#vent acts

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[thecorvidforest]

boy it would be nice to be able to google something related to personality disorders, psychosis, intellectual disabilities, autism, DID/OSDD, etcetera without finding majority articles that are like “how to deal with a person with X” “how to cope with your child with X” “how to spot someone faking X” “can people with X be cured?”

[amalthea-wolfwood]

I am once again reminding you to stop fucking excluding intersex people from conversations about gender and gender related oppression

[tesco-finest-aromantics]

please i'm begging you think about aplatonic people when you make a post about aro issues. not all of us care about friends. we can prioritise other relationships even if we've deconstructed amatonormativity because friendship is just not important to some people. being aro doesn't make me inherently care more about friendship

[pale-fairytales]

I don't really like to get political but I feel a need to talk about this;

It's so funny. It's so funny to me that the people pushing for KOSA also criticize other countries who do the exact same shit (i.e., China, which from what I've heard (and correct me if I'm wrong please) censors a lot of things) and hate their guts. The fact that they're pushing for censorship directly violates one of the amendments of the constitution (which is free speech) and it baffles me that they think this is okay. But hey these are also the same people that won't do anything about gun violence or school shootings and who want to take away bodily autonomy and gay/trans rights so why am I even surprised.

For the love of god, if you can, help stop KOSA. Not just for fandom purposes, but for the fact that it impacts people who want to transition, people who want/need abortions, it impacts a way that human beings can seek out human contact in an increasingly lonely world where things are growing bleak. Not only that, but the people who are suffering from genocide (8 FUCKING GENOCIDES IN THE WORLD BTW) may not be able to get help or get the word out about their condition if a big chunk of the world can't access the content that helps said people.

And I'm sorry, but if you really cared about children's safety, you a) would do more about school shootings, b) would fix issues that put children in danger (shockingly hunger/malnutrition is still an issue in the U.S.A. just not in the same way as in a war-torn country), c) would fix the foster-care/adoption system, and d) teach parents to have some common fucking sense not to have 5-year-olds on the internet watching age-inappropriate stuff (like 5 year olds listening to Sexxy Red or Ice Spice)

Censorship is bad. It's bad because it can genuinely put lives at risk. If you're for the KOSA bill, don't pretend like it's because you care. You don't care about people—you just want to control them. Just like the people you and its instigators hate so much.

[malo-mart]

The magic of Majoras Mask is trying to comfort characters who are grieving their future through little acts of kindness. Like, the simple but layered juxtaposition of the joy of marching the chicks around on the third day to a little ocarina tune while the game vibrates every few minutes to signify that the moon is closer and closer to falling....

[reimeichan]

oh sure when actors playing a character with DID or otherwise acting as multiple people in one body switch between alters on screen they're "such a talented actor" and you "get chills" but when I, actual diagnosed DID system, switch in front of you, it's "scary and unnerving" and you "no longer know how to talk to me".

[longing-for-rain]

“Female rage” trend is disappointing because it completely missed the mark from the beginning.

Supposedly it’s about releasing all of that emotion you’ve been storing up all your life, all of those feelings you were forced to repress, and all the anger resulting from having to do so. Raw, unfiltered rage that you were never allowed to express, finally being let free.

If only we actually got to see that.

Because all “female rage” content is just more carefully filtered and censored distortions of women’s experiences. Curated to be aesthetically pleasing, anything unsexy or unpleasant carefully edited out. You making a pout in a full face of instagram makeup is not rage. It’s another performance.

[maskedbutsilly]

@the-quackity-competition

each of my bones misses each of yours

comms

[mafia-c]

Imposter (3/3)

Previous Start

[tempestmothstorm]

crazy how the sanshee plush is one of the few actual direct confirmations on what a non-act 2 Natsuki’s home life is like because of how cagey she is on literally everything. Like this isn’t anything surprising or something you wouldn’t be able to extrapolate from the games but unlike everything else we know about her the implications are right there on the tin.

They literally did the character bio trope where where all the likes are normal but the dislikes are about their very specific trauma it’s just so funny they did that on the plushie card

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

so was that legitimately fake outrage at Watcher being "greedy capitalists" that people are now gonna go watch the try guys who are doing the exact same thing?? where's the outrage at their wealth and how they spend their money? why does Keith get people just watching him eat at expensive restaurants, but it's terrible seeing Steven go to expensive restaurants to eat food? it's got nothing to do with "the try guys did it better!!!" it's the fact that you got so outraged because of how much the economy is in shambles and people can barely afford food, let alone another streaming service, and now suddenly it's a great thing seeing the try guys be able to improve their situation with one!! I thought the whole point was that we didn't need another one!! what is it???

it's just obvious that they've both done similar things, but people are taking more issue with the creators of colour for daring to grow and move forward. EVEN AFTER THEY ALTERED THINGS AND GENUINELY APOLOGISED even whilst being fucking eviscerated online. and instead of being helped and understood by their white friends, they get fucking shaded by their friends with a sofa joke and "not to name names" bullshit

what is it with people of colour being left in the dirt by their white friends and/or costars???

[mushramoo]

I hate that having ADHD is seen as “quirky”. Or one of the “lesser” mental disorders.

It is agonizing.

You are constantly forgetting everything, names, locations, tasks, items, everything. You misplace things subconsciously and have to spend half hours looking for them, only to find them in places you genuinely cannot recall at all. Your memory is nonexistent. You are constantly aware that you have things you need to do or need to be doing but you cannot remember what. You know you are forgetting something but it doesn’t come to you, so you spend all day anxious. You get awful moments of dysfunction where words become incomprehensible and you are incapable of completing a task, but people are quick to assume you are lazy no matter how hard you’re trying. And one of the worst parts is that you KNOW you’re letting people down. You know you can’t grasp time so you’re showing up late even though you left extremely early. You know someone expected something from you by a deadline but you genuinely couldn’t remember. And in academics, you know some of your teachers are trying hard to be accommodating but you can’t even do the most basic tasks by the given deadlines. Or! You get teachers that do not even understand what mental disorders are and accuse you of not trying. People think you are using your disorder as an excuse just because you know you have it and use it to explain some of your behaviors. If you mask well enough to never need help, you don’t get diagnosed even though it’s taking all of your strength just to get by. If you don’t mask well enough and you are fem presenting like I am you are told you aren’t acting out so you are fine. You can’t win. It’s not quirky to have ADHD, and we aren’t faking it.

It’s a constant struggle, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

[suntails]

⚔️🦈

[ghastlyaffairs]

for something as trivial and simple those feelings sure are hard to get rid of

also made a gif a version for fun + alt version with no tears under the cut

the gif is in very low resolution...this is a feature (i could make it bigger but that would require saving each frame individually and than glueing it all together. also i feel like low resolution suits it better. aesthetically and fits the mood)

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

Hey bestie, dropping by with a mea culpa. When Peaceful Property started, you expressed concern that GMMTV was inching toward a model of using bl pairs in shows that would avoid being explicitly gay but still draw on shipping fandom to be successful. Coming off The Trainee, which was not a bl but did have expIicitly queer characters and romance subplots, I wasn't sure the intentions were quite that dark for PP, but having now finished it and seen the way some in the production have interacted with shipper fans, I have to call it: you were right to be concerned. At no point was this show ever a bl and none of its principal characters are canonically queer, but they successfully leveraged the TayNew ship to have fans interacting with it as if it was in fact a gay love story, that idea and fan commentary was explicitly encouraged by the creators, and the show has been quite successful despite never actually delivering on all the TayNew bait. I'm definitely concerned that we might have somehow swung back around to queerbaiting being seen as acceptable and good, as long as it features popular branded pairs. I don't have any bigger thoughts to offer about how this should be addressed, but just wanted to come back and say you were valid for naming that!

Thank you. I didn't want to be correct. And I am still hoping to wrong about what this says about where GMMTV is going.

But I am not gonna lie, seeing the posts about the finale did regnite the massive fury I had at this project when it was first called a bromance. So I am going to use your ask as an opportunity to vent.

FOR THE RECORD: I am not mad at you, or at the people and mutual on my dash that have enjoyed the show and are claiming as gay out of spite. My anger is at GMMTV and at GMMTV alone.

THEY DID THIS SHIT TWICE ALREADY!!! Back to fucking back.

I know High Schoool Frenemy is being watched by like 5 people on tumblr. But it's doing well outside of tumblr. They are using bl style fanservice with the 2 main boys of that show. I have seen the shippy content and compilations along with the other bl couples. Not to mention people like Jojo saying those characters are the his new favorite ship on twitter.

AND I AM SO PISSED!!!!

I am glad you brought up TayNew because there is no doubt in my mind that they used TayNew for Peaceful Property as a test. They knew there could be backlash. They knew the bl fandom could have rioted. But they also knew that if it that rage would have been directed at TayNew not at the director, not the company but TAYNEW.

And I think TayNew knew this. Because they spend weeks on social media doing preintive damage control, I have seen the posts of them (or at least New) saying it wasn't going to be romantic. I don't think the two of them forgot how they were left to eat the shit alone over the bullshit backlash during the TayGun kiss situation with GMMTV doing fuck all for them.

And what pisses me off is that BL audience didn't even give a backlash. They eat that shit up like it was fucking icecream.

The BL audience is literally doing their job for them. They are taking a show with some gay subtext and running with it.

They are showing up for the fanservice (again broder audience outside of tumblr), and gleefully closing their eyes and ears and saying well I Think It's Gay.

What do you think Mega Corporation GMMTV is going to take from the success and no backlash? If the answear is anything but: We can produce half of the BLs as usual and make the rest Bromances, you have more faith in corporations then I do.

Because Bromances can be watched by non BL audiences as well. The BL niche is a big one, but it is still a niche.

And now they won't even have to bother inserting arguable quality gay commentary or struggles or homophobia. Or any gay kissing, no more workshops. No more worries about how effective these potential straight boys are going to be at playing gay. All they have to do is making them do fanservice, and they are great at training people for that. Or better yet, actually use one or two ships that have kissed before and done actual BLs.

Will they stop doing BL at all, obviously not, you gotta give the BL audience something to remind them they can still show boys kissing, and we have the Ex Morning and Jojo that will never actually stop making BLs and some gay shit. But if in the next line up we will more bromances, and eventually we get half BL and half bromances I wouldn't be surprised.

Of course maybe I am just pessimistic and cynical. Maybe the proto bdsm in the heart killers is enough to persuade people that I am totally wrong. I guess we will see about that.

Thanks again for the ask and the oppurtunity to vent a little. Again I don't fault anyone for enjoying this, it was design to get the BL audience watching.

I will personally be keeping with my own resolution and never watch another gmmtv show live ever again, maybe binge the few that sound interesting and that's it.

At least I can find comfort in the idea that that other companies do not have the same level of BIG cast of boys and big budget to do the same thing and follow in the bromance trend.