#started as a parody of toxic office culture

[ryukisgod]

Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture

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[aion-rsa]

The Boys Season 2: What Is The Church of the Collective?

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The following contains spoilers for The Boys season 2 episode 7.

The ongoing presence and practice of politics within democratic societies should represent the pinnacle of human achievement: the fair and equitable ordering of communities, city states and nations; the voluntary outflow of power from the people to their chosen representatives. 

In reality, however, the true power rests not in the hands of the people, but in the gloved fists of major institutions: including corporations and religions, the balance of power between those two behemoths varying from country to country, all around the world, western or otherwise. Certainly in the U.S., no man or woman can ascend to the presidency without the backing of at least one of them, and Amazon Prime’s superb superhero satire The Boys understands this bleak state of affairs perfectly. While the show is at heart a reaction against the implausibly virtuous world of the comic-book superhero, it’s also a searing indictment of the intersecting worlds of corporate power, consumerism, and celebrity culture. 

Vought International – the business-suited big bads who keep the show’s superheroes in their pocket in order to fatten their own – is savagely adept at using its corporate power to flatter, curtail and manipulate both the populace and its own employees. It’s hard to keep God-like beings in check, but Vought management is smart and cynical enough to understand that even potentially planet-ending supes aren’t immune to the allure of celebrity. 

The Boys season 2 introduces the yang to U.S. corporatocracy’s yin with The Church of the Collective, a none-so-subtle parody of the Church of Scientology. The Deep (Chace Crawford) has been pulled slowly in by the tentacled embrace of the church to the point where we find him, in the penultimate episode of the second season, brainwashed into following its codes, without really understanding its purpose, aims or reach. We, the audience, are similarly in the dark, though the parallels to The Church of the Collective’s real-world counterpart, plus the narrative hints we’ve already been given, can help us imagine what this mysterious cult might have in store for the supes, ‘the boys’, and the world at large.

Cultish Context  – Scientology

The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953 by the pulp sci-fi writer and former Naval Officer L. Ron Hubbard. Throughout the early 1950s Hubbard popularized a branch of pseudoscience called Dianetics, which slowly evolved into the core tenets of his new religion, coincidentally not long after the therapeutic applications of Dianetics were uniformly rubbished by academics and psychologists. This became something of a trend with Hubbard. Don’t like my contribution to the field of modern psychology? Fine. I’ll use it to start my own religion. Don’t want me in the Navy? Fine. I’ll start my own navy (which he essentially did with Scientology’s naval-based fraternal order “Sea Org”). 

Scientology gets its hooks into prospective church members – usually the needy, the narcissistic, the unfulfilled, or the damaged – by promising them enlightenment through auditing. This process – part talk-therapy, part spiritual confession, part future blackmail – works by breaking down and analyzing a subject’s life (and past lives) in order to purge them of those traumatic, or unhelpful, memories (engrams) that may be negatively influencing their behavior in the present. While Scientology needs a large rank and file to sustain itself it’s also shrewd enough to target celebrities – it has a whole department dedicated to their pursuit – whose presence in the church guarantees money, media attention, and free, recruitment-based marketing. Scientology knows that it’s celebs and profits, not saints and prophets, who will rally crowds of the spiritually empty to their doors.     

The Church of the Collective uses similar strategies, both of which converge on The Deep at the start of the second season, being that he’s both a celebrity, and a damaged vessel. Things have never looked worse for the disgraced submariner: cast aside from The Seven; isolated; reviled; drunk; full of doubt and recrimination. He’s also the #metoo poster boy. 

Simply put: he’s easy prey. 

The Church offers him a way back into The Seven via a journey of self-and-bodily acceptance, ostensibly a combination of talk-therapy, interrogation and mind-altering drugs. The Deep is quickly broken down then built back up again. The Church even stage-manages him a wife (an allusion, perhaps, to a certain fighter-jet-flying, cocktail-mixing actor who’s long been Scientology’s most famous recruit) to repair the PR already done.

The Deep is recruited by Eagle the Archer (Langston Kerman), a washed-up, Travolta-esque supe who dangles the story of his own success and redemption before him like a hypnotic carrot. The Deep, in turn, brings A-Train (Jesse T. Usher) to the Collective, although A-Train’s entry into the fold is a little less wide-eyed and willing. He can see past the bullshit, and wants no part of it, but nevertheless is ensnared by the Church’s smooth-toned, immaculately-groomed leader, Alastair Adana (Goran Visnjic), who knows all about A-Train’s spiraling debt, drug abuse and heart condition, and implies that such knowledge could only be kept private for a price.

“The church knows all kinds of things,” he tells a suddenly cognizant A-Train, “But don’t worry. We also know how to be discreet… especially for our members.”

Adana is a thinly-veiled approximation of David Miscavige – Scientology’s current leader – in that he’s a man who projects a smiling, sophisticated veneer to the world, beneath which lies barely concealed torrents of ruthless cruelty and rage. Allegedly.  

When Eagle the Archer refuses the Church’s request to break off contact with his mother, the organization releases a damning and embarrassing sex tape to the media. Adana declares Eagle a toxic person (Scientology labels its enemies “suppressive persons” or “SPs”) with whom no-one in the Church should associate. The Deep doesn’t hesitate to cut his new friend out of his life, showing that even supes are susceptible to the power of suggestion and a little psychological surgery. A-Train observes all of this with quiet but troubled detachment, doubtless wondering how high a price he’ll have to pay for his past… and for how long.

What Is The Collective Up To?

So far it seems that the Church has been biding its time, waiting for an opportunity to infiltrate Vought, or The Seven. Each time a smaller fish has been sent to catch a bigger fish. There’s little reason to assume that this chain will stop with A-Train. Who’s next? The CEOs and head honchos of Vought itself? Black Noir – leveraged into the fold with the threat of revealing his crippling tree nut allergy to the general public? Maeve – if the Church gets its hands on the footage that was filmed onboard a certain doomed civilian airliner? And who, or what, is its ultimate target? 

Homelander?    

While the loony, laser-eyed lout regularly expresses a desire to unleash his unrestrained fury upon the helpless world, adoration and popularity really are important to him, which is probably the only reason he’s held himself back from going full superhero postal. Vought, however, can only fluff Homelander’s vanity insofar as it doesn’t upset the shareholders, whereas the Church of the Collective can offer him the one thing he truly craves: uncritical, unquestionable, unending Godhood and adulation. 

This wouldn’t be Homelander’s first religion rodeo. In season 1 Homelander bent Christianity to his, and Vought’s, will, claiming that superheroes like him – living miracles – had been chosen by God to carry out His plan for America: so why shouldn’t they join the War on Terror? The discovery that supes were created by Compound V rather than God destroyed that useful illusion, but perhaps The Church of the Collective represents a second chance to co-opt a religion. A marriage made in heaven this time.    

Stormfront is the only snag here, given that she already has her claws into Homelander and there’s bad blood between her and the Church. Once a member, she rejected it on the grounds that its inclusive membership criteria was an affront to her deeply cherished Nazi ideals of racial purity. If she was declared a toxic person by the Church, though, what was her punishment? Why is she allowed to operate with impunity? Is it possible that she’s secretly working for the Church – or at their command – to recruit Homelander, and the whole eugenics angle is part of their true and hidden design for the planet? 

Unlikely. It’s more likely we’re about to see The Church of the Collective try to take down their fallen angel. Or take over Vought. Or both.  Corporate might versus religious zealotry, with supes on both sides, and the boys trapped – as always – somewhere in the middle.

And if that’s the case, who should we put our money on?    

The Church of the Collective, like its real-life counterparts Scientology and NXIVM, apes the marketing methods, structure and language of the modern corporation, projecting the power and seriousness of the boardroom rather than the prattling of the pulpit. While these quasi-religious entities need money to survive and grow, and indeed mercilessly pursue it, money is but an adjunct to the real prize of power, which makes them at once more deadly and much harder to defeat (that isn’t to say that The Church of the Collective isn’t set on getting what The Church of Scientology already has: tax exempt status). 

You can bring down a business; it’s a little harder to snuff out faith, especially at its most zealous and jealously guarded. It’s the reason The Sparrows were able to take over Kings’ Landing in Game of Thrones. It’s the reason you’d rather meet a Ferengi in battle than a Klingon. 

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Whatever chaos the Collective is about to unleash on the world of The Boys, you can guarantee that it’s going to be messy. And a whole load of fun.    

The post The Boys Season 2: What Is The Church of the Collective? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[madegeeky]

Giftening 2020: Obligatory Vote for These Post (spoiler version)

Want the non-spoilery version? Seriously, though, super spoilery for main plot points for a lot of these. Skip the ones you don’t want to know about.

Ones with * are my nominations, so you know where my biases lie. :P Ones in bold are my top pick for the categories. I did not include things that don’t need the boost (like Utena).

ANIME 

Aggretsuko - A tv show about an unassuming shy red panda woman who works in an office building and deals with the stress of it by going to karaoke and screaming out death metal. The show largely deals with her making friends with two women who she admires and a dude who likes her. The dude who likes her is actually a geniunely interesting storyline because at the end of the first season (which I’ve not seen beyond), he basically admits that he’s built this image of her in his head that isn’t real and he wants to know the real her. (Which, fuck yeah.)

Fushigi Yuugi* - This is a story about two teens who used to be friends fighting over a man which is literally the antithesis of everything Jet is. And yet, Jet watched the whole damn thing. Watch her squirm as she has to deal with that in a liveblog format. You can get a preview of some of that in Doc’s liveblog of it that she did for Jet.

NON-ANIME ANIMATED

Archer* - This is an animated parody of James Bond made for adults. It's offensive as fuck because Archer, the titular character, is a James Bond stand-in and that character can also be offensive as fuck. In fact, one thing to appreciate about this show is that all the characters are shitty, awful people and the show never attempts to excuse their shitty, awful behavior. Plus, it's one of the few shows where half the main characters are women. I am a tiny bit hesitant to rec this for a liveblog due to the offensivness however, as far as I can tell it's not popular on tumblr, and those are generally the ones that cause the most trouble so... 

Daria - The story of a misanthropic teenager, her family, and her best friend. The characters are specifically meant to appear to be tropes before slowly being unveiled as three dimensional people. It's got a dry sense of humor that I think Jet will enjoy. I actually didn't know until years after I watched this that it was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead (which I hated) so don't let that dissuade you. 

LIVE ACTION

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I haven't seen past a certain point because it starts going super deep into exploring depression and that is one of my main triggers for a depressive episode, so I cannot speak of later eps. However, this show starts out funny and silly and evolves into a show exploring how toxic the main character actually is and how unhealthy her coping mechanisms are. It's amazing to see a character type whose actions are usually excused or written off as funny instead be specifically called out as being awful and toxic. (It was a Shit Show is still one of the best songs I've ever heard and Mr. Geeky and I sing it to each other whenever shit hits the fan.) 

Hannibal* - If you know of Hannibal, you know the basics premise is that of a man who eats people and is chased by the FBI. The writing in this is some of the best writing I've ever had the pleasure of seeing in a piece of media: it's subtle, smart, and trust its audience to follow along without having their hand held. However, what's really great about the TV show is that it's not afraid to do its own thing. It constantly fucks with your expectations and deconstructs and explores tropes in ways I've never seen before. I haven't seen the ending yet but I highly doubt it's going to end in a place where Silence of the Lambs will happen. The acting is fucking great and even though Anthony Hopkins gives an amazing performance as Hannibal Lector, after seeing Mads Mikkelsen play him there's no going back to Hopkins. In general, if you're looking for something original (which is ironic considering it's based on a book and there are several movies) and smart, I cannot recommend this enough. 

Russian Doll* - (Doc, please skip this one, as in 5 years when you're done with Two Storms, this is one of the things I'm considering nominating should I ever win a liveblog again.) I don't really know how to explain this show because it's so fucking weird and is so focused on character and ideas that the plot is both super simple and extremely complicated. It's a story about a woman who starts to relive the same day over and over again except, instead of the typical thing where it starts over when she falls asleep, it's only until she dies (so sometimes she lasts for hours, other times for a couple days). However, almost immediately there are signs that something else is going on, that something outside of the main character's repeating day, something has gone horribly wrong. (Count the fish.) It's a very thoughtful, character-driven show, more about exploring ideas than plot which I, personally, didn't mind at all. Another one I highly recommend overall with much less blood and gore than Hannibal.

Xena - IT'S FUCKING XENA PEOPLE! Okay, but just in case you don't know what the show is about is through cultural osmosis, Xena is a show about a woman who used to be a truly horrible murderous bitch and her continual attempts to make up for the wrongs she has done. The main relationship in the show is between Xena and her (girl)friend, Gabriel, and although the show can be ridiculously silly (time is made up and history doesn’t matter!), it also explores deep, dark issues. One of the best things this show explores is the idea of redemption and forgiveness and that perhaps nothing Xena does will ever get her those things.

LIVESTREAM

Crank* - Jason Statham plays a man who has been given a poison that slowly cuts off his adrenaline, meaning that eventually he'll die. He has to do increasingly ludicrous things to get his adrenaline pumping overtime to make up for it slowly being cut off. It's one of the most fucking bananas thing you'll ever watch but is just a bunch of fucking fun. (CW: Public sexual assault. I only mentioned because it’s a scene that last for a bit. It's a complicated scene so I won't get into it here but send an ask if you want more details.)

Dale and Tucker vs Evil* - Dale and Tucker, two hillbilly best friends, are going into the woods to fix up their vacation home when they stumble across some college kids. Random circumstances make the college kids think D&T have kidnapped their friend and so they decide they need to attack D&T to get her back. Hijinx ensue. I don't want to say much more because there's a moment that is, to this day, still one of the funniest fucking things I've ever seen, largely because I did not see it coming.

GAMES

Doki Doki Lit Club - This is a game about games. You play a guy in a dating sim. Your first playthrough everything seems normal enough. You join the literature club, meet and talk to girls, and then one of the girls commits suicide. And then game restarts and the girl who committed suicide just... doesn't exist anymore. Your replay the exact same days but it's as though she never existed. Things only get weirder from there. This game does a great job of turning dating sim tropes on their head, as well as exploring games in general. (Content warning for a lot of things. Let me know if you want more details.)

Slime Rancher (stream) - There's really not much to spoil here. You play a woman who is in charge of a ranch full of slimes. There's some messages you'll find, left by the old owner, telling story about their romance. There also some messages between you character and a deliberately gender-ambiguous significant other. And that's about the closest to story you get. Otherwise it's just catching and ranching slimes.

Subnautica* - Fucking fuck I love this game. When this game first starts it appears to be your typical survival game with no real direction other than what you want to explore. But then you find an alien structure. And you realize that your spaceship didn't randomly crash. And you find out that there's no way get off this planet except to explore deeper and deeper and find out what the aliens were doing on this planet. A genuinely beautiful story, told mostly through entries in data pads and voice messages left behind, this ending is one of the most moving ends I've ever experienced and I never ever would have expected to be able to say that about a survival game.

We Happy Few* - In this alternate universe, the Germans invaded Britain during WW2 (although, through exploring the world, you learn that the differences started well before that). When the story starts up, the Germans have left Britain behind and Britain, for unknown reasons, appears to be cut off and/or abandoned by the rest of the world. The majority of the country is constantly hopped up on a drug called Joy, which is specifically used to help them forget something horrible that happened in the past. (I have theories.) The story starts when your character goes off his Joy and gets kicked out of society. There's a general sense of unease about everything and the more you learn the more that unease grows. The art style is great and the world building fascinating.

MISC (there’s nothing spoilery here but it feels weird to not have it)

Interactive Horror Story Livestream - Doc has talked a bit about this in at least one of her Xmas streams and it sounds amazing. Not only is Jet hilarious with horror stuff but knowing Doc’s writing skill, it will be something that we’d never want to miss.

Bean Boozle When Failing a Hard Game* - I am a sadistic bitch, I admit to this, and I love watching people eat Bean Boozle, the jelly bean of horrible flavors. One of my favorite videos content creators has done is playing an incredibly difficult game and then being forced to eat a random one every time they fail. 

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Idk where you get the idea that feminism is anything like you say it is but... maybe you should get off tumblr? I literally don't know one single feminist like the ones you describe and I'm deep in the movement. Stop basing your opinion off parodies.

This is going to be fun. If you don’t know a single feminist like the ones I describe and interact with throughout my blog, then you either live in your bedroom, completely shut off to the world or the more logical choice and that’s you’re a complete fucking liar. Let’s have a little look into some of these feminists, that you just so happen to conveniently know nothing of their existence. 

First of all let’s look at some of the horrible shit feminists have done:

The feminist group WAR has petitioned to have the government stop prosecuting women for filing false accusations.

Feminist Mary Koss denies male rape victims.

Feminists violently protesting against Warren Farrell at U of Toronto.

17,000 feminists at protest attack and sexually molesting a group of Rosary-praying Catholic men who were peacefully protecting the cathedral.

Feminists shut down a talk about male suicide and force university to stop acknowledging International Men’s Day

Feminists shut down forum for battered husbands.

Feminists started a campaign against Father’s rights groups

Feminists fought against laws granting men anonymity until charged with the crime of rape—not convicted, just charged.

Feminists fought against a law to end to the justice system favoring women simply because they are women, and giving men harsher sentences simply because they are men.

Feminist fought against men want equal treatment when victims of domestic violence, and to not be arrested for the crime of “being male” under primary aggressor policies.

Feminists force university president to resign after he claimed that we should all be entitled to free-speech

Feminists in India and Israel fought against female rapists being arrested, charged and convicted of rape.

Feminists harass and abuse teacher because his wife said that people should be allowed to wear Halloween outfits

Feminists fought against a economic stimulus for male-dominated job such as construction, etc.

Feminist fought a law against  Paternity Fraud.

Hateful Quotes by Feminsts

Feminist Harriet Harman has publicly requested employers to hire women in preference to White men if both job candidates are equally

Equality Minister,feminist Patricia Hewitt, was found guilty of breaching the Sex Discrimination Act by “overlooking a strong male candidate for a job in favour of a weaker female applicant”.

The lesbian feminist prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir has vowed to “end of the Age of Testosterone

Feminists want to make peeing while standing illegal

Erin Pizzey had to flee the UK because she and her family received death threats and her dog murdered all because feminists didn’t like that she discovered women were equally as violent as men.

Also Suzanne Steinmetz and her children received death threats and bomb threats she discovered that  the rate at which men were victimized by domestic violence was similar to the rate for women.

Richard Gelles and Murray Straus  have all received death threats from feminists, simply for publishing their findings (that female-to-male family violence was equal to the rate of male-to-female violence).

Feminist attacks male cartoonist and is hailed a hero of feminism.

Try to shut down female prisons.

Feminists prevent a meeting about male suicide.

Jezebel mocks men who are abused.

Create rape laws that exclude female rapists.

Make it impossible to charge women with rape.

Feminists force children to swear in propaganda videos

Feminists create propaganda videos encouraging to kill men

Feminists don’t want the gov to help unemployed men.

Feminists say men can’t talk about domestic abuse.

Feminists cover up female domestic abuse stats.

Now let’s take a look at just some of the things they have had meltdowns over: 

Domino’s pizza boxes A campaign slogan written on a Domino’s pizza box, which conveyed their refusal to adhere to requested toppings changes on their artisan pizzas as a good thing, is sexist, as it perpetuates “rape culture.”

Science The University of Wisconsin - Madison (UW) offers “a post-doctorate in ‘feminist biology’ because biological science is rife with sexism and must be changed to reflect feminist thinking.” 

Voting for Donald Trump If you voted for Trump in the primary, it was clearly a sexist reactionary vote to the tsunami of Girl Power taking over America, according to Salon. Obviously, this “logic” extends to your vote in the general.

Fireworks Sexist fireworks are nothing more than a symptom of toxic masculinity: “Isn’t it sort of messed up that we celebrate our freedom by pretending to blow things up? Like a strange, collective working out of trauma,” explains NPR reporter Sarah McCammon.

Lab Rats Barbra Streisand explains: “Gender inequality even extends to mice in the labs. They’re all male! …So even female mice are discriminated against! When I asked why, the answer I got was that female mice have hormones so they’re more complex. Well, so are women!”

Calling a “pantsuit” a “pantsuit” As the New York Post points out, feminists find the word “pantsuit” sexist: Although pantsuits and traditional men’s suits are stylistically different, it’s sexist to differentiate between them with the added word “pant.”

Bras Bras are sexist because men don’t have to wear them.

Architecture As one progressive art professor explained: “architectural design has been dominated by men in order to promote a social/political order dominated by men.”

Complimenting a woman on her cooking According to Scientific American, complimenting a woman on her cooking reinforces gender stereotypes, and is a form of “benevolent sexism.”

Air conditioning Women are cold while men bask in the sexist office air conditioning. 

The word “too” In a piece titled “The 3-Letter Word That Cuts Women Down Every Day,” Huffington Post’s Cameron Schaeffer explains that use of the adverb “too” promotes the pretense that women are never good enough; they are either “too” this or “too” that.

Tickling Posting in America’s favorite feminist site we swore was satirical, Everyday Feminism, male feminist Jamie Utt explains that his incessant playful tickling of his girlfriend is actually rooted in inherent sexism, which was fostered by the patriarchy. Essentially, Jamie tickling his girlfriend is perpetuating rape culture: “Taken to its destructive ends, this can look like a million different violations of consent,” warns Utt.

Ski slopes A published academic report in The International Review for the Sociology of Sports concluded ski slopes are sexist because they are ‘masculinized spaces,’” reports the Daily Wire’s Pardes Seleh.

The alphabet The written language established “the patriarchy” and subsequently all of the world’s sexism, claim feminists.

Disliking pumpkin-spice lattes Katherine Timpf at National Review reports: “According to a Swarthmore College student’s op-ed, the real reason that people make fun of pumpkin-spice lattes is that our society thinks everything girls like is stupid because ‘girls don’t get to have valid emotions.’”

Preferring a woman shaves her legs Everyday Feminism explains that online dating sites like OKCupid help us “weed out misogynists” by asking questions like, “Do you think women have the obligation to keep their legs shaved?” If a man answers yes, he’s a sexist.

Emojis There are no menstruation-themed emojis so… sexism.

Wearing camouflageWearing camouflage is “anti-feminist:” Camouflage is representative of “the patriarchy,” so, by wearing such symbolic clothing, you are supporting female (and other “marginalized” groups’) oppression.

The phrase “hit on” This phase is apparently literal to feminists, and thus is considered “violent” sexist language that perpetuates “rape culture.”

Saying “I love women” Bustle explains that when a man says, “I love women,” he’s actually implying that he loves women “more” than men, which “implies that [women] are different, which others them and excludes those who act more ‘like men.’”

The Declaration of Independence Feminists view the Declaration of Independence as “an historical cause of sexism, as the document refers only to ‘all men’ — not ‘men and women.’”

Calling your daughter a “princess” Fathers calling their daughter “princess,” or treating them “special” is any way, is a form of “benevolent sexism.”

Asking a woman about her tattoos A man asking a woman about her tattoos, explains Everyday Feminism, is the equivalent of turning her “body into public property.” One such question given as an example: “How much did it cost?”

“Ladies’ night” UNC seniors protest “ladies’ night” at bars because it is sexist, as the promotional stunt is “demeaning to female bargoers.”

Glaciers “Academics at the University of Oregon have determined that glaciers and the science that studies them are deeply sexist.” “Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions,” reads the abstract of an academic paper on the matter.

Long lines outside public women’s restrooms “Long lines for women’s restrooms are the result of a history that favors men’s bodies,” proclaims Soraya Chemaly, in a TIME piece. “Women are still forced to stand in lines at malls, schools, stadiums, concerts, fair grounds, theme parks, and other crowded public spaces,” she explains. “This is frustrating, uncomfortable, and, in some circumstances, humiliating. It’s also a form of discrimination, as it disproportionately affects women.”

Men grilling food When men grill food, they are only reaffirming “gender roles.” A self-loathing male feminist at explains he has fallen into a “societal trap.”

The animated film “Minions” The animated film was full of “gags,” adhering “to only the most rigid and nauseating gender tropes,” complains a feminist blogger. Plus, minions conveniently “only ever serve men.”

String cheese According to this feminist, string cheese is sexist.

Words with “man” in them According to the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program website at the University of Pittsburg, words like “mankind,” “freshman” and “chairman” are sexist. “'Terms to Use to Avoid Sexist Language’ are also included in an attempt to steer students away from using words like ‘mankind,’ ‘chairman,’ and ‘freshman.’ Instead, they ought to be replaced with gender-neutral options such as ‘humankind,’ ‘chair or chairperson,’ and ���first year student.’”

Speech improvement apps Speech improvement apps like “Ummo,” which tracks non-filler words, such as “like” and “uh,” are sexist because they are  “policing women’s language.”

Shoe compliments Shoe compliments are apparently “sexist micro-aggressions.” UNC faculty members were advised against paying a woman a shoe compliment, since this is coded language for: “I notice how you look and dress more than I value your intellectual contributions.”

The color pink Since there is an undeniable knee-jerk association of the color pink with women and femininity (which in it of itself is sexist, according to feminists), when men refrain from wearing the color, they are actually saying that it’s “shameful to be a woman.”

Hating the feminist “Ghostbusters” reboot. According to a feminist at The Atlantic, the “outcry” over how crappy the new feminist “Ghostbusters” trailer was fueled by your sexism.

Spooning Spooning is apparently so sexist that Slate felt it necessary to write an entire “manifesto” against it. According to J. Bryan Lowder, the heart of spooning reveals a sexist power struggle, and reaffirms gender stereotypes: The “big spoon” is dominant and male, whereas the “little spoon” is submissive and female.

Telling a woman, “you look tired” “Chances are if a woman has a totally bare face, she’ll be told by both male and female colleagues that she looks exhausted, hungover or ill … people are so used to seeing made-up women at work that an au naturale face seems anything but natural,” Radhika Sanghani writes in a piece oh-so-aptly titled “It’s sexist to tell a woman she ‘looks tired’ at work.”

Mine shaft According to college feminists, the “phallic” words “mine shaft” contribute to “rape culture,” reports Heat Street.

Tampons Women should be able to “free bleed” without the use of sexist tampons, which are only used by women because men “period shame” them. Feminists have even run marathons while “free bleeding” in protest of good hygiene apparently mandated by “the patriarchy.”

Asking a woman to marry you The sexist dominant/submissive power dynamic behind a man asking a woman to marry him acts to reinforce “rape culture,” feminists argue.

Harry Potter The fictional “Happy Potter” books and films are sexist, as they “perpetuate rape culture” by using magical love potions on fictional characters without “consent.”

Indiana Jones There are “copious quantities of racism and sexism” in the “Indiana Jones” films, says Salon’s Matthew Rozsa. For instance, women in the films are often depicted as “materialistic, self-absorbed and shrill.”

Calling a woman “sweetheart” Feminist actresses Lena Dunham and Emma Stone say that calling a woman “sweetheart” (also “honey,” “baby,” or “babe”) is demeaning to women, and can be “just as damaging as any other name-calling” like “bitch.”

Telling a woman, “you look tired” “Chances are if a woman has a totally bare face, she’ll be told by both male and female colleagues that she looks exhausted, hungover or ill … people are so used to seeing made-up women at work that an au naturale face seems anything but natural,” Radhika Sanghani writes in a piece oh-so-aptly titled “It’s sexist to tell a woman she ‘looks tired’ at work — and here’s why.”

Comic books and graphic novels Female characters in comic books and graphic novels are portrayed with “a blatant sexualization that artists would not dare to submit their treasured male characters to,” complains an opinion piece in The Guardian.

Putting your arm around your girlfriend When a man puts his arm around his girlfriend, he is expressing “ownership” over her, says feminist actress Helen Mirren: “It annoys me when I see men with an arm slung around their girlfriend’s shoulders,” she said. “It’s like ownership.”

The nuclear family Leftist UT Professor Dana Cloud says that sexism is perpetuated through the traditional family structure, which is itself “oppressive” to women.

Slow motion Showing women in videos in slow motion invokes misogynistic “Baywatch” imagery and acts to objectify women. This was recently categorized as sexist after feminists freaked out over a promotional soccer video which featured female fans cheering in slow motion.

Complaining about political correctness If someone complains that something is politically incorrect, they are really just a misogynist using such language as a cover to say/do sexist things, says Everyday Feminism. Also, they are likely a racist.

“Boyfriend” jeans “Boyfriend” style jeans are sexist for a whole lot of reasons, apparently. Being created to benefit the ‘male gaze’ is the main issue.

Farting “By farting louder the man is using passive aggressive violence to position himself as dominant, this intimidates the woman to subconsciously not release as much flatulence and thus the woman fearing for her safety doesn’t fart as loud as a sign of submissiveness, this in turn contributes to rape culture and women being oppressed.”

Interrupting a woman This is apparently not just rude behavior, but sexist, since it’s really a symptom of the patriarchy teaching men that women deserve to be interrupted, as they are not your equal but your inferior.

The derogatory phrase “go f*ck yourself” To feminists, “go f*ck yourself” is not just a nasty, derogatory phrase used by both sexes, it’s sexist against women because it reinforces “rape culture.”

The word “cupcake” The word “cupcake” enforces the gender stereotypes that women and girls are weak, frail and need protection. 

Witchcraft According to internet feminists, witchcraft is sexist because it’s woman-centric.

Hollywood There are far too many white men casted as leads and working behind the camera, notes Salon. “Hollywood’s diversity crisis is even worse than we thought: Straight white men still rule, on screen and off.”

The phrase “I will force myself” Apparently, saying that you will “force” yourself to do something is coded language for it’s-okay-to-rape-women. This “violent” language perpetuates “rape culture,” feminists say.

Professionalism “Professionalism” in the workplace is “oppressive” toward women, as it reinforces “social hierarchies that value white maleness above all,” feminists say.

The word “ladies” The word “ladies” reeks of “paternalistic condescension,” according to feminists

Complimenting a woman’s handwriting Apparently, telling a woman she has “nice handwriting” is sexist. The reason why it’s “sexist” is unknown, as it was fussed over by feminists in Bristol without so much as an explanation.

Men sitting with their knees apart “Manspreading” is “an assertion of male dominance,” and “every one” of the manspreaders does it because he feels like he has to “claim his territory and his manhood in this public space, even at the discomfort of all the other passengers.”

Running against Hillary Clinton A feminist reporter from the New York Times suggested that it was sexist for Bernie Sanders to run against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, as it might have blocked Hillary from becoming the first female nominee of a major party.

The word “cheer” The word “cheer” was stricken from a college fight song, as the word was thought to “devalue the accomplishments of female students.”

Clapping Citing ‘triggering’ concerns, feminist convention bans clapping, replaces with ‘Jazz Hands’. ‘Clicking fingers’ is also replacing clapping at universities as it’s safer.

Having to pay for a tampon Feminists are upset that they have to pay for their own basic hygiene—which is obviously a condition of the patriarchy oppressing women who can’t escape their period due to sexist biology.

Finding purpose in motherhood Finding purpose in motherhood is a patriarchal trap, as seen when feminists lost their minds over singer Adele proclaiming such an anti-feminist sentiment.

Not supporting Hillary Clinton for president If you don’t support the candidate with a uterus, and you have a uterus, there is a special place in hell for you.

Of course, if you’re a man and don’t support Hillary, you’re obviously pro-female-oppression and can’t stomach the thought of a uterus occupying the White House.

Man caves Man caves are a “disgusting patriarchal myth” and often “exclude” women, therefore, they are sexist.

Reports that a celebrity might be pregnant “Ban the bump-watch: Beyoncé’s belly scrutiny is sexist, invasive and bad for all women,” reads a Salon headline. I mean, why does the sexist media only notice a “baby bump” with women? Sexist biology strikes again.

A Target t-shirt A t-shirt sold in Target with the word “Trophy” on it is “demeaning to women,” feminists complain.

A prom photo A prom photo caused outrage as it shows boys in “thought” and girls “smiling,” the photo perpetuates some negative, sexist stereotypes, apparently.

School dances The expectation that boys have to ask girls to the dance acts to reinforce sexist gender stereotypes. 

Telling young boys, “you need a haircut” By telling a young boy that he “needs a haircut,” you are actually telling him that he is looking “too feminine— as if looking feminine is the worst thing a boy can do,” explains a feminist at Bustle.

The word “bossy” The negative connotation of the “gendered” word “bossy” perpetuates the sexist notion that women should not “lead.”

Opening doors for women This is a form of “benevolent sexism,” according to feminists at Everyday Feminism who insist that “chivalry must die.” By opening the door for a woman, you are not being polite, you’re signaling that women are weak and men are here to protect and take care of them. Talk about a loaded gesture.

School and workplace dress codes School and workplace dress codes often conform to what’s deemed “appropriate” to the “male gaze.” 

Amazon On Amazon, you can search for “girls’ toys” and “boys’ toys,” such a distinction is sexist.

Gender-specific bathrooms The patriarchy created gender-specific bathrooms to exclude women and treat them as man’s lesser; according to feminists, women wanted in on the men’s room.

A statue “This highly lifelike sculpture has, within just a few hours of its outdoor installation, become a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for many members of our campus community,” reads the petition in part. “While it may appear humorous, or thought-provoking to some, it has already become a source of undue stress for many Wellesley College students, the majority of whom live, study, and work in this space.” More than 300 students at the women’s liberal-arts college have asked that it be removed. But the naked paintings and sculptures of Trump are celebrated?

Viewing Friday the thirteenth as unlucky “According to the Feminist Internet, Friday the 13th being considered ‘unlucky’ is apparently a manifestation of the patriarchy because Friday is the only day of the week named after a female goddess, and a group of 13 women was considered to be a coven of witches approximately 9 billion years ago.”

The phrase “too much information” According to feminist icon Lena Dunham, “TMI” is used to belittle women’s experiences, where as men are rewarded with for their sharing.

Calling Hillary Clinton “shrill” Calling Hillary Clinton “shrill” is a gendered attack, according to feminists.

Calling a woman “pretty” This is another form of “benevolent sexism.” Men call women pretty to emphasize that all they are worth is their appearance.

The SATs According to The New York Times, SAT testing may feature questions that are viewed as “stereotype threats.” For instance, one math question show that more boys than girls in math classes. Females will apparently lose self-worth over such a “microaggression.”

The “kiss cam” The “kiss cam” clearly acts to perpetuation “misogyny” and “can sexually disempower women” by making women feel obligated to a man.

The Olympics Some sexist announcers covering the Olympics had the audacity to mention that female athletes had children; some even credited a male coach for coaching. 

Denying the mythical gender pay gap If you don’t buy into the debunked gender pay-gap myth, you obviously hate women and want them to be paid less than men, according to feminists.

Denying the mythical “rape culture”Denying the politicized and exaggerated “rape culture” means you’re a sexist who doesn’t want to combat rape.

Being pro-life If you believe that babies should not be killed in the womb, you actually hate “empowered women.”

Being a Republican And of course: All Republicans are sexist woman-haters, just ask disgraced DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Let me guess, these women aren’t feminists or they may not exist altogether? You claim you’re deep in the movement, maybe that’s why you’re denying the facts, as usual. Fuck off

[thefabulousfulcrum]

The Land of the Large Adult Son

via TheNewYorker

By Jia Tolentino

n January, 2015, shortly after Mike Huckabee announced that he was exploring a second bid for the Presidency, a Twitter user with the handle @JuliusIrvington posted an old Huckabee family photo in which the politician, wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, sits next to his wife on a wooden bench. Behind them, three kids smile at the camera. On the right is a young Sarah Huckabee (now Sanders). Next to her are her two brothers, John Mark and David, who are the same size as their father and wear matching striped shirts. “My favorite thing in the world is that Mike Huckabee literally haslarge adult sons,” @JuliusIrvington wrote. 

This seems to be roughly when the large-son meme went more or less mainstream. It had been germinating in arcane corners of the Internet for a couple of years by then. In 2012, the Twitter user @MuscularSon, who eventually deleted his account, started tweeting in character as a beleaguered father of several mythically rowdy boys. “i cant control my enormous nerd sons. they force me to cosplay as a police box from Dr Who and take turns paintballing my enormous nude torso,” he wrote. And later, “my two awful big sons got into the 20 quarts of hummus i have and now their heading toward The City.” In November, 2013, @dril, the ur-account for this genre of absurdist online humor, tweeted, “i have trained my two fat identical sons to sit outside of my office and protect my brain from mindfreaks by meditating intensely.” In 2014, he tweeted, “please pray for my sons Thursten and Gorse, who have just glued themselves to a curtain.” By then, the image—a tornado of havoc around a couple of big, rambunctious sons—had somehow solidified as a comic trope.

The galaxy of large adult sons contains many constellations, and sons don’t necessarily have to be adults to belong. In November, 2014, the parody Web site Clickhole posted a BuzzFeed-style quiz called “Which One of My Garbage Sons Are You?” “I’ve got some shit boys,” the intro read. “My huge beautiful wife gave me children who think and speak like the toilet. I have four garbage sons: The first son is named Royce, the second son is named Preston, the third son is named Lance and Blake (two names for just one son), and the fourth son is the dreaded Laramie. Which one of my toxic sons are you? Take this quiz to find out!” My result: “You are a real trash mountain of a son who came marching out of my huge beautiful wife on the worst day to ever happen.” I was working at Gawker Media when this quiz was posted, and it derailed all operations for about an hour.

Once you’re made aware of the preponderance of large adult sons in our culture, you will start seeing large adult sons everywhere. Like all the best memes, it is essentially good-natured: “large” is a proud but gentle word, used in this context the way a gardener might talk about a beautiful butternut squash. The meme is also highly flexible, as Barry Petchesky, the deputy editor of Deadspin, pointed out to me over e-mail: “Literally every man in America is someone’s large adult son.” Sports media, in particular, has adapted it as a term for what Tom Ley, the managing editor of Deadspin, calls “big lovable galoots.” In April, SB Nation ran a piece unpacking “the myth of Aaron Judge, our large adult baseball son.” Sports Illustrated responded, arguing that the Cubs leftfielder Kyle Schwarber was the true large adult son of the M.L.B. (“How can anyone be said to match Schwarber in terms of being a big beefy boy?” Jon Tayler asked.)

But the Huckabee sons remain the poster boys for the meme. “They are very large, they are adult, and they are so clearly Huckabee’s sons,” Petchesky noted. They also fully fit the archetype. David, notoriously, once killed a dog at summer camp, and John Mark once acted in a low-budget film in which he smoked cigarettes while assuring a female character that it was normal to “suck a little dick to get a part.” This is classic large-adult-son behavior: alarming, with a whiff of the surreal. The Huckabee boys also remain cloaked by the cartoonish piety that undergirds their father’s politics. The situation resembles a 2014 @dril tweet: “my big sons have made a mess of the garage again after being riled up by the good word of the Lord.” The definitive quality of the large adult son is that he is endlessly excusable: though he does nothing right, he can do no wrong.

These days, it’s getting harder to separate the large-adult-son meme—one of the few reliably good things on the Internet—from the larger hellscape of adult-male behavior in which we all live. The Times recently ran a trifecta of pieces from writers across the ideological spectrum who all believe men are acting too much like boys. In a column titled “Before Manliness Loses Its Virtue,” David Brooks argued that it is embarrassing—for the country, but also for the institution of masculinity itself—that the President and several of his top advisers are openly needy, puerile, and immature. Senator Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, wrote a column about how, as a teen-ager, he used to perform hard agricultural labor on summer breaks: without the hard-won discipline he honed in the cornfields, he argued, kids these days will take too long to grow up. Jennifer Weiner wrote a column about the men who simply never have to, linking childish YouTube personalities to men like Billy Bush and Ryan Lochte, and—alone among these three columnists—to Donald Trump, Jr., the President’s oldest son.

Don, Jr., is generally portrayed, as he was by “Saturday Night Live,” as the more adult of Donald Trump’s two large adult sons—who are, like the Huckabee sons, prone to taking interesting photos together. But this summer Don, Jr., has become the rowdiest son of all. In July, after the Times reported that he had taken a meeting, in the spring of 2016, with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer in the hopes of obtaining negative information about Hillary Clinton, Don, Jr., confirmed the report by tweeting screenshots of the e-mail chain that led up to the meeting. “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” he wrote, replying to Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist who had dangled “official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary.” Christopher Wray, Trump’s pick for F.B.I. director, pointed out that Don, Jr., should have taken this offer to the F.B.I. On Thursday afternoon, Reuters reported that grand-jury subpoenas had been issuedin connection with the meeting.

At thirty-nine, Don, Jr., is old enough to conduct himself with basic integrity—or, barring that, with basic competence in his plans to deceive. Many people have pointed out the painful absurdity of large adult sons in political families (Don, Jr.; Billy Bush; Ted Kennedy) being excused for shocking behavior well into their thirties when twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was deemed enough of a threat by Cleveland policemen to be shot dead on the sight of his toy gun, in 2014. Donald Trump, Jr., is a mere ten days younger than the French President, Emmanuel Macron. And still, President Trump dictated Don, Jr.,’s original statement and excused him after the scandal broke, calling Don, Jr., a “good boy.”

The large-adult-son meme takes wing from the idea that men overcompensate when they are humiliated, and that a primary source of this humiliation is interdependence—sons act out when they are defined by their fathers, and fathers are disgraced by the oafish flailing of their sons. But it’s memes all the way down with this Administration: Trump, the father of the large adult son of the summer, is himself, clearly, a large adult son. He is the loudmouthed, mischievous, and disorderly child of a presiding father. He loves to get behind the wheel of a truck and pose for the cameras like an important birthday boy. The Web site Gossip Cop recently ran an earnest post headlined “Donald Trump Does notWear ‘Adult Diapers,’ Despite Speculation.” These are strange times we live in. The seas are warming, the summer is ending; each day lasts a century, and we are everywhere ruled by large adult sons.