#teh bumper

[ialpiriel]

the thing is that if cursor was in a different setting, she'd be a specific kind of Truck Guy

[melissa-titanium]

can ijust. can i. ? this image?

first of all HOW? how are they all fitting in this tiny ass car. why is the car so small in the first place. the fact that reigen is driving with such an air of confidence is concerning in of itself but MOB he is STANDING UP in this fucking car with REIGEN IN THE DRIVERS SEAT my boy you are GOING TO FALL! TELEKENESIS WILL NOT SAVE YOU. tome my queen she is getting compressed back there. maybe thats good, autism compression . comfortable. ok nvm she is having a good time i think. she doesn't look particularly bothered. mezato looks so funny tho wadda hell she doin. she is leaning so far out of that damn car she is going to fall face first onto the fucking asphalt. tsubomis fucking hair blowing in the wind girl why you so eyes !!!!!!!!! FUCKING GOUDA IN THE BACKGROIND??? WHY IS HE DEFAULT POSING HE DOESNT EVEN LOOK LIKE HES IN THE CARRRRRRRR BOY WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING STANDING ON YOU ARE PROBABLY BIGGER THAN THAT ENTIRE CAR BUMPER TO HEADLIGHTS . he is so buff he can maintain a pose perfectly reminiscent of standing while sitting in the back seat of a car. no fucking wonder mezato is falling the fuck out of teh car gouda probably takes up one and a half seats. and just. TERU???TERU??????? PLEASE WHAT. WHAT IS THAT GAY ASS FUCKING POSE HOW DO I EVEN DESCRIBE THAT WITHOUT SAYING A HOMOPHOBIC SLUR. LIKE?????? WHY ARE. WHY. ???? WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPRESS. no bitch i know who but like WHY. youare not going to impress anybody falling onto the pavement and getting run over by a bus during a particularly sharp turn. he looks like hes posing for a car commercial or somWAIT HOLD THE FUCK ON IS HE HOLDING MOBS ARM? POST CANCELLED I NEED TO CALL HIM A SLUR

[fruit-salad-ship]

A silly question: What would the trio do at a fair? Just a regular fair with sometimes strange and definitely unhealthy foods, rigged games, etc.

Greys there working out how the games are rigged, and finding loop holes, he's quick to challenge the girls to the classic hammer game where you gotta hit as hard as possible to ring the bell, he wins, he's got more power its a given. He LOVES the rides and anything where you gotta aim and hit things like the water gun stalls where you shoot the ducks at the back, though he's not amazing at it, always enjoys. He loves a high speed, spinning, rocking, crazy ride, so anything like that and he's there in an heartbeat.

Plums quick to work out statistically whats the best way to navigate the whole place and try everything at least once, she watches the crowds and finds out how to dodge the long queue times, a sucker for the junk food, always happy to get in the bumper cars and give people grief. She's just happy she dragged both parites out, and her tactical mind makes her a good player in a lot of the games that require you to think a little harder about how to bypass teh rigged-ness of it all. Not keen on rollercoaster like things but braves them to seem like she's bolder than she is. They gotta tie a balloon to plum so they can find her in the crowds, she's pretty short.

Peach, well, she'd had them beg her to tag along, and while she's not fond of the crowds, the shouting kids, and the volume of everything, she puts on a brave face and goes along with them in whatever they want. She doesnt mind a couple of the games, though she'd rather just hold their things and let them have fun. The other two dont tend to allow this much, so she's pulled along to try things with them. Peach has a strange patience with those claw grab machines, and tends to win the other two a questionable amount of those toys. She calls it luck, the other two think its witchcraft.

[hetalia-club]

alright lol since so many people still enjoy it so much I'll make an unhinged bumper stickers pt 2 might take me a few days to find good ones. Not saying they will be as perfect as teh last one but i will do my bestest

[trunerdcore]

My Car; My Shoes

I care about my things. My water bottle, my car, my bag, the mechanical pencil I use to write vs the one I use to clean my nails, even the sticky notes I write on at work. In many ways they are extensions of me. Ways to express myself in ways I never thought of. What happens when I have to get rid of one of my things? What does it mean?

My cat, Kim, peed on a pair of converse that were ripped and torn but signed by my friends in high school. For weeks, I have been trying to decide whether to wash them or to just throw them away. What if I wash them and the ink comes out and all the signature, all the doodles are gone? Would I just end up throwing them away anyway? I don't need them anymore, I know that. I don't really even want them anymore, but I can't deny the memory they hold. I can't deny that they have taken up, even if a little, space in my heart.

My car (Clive on the outside, Froggy Shroms on the inside; he's a drag queen), has been totaled. Which are words that are hard to write, words that almost bring me to tears. My dad bought Clive for me in 2015 right around the time I was supposed to be learning how to drive. I didn't drive it or was able to call it mine until I was 19-20 (2021) and moving into my first apartment. Me and Clive have seen many things. Late night drives and early pick ups from Boone. A drive to Chicago and back. Speeding on 485 to get to work in South Carolina and then Pineville after I graduated college. Long tenuous drives back home from school even though it was forty-five minutes away. Drives to family outings I didn't want to be at. Clive drove me and my partner to Charleston after it got hit (this hit causing it's demise). Clive has seen so many versions of me. When I religiously listened to Willow, when I would randomly want to listen to and sing every musical I knew, when I listened to Mona Leo at seven am on my way to work at Barnes and Nobel, when I transitioned to CD's, when I left my Frank Ocean CD in and listened to it for three days straight, and even now as I get into making playlists for characters and books.

I didn't mean to go on this long about my car, but we were never supposed to form a connection; a bond, but we did. Against everything, my anxiety, my hatred for driving, my dislike of cars, I fell in love with Clive. And despite out hiccups, the battery shifting out of place and shutting off (sometimes while I was driving), the car being unable to start from sitting too long, the idling he does even when my foot isn't on the gas, I think Clive loved me too or at least appreciated me.

I know it's time for Clive to leave me. I know I've outgrown him and the bumper stickers I've put on the back. I know it's time for teh converse to leave me. The sides are torn and the soul of the shoe is coming out. I know I don't need them and the RAT my partner wrote on the heel way back then. How do I let then go? How do I honor them? How do I treat them like things I'm loosing that I've had for four+ years? How do I mourn a version of myself I know needed to die? How do I honor my past while still opening myself up to the future?

I held a vigil for Clive. I lit an abundance apple crisp candle a friend gave to me, and I walked around then car talking to him. I told him that I loved him and that I hoped her lived on. That I lit the abundance for him so he may choose how he got to rest. That might not be how this goes down, but that's the way I would like for it to. For Clive to have a say.

As for my shoes, I found that their ink was already fading and that the signatures where barely even readable. As well as the "RAT" on the heel, done in the different colored pens that I had, being unintelligible. I have decided to throw them away.

The wound is still fresh and when I lay down I know I'm going to want to rip out my heart. But I'm still excited to see what car I get next, to have a car in my name (scary), for bumper stickers and magnets, and keychains. To name the car, and to keep honoring Clive the way I see fit until he is taken from me.

I don't know what this new car will say about me. Definitely not "cereal box" (to quote my first and only hate note about my parking). I don't know who or what I'm becoming. I will miss who I have been deeply, but for the first time I can say this change is bittersweet.

[kidfoundonstreets]

i think when catnip then ahse runningrunnnign! push the other ahse out of the way for teh catnip

ahshe and other ahshe bonk nto each other like bumper cars!!!!! catifhgtcaifightifcatifhgt!! other ahse sneak in adnd swipe it but then gets caught too.

[therivergirl]

🎁,🤡,📱,🎨,☂️,💝,🧸,💀,🗺 for Emery,please

📱 - What social media do they use the most?

Eggstagram!

🎨 - What’s their favourite colour?

Yellow! 💛💛💛

☂️ - How do they feel about rain?

Not a fan. Humidity makes their hair unmanagable and also, they are an outdoorsy person and rain makes spending time outdoor very inconvenient.

💝 - What gestures do they really appreciate? How do you get on their good side?

They genuinely appreciate people who are willing to call their friends out for being jerks, telling off-colour jokes or using slurs. Even if Emery themselves slip-up and says something wrong, or offensive, they will appreciate if you call them out on it.

On a less serious note, showing interest in their interests or sharing your own interests, sharing food or, better yet, being willing to give them recipes for good food, being an LQBTQIA+ ally and also indulging in a decent amount of sarcastic and even a bit of dark humour can all get you on Emery's good side.

🧸 - Do they have any stuffed animals? If so, are they decorative or do they sleep with them?

They have a few. Most are decorative but a lot have sentimental value. Their favourite is their fox plushie they got from their older sister, Nadia. They sleep with the fox, especially when they are upset.

💀 - How do they feel about horror movies?

Generally, they are a fan. They love pretty much all subgenres of horror with supernatural elements, basic slasher films, sometimes they will feel like watching a psychological horrror. They are also a huge fan of animated horror films and films from other genres with horror elements.

They don't like gore fims becaus they either find them to fake or unconvincing or, if they are well made, a bit nausiating. Not the blood itself, but teh idea that someone would do something like that to another person.

Since merani-draws already asked for the 🎁 and 🤡, I took the liberty of choosing two substitute questions!

🖌️ - Do they have any hobbies?

They are in chemistry club in school and on the school track team. In addition to that they are a Woodchuck.

They also like doing some DIY projects, especially with their clothes, watching movies and collecting random and unique fandom merch.

Emery in their track team clothes:

🎢 - Do they like amusement parks? What’s their favourite ride?

They do! They like both thrilling rides like rollercoasters and pendulums as well as more relaxes ones like teacups and bumper cars.

Their favourite rides, however, are water rides or anything adventure-themed.

But, as much as they love amusement parks, they absolutely despise drop towers. There are very few forces in the world that will get them on a drop tower.

[adultswim2021]

EPHEMERA WEEK

[adult swim] Reviews the Message Boards (September 14, 2003)

The weird thing is I’m about 70% sure that I have this somewhere on a DVD or VHS tape or something, but I’ve never bothered to dig it out and digitize it for YouTube. You’d think I would after all these years.

[adult swim] acknowledged our existence with a bumper where [adult swim] reviewed the message boards. I posted on The Adult Swim Message Board, popularly known as “The ASMB”. It was a message board founded on ezboard, a free-with-ads service that about anyone could use. Started by my pal Kon weeks, perhaps MONTHS before Adult Swim’s debut. He got in on the ground floor. They summed our userbase up with one word: “youngsters”. I remember we took issue with it. We weren’t youngsters! We were old men! We were all like, 19! What the hell, man! I’m 37 now. Jesus fucking CHRIST. But they were basically right, we were immature douchebags mostly.

Toonzone (now animesuperhero.com or something re-re like that) was called a “gated community”, which they took as a compliment, which is hilarious. And then they referred to their own message boards in complimentary terms. That was the punchline, I guess. I sure wish I could remember the wording.

Later that night, ASMB operator and occasional-blog-writer-inner Kon was mentioned by name. They were shilling their “anime is teh s uck” t-shirt and addressed Kon directly, telling him that if he bought an “anime is teh s uck” t-shirt that he’d be rewarded with a rough cut of the then-upcoming William Shatner episode of Space Ghost. Kon, unwavering in his hatred for all things “teh s uck” said “nah man” and wrote an incendiary article on his website where he called the shirt gay. My hero!

LETS HEAR IT FROM THE HORSE MOUTH: Here’s my boy KON with an OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Happy Friday to all!! My convictions in 2003 were sincere and hold up; as much as I love Space Ghost, I truly had no interest in getting a “sneak peek” at an upcoming episode, I wanted to experience it in its final form, fresh, along with my brothers and no sisters of the Adult Swim fandom. I think I also thought that if I was enough of a jerk about turning down the rough cut offer I’d become a “heel” of Adult Swim, with years of acknowledgement by bumps to come. Well in hindsight the rough cut would be pretty cool to have but let’s face it not THAT cool. A fun thing to watch once. Put it on the volume 6 DVD if it’s that good. Oh wait, you don’t have a volume 6 DVD.

(as of press time we still do not have a volume 6 DVD)

MAIL BAG

I recently remembered and paid tribute to Harry Goz’s passing here on the blog. He was the voice of Captain Murphy on Sealab 2021. Here’s a nice message about him that I’ve been saving.

Hey guys I heard the blog creator is donating a dollar every time you send him an e-mail about popeyes chicken to the Save The Children Foundation. Dont know what the foundation does but it's a nice gesture. So let's keep the good times going: I had the chicken a popeyes. It was crispy. It was tender. It had a cajun style seasoning. I liked it. What do you think? Thanks again for all you do.

HEY WHAT THE FUCK. How did I get pranked with this??? This is maddening! PLEASE Don’t tease me about Popeyes Chicken I simply do not want to give money to children. I don’t care if they’re getting beheaded or whatever’s happening to them. They are nasty and I relish their suffering. nothing but net

[jeanjauthor]

Writers, if you think this is unrealistic...YOU are being unrealistic.

Allow me to explain:

We tend to collect into our lives the friends we feel safest around, and avoid those we don’t feel safe around.  This means if we’re super into football (soccer or American) we’re going to constantly be meeting more football fans, congregating where football is watched (sports bars, etc), and going to football games to meet yet more fans.  We’ll be recognizing each other by the football merch we buy & display (jerseys, bumper stickers, etc).  Oh--and yes, you will run across people who cheer for a rival team.  You’re both involved in football fandom, but y’all are also able to be “deadly rivals” and diss/mock/prank the “other side”...

So, it is perfectly logical to write a story with a bunch of football fanatics in it...see?

The exact same sorts of things happen for teh gayzz!  (Remember, I am part of the alphabet soup community in several ways.  I am mocking those who call us that out of fear of us.)

Seriously, I’ve collected in my life a lot of friends who are gay/lesbian/bi, are allies, are asexual/aromantic/demi-whatever, transgender, genderfluid, you name it.

This includes enemies as well as friends.

It is 100% valid to write a story wherein every named character is a Pride member.

[sashibunbun]

If you want to know how it's being a weirdo, I want to take you back to 2006, when most of you bitching and moaning were probably either still in diapers or in elementary school. You didn't see Bush-Cheney bumperstickers from either 2000 or 2004, the Kerry ones were definitely only there because nobody took them off (either being sun damaged or covered in dirt), or just had them (usually also had other bumper stickers.

Note, not hats, not t-shirts, not flags, bumper fucking stickers the lowest form of support. Even back then the maga hat or flag would have made people avoid you for, and get this, being way too over the top.

Of course, that could be because we weren't fucking idiots who have to be contrarians who have to hate everything we perceive as SJW because we made it our whole fucking personality. Oh wait... is that why you're pissed Trump didn't win? Because now you have to literally grasp all over the place to avoid the unbearable weight of being so fucking shallow that you're pretty much 2014 SJWs in grasping at straws for cred?

I mean let's see, constant Twitter screenshots, believing conspiracy theories, taking said conspiracies to their (il)logical conclusion, not caring who's caught in the splash zone, being absolute fucking Jake Pauls because it gets you attention for you said, pathetic lives.

And before you go on and on about "le Biden supporter" absolute butthurt fucktardery, I didn't vote this election because NO party was saying shit I agreed with because they went straight to their idiotic, braindead, shallow, tribalist base for the entire election.

Oh and love how every "who built the cages Joe" numbnuts idiots will forget that it was Bush and a heavily Republican Congress, because that doesn't fit the narrative to "pwn teh SJW/leftists/dems". Y'all are fucking asshats who if push came to shove could be manipulated into hating anybody because, and get this, you're shallow, idiotic, morons who are the political equivalent of the guy who "knows all about computers", go ask an IT guy why they're pretty much the reason the terms PEBKAC and ID10-T Error are in their lexicon.

[tacosandsausage-blog]

IN and OUT bURGEr

Today was the first time I’ve had an IN and OUT burger since COVID. For me, that’s nearly a lifetime.(And yes I realizet that this is a regional thing and very specific to teh left coast of the USA). Let me just say, I don’t understand the desire to sit in your car to order and pick up food. Yeah, I’m there primarliy to feed myself and it is super convenient, but there is so much more to the experience. My stop today completely put an exclamation point on it!!!

 Today i was lucky cuz everyone wanted to drive thru so that meant a straight shot to the counter. No sooner had I ordered when 2 (not one, but two) groups of girls trapsed in after me. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but In and Out is the perfect hive for those social bees to flit around.  It’s summer and group one had clearly spent the day leisurely. They push, shove and trip over each other as they stumble through the doors and into line. Dressed for the heat in boho festival wear, they order individually and flop into a booth continuing to laugh with and at each other. The second group is a little older. Just three and they look like they’re just heading out. Its dinner time and the sun is setting, so this set ,while not fancy, is dressed up a little more. Instead of cut offs, halters and crops, they are in dresses, and skirts, with a light cover up top. Sandals give way to heels or clunky boots. They appear to be looking forward to the evening ahead, perhaps filling themselves before a night of drinking. Despite coming in to order I didn’t say for the full show, but I gotta say the view inside is way better than that of the exhaust side of the car in front of you at the drive through

To make the most of your burger buying experience, I suggest as realtors do, its all about location. My favorites are those close to beach towns (like my own). You can catch sweaty sandy girls fresh from a day at the beach. Or near university campuses where the quick bite option is an easy attraction for college girls. I’ve seen as manner of sports teams Volleyball, softball, cheer. Late at night you can catch the girls with munchiew or the after movie or concert crowd. Rarely have I been where there wasn’t some thing good to see.

And finally - Do you remember in highschool how we all thought we were clever modifying the bumper stickers, removing the ‘b’ and the ‘r’ from In & Out burger? I guess I still think its clever and in this case, very apt.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi Hilary, apologies if you don't want to talk about this any more. But as a historian, what's your opinion on the "preserving history" argument of current events?

I think it’s misguided at best and openly racist at worst, has nothing to do with preserving history, is an exercise in denial and cowardice, and is certainly not what anyone who pretends to be concerned about it really cares about.

(Prepare yourself for a rant.)

The thing is, we have a certain subset of white people acting as if the history of the Confederacy will somehow magically be Forgotten if we take down the statues/monuments/associated physical legacy of their presence. You know who sure as hell has not forgotten the Nazis? Germany. Germany has not forgotten the Nazis one bit. Nor do they play around with it. You can and will be arrested if you fly the Nazi flag or give the Nazi salute in Germany, and they have destroyed nearly all the Nazi buildings or any place that could be used as a shrine or gathering place. The difference here is that Germany a) knows what the Nazis were, and b) hasn’t decided to disingenuously reduce them to a “heritage” or “Germanic pride” or fly the Nazi flag the same way the Confederate flag is proudly flown today. They have not tried to celebrate their racist, terrible past. They have taken steps to dissociate themselves from it as strongly as possible, and now lead Europe in taking in the most refugees from the Middle East, as well as having a chancellor (Angela Merkel) who is essentially the new leader of the free world. Germany hasn’t forgotten its history, it teaches that history and is always, always aware of it, and somehow manages to do that without valorizing or insisting on the continued existence of Nazi paraphernalia as “important history.”

The point of all this is: white people in America have been HAPPY to forget their history for years and years, selectively misremember it, tolerate and even idolize the Confederacy and its beliefs and symbols, and now they’re suddenly worried it will vanish? Give me a break. Black people in America have had to live with the knowledge of this history every day. They do not get the luxury of disengaging from it. Every black child has to learn about and confront the existence of racism and the legacy of this history. White kids don’t have to. They can skate. And white people get really upset when conversations about race or history of race come up. Why are you bringing that up, that was a long time ago, etc, etc. America has never systematically confronted and denounced its racist history the way Germany has. It continues to be celebrated. We have that fucking TV show (Confederate) in production, where it will basically provide an imaginative space for what a large portion of the population wishes HAD happened (that the South won the Civil War and slavery in its historical form remained legal). THERE IS NO CHANCE AT ALL, ANYWHERE, OF THIS HISTORY BEING FORGOTTEN ABOUT, AND THE PEOPLE MOANING THAT IT MIGHT BE ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE DONE THE FORGETTING.

(Also: Many of the actual post-Confederates, including Robert E. Lee himself, disavowed their participation and viewed it as treason. Lee refused to be buried in his Confederate uniform or have his colleagues wear it to his funeral. His direct descendants agree the statue should come down. When did the revival of Confederate symbols start? Jim Crow. When did the Confederate flag start flying over the South Carolina statehouse again? 1961. As in, it was constructed specifically in reaction to the civil rights movement, as deeply racist Southern whites continued to resist the idea of black people having any agency or recognition. That was when Confederate monuments became a thing: NOT FROM THE ACTUAL CONFEDERACY.) 

Let’s imagine for a moment that there was a large group of people who had put up a bunch of statues of, say, Osama bin Laden, and made a huge fuss about the possibility of them coming down. They view the attack of 9/11 as the triumph of a small band of patriots over an oppressive tyrannical oligarchy. They fly a flag with the planes crashing into the twin towers, and insist it’s not about the actual deaths of the people involved, it symbolises “culture” or “heritage” or whatever else. Let’s also say these people insisted that their right to defend a statue of OBL, a guy who clearly hated America and made that clear at every turn, was fully compatible with their identity as patriotic Americans, and in fact still to be preferred any time that identity is challenged. Let’s further say that a large segment of the population tacitly or explicitly agrees with them, demands the statue should stay up and attacks anyone who questions its existence in a public space, and claim that you are as bad as the other side if you want it taken down and insist that the flag cannot be dissociated from its history and the deaths involved. You get nowhere by pointing out that OBL, as noted, actually hated America and was fighting to destroy it. Even your supposedly liberal white friends become oddly deaf when the subject is raised, or give some version of the “well I don’t like it either, but this is America/we respect everyone/it’s history” argument. At worst, there are people marching underneath this flag, putting it as a bumper sticker on their pickup trucks, stockpiling tons of guns, and treating it as something to be inspired, celebrated, and replicated.

You’d feel like you were taking crazy pills. You would feel incredibly unsafe every time you stepped outside – what if you met one of these crazies and they targeted you? You would wonder how nobody else on earth could apparently see that no, these people are terrorists, and we are celebrating the murder of innocent people and it may be history, but why is it being treated as a fetishistic and terrifying subculture instead of a tragic and shameful event that we should never want to repeat? And yet, that is exactly what is happening with America’s collective denial and ongoing reluctance to talk about the Confederacy or put it in those terms. There’s always another excuse, and frankly, when Americans have been fed on a steady diet of “America Is Teh Awesomest” for years and years and have no way of critiquing or understanding their actual history without getting offended and going for the “all terrorists hate freedom!” route, the cumulative historical denial is both sad and staggering. Nothing, in this framework, is ever America’s fault, specifically white America’s. But if the people moaning about history being forgotten actually cared about history, they would have to confront the fact that that is simply, empirically not the case.

The fact is, America was built on white supremacy, slavery, and genocide, the victims of that history have no way of forgetting it, and view it pretty incredulously when white people start wringing their hands over it. That is just a historically verifiable reality, and yet white people go for the “long time ago” or “black on black crime” or “I’m not personally racist” defenses, rather than actually listening to the people who have never had the luxury of overlooking that history. This is why we get the absurd both-siderism. On the one hand, we have violent white supremacists proudly identifying as Nazis, a political movement that used to be uncontroversially identified as the most evil of the 20th century, if not ever, and which has roots that go back centuries in vilifying and exterminating anyone who is not a cis Christian straight white male. On the other, we have Black Lives Matter and other protest groups, who are defending their communities and people from the consequences of that ongoing mentality, sometimes violently. Then we have white people on Facebook posting things like, “Both sides are equally guilty! Bad all around! Everyone’s to blame!”

Sorry. No.

There is an overwhelming tendency to favor the status quo over actual justice, and to sanctimoniously condemn any violence used by a marginalized group – we somehow think that people only ever achieve recognizance of their humanity by holding hands and being “non-violent,” and that any time they forcibly resist the overwhelming and somehow-always-justified violence of the dominant group, they lose any expectation of our sympathy. We want to be violent against people of color without consequences, and we might allow them to struggle for liberation if we feel like it, but they have to do it Nicely. We might tepidly condemn the killings of unarmed black people, or post memes about “coming together,” or “not all cops,” or so forth. But when unarmed Native Americans at Standing Rock in 2016 are met with tanks, water cannons, full military deployments, tear gas, guns, and dogs, as were (and are) African Americans at lunch counters or city streets in the 1960s, then no, we do not get to claim that anything has changed. Because the instant those people resist being killed, or call out the comfortable white status quo, or challenge the state’s forever-sanctioned and always-admirable (according to its defenders) violence, they’re just as bad as neo-Nazis.

Sure. Right.

I get it’s a difficult topic. I get it’s hard for white Americans to actually look at what it means to be both white and American in a world where they have always benefited from these identities, and where White Liberalism and White Feminism ™ is just as racist while steadfastly insisting it’s not. Especially when you add American exceptionalism to the mix, where America is never responsible for anything and is the greatest country in the world, there is nothing remotely close to Germany’s decades-long reparations for the Nazis. American culture holds that saying sorry is for wimps. We need to be Proud of Our Heritage.

Nobody’s advocating for the Confederate monuments to be destroyed. They can be kept in a museum, or in storage, or wherever else. But insisting on their continued presence in public life is saying, “I want my right to believe the same things they did to be validated, and I want people personally affected by this belief to Know Their Place and It’s Just History Get Over It, and I don’t want to be challenged on whether this was wrong; I just want everyone to think about it how I do.” It is an insistence on power and an insistence on the safe and comfortable narrative of history that is completely removed from reality. When people say they don’t want Confederate history forgotten, they mean they don’t want white mainstream history to be challenged; they don’t want the people most hurt by this history to get uppity ideas about speaking out or breaking the cycle or making them face consequences. They want to go back to denial, and they resent the people trying to educate them otherwise. It’s the exact opposite of all this sudden Concern for History (which, as noted, isn’t going anywhere).

Conservative movements jeer at liberals all the time for being “snowflakes” who need “safe spaces,” and mainstream liberalism, as noted, can have incredible problems. But then conservatives are the ones crying about how difficult it is to be a racist these days (cry me a river, buddy) and painting liberals as tyrants who want to crush these poor, misunderstood white men whose influence and legacy might somehow vanish from the world (spoiler alert: not happening). So if preserving history is actually what anyone is worried about, don’t talk to your black friends about it. Don’t tell your black friends how much you hate racism. Talk to your white friends about it. Tell your white friends how much you hate racism. Then perhaps you might understand just how much the bubble of privilege protects you, and face the possibility of actually disrupting your life and losing friends or family in the way that white Americans get to take for granted that they do not have to do.

So yeah. It’s not in any sense about really preserving history, and frankly, my opinion as a historian is that I need another god damn drink. And I don’t even drink.

[mutablewater]

honestly it is so freaky how quickly markets and advertising adapt to tragedies. i grew up in the town where teh virginia tech shootings happened, and like by the following morning, almost before I understood what happened, you could buy black ribbons and like shirts/bumper stickers/ ribbons etc commemorating it, and it was so sickening watching that happen and knowing that like profiting was someones first thought, and that most people dind’t think it weird and just responded with like “ah yes must buy these things to show i am Experiencing this”

honestly real fucking gross how quickly commercials shifted to "in this scary & trying times you want to keep your family safe, that's why you should get some new windows installed today"

[adultswim2021]

EPHEMERA WEEK

cus anime is teh s uck (June 15, 2003)

(picture credit)

I had five paragraphs about this written, but then I resized my browser window. That causes your tumblr post to disappear. Did you know that? So, I’m rewriting this from scratch. Let’s all just imagine how much better the old post was.

[adult swim]’s new bumper aesthetic lead to a much more integrated online experience. In addition to the new bumpers there were also new message boards. Lots of [adult swim]’s bumpers would dedicate airtime towards responding to message board critics. On June 15, 2003, they aired a message containing the phrase “cus anime is teh s uck”. I’m not sure how many people alive are familiar with “l33t speak”, so I’ll dryly explain it to the best of my abilities. I was a person recoiled at the concept of l33t speak, so forgive me if my description of it is myopic. Basically retards and shitheads who liked pretending to be cool hackers (ironically or otherwise) would talk in a certain way online that involved swapping numbers for letters (“l33t” = “leet” = “elite”). They also co-opted common typos as vernacular. For some reason describing stuff by declaring it “the (noun)” was also part of this. so, “teh suck” = “the suck” = “sucks”. Another popular variant of this was calling stuff “teh secks” (or “the sex”).

Also, [adult swim]’s message boards had a draconian swear filter, which required people to interrupt whatever swear they were hoping to express with a space in the middle of the word. Or else “suck” would be filtered out into a string of asterisks (I think; I don’t actually remember) and the intent would be completely lost. So “anime sucks” as expressed by a l33t-speaking toolbag on [adult swim]’s message board becomes “anime is teh s uck”.

It’s important to note all this for a few reasons. one: they actually ran with this little inside joke to the point that they produced official merch with said phrase on a t-shirt. I’m not sure if the above picture is the actual shirt they sold or a limited run they made for adult swim personnel or what; I made one attempt at searching for it using archive.org but the jpg of the shirt didn’t get indexed. Anyway, I think the merchandised version of the shirt was black with white text, like the bumpers.

This joke appeared on TV, not just during the bumpers. It was in Aqua Teen Hunger Force in the episode “The Last One”.

MAIL BAG

My mom's gonna kill me but I just wanna say adul swim is cool! don't tell her.

all moms are gay and retarded and they are forbidden from reading htis blog, especially yours. presumably you agree!

[thatcartoonnetworkblog]

I do hope this doesn’t come off as “guhhhh back in MY day. eeww what are all these bumpers of annoying kids doing on a KID’S network wow teh cringe11!!!” but honestly, I think kids today would have loved to see bumpers of their favourite characters interacting between shows in a big city. I think it would have brought them so much joy today!

 Part of me fully agrees with you, but the other part does recognize that children today consume media differently than we did. Many prefer to watch their shows on tablets or other streaming options, as opposed to commercial filled live TV. Ads of any kind, even in relation to their favorite shows, may simply seem like a distraction to them.

But then again, there’s always room for this stuff on YouTube or social media, so maybe kids would still be interested in something like the City Era today.