayeed true~ turned out to be false#so while i understand frustration with individual changes being made#ia m SO fed up with the attitude thats like#WHY are they changing the site aren't we GOOD enough for them >>>>:(((((
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i hate the days when i desperately want to write but nothing i like comes out of my attempts at writing :( (side note i do make the "just bex talkin" tag so you guys can block it and ignore my rambling in tags if you want my writing but not my bitching lmao)
#just bex talkin#part of the problem is i want to write EVERYTHING and nothing at the same time#like i wanna write that cute convenience store steddie idea + a million more steddie ideas#but i also wanna write hale and jessie#and i know people wanna read some fem snz but i'm really struggling with that#i don't even know how to describe the fears stopping me from writing fem snz atm#it's very social/gender related but it's also me probably making a problem where there isn't one? aka overthinking#would i love to write some fem snz or even introduce my lesbian characters? absolutely!#but i don't feel like it's my place? i don't want to anger/upset the lesbian community cuz what if my portrayal is inaccurate and terrible?#also how dare i (an AFAB very masc leaning individual) assume to know what it's like being a lesbian when i never identified as one?#roll the clip of someone yelling a slur at me when i was 14 just because he *thought* i was a lesbian#bottom line? i don't want to objectify an already very objectified community even tho the realistic chances of me doing so are pretty low#listen i just have a lot of anxiety and i don't wanna piss anyone off or upset anyone by accident#don't get me started on all the fears i have about my writing being TOO angsty when i'm really having fun with it either#seriously there's a super heavy steddie snz snippet i have written that i'd love to post but i'm worried it's waaaay too heavy#especially for tumblr#but that's also just because i'm not good at feeling out where the boundaries are for this kind of thing? idk... IDK!#like am i allowed to write angsty feels + snz? of course i am! but am i allowed to *post* it??? no fuckin idea#like even Golden Blessing has some good angst to it in the beginning (which i did get to writing a bit more of that)#there's some impostor syndrome going on feeling like nothing i'm writing is actually making sense or engaging in any way rn#should i take small prompts and just do tiny little scenes of snz?#i want to WRITE but... most of me trying to write rn is me starting an idea and feeling like none of what im writing makes sense#so i immediately abandon it#and i do not know how to break that feeling/sensation of whatever i'm writing is not *flowing* ergo its shit#maybe i'll just quietly post the angsty steddie to my ao3 and just... leave it to the wolves
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"Great Death" are you for real. Ive been fucking calling him "Lord Death" since before I even knew he was a real person let alone a spirit this damn life
"In some texts, Mahākāla is described as a fearsome god, a "demon who steals the vital essence (of people)" and who feeds on flesh and blood, though he is also said to only devour those who committed sins against the Three Jewels of Buddhism."
"In China, the god was also associated with fertility and sexuality"
bruh why the fuck do i doubt lev is who he says he is
Like i fucking clicked on the "大黒天" name(s) (chinese and japanese) because i was like "fucking sky character spotted!!!!!!" and now im just like. bruh
#oh my god and in japan theres a tale about him approaching a monastic community to become its guardian are you fucking serious#thats like. a whole story in and of itself about how he used to be wrathful as fuck but then got involved in various places w asceticism#but like idk getting into his personal life here lmfao but#every fuckin time the topic of him in the perception of others comes up hes always so like "i dont hide. why would i. i dont need to#wear masks im big enough that no one fucks with my territory and with me if i show up as myself so like. people know me as me''#and im like ''yeah that makes sense''. but i never. like. fully get it. bc every fucking time i read about various names of his hes given#our group its. consistently. just literally him straight fucking up. thats just him. his fucking aspects and symbolism map on#ugh man and i know Mahakala is an important name to him and everything lmfao GOD#ramblings //#sometimes i border on being like ''wow no wait actually hold on. youre near and dear family to me but you are h u g e you are fucking#really significant on the chess board of this planet'' but then i remember my job is to hold him like a lil plum in my eye and s e e#a l l o f h i m#the cosmic horror ''you cant truly perceive the old gods youll go mad'' is a skill issue lmfao (a joking way to say i have trained for#thousands of years on how to hold divinity and paradox and unreality and madness in my eyes and i will hold him)
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i was thinking about this since i posted earlier about us needing to address the trend of gen z men being pulled into alt-right pipelines might have contributed to the outcome of this election.
i think contrapoints is really smart, and from what i’ve seen, has been way more effective at getting people out of harmful ideological pipelines than i’ve seen from the majority of leftists online who instead berate and drive a greater wedge of antipathy (though i understand why! and it can be very hard to have empathy for the people who see you as a threat). that antipathy makes the right more radicalized because they don’t feel like they can talk about anything without the “crazy lefties” who won’t even engage with them. where did these issues come from?
what i’ve noticed, and i’m even guilty of this, is that people don’t interact with groups of people whom they refuse talk to, which makes realities more hypothetical in the minds of their opponent since they aren’t open to seeing reality from their perspective. this is true on both sides. from what i’ve observed, it seems to originate from hypothetical perception of the opponent, but when people treat those perceptions as though they are real, it becomes real with their actions, which then makes the antipathy justified to someone. again, on both sides.
what makes contrapoints so successful at breaking this down is that is that she creates these socratic dialogue skits that represent real people and ideologies, has a sense of humor, isn’t afraid to discuss these things, reframes how we see these things by introducing nuance to both sides. she’s a leftist, but she also knows how to engage without ripening division, of meeting someone halfway and being completely humble about it. she is able to soften extremes.
she is able to get into the mind of people who aren’t aligned with her views, understand the nuance and rationales from a realistic perspective, breaking down a big block of “this is all bad” into “ok, some of this makes sense…”, what this does is create a space for self-reflection that doesn’t feel ham-fisted (which could otherwise cause people to double down on their beliefs instead of opening up to other perspectives outside of their bubble). while also being entertaining and well-produced on top of it.
youtube
what she is doing is creating these scenarios and socratic discussions that SHOULD be happening in real life but aren’t in this polarized social climate.
i graduated from new college of florida this spring, the small liberal arts college that was in headlines across the country for ron desantis’s board of trustees hostile takeover and exodus of professors.
new students and student athletes from conservative walks of life were being basically incentivized to go there who were taught to fear the lgbt boogeyman growing up in their conservative communities. but once they actually interacted with lgbt students there, many of them they felt like they understood them, and they weren’t as bad as they were told they would be. new college of florida was also famous for getting derek black (child of the man who created stormfront, and godchild of the kkk grand wizard david duke) out of white nationalism. their peers at NCF called them out but also interacted with them, invited them to dinner. black wrote a book about it.
now of course some people are too far gone and you shouldn’t waste your time with them, like derek’s family for example. but i also think a lot of people who voted for trump are not informed, are operating off of emotion and knee-jerk mentality because it’s easier than thinking, and they are not seeing the discussions that need to be had to change their mind because fuckin…nobody is doing them.
and we feel this visceral disgust to people of the opposing party because of its associations. i just want to know how it happened and how we got to be like this. i think social media is partly to blame and also the algorithms that take people down dangerous pipelines and sharpen them, insulate them.
i myself understand the vitriol you might have for anyone that voted for trump. i feel so disappointed that half the people of this country voted against our collective benefit. and i’ve seen a lot of sentiment from the left today saying “every single person who voted for trump is dead to me. i disowned you”.
you can see the reality of trump’s demagoguery, and it’s so obvious, but what i want to know is: what do they see? why did they vote for him? emotion and entertainment travel faster and have more reach than reason. and it’s that’s why i think contrapoints’s videos are exemplary at tackling this ideological divide. this is something i’ve been thinking about for months before today and i thought now was a better time than ever to give my two cents on it.
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