#with some openly stating and/or having supporters who openly talk about purging us

[awkward-teabag]

I don't spend time in fandom spaces so can confirm it's not something I've ever heard used positively (as in before this post I didn't even know it was a thing let alone something some defend). It's always been used as a negative to imply murder, attempted murder, or as "Think of the children!" pearl-clutching homophobia where I am and who I talk to or have talked to.

Positives have always been "Gay awakening" or "Panics in gay", or some such usage of synonyms. Maybe the "Gaaaaaaay" seal meme from years back if it fits. "Gay panic" is only used when discussing serious topics or mid-late 21st century queer history.

I grew up hearing it used in regards to gaybashing and murder, it's still a valid defence for murder in multiple states and countries, and even if the specific law/defence has a different name locally "Gay panic" is still the colloquial term and understood to have a very specific meaning. A meaning never, ever taken as a positive and which is not uncommonly used to misgender victims.

And that's conversing with multiple people of varying ages across my country and the world so it's definitely not regional nor age-specific.

I'm all for reclamation and linguistic shifts but this... this is one of those things where not enough time has passed (what with it still being something to excuse murdering queer people, but hey! diversity win with "Trans panic" being split off from it despite being the same and used interchangeably to misgender victims?) and if you push it anyway, you have to expect and accept you'll be called out, kicked out, corrected, and/or excluded.

Seeing tumblr users tag their blorboposts with "gay panic" is making me insane. This term does not mean what you all think it means.

[tinkrtailrsldrspy]

Ramblings from a Fandom Veteran

So... I've been wondering if I should openly talk about the state of fandom right now for some time...

See, while I'm not "old", I have been in this space for a very, very long time. I deleted my original blog some time ago, but I first joined Tumblr around... I want to say 2010? 2011?

Back then, it was huge! A giant space for every sect of fandom to frolic, where we thrived together! It was a bit like the wild west, no rules and only unknown ahead of us!

...I loved Tumblr back then...

I fell off Tumblr sometime in 2014, before the Purge. I was there when our beloved site was bought by Yahoo, but because nothing changed immediately, we all assumed we were free to go about our day-to-day lives without a worry.

I see that we were wrong.

See, I got busy with the real world. College and physical illness meant I had precious little time for my favorite internet hang-outs. I stopped drawing, wrote very little... It's only been in the past two years that I've had the time and energy to re-join fandom as a whole. And I was so excited to see what this new future held for me!

I... I'm almost sorry I did.

I had never heard of Pro- and Anti-Shippers.

It was an entirely foreign concept to me! After all, we were a live and let-live community, weren't we? You know, your kink is not my kink and all that? I'd seen hate in the community before, granted, but what I knew had never been this toxic!

Entire legions were gone, and what remains were only the brave, bitter survivors, desperately clinging onto what was left. I...

I didn't, and still don't, know what to say, really.

Where was the community I had grown up in? The artists and writers and just people who had coexisted for years without much issue? A decade isn't that long, right? Surely, everything I had known and loved about this world wasn't just gone, right?

When I was growing up, this place and places like it were a refuge for me. I was going through... so, so much at the time... and the people I found here helped me through it. I had friends and support from every corner of fandom, whether we shared a common interest or not.

What I see now... I truly wish I could express just how heartbroken I am that we've allowed ourselves to become this. We used to be a safe-space, where bullies could never reach...

I never thought we'd become the bullies.

[comrade-meow]

Why a hand gesture has South Korean companies on edge 👌

It took three years for players to notice the "offensive" hand gesture lurking in one of South Korea's most popular multiplayer games.

When players made their avatars laugh, talk or give the "OK" sign in "Lost Ark," they clicked an icon featuring a gesture that might have appeared benign to many: an index finger nearly touching a thumb.

But some of "Lost Ark's" users began claiming in August that the gesture was a sexist insult against men, and they demanded its removal.

What happened next underscores a trend in South Korea among anti-feminists, who have been increasingly pushing companies to repent for what they see as a conspiracy within the government and private companies to promote a feminist agenda.

Smilegate — the creator of "Lost Ark" and one of South Korea's biggest video game developers — quickly complied with the requests for removal. The company removed the icon from the game, and vowed to be more vigilant about policing "game-unrelated controversies" in their products.

A gender war has been unfolding in South Korea for years, pitting feminists against angry young men who feel they're being left behind as the country seeks to address gender inequality. 

Now, though, the latest development in this war is reaching a fever pitch. Since May, more than 20 brands and government organizations have removed what some see as feminist symbols from their products, after mounting pressure. At least 12 of those brands or organizations have issued an apology to placate male customers.

Anti-feminism has a years-long history in South Korea, and research suggests that such sentiments are taking hold among the country's young men. In May, the Korean marketing and research firm Hankook Research said it found that more than 77% of men in their twenties and more than 73% of men in their 30s were "repulsed by feminists or feminism," according to a survey. (The firm surveyed 3,000 adults, half of whom were men.)

The fact that corporations are responding to pressure to modify their products suggests that these anti-feminists are gaining influence in a country that is already struggling with gender issues. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that South Korea has by far the largest gender wage gap among OECD countries. And roughly 5% of board members at publicly listed companies in the country are women compared to the OECD average of nearly 27%.

A suspicious sausage

The online firestorm that has spread across South Korea's corporate landscape kicked off in May with a simple camping advertisement.

GS25, one of the country's biggest convenience store chains, released an ad that month enticing customers to order camping food on their app, promising free items as a reward. The ad showed an index finger and a thumb appearing to pinch a sausage. The finger-pinching motif is frequently used in advertising as a way to hold an item without obscuring the product.

Critics, though, saw something different in that hand signal. They accused it of being a code for feminist sympathies, tracing the use of the finger-pinching motif to 2015, when the symbol was co-opted by Megalia, a now-defunct feminist online community, to ridicule the size of Korean men's genitals.

Megalia has since shut down, but its logo has outlived the group. Now anti-feminists are trying to purge South Korea of its existence.

Source: Megalia, @starbucksrtd/Instagram, @gs25_official/Instagram

GS25 removed the hand symbol from the poster. But critics still weren't satisfied, and began trawling the advertisement for other feminist clues. One person pointed out that the last letter of each word featured on the poster — "Emotional Camping Must-have Item" — spelled "Megal," a shorthand for "Megalia," when read backward.

GS25 removed the text from the poster, but that still wasn't enough. People theorized that even the moon in the background of the poster was a feminist symbol, because a moon is used as the logo of a feminist scholar organization in South Korea.

After revising the poster multiple times, GS eventually pulled it entirely, just a day after the campaign launched. The company apologized and promised a better editorial process. It also said it reprimanded the staff responsible for the ad, and removed the marketing team leader.

The online mob had tasted success, and it wanted more.

Other companies and government organizations soon became targets. The online fashion retailer Musinsa was criticized for offering women-only discounts, as well as using the finger-pinching motif in an ad for a credit card. The company defended the use of that motif as a neutral element regularly used in advertising, and said its discount program was meant to help expand its small female customer base. Still, founder and CEO Cho Man-ho stepped down after the backlash.

South Korean demonstrators hold banners during a rally to mark International Women's Day as part of the country's #MeToo movement in Seoul on March 8, 2018. Dongsuh, the Korean company that licenses a Starbucks ready-to-drink line in the country, was attacked in July after one of its Korean Instagram accounts published an image of fingers pinching a can of coffee. The company pulled the ad and apologized, saying that it "considers these matters seriously." The firm also said the image had no hidden intent.

Even local governments have been caught up in the pressure campaign. The Pyeongtaek city government was criticized in August after uploading an image to its Instagram account that warned residents of a heatwave. It used an illustration of a farmer wiping his forehead — and critics noticed that the farmer's hand was shaped similarly to the finger pinch.

"How deeply did [feminists] infiltrate?" one person wrote on MLB Park, an internet forum used primarily by men. Another person shared contact information for the city government, encouraging people to flood their channels with complaints. The image was later removed from the Instagram account.

Gender wars

At the core of the anti-feminist campaign is a widespread fear among young men that they are falling behind their female peers, according to Professor Park Ju-yeon, professor of sociology at Yonsei University.

The sentiment has grown because of a hyper competitive job market and skyrocketing housing prices. The government has also rolled out programs in recent years to bring more women into the workforce. Proponents of those programs have said they're necessary for closing gender gaps, but some men have worried they give women an unfair advantage.

Another compounding factor: Unlike women, men in South Korea have to complete up to 21 months of military service before they're 28 years old — a sore point for some men who feel unfairly burdened.

Anti-feminists have also taken umbrage with President Moon Jae-in, who, when elected in 2017, promised to be a "feminist president." Moon pledged to fix the systemic and cultural barriers that prevented women from participating more in the workforce. He also vowed to address sexual crimes in the wake of the global #MeToo movement.

This year's corporate pressure campaign adds another complication, as brands weigh the possible fallout.

Young men are "big spenders," said Professor Choi Jae-seob, a marketing professor at Namseoul University in Seoul. He added that many young people today are driven by personal political values when they buy things.

Ha, a 23-year-old university student, said he pays attention to what companies say about gender issues before making a purchase.

"Between two stores, I would use the one that doesn't support [feminism]," said Ha, who declined to give his full name because he said that gender is a thorny topic among his peers.

Ha said he's far from alone. When his friends were discussing the GS25 camping poster, for example, he was surprised to find that many of them felt the way he did: "I realized that many men were silently seething."

"I realized that many men were silently seething."Ha, a 23-year-old university student

The gender war leaves companies in a tough spot, according to Noh Yeong-woo, a consultant at the public relations agency PR One.

By not responding to allegations that they are taking a stance on gender issues, that could lead to what Noh called a "constant barrage of accusation" and the creation of a stigma. It also means that companies are actively monitoring online groups and studying what their users have designated as hidden codes or associations, to avoid being called out.

"They are continuously checking for the next problematic symbols," Noh said of brands in South Korea.

Stigmas and fighting back

Some women, though, say that the corporate apologies are also creating a climate where some people are afraid to identify as feminist.

"It's the new Red Scare. Like McCarthyism," said Yonsei University's Park, referring to the mass hysteria to root out communists in the United States in the 1950s.

Lee Ye-rin, a college student, said she has been a feminist since middle school. But in recent years she has found it impossible to be open about her stance.

"It's the new Red Scare. Like McCarthyism."Professor Park Ju-yeon, professor of sociology at Yonsei University

She recalled an incident in high school, when some boys openly heckled a feminist friend of hers while that friend was giving a class presentation on the depiction of women in the media. Lee and her classmates were too scared to defend the friend.

"We all knew that a person who would step up and say that feminism is not some weird thing would be stigmatized, too," Lee said.

In response to this year's anti-feminist pressure campaigns, though, some feminists have been fighting back. The apology over the camping poster from GS25, for example, prompted feminists to call for boycotts against the company. Some people shared images online of themselves shopping at rival stores, using hashtags that called on people to avoid shopping at GS25.

Balancing act

As there doesn't seem to be much hope of finding middle ground for those waging South Korea's gender war, experts say companies have to figure out ways to avoid being dragged into a brand-damaging fight.

Noh, from PR One, encouraged companies and organizations to educate their employees on gender sensitivity — and even reconsider the use of symbols that have become heavily politicized.

Finger-pinching motifs "are images with complex metaphors and symbols and they already carry a social stigma," he said. "So, once you get involved in it, it's hard to explain them away ... the issue keeps spreading until they are removed as demanded."

Park, the Yonsei University professor, said that part of the problem is that many South Korean companies are led by older men who don't have a firm grasp of present-day gender issues. The average age of an executive-level employee at the country's top 30 publicly traded companies is 53, according to a 2020 analysis by JobKorea, a Korean version of LinkedIn.

That suggests a level of irony. Maybe it's not that some of these companies have a specific agenda, as online critics are accusing them. Perhaps for some of them, high levels of leadership are just not in tune with the debate.

To Park, the vitriol directed at companies has also buried some of the underlying, systemic issues that contribute to gender inequality, along with debates about how best to crack the glass ceiling or address the division of labor at home, among other concerns.

"Some very important debates are being buried," Park said, adding that today's gender war is being fought on the tip of the "iceberg." "It's not a fight about the fingers."

[anarchotolkienist]

How can I criticise Israel without being inadvertently antisemitic? Is it as sinple as bringing it into a wider discussion of settler colonial states? Certainly many of my compatriots can fall into antisemitism if they talk on the topic long enough - how can I steer them away from that

This will be a long-ish post. The most important think, I thihnk, is to remember to put Israel in its context. It is not unique as a settler coloniual state, and it is not unique in its status as a US subsidiary, and it is not unique in the mistreatment of its minority population, as you say. I honestly think that this is the MAIN way of doing it. I also think that putting it in its context as a form of what is fashionably on the Left called "liberatory nationalism/nationalism of an oppressed nation" to try and understand why Zionism had such a wide appeal, including on the Left (The Labour Zionists, openly Marxist, were the majority party in the early yers of Israel for example, and the Kibbutzes had large influence from anti-naitonalist (occationally territorialist) anarchists (see A Living Revolution for this), to take a few examples) would be helpful. Zionism is not alone as liberatory nationalist projects that turned around and massively suppressed indigenous peoples as soona s their aim was achieved, and that too needs to be remembered.  Aditionally, we need to understand that majority support for Zionism from within the Jewish community only happened after every other way of dealing with anti-Semitism had obviously failed in the most horribly tragic manner possible - the Holocaust. The Socialist Internaitonalism of the Bund failed to the obviousincapacity of the socialist movement, in power over much of Europe, to withstand the Fascist wave and to take any extraordinary measures to try and save the Jewish people of eastern europe. The communist promise of assimilation into the global proletariat failed with the anti-semitic purges and prosecutions of Stalin showing that the worker's state in no way was immune to it's imperial predecessor. The liberal assimilationism of the Jewish Enlightenment, which promised that secularisation and assimilation into Protestant christian Europe would solve the problem of anti-Semitism OBVIOUSLY didn't work - German jewry were the most assimilated in the world, and even descendents of converts died in agony because of their percieved Jewishness. The strict anarchist internationalism of the main Jewish anarchist press completely ignored the unique positionality of the Jewish working class and had nothing to say to the problem other than the vague promise of proletarian internaitonalism when all 'religious bigotries' are forgotten. What was left to try? How is the Left to present a serious case that we can elimae anti-semitism from the WORLD when we have so horrendously failed to do it in our own ranks? I still think that the main hope lies in internationalism and lies in socialism, that the Bundists had it closer to being correct than anyone else and that things COULD have shaken out their way, as I think most Leftists believe. But we can't deny that it DIDN'T shake out their way.  Sorry, I got carried away. Yes, it's a mistake. yes, it didn't work either, at what it proclaimed - anti-semitism is growing and Israel is allied to a lot of these forces - and it did so at a horrendous human cost to the Palestinians. But we need to remember where it comes from, too. Those are my two biggest recommendations, really - to remember the context, to not make a monster out of Zionism out of proportion with other nationalisms, to oppose other settler-colonial states as strenously (Turkey would be a good start, given that there is an international campaign to boycott and cut all support to them, as I mentioned - find your local Kurdish community group for information on that). As far as speaking to comrades about it, I can only hope that you're more diplomatic than me and manage to do it better than me. I think running educations on anti-Semitism (espescially left-wing anti-semitism) to recognise the tropes for what they are (for example, so that when Electronic Intifada says that Rabbis are poisoning Palestinian water wells to drive them out, you recognise that as an anti-semitic canard and do some research, finding out that the suppesed Rabbi Goldberg doesn't exist and they made it up because they're anti-semites, instead of sharing it and then getting mad and calling people who point out that this is anti-semitic Zionist shills - or make a petition saying that the Labour Anti-Semitism "Witch-hunt" is "manufactured by powerful interests that control the media", but I digress). Anti-Semitism is endemic on the Left, and people REALLY dislike confronting it, because it hurts their self-image. I mostly get shut down with the "criticising Israel is not anti-semitic). Best of luck, comrade.

[southeastasianists]

It was 22 years ago this month when racial violence against Chinese Indonesians broke out in Indonesia. Amid the violence, over 1,000 died and thousands were more bankrupted or fled the country.

People who had not been born then – Generation Z or Gen-Zers — are highly aware of this side of history despite having no direct experience with the event. Supported by their tech savviness and influenced by global movements, young Chinese Indonesians are forming new social alliances and building their own narratives.

They no longer only see race as their sole identity. They are becoming more and more critical of intersectional identity, incorporating class, privilege, gender, and sexual orientation.

Older conversations about racism and discrimination against Chinese Indonesians tend to avoid the class issue, mainly because of the prevalent stereotype that all Chinese Indonesians are wealthy.

But to make the case of their own discrimination, young Chinese Indonesians today will have to break the taboo and talk about class and privilege, researchers say. To beat the ghost, don’t run away; run towards it.

After the fall of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno and his leftist allies, right-wing Chinese Indonesians moved closer to General Suharto, who rose to power following the 1965 communist purge. Suharto then utilized Chinese Indonesian businesses to execute his economic development programs, while actively distinguishing their ethnicity from the so-called “native Indonesians,” or pribumis.

The businesses grew into conglomerations — the likes of Salim Group, Astra International, the Sinar Mas Group, Gudang Garam, Sampoerna and the Lippo Group — all owned by ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs.

Indonesia’s economy grew, but inequality deepened.

When the economic crisis hit in 1998, food shortages and mass unemployment triggered riots that targeted ethnic Chinese throughout Indonesia, mainly in Medan, Jakarta, and Solo. Property and businesses were looted and burned with men, women and children still inside, while over a hundred of women were raped and thrown into the fires. Casualties included both Chinese and non-Chinese.

The memories are painful. Outside of Indonesia, there have been efforts to preserve these memories through art, such as Rani Pramesti’s Chinese Whispers graphic novel, performance, and installations in Australia. Back home, the whispers are far more quiet.

The Diplomat spoke to about a dozen Chinese Indonesians between the ages of 16 and 22 years old in Indonesia, and found that they were aware of the events of May 1998. They, too, felt the sting when stories were passed down in a hushed manner by parents and teachers.

When asked about what to do about the unresolved cases, they are divided. Some strongly believed in pressuring the government for justice; others took a more pessimistic view.

Today, the middle class and the wealthy Chinese Indonesians living in the cities remain segregated. They live in different neighborhoods and go to different schools from the so-called pribumis. They have limited interaction with people outside of their own ethnicity.

Some still experience being called “Cina” (Chinese), a derogatory racist term. Many understand that they belong to a different ethnicity and class than most Indonesians, but are unsure what to do with that knowledge. They do not speak Mandarin and feel out of touch with their ancestors’ culture.

At the highest level, wealthy Chinese Indonesian business elite are again assisting President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ambition to attract investments and build infrastructure. The conglomerates formed during the Suharto era are alive and well. They remain at the top and are positioning themselves as “the bridge” in contemporary Indonesia-China relations.

As the result, Jokowi’s administration has forged closer ties with Xi Jinping’s China, which the president’s critics claim is giving more advantages to Chinese investors and businesses.

“Those outside of this exclusive group (of business elite) have expressed discontent over the direction of Chinese Indonesian identity politics, and these internal divisions may widen even further in the future,” Indonesian scholar Charlotte Setijadi wrote in a 2016 research paper.

Now with Gen Z in the picture, it does not seem that younger Chinese Indonesians would, or should, stay passive and let their identity be directed by a handful of their older, wealthy counterparts — again.

Thung Ju Lan, a researcher at Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), pointed out that the main gap in Indonesian society now is less about race than it is about class.

“If you compare with the politics in the ‘60s, today’s gap is no longer a divide between the Chinese and the non-Chinese, but between social classes. The wealthy are friends with each other regardless of race; they hang out together in Singapore and whatnot,” Thung said.

Human rights groups have strongly criticized Jokowi’s administration as favoring large businesses — Chinese owned or not — over the people’s welfare.

Hoon Chang Yau, researcher at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, affirmed this view. He said if the average young Indonesian of any ethnicity were to learn anything from the New Order era, it’s that conversations about race and ethnicity must include rejections of economic inequality and of the oppression of other minorities.

“If we want to talk about race, we cannot pretend there is no class issue, because actually a lot of problems are rooted in socioeconomic problems,” he said.

A growing number of Gen-Zers are starting to realize this. Not only they are critical of discrimination they face themselves, but they are also building solidarity with people from other intersections of marginalization.

Kai Mata, 23, is a Chinese Indonesian who has been generating media buzz lately for being the first openly gay musician in Indonesia. In 1998, along with her parents she left Indonesia as a baby for the United States. She came back to Indonesia at 13 years old.

Kai uses music and social media to promote acceptance of gayness. Her Instagram and Twitter accounts are adorned by rainbows. When it comes to her ethnicity, she said she never fully understood it while growing up. When she asked around about the May 1998 riots, she received an underwhelming response.

“A lot of Chinese Indonesians survive in the past because they are quiet and stayed hidden, and a lot of them still moved forward with that rather than speaking up, and we don’t raise our voices for the people in the past that have died,” Kai said.

“From that aspect I think that’s why I’m quite vocal about all aspects of me being Indonesian,” Kai added.

Kevin Ng, 20, coordinates the Aksi Kamisan protest in Perth, Australia, while being a student. Kamisan is a silent protest held every Thursday urging the government to resolve cases of past human rights abuses.

Active in various youth and nonprofit organizations, Ng believed that the issues of class, racism and discrimination cannot be separated from one another.

“Class struggles is one of the factors creating that (social) friction… Our main enemy right now is capitalism, where Chinese Indonesians are not the only capitalists,” Ng said.

Meanwhile, Jesslyn Tan, 18, busies herself in womens empowerment activism and theater. For her, the most important thing is to start over and build up her heritage again, starting from her generation.

Moving forward, the responsibility for the future is with both sides, Hoon said.

Hoon strongly recommended the education sector be activated to promote multicultural citizenship.

He also pointed at the gaps. While Islamic boarding schools, or pesantren, are scrutinized and expected to foster tolerant teachings, little attention is paid to expensive, private Christian schools.

“They (Christian schools) seem to want Indonesia only for the privilege. They don’t see poverty, they are blinded to differences. They think Indonesia is heaven because they go to Singapore, Bali, and Australia. So (the kids) are being prepared for cosmopolitan lifestyle, and that’s problematic because it doesn’t match the reality of Indonesia,” Hoon said.

To give the past any meaning, young Chinese Indonesians must stand with their non-ethnic Chinese friends, the underprivileged, and all other minorities, and set the course of their own journey. Only then will walls and boxes disappear.

[unless-we-choose-to-reverse-it]

Re: Contrapoints.

So Natalie Wynn, AKA Contrapoints, recently deleted her Twitter. And I’m going to state, up front, that if you are celebrating this fact, you are the problem. Inb4 y’all cancel my ass about this.

And to give the TL;DR up front: this is a post about what “cancel culture” actually looks like. Actual violent abusers being named and shamed is not cancel culture. Sex pests and people who are genuinely fucking hateful being accurately described as such? Not cancel culture. That’s a thing called “I don’t want to associate with these bastards, and I want other people to know that they are bastards.”

But let’s talk about what actual cancel culture looks like. I’m going to put the rest of this under a “read more” so that I don’t put an entire goddamn essay on everyone’s feed.

For those who do not know, Natalie Wynn operates the YouTube channel Contrapoints, focused on discussing leftist politics with a particular focus on gender and sex. Natalie, being a trans woman, has a level of insider knowledge that a lot of performatively woke people online lack, and her work, true to her nom de plume, often deals with the fact that these are complicated issues.

She has a considerable following, and a good deal of her following consists of men who she has essentially saved from becoming alt-right shitlords. Her production values, knack for performance, and willingness to recognize complex issues when she sees them has a certain power with people who are not already involved in leftist circles, and while many of her takes are fairly pedestrian by the standards of people DEEP into left-leaning circles, she is one of the avenues for bringing people into leftist politics from outside. Go onto any one of her most popular videos, and you’ll see the comments filled with people talking about how Natalie made them change their minds. It’s a beautiful kind of thing.

Now, am I loading the conversation a bit because I am a fan of Contrapoints? Yes. Yes I am. Because I believe that her work is valuable to modern leftism. She is a propagandist, and what’s more, she’s a brilliant propagandist. Where so many people attempt to bring people into leftism through shame, she entertains and entices, and presents a force that reactionary shitbags seem incapable of attacking.

But where reactionaries find themselves wanting, the Puritans have plenty of ammo to destroy progressive spaces from within.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Natalie Wynn posts a tweet talking about asking for pronouns. Now, because she deleted her Twitter and I don’t have the tweet in front of me, I cannot quote it verbatim, but to paraphrase, she said that asking for people’s pronouns isn’t always the best idea, since it can make binary trans people feel like they’re being isolated and viewed as “less than” their gender.

Okay, have we read that? Good. Let’s consider that for a second.

This is a genuinely good point to make, and it mostly arose from her own feelings of discomfort re: being a trans woman and finding trans-inclusive spaces uncomfortable on that account. Perhaps the point was not elegantly made, but still.

Non-binary trans folk, binary trans folk who can “pass,” and binary trans folk who cannot; they all have different needs. For some people, asking about pronouns is an affirming thing, something which allows them to articulate themselves fully and prevents them from dealing with people misgendering them. For others, especially those who are interested in a more classically gendered expression, asking about pronouns can feel like misgendering, can feel like people regard you as less than your actual self.

This is a discussion that needs to be had. How can the community balance different needs from very closely linked groups of people? How can we reconcile the needs of people who are openly defiant of gender norms and who want their opposition to that recognized, with the needs of people who are more comfortable with traditionally gendered expression and who want to be recognized as such?

It’s a conversation that needs to be had. Unfortunately, subtlety is dead on Twitter dot com. And on social media in general.

When I talk about “Puritans,” I refer to a specific subset of Extremely Online progressives. Just as the IRL Puritans seemed to disdain any kind of Christian teachings of love, community, and acceptance in favour of control, guilt, and hating thy neighbour, the “Puritans” seem to derive their politics solely from a sense of guilt and control, and relish in attacking those who are not Woker Than Thou.

The average Online Puritan is far more concerned with cancelling other progressives than they are with opposing evil in this world. Opposing reactionaries? Nah, that might actually do something. Let’s just attack other progressives, and then wonder why people don’t seem eager to support our causes. Opposing people who are actually making the lives of LGBT people worse in tangible ways? Pfft, that would take work. Hey, let’s nitpick every form of art that displays anything remotely shitty, because clearly, depicting shitty things in art or consuming art with dark themes means that you actually want to do those things in the real world. Hey, let’s all dogpile this queer creator who is trying to convert alt-right shitlords to the good side of history! Surely, that’ll advance our cause!

Hell, I think there’s something to that comparison, because at the heart of both groups is the idea of the Elect and the Reprobates. An unfortunate aspect of modern western culture is that we tend to believe that people are good or evil at heart. This is a really dumb idea. Good and evil are not things that we are; they’re things that we do. We perform good acts and evil acts upon this world, and when I say “we,” I mean all of us. Sometimes, I see people who otherwise do really good things for the world do something really stupid. Sometimes, otherwise monstrous people do good stuff.

But if we believe that some are Elect and others are Reprobates, then that paradigm is impossible. The Elect cannot sin, and since it is a sin to not believe yourself one of the Elect, then you must enforce this law upon all others. If they sin, they are a Reprobate. Alternatively, you must work hard to explain why what they just did wasn’t actually a sin, so they’re still good, actually!

This, right here, is cancel culture. It isn’t accurately calling out people who have done legitimately evil things. It isn’t attempting to get predatory people out of the community. It’s this dichotomy between the Elect and the Reprobates, and the need to constantly enforce that We Are The Elect and that All Who Do Not Match Up Are Reprobates. No willingness to admit the recovering shitheads who might not fully grasp the issue without some help. No consideration that people who do minor stupid things might just need gentle correction to set them on the righteous path. Nope, none of that. Any sin makes you a Reprobate, and Reprobates Must Be Purged.

I should stop beating around the bush. The Online Puritans descended, because apparently, “we should consider how this makes people feel” means, “asking for a person’s pronouns is personally attacking me.” In other words, Natalie was now a Reprobate.

What followed was Natalie clarifying her point and even attempting to throw her critics a bone, suggesting that she wasn’t as considerate as she needed to be about the ways that non-binary people would interpret her words. The response was unchanging. Other leftists came to her defense, but they were, of course, Cancelled as well, as I am sure to be the second that people discover this post. Eventually, Natalie deleted her Twitter, and the Online Puritans rejoiced at another Reprobate driven off of Twitter like it was any real victory. 

Now, this is not the death of Contrapoints. She still has her channel, and a shitload of people who will continue to watch her content, like me. But a woman who, in my personal opinion, is a force for good in this shithole we call the internet, was essentially driven off of a social media platform because the Puritans decided that she was a Reprobate.

And to anyone who wants to declare me a Reprobate for making this post: go the fuck ahead. I am not perfect, and I am certainly not one of the Elect; hell, I’m no Calvinist, so I don’t even regard those as valid categories. And furthermore: you, the Elect, are as great a danger to progressive spaces as the reactionaries, because you force us to fight on two fronts. You force us to oppose each other, as opposed to standing together for the betterment of the world. And for fucks sake, is it too much to ask that the people who are getting fucked over the most by the current order should stand together in opposition to it?

So fuck it. I stand with Contrapoints. Puritans are cancelled.

[quakerjoe]

Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust. In it, he warns that democracy here is under serious threat, in the way that German democracy was prior to Hitler’s rise — and really could topple altogether.

Browning, a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, specializes in the origins and operation of Nazi genocide. His 1992 book Ordinary Men, a close examination of how an otherwise unremarkable German police battalion evolved into an instrument of mass slaughter, is widely seen as one of the defining works on how typical Germans became complicit in Nazi atrocities.

So when Browning makes comparisons between the rise of Hitler and our current historical period, this isn’t some keyboard warrior spouting off. It is one of the most knowledgeable people on Nazism alive using his expertise to sound the alarm as to what he sees as an existential threat to American democracy.

Browning’s essay covers many topics, ranging from Trump’s “America First” foreign policy — a phrase most closely associated with a group of prewar American Nazi sympathizers — to the role of Fox News as a kind of privatized state propaganda office. But the most interesting part of his argument is the comparison between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Paul von Hindenburg, the German leader who ultimately handed power over to Hitler. Here’s how Browning summarizes the history:

Paul von Hindenburg, elected president of Germany in 1925, was endowed by the Weimar Constitution with various emergency powers to defend German democracy should it be in dire peril. Instead of defending it, Hindenburg became its gravedigger, using these powers first to destroy democratic norms and then to ally with the Nazis to replace parliamentary government with authoritarian rule. Hindenburg began using his emergency powers in 1930, appointing a sequence of chancellors who ruled by decree rather than through parliamentary majorities, which had become increasingly impossible to obtain as a result of the Great Depression and the hyperpolarization of German politics.

Because an ever-shrinking base of support for traditional conservatism made it impossible to carry out their authoritarian revision of the constitution, Hindenburg and the old right ultimately made their deal with Hitler and installed him as chancellor. Thinking that they could ultimately control Hitler while enjoying the benefits of his popular support, the conservatives were initially gratified by the fulfillment of their agenda: intensified rearmament, the outlawing of the Communist Party, the suspension first of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly and then of parliamentary government itself, a purge of the civil service, and the abolition of independent labor unions. Needless to say, the Nazis then proceeded far beyond the goals they shared with their conservative allies, who were powerless to hinder them in any significant way.

McConnell, in Browning’s eyes, is doing something similar — taking whatever actions he can to attain power, including breaking the system for judicial nominations (cough cough, Merrick Garland) and empowering a dangerous demagogue under the delusion that he can be fully controlled:

If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings. ...

Whatever secret reservations McConnell and other traditional Republican leaders have about Trump’s character, governing style, and possible criminality, they openly rejoice in the payoff they have received from their alliance with him and his base: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial and environmental deregulation, the nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices (so far) and a host of other conservative judicial appointments, and a significant reduction in government-sponsored health care (though not yet the total abolition of Obamacare they hope for). Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump.

This is the key point that people often miss when talking about Hitler’s rise. The breakdown of German democracy started well before Hitler: Hyperpolarization led Hindenburg to strip away constraints on executive power as well as conclude that his left-wing opponents were a greater threat than fascism. The result, then, was a degradation of the everyday practice of democracy, to the point where the system was vulnerable to a Hitler-style figure.

Now, as Browning points out, “Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism.” The biggest and most important difference is that Hitler was an open and ideological opponent of the idea of democracy, whereas neither Trump nor the GOP wants to abolish elections.

What Browning worries about, instead, is a slow and quiet breakdown of American democracy — something more much like what you see in modern failed democracies like Turkey. Browning worries that Republicans have grown comfortable enough manipulating the rules of the democratic game to their advantage, with things like voter ID laws and gerrymandering, that they might go even further even after Trump is gone:

No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics. A highly politicized judiciary will remain, in which close Supreme Court decisions will be viewed by many as of dubious legitimacy, and future judicial appointments will be fiercely contested. The racial division, cultural conflict, and political polarization Trump has encouraged and intensified will be difficult to heal. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and uncontrolled campaign spending will continue to result in elections skewed in an unrepresentative and undemocratic direction. Growing income disparity will be extremely difficult to halt, much less reverse.

I’ve observed this kind of modern authoritarianism firsthand in Hungary. In my dispatch after visiting there, I warned of the same thing as Browning does here: The threat to the United States isn’t so much Trump alone as it is the breakdown in the practice of American democracy, and the Republican Party’s commitment to extreme tactics in pursuit of its policy goals in particular.

We are living through a period of serious threat to American democracy. And Browning’s essay, a serious piece by a serious scholar, shows that it’s not at all alarmist to say so.

[queernuck]

Do you think that there are ways of telling whether or not a leftist is going to be a future reactionary? I've heard that sexual conservatism, transphobia, and work fetishism are telling, but I wonder if there are other signs as well.

I think that looking to any singular trait as an absolute indicator of reactionary tendencies is erroneous specifically because of how convergence between certain critiques can contribute to a more meaningful revolutionary position where individual thoughts, critiques, so on are apparently-reactionary or at least seem to contribute to reactionary positioning, but not noticing trends, certain lines of thought, certain ideological positions tend to lend themselves to future-reactionary status would be counterproductive and indeed even counterrevolutionary. 

sexual conservatism is one that I would want to problematize specifically because it can mean numerous things: generally, the TERF-and-adjacent types who talk about “cumbrained trannies” or contribute to similar ways of repeating the autogynephile ideology, creating such a category out of trans women’s experience to contribute to the idealization of Blanchard-influenced accounts where event t4t lesbianism is somehow degenerate, where innocuous enjoyment of anime is in fact defense the worst works with an anime aesthetic (when you can find plenty of reactionaries they’ll be a degree or two away from who unironically and openly post that exact content), so on: sexual conservatism manifests on and through the phallogocentric account of trans womanhood by making us into traps, into continual infringements on the virtue of Natural Womanhood, the conceptualization of the hypersexual transsexual as a continual menace, not to mention the means by which the transmisogynist line of critique is used to advance and codify racist ideological turns around the acceptability of different bodies and modalities of embodiment, acceptable metastructural bridges between the body-as-conceptual-object and embodiment as part of performativity, the bodies untied as such, and so on. 

this was shown, in part, by the readiness with which the idea of the “leather community” was condemned a few months ago in a rather ridiculous discursive turn, one which ignored the cultural history of “leather” and the identities it relates to, the acceptance of a certain field in which the sexualized body is acceptable and an exclusion of gay and lesbian identities from that, the idea that a relatively typical lack-of-clothing would suddenly be scandalous if the clothes are made of leather. the discussion of exactly what kinds of sexual activity and the phallic ideation, the implication, thereof are acceptable publicly is a worthwhile discussion but this was a reactionary appropriation of it. transphobia as well, of course, but transmisogyny more specifically seems to be an indicator of this: the radfem-to-tradfem pipeline is incredibly sobering when realized, given that various critiques of converging ideological tendencies foster this reactionary shift. the critiques of exploitation of sex workers, the genuinely horrifying content of much mainstream pornography (and misattribution of the origin of such degradation, the way in which misunderstanding of the ideological forces going into such producing-production, the creation of exploitative spaces like PornHub as a kind of ideological repository reflecting and creating cultural norms all at once, the rhizomal influence between these structures and their performative repetition in sexual encounters is of course an issue of great importance, but one which requires a genuine question of what exactly creates and produces what, how flows of desire interrelate) and how this leads to critiques on culture, on womanhood in relation to concepts of the West, the fetishization of the West and Western ideology, and how the supposed-radical critique seems to then turn such that preservation of hegemony replaces counter-hegemony as the goal.

The general acceptance of “TERF” or “RadFem” as a designation is something which is a strong, strong predictor that a person is tending toward radical ideology, and I absolutely believe that there are those who are in the latter group, those who look toward Radical Feminist genealogies, critiques, and so on as part of their own influence and development of feminist theory who turn to a more “materialist” feminism, although “materialist feminism” can itself be a mere reduplication of the same reactionary critiques. At best, materialist feminism is just that: a form of feminist critique which concentrates on the oppression of women through an applied, Marxist materialism, usually specifically informed by Marxist-Leninist concepts of what the “material” constitutes and so on. And conversely, the influence of various successes and failures alike of Political Correctness as a modality of critique as well as psychoanalytic imposition that moves toward attempting to do the same as mentioned earlier, the creation of the autogynephile as well as the way in which abuses against nonbinary people (often focusing on the creation and codification of an “AMAB themby” that goes alongside racial and colonial notions of sex) people of color, trans women, trans women of color, all find commonality in strange moments of convergence, passing tangents of relevance. Also, while this is something I want to say with a great deal of reservation and with caveats, certain tendencies may eventually lead to a sort of similar third-positionist falling-in wherein the general (but not exclusive) whiteness and hegemonic acceptability of reactionary ideologies appropriating critiques that bear resemblance to revolutionary ones. The way that right-anarchists are often actively recruiting other anarchist tendencies, how fascists use the idea as well as the actual politics of the NazBol as a kind of aesthetic prefix for their outright fascist ideologies (or call themselves NazBols, considering the lack of difference between fascists and NazBols and how the limited context of “legitimately” NazBol politics seems to be expanding due to the internet) means that people of certain tendencies palling around with people who seem sketchy? Almost certainly are.

As you mentioned, work fetishism is one I will at least acknowledge, in that it misunderstands how and moreover why movement-building and revolutionary labor must be done. The structure of “work” is one wherein primitivist critiques are often at least a starting point for questioning the structure of interaction, activity, how one considers an ethics of what is often understood as “work” and so on, such that anti-work anarchism provides a valuable counterpoint to work fetishism. Similarly, a reluctance to endorse antifascist actions, prison abolition, and other revolutionary actions on the part of certain Marxists due to anarchists taking part is counterproductive and even counterrevolutionary. The processes of Radical Democracy described by Chantal & Mouffe and the learning (as influenced by Mao) and Badiou’s account of Maoist self-criticism and study has enormous potential for convergence, I do not think that things are as hopeless as we feel.

I would also warn against general riot porn (although then again, I do love it as well), that interrogation of aesthetics of militancy is often similar-looking to the repetition of it (such that, again, the kind of juxtaposition of various state and non-state actors is an attempt at looking toward militancy-or-refusal-thereof), and of course because it’s me, conservative attitudes on drug use. The way in which discussion of how the black market has benefited reactionary and right-wing groups is of course necessary, but conversely the idea that drug dealers and users are some sort of group in need of purging, that similar strategies are not employed by leftist groups (or that leftist groups have never taken part in drug trafficking, or that destabilizing a reactionary state through such means would be indefensible) can be a bad sign. I mean, I’m an IRA supporter but I also love heroin, that’s just me.

So, there are lots of things, it isnt just looking for an anime avatar or seeing that someone once read some radfem theory or is this or that or the other tendency.

[wernerherzogs]

myindeliblefriend replied to your post “hi! I don't know if you care about these stuff but louisgalaxy is run...”

i loved getting this message like once a month when i had ttd and i'm just like...not for nothing but the two ppl who run it are literally good friends of mine so at what point am i supposed to care, y'all, that they think louis has a child... like does this make them Bad People? it's genuinely amazing how many times a day i have to think 'please go outside, please go outside, please go outside' more often than not when i read your anons. anyways i am so sorry

guess i have to retype the whole essay anew since tumblr was being a little bitch earlier, but okay! here we go again. since i’ve wanted to do this for a while now.

shortly, 💕💕💕💕💕. but also please allow me to use this as an opportunity to say something now that i’ve been through hell and back while trying to relearn how to fully love larry/1d again in the past three years. (which is something i’ve mostly had to do on my own, since i was dealing With My Own Issues, but for the record, having melanie and alex both during that time has helped me so much. love them to death.) literally no one is going to stop me from saying unpopular shit out loud now, and i don’t care how my follower count will look afterwards ! i’m especially concerned about younger users, and imma be that How To Fandom In A Healthy Way Activist now, as horrible as it sounds, if i must, asjfas.

i think some of those anons aren’t coming from a bad place; they might have been influenced by Louder Fannish Voices. and as often as some ppl would state over the years that our fandom isn’t a cult, some of them would also sure try to do their absolute best to silence any attempts other ppl would make at Openly Talking This Shit Out. after freddie it was often either “how dare you not support harry and louis” or “leave”. no one really Dared to acknowlege the problem -- for many of us this fandom was initially an escapist/fun one, but it quickly turned sour, and becoming too invested/caring too much/etc. would later result in some of us getting angry/resentful towards the people who truly don’t owe us shit here (harry, louis, their friends&families, and so on) for the fact that they weren’t living their lives the way we wanted them to. it wasn’t necessarily anyone’s fault -- not one thing’s fault, nor one person’s, i think several factors had contributed to that (including 1d’s marketing tactics, of course), but in the end it became something Hard to Deal With, especially if you’re not a mentally healthy person.

i’m friends with people who Have Changed Their Mind, too, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re not being a bag of dicks about it? as addy said recently, there’s also literally nothing wrong or wild about thinking that two people might have fallen in love and become closeted even under such extraordinary circumstances like being in the biggest (at the time) boyband in the world, no one will gaslight me into thinking i was (am) crazy for thinking that, lmao. but also it’s perfectly fair to leave or decide to Go With How Things Are Presented after 1/2 of the ship officially became a father, especially if you’re a mentally ill person trying to protect your health/heart. the thing i had (still do) the biggest problem with personally were all the people (s/o to two whose names start with “j” in particular! you’re still awful because of the way you behaved!) who would suddenly not only change their mind, but also 1. shit all over&make fun of their (former) friends, focusing on insulting their intelligence in particular, 2. act like they don’t have a brain of their own, and the only reason why they had even ~believed in larry in the first place was because of Those Awful Larries and Groupthink. like... are you sure the /only/ reason why you’d stopped one day and decided to pay attention to larry was because everyone else thought so, too? like. are you super sure, amigo????? miss me with this fucking bullshit. literally miss me with it. those ppl needed someone to put a blame on after feeling like they’ve been duped, often while doing those dramatic blog purges, too, and remaining larries became an easier target than harry and louis themselves.

so anyway like. some of us do have our own brains, and are (still) here because we want to, because it makes sense to us personally. but also while i’m in a (mental and fannish) place in my life today where i’d be fine if i somehow have indeed been reading things wrong, if harry and louis aren’t closeted (as a couple or not), and i would be able to just move on with my life, there was a time when i wasn’t (wouldn’t be) able to do that, when i did consider leaving, and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with like. admitting that. i also want to stress that i’m not here to Reassure anyone, i refuse to do this, and i won’t be making any masterposts on why Larry Is Real, won’t be necessarily discussing My Own Reasons why i still ~believe -- i’d rather just keep repeating to people to go look at Everything Always themselves, and then make up their own minds about it -- but also people who’ve had weird relationships with larry/1d, have struggled with fandom behaviour&discourse around wanting to leave or etc., are always extra welcome on this blog. i’m here for you, my sweet children. i will sometimes have my ask off, and like i said, won’t be coddling or reassuring anyone, but. i’m here for u.

thank u

[rwdestuffs]

Discussion: What would make a good RWBY Villain?

They say a hero is best defined by the villains they face, but what happens when those villains aren’t compelling?

For this, we are going to take a look in how the villains really compare, and how they succeed (or fail (they do a lot of failing in this)) in being good villains.

In order to do this, we need to figure out what aspects of the villains that we’ve seen work, and how they ended up disappointing us.

Beware comparisons to other series and their antagonists, and what makes them compelling.

For starters, let’s take a look at the least disappointing villain: Roman.

Roman had charm to him. He showcased a few skills, and his weapon was named. Which is more than can be said then any other antagonists’ weapon. Roman’s characteristics made him really likable despite the fact that he was beating up a fifteen year old when he’s got to be in his late twenties at this point. Though, it’s worth noting that at this point, there were no other villains for a comparison. But Roman’s overall personality makes him somewhat likable.

To surmise: Roman’s personality, presence, and actual power made him a compelling villain. He was different. He had mooks, he had a weapon. He gave our main protagonist a hard time.

But then he dies. Not in a brutal or action-packed battle with Ruby, mind you. But in a really underwhelming way. He gets eaten by a grimm. It almost feels like a cop-out. They won’t let Ruby and Roman have an epic fight, so they just have a grimm eat him. He would be better if he had perished by the hands (or in this case, scythe) of Ruby. But nope. Just some sheer luck is what causes Roman Torchwick to be snuffed. He’s still the least disappointing though. It’s primarily his lack of a good conclusion to his character that makes him disappointing. Everything else is fairly solid.

Now, let’s go on the opposite end of the spectrum, and talk about the most disappointing villain. Or should I say, villains (Note the plural).

The grimm.

Seriously. The grimm are the most disappointing villains around. I mean, Zwei beats one.

Without aura. 

Why. How. There’s no reason for the grimm to be a threat. A freaking auraless dog took one down. Coco literally mowed down the entire horde singlehandedly. The grimm aren’t a threat. They’re like the Goombas from Mario. The Moblins from Zelda. The- You get the point by now, right?

This leads me to believe that RWBY would make for a better video game than show. With the grimm being a poor man’s version of the Heartless, this would actually be pretty cool. The characters could be interesting and you wouldn’t have to delve deep into their backstory. In fact, you could just buy a player’s guide, or have a sidequest for the backstory of the character.

Getting back on topic, let’s try to create an interesting villain.

Well having the character be an interesting contrast to a member of the main cast would be a start. But for sake of character development, let’s try to make them a villain that would put the main protagonists in a tough spot.

One example would be a Grimm!Zombie!Pyrrha. This creates an interesting conundrum. Do they perform a mercy kill?- Can Ruby’s silver eyes try to purge it, and if so, how much?- If the grimm gets purged, then what happens to Pyrrha?- There are a lot of questions to be had here, and it would actually cement Salem as a threat. Salem could bring Pyrrha back, but as a grimm. Which would force the heroes to make the tough choice of either killing her, or trying to rescue her. And that’s assuming that she can be rescued.

But let’s say we want to build a villain from the ground up. Let’s make a counter to silver eyes. Instead of slaying grimm, they strengthen them. They act as a sort of a support for grimm, and are a dangerous threat. They could even be a new type of grimm that Salem developed and has an immunity to silver eyes. This grimm is fast.

Or how about a silver-eyed warrior that sides with Salem?- One who was cast out from their home, and instead of finding resolve in wanting to be a hero, they found kindred spirits in Salem and her band of cohorts.

Perhaps someone who can show the protagonists what happens when they take their main goal too far. Instead of a Salem accomplice, we have a huntress who wanted to constantly help people, and sees the only way of doing that is to become stronger and never started a family, causing them to become distant to others. This would serve as a warning to Ruby, that she should know what to do with her life aside from being a huntress. Or perhaps a person who wanted to take over a company from corrupt hands, but failed to plan for what would happen once they actually got control. This could serve as a counter to Weiss, so that she would be forced to understand that while her goals of taking back her company would be a priority, that she should also plan ahead.

Maybe a foe that would force Ruby to learn how to use her silver eyes. Or maybe a foe that could keep up with Ren’s speed so that he would be forced to learn how to take a punch… Like how he should’ve been taught how to do in volume 5 instead of sitting around and talking about aura.

Off-topic tangent aside, let’s take a look as to how Salem fails at being a threat. To best do this, let’s take a look at a villain from a very famous anime (Sometimes a bit too famous for its own good, but that’s just an opinion): Freeza.

See, when you have minions and you want to showcase their boss being a threat, you have to have those minions showcase their power. You also have to show them being afraid or at least uncomfortable with disappointing the boss. Freeza does this exceptionally well. Characters like Zarbon, Dodoria, and the Ginyu force are afraid of failing Freeza, and when you see the power and abilities that they’re throwing around, you start to get worried.

And here’s where Salem fails immediately. Only Tyrian is afraid of disappointing her, and it’s easy to just say that it’s because he’s obsessed with her. Cinder doesn’t fear Salem, Hazel is willing to go against her plans because of a grudge, Watts doesn’t seem to care, and really… only Leo is afraid of her. But we never see his power, so it’s hard to actually fear Salem.

Another way that Salem fails is her lack of action. She doesn’t really do much, she just sits around and tells people what to do. It also feels as if she’s not a villain, considering she openly praises Cinder for making Beacon fall, and acquiring the maiden powers. It really doesn’t feel like she’s a villain.

Cinder had mooks. Say what you want about her personality and lack of backstory, but the fact that she’s willing to go to such lengths as to team up with a grimm queen to gain power is somewhat unnerving. She manages to play on Emerald and Mercury when they’re in an emotionally vulnerable state, and gets them to join her. Sure, she sounds like she just came from a room where she was watching a video titled “How to be Seductive and Threatening at the Same Time” only once while not taking any notes or actually paying attention, but she was pretty intimidating. She could take on Glynda in the first episode, and she practically destroyed Pyrrha. Had it not been for a deus-eyes-machina, Cinder would have completely won the battle of Beacon.

Unfortunately, she kind of squanders her “Would Hurt a Child” trope in favor of messing with jaune, and taunting him. And her inflatable tube grimm arm also doesn’t contribute to her intimidation factor that well. But the fact that Emerald is wary of disappointing Cinder shows that Cinder is at least manipulative enough that Emerald doesn’t like disappointing her, or that she’s stronger than Emerald. Really, the biggest thing she had going for her was the fact that she was an attractive fire lady.

Hazel was a case in disappointment. Here you are, expecting something big to explain why this guy is working for Salem, and then it turns out… he’s more or less working against Ozpin. He and Salem just happen to have their goals overlap. His sister died when she wanted to become a huntress, and that’s it. Firstly: Oscar is 100% right in this situation. If the intent was to cast Ozpin in a shady light, then how about you highlight the fact that he’s currently possessing a child?- Here’s an interesting fix: Ozpin’s reincarnation took over the body of Hazel’s brother, and Hazel is mad that Ozpin ruined his brother’s life, and took away his hopes and dreams. Or how about his sister being killed in a skirmish between hunters and grimm, and Ozpin covering it up?- Either way, Hazel utterly fails at being an interesting villain because of his weak backstory.

Adam started as intimidating, but then devolved to being a whiny toddler. The guy who gave Blake and Yang PTSD, dismembered the latter, and led an army… whines about Blake’s family causing him nothing but pain?- What happend? Is this supposed to be intentional?- Is this supposed to be symbolic of Blake overcoming her fear of Adam? What the hell just happened to make Adam go from intimidating to laughable in a matter of minutes? Adam could have been a character similar to Freeza above. You know he’s a scumbag, but he’s so good at being a scumbag. He’s a character that you love to hate. But nowadays, he’s a character that is mocked. And that’s in part due to his voice. Say what you want about Cinder, but her lack of emotion could actually come off as intimidating if you squinted. Adam’s voice couldn’t be intimidating unless you really tried to stretch. Adam lacks any form of intimidation.

Neo would be more intimidating, what with her incapacitating the powerhouse of the team, having a sadistic smile most of the time, and her muteness adding to the creepy intimidation factor……… if she were to show up. The girl has more screentime, development, and character interaction in the spin-off show!

Back to the subject at hand, I want to know: What would be your ideal rwby villain?- What would be their name, weapon, semblance, personality, motivation, etc. What would they look like?- And how would they pose a threat to the heroes and provide growth for them?

[adlegend21]

Dalish Sera and how awesome it would’ve been.

Disclaimer: I love Sera, she’s one of the sweetest romances in DAI and I bring her everywhere on every Inquisitor. 

That said, I think it would’ve been a great thing if Sera had been a Dalish elf, with the intention of showing a POSITIVE light on the Dalish for a change. So here’s my meta for the concept of Sera Lavellan.

For starters, she’s brown like her concept art, and maybe she’s got a Mythal design for her face tattoos, maybe in a shade of green. She’s a hunter from Clan Lavellan who, like in the Lavellan origin, sent her to spy on the conclave.

Sera’s there even if Inquisitor Lavellan is chosen by the player in which there’s some unique dialogue of her staying there to make sure the shem didn’t do anything funny to Lavellan while they were unconscious. For non-lavellan Inquisitors, she’s fighting with Solas and Varric and Varric stays behind after his intro and you meet him back at Haven.

Sera provides the exposition for Clan Lavellan, they were near Kirkwall after Anders blew the chantry and they fought bandits, rogue Templars searching for mages, and eventually made their way to the conclave because of how important it was and that’s why Sera (and Inquisitor Lavellan) are there.

Also Sera’s still a lesbian only love interest, not changing that, don’t need to, but she’s still good friends with male Lavellan’s, even more so if they’re a rogue because they were a team of hunters.

She and Cassandra don’t get along because she feels Cassandra is too keen to make The Herald of Andraste a thing (even more hostile if Lavellan) and pushes for Lavellan to be called The Herald of Mythal (hue hue hue for later in the game) in banter.

She and Solas don’t really get along either because it shows how he feels pity for the Dalish due to his “studies of the fade” but eventually with some input from the Inquisitor in banter and conversations with Solas they can become amicable.

Her beef with Vivienne is mostly due to her being a court member of Orlais and how she doesn’t use her power to help as many people as she can despite being a mage and she counters Vivienne’s dismissive opinions on anti-circle rhetoric, openly chastising her for saying Dalish ship off mages into the wild if they have too many, DOUBLEY SO for Mage Lavellan’s saying how revered and respected mages are in Dalish culture and how she should really broaden her horizons when it comes to magic instead of being so defensive of the chantry rhetoric.

Sera is a big proponent of Clan Lavellan’s actions of helping people. They helped people in the free marches, they helped people in Northern Ferelden, and she’s staying with the Inquisition to help people (even if Lavellan isn’t there) and that leads into the mission IN WYCOME that's set up on the war table where (stop the purging of Wycome's elves) becomes the playable mission.

In the Fade the Nightmare preys on her fear of losing her clan saying something along the lines of “Your clan is weak without you Sera (and Inquisitor Lavellan) how do you know they will be there when you return for them?” and her tombstone is “losing her culture to humans”

For Wicked Eyes and Wicked hearts, if she’s brought she’s announced as “Sera Lavellan, Master Hunter of The Dalish Clan Lavellan” if you complete the Wycome mission before she’s announced as “Sera Lavellan, Master Hunter of Dalish Clan Lavellan of Wycome” and the Nobles comment on her status in ambient dialogue. She also mentions Leliana personally giving her pointers on the game so she doesn’t let her hatred of the Nobles get in the way of the mission. She GREATLY APPROVES of having Briala control Gaspard and mentions to Briala that she has the support of Clan Lavellan for non-Lavellan Inquisitors and for Lavellan’s she has a war table quest to forge an alliance with Briala’s people and Clan Lavellan.

And of course, What Pride had Wrought, she and Morrigan clash because, even as a Hunter, Sera has incredible knowledge of Mythal and her practices, often talking over Morrigan to explain things to non-Lavellan inquisitors, and shifting the conversation to Lavellan saying the exposition.

When it comes down to the well decision (she approves of sparing Calpernia by telling her of Corypheus’ plot btw and killing Samson) she actually is a choice if she’s in the party. Her vallaslin is for Mythal and she feels that the well belongs to the Dalish. She greatly disapproves if a Trevelyan takes it but the post-mission conversation can be used to get some approval back and she just disapproves of Morrigan takes it. She Greatly approves of Lavellan taking it and is neutral on Cadash and Adaar.

If Sera takes it then she’s the one who mentions Morrigan and Keiran going into the Eluvian so she’s present at that Mythal reveal, if Morrigan is alone she’s a require companion on going to the reveal and naturally she is over the moon to meet FleMythal who says she (and Inquisitor Lavellan) “Do the People proud and have come far” making her the happiest Elf this side of Thedas to have the approval of one of the creators.

For Trevelyan’s they can explain to Sera why they chose to take the well and regain some approval, mages have an easier time because they can say that the Well’s knowledge will be used to help mages throughout Thedas and Sera will be okay with it.

Sera’s cutscene conversations show her kinder side and her ambient dialogue shows that she gets along with the elven members of the Inquisition really well, some were even rescued by her in the chaos.

Her romance is flipped and it’s easiest to romance her with Lavellan’s as they’ve got history together as opposed to it being the hardest. The Hardest romance path is Trevelyan because of Sera’s grudges against human nobles, less so for Mage Trevelyan’s because she’s aware of the plight of circle mages. Adaar’s are still easy because she saw a few female qunari in the free marches and still goes “woof” for them. Trevelyan gets a special conversation where Sera wants to know if they really love her or if she’s just an elf they want to have sex with and Trevelyan can soothe her fears on that in the conversation as well.

She is also the ONLY person with a quest post-Corypheus defeat where, with high approval, or a Lavellan, you get to meet the Clan in a social space like Val Royeux when Wycome is saved as opposed to the earlier quest to save it.

If Sera is not romanced by The Inquisitor she has a few things that happen. She flirts with Cassandra in banter after Haven but gets shot down. In Ambient dialogue from Leliana, her agents let on about Sera having a crush on her to which Leliana shoots her down if romanced in DAO and if not then she’s on the fence about it before Sera gives up. Dagna mentions getting a gift from Sera to welcome her to the Inquisition. Josephine even visits Sera while the two have tea together in the tavern and go on a date if neither is romanced but nothing comes of it. Ultimately if unromanced Sera and Charter become an item in Trespasser.

Speaking of DLC’s Sera is amazed at Ameridan being an Elven Mage and she has dialogue where she asks him questions to get his exposition. The post story convo with The Professor auto selects revealing that Ameridan was an Elven mage if Sera is present because she won’t allow you to lie about him being a human noble (why would you anyway???)

She also talks about dealing with Darkspawn during The Descent in her travels with Clan Lavellan, even having a funny story about doing so with Inquisitor Lavellan.

Also, Tempest Specialization is revealed to be Elven in origin, something she learned from the Keeper and the NPC for the specialization is another Elf from her Clan Lavellan (that makes THREE) and Sera approves of Cadash, Adaar, and Lavellan’s taking it, but is neutral on Trevelyan’s depending on her approval with them.

Sera is IMPOSSIBLE to remove from the Inquisition. She will not leave because the Dalish need her as a voice for change in the world and you cannot tell her to leave. Her disapproval scene is her chastising you (gotta screw over the dalish clan in the exalted plains, get clan lavellan destroyed, take the well and tell her off as Trevelyan, conscript the mages, and banish Briala and keep Celene on the throne or something along those lines) and saying that after you defeat Corypheus that she hopes the dread wolf takes you. speaking of the dread wolf.

Sera has a crisis during Tresspaser. When it's found out about the Evanuris being mages that held slaves and warred upon each other and that Fen’Harel punished them, she doesn’t know what to do about it. It calls into question everything the Keeper taught her, but after the initial shock, she wants to know more. She’s furious after going to the library because of the last words of the Elves you hear when the world falls apart because the fade is beyond the veil, and she wants all the answers behind everything that happened and Lavellan can agree with her on that.

This changes Trespasser just a bit because Solas welcomes the entire party you bring with you to the final conversation with various pieces of input. He reveals that he is Fen’harel, the Dread Wolf, and Sera is stunned. The Dread Wolf was around her the entire time and she didn’t know, but Solas says it’s by design. He feared her wrath and wanted to help, and after meeting mythal he commends both Inquisitor Lavellan and Sera because they changed his opinion of the dalish from when he woke up. He still has the goal of returning the world to its previous state and to everyone’s surprise Sera agrees with him and takes the option from the Inquisitors response to agree with him, though he denies her because he sees the anger in her desire to join him and he takes no pleasure in what must be done whereas she might. He takes the Anchor from the Inquisitor and tells the party not to follow (he also give you back your gear) and you return to make your decision of the Inquisition’s fate.

Sera’s epilogue slides have her return to clan Lavellan with the news of fen’Harel’s return and the truth about the elven gods and it leads to the first major meeting of Dalish Clans across Thedas so that they as The People can decide what to do going forward.

So that was a long piece of writing and I may make some addendums down the line, but so far, that’s how I would have done Dalish Sera

[meditationadvise]

How Astrology Empowered Me To Break Up With A Narcissist

I sat dewy-eyed paying attention to my specialist Benita's retelling of the goddess Sedna's legend. It was both horrendous and empowering. Ultimately, she claimed, "In your chart, Sedna stands for where you see yourself as a victim. And also when you conquer that, you end up being past effective.'

I made a psychological note to investigate my natal chart.

At the same time, I was gobsmacked that my specialist was speaking in terms of astrology to me.

You see, it's always been a language I have actually lined up with. Albeit covered precariously in secret and also shame.

Raised in a Catholic family and also later on tackling the identification of 'psycho therapist' made me skeptical of my alternative personality, regardless of how inexplicably alluring I discovered astrology.

Loading my natal graph, I gulped. Sedna in the Seventh Residence: Your home of individual connections.

I lastly break without my deception. "P, he's been abusing you,' I informed myself. 'You have actually started to see on your own as a sufferer."

It was time to take my power back.

Unexpectedly, involving myself shame-free in astrology instructed me to enjoy myself. With that, I redeemed my power, making the choice that transformed my health, recovery and also job. I left my abuser and never recalled.

Today, I tell my story so you can find out the best ways to harness astrology to get to the epiphanies that can bring closure as well as conquer your existing challenges.

Where does your Sedna lie?

Benita says, "Right here is a female entrapped, beguiled and preyed on all her life, pull down by everyone. It is only at her transformation that we witness her true power-- siren power, when she finally allows go. Sedna instructs us that suffering is a selection".

Seeing Sedna in my House of Relationships drank me awake. I 'd unwittingly put myself in a placement to be abused. That would never ever have actually occurred had I not seen myself as a victim.

So, I threw myself right into a deep recovery journey, looking for the reasons my life had become just what it was. Our earliest experiences form the blueprints in our minds that lead us to repeat these experiences. Deep down our company believe that's what we deserve-- even if the rational mind understands better.

Sedna educated me to connect to my good friends once again, construct my company, and also grow my network. Little did I know that this was preparing me for my next action.

Where does Sedna reside in your chart? She'll inform you where to take your power back.

What is your Lilith telling you?

Six months later, I explored my natal Lilith.

I've constantly been attracted to the tale of Lilith, the siren who rejected to lie under Adam. If you're from an Abrahamic confidence, Lilith might sound terrifying to you. But actually, her archetype was bastardized as a diabolical vampire.

I gained from my favored astrologist, Mystic Medusa, that "Lilith materializes as an Amazonian power of glam, made up durability ... yet repress the energy and she can be your personal problem of rage and self-destruction.' Basically, 'Lilith is where you don't tow the line, where you were not sustained-- also deserted or abused-- and also where you've needed to compose the guidelines for on your own as you go along.'

My Lilith in Eighth Residence instructed me that I didn't have to be ashamed of my sexuality. Whenever I really did not put on awful clothing, my ex-partner would certainly embarassment me for alluring guys. My body felt polluted. It was time for me to recover it, so I started using outfits and red lipstick again.

Then my Lilith in Gemini showed me that I can be happy of my intelligence and also point of views once more. My ex-spouse would continually tell me that my achievements meant nothing, censoring my opinions, and answering for me whenever any person asked me about my career. Rather, I began to write for numerous publications, discovering to be comfy expressing my opinions. After that I told my story. I discovered that vulnerability is my resource of stamina as well as self-love.

Everyday when I get up to e-mails from ladies that tell me they have actually read my short articles and determined to kick their abuser out of their lives or begun to heal from panic attacks, I couldn't be much more grateful.

Do you have a Retrograde chart?

I 'd tried to leave my ex lover numerous times for many years, fed up with his possessiveness and fear. He pulled me back with a combination of playing the target: "I'm so old currently, I'm a failing in relationships, I'll become a monk,' persecutor: "You're so un-compassionate, doctor. Is this exactly how you treat your individuals?' and also rescuer: "You're too old to begin a new connection, you're previous your prime. I'm your hero.'

As time passed, the last one afraid me.

Every time I considered my body, I was advised that I had not been the lithe young woman I used to be. My neck was infested with cystic acne. I looked tired. I was copulating my ownerships concealed every night, never recognizing when I would certainly remain in threat. Of training course my body wasn't delighted.

Then there was the embarassment. Exactly how would I explain points to my friends as well as parents? How would people see me?

But I also understood that, at 29, my life was ripe for the picking. I had achieved a lot that I took pride in. And I had people in my life who enjoyed and supported me.

What ultimately made the difference was the discovery of my backward chart. At our time and also place of birth, some earths may be relocating in reverse, as denoted by the little 'R' beside their icon in our graphes. This suggests that we take in the lessons of that planet inwards, so we have a harder time. Having Pluto (transformation, power) in backward means that I resist the many makeovers in my life. As well as subsequently, they will certainly maintain occurring and testing me, up until I discover how to collaborate with them.

Astrologer Martin Schulman states that if you have even more compared to 3 retrograde earths in your natal chart, after that you're a late bloomer and your life starts after 30. I have five retrograde worlds. So I took that as a final indication from my graph to walk away from an abusive relationship.

Where is Pluto in transit?

" Beloved, Pluto is transiting via your IC. He's been there for ages' Benita informed me carefully, weeks prior to I finished my relationship.

Besides informing you where the sunlight, moon, and also worlds are when you were birthed, your chart likewise informs you exactly how these beautiful bodies are presently activating your natal energies as they take a trip with the skies. Mystic Medusa states that these transits "motivate new dimensions of life or enhance what is already strong within.

Pluto-- the mythological god of the abyss-- takes 248 years to transportation an entire chart, indicating that there are components of our chart that it will certainly never pass with via our lifetime.

Mystic Medusa explains the Pluto-IC transportation as a "super-strong, unbelievable transportation that influences a deep wish to live more authentically. Individuals could materialize one of the most incredible power to manage legacy family members problems and/or score a home that is absolutely them.' Benita says that individuals can end up being homeless or shed their jobs and also connections during this change. Indeed, I virtually became homeless, yet that's a tale for an additional day.

I realized that Pluto was also traversing my Capricorn (structures and also systems), and also Mars (determination and also assertion), suggesting I was having a three-way hit at the exact same time. So I made a decision to collaborate with Pluto-- purging every single framework, partnership and belief that was no more serving me. For beginners, I left my ex lover. Forever.

Of course, I really felt a feeling of loss. Our minds are hardwired to avoid loss, so day-to-day I 'd apply and also diffuse Doterra's CONSOLE essential oil mix. It consists of rose to invoke unconditional love, ylang ylang, which connects us to our heart for healing, as well as incense, which rejoins us with our true selves. Remarkably, these oils are additionally auspicious for dealing with the planet Pluto.

Astrology is more than just our sun indication-- the things we inspect in magazines as well as papers. The way the worlds, homes and indications engage comprises an intricate network of insights to ourselves. Self-awareness is the structure of development. Simply as in therapy or mentoring, we frequently reveal the origin of something as well as discover ourselves in a new means, astrology is one more effective device.

As Mystic Medusa claims, "Our birth chart is a convenient means to focus on toughness and weaknesses, patterns that stream truly well for you and also those that need even more job to function efficiently.' It illuminates several of our obstacles, which could be brightened into our most significant sources of stamina.

Today, my life could not be a lot more different.I not have panic attacks. I live in an area of elegance, and just have individuals in my life who enjoy and support me. My career is growing, as well as I deal with customers passionate concerning changing their lives. My body has never looked better. Most significantly, the embarassment is gone.

I know since I am not my tale, however instead the evolution of my experiences.

Astrology educated me that it's risk-free for me to own who I am-- to talk concerning astrology, self-love and also plant medication openly in my job-- the pieces of myself I 'd been declining all my life.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Is it OK to be 420 friendly on main?

It's 4/20 baby!!! It's Saturday, you're lit, brain perfectly calibrated to toasted, sparking your joy, blowing smoke rings so on point it feels criminal not to share on your Instagram story.

But something stops you from posting. And it probably sounds like the voice of your D.A.R.E. teacher yelling about how posting pictures of pot online can get you arrested and ruin your career.

"Even if you just post one picture, it comes back," said Anjela, who is very much not a D.A.R.E. teacher. Preferring to keep her full name separate from her online weed-sona, she's better known as Koala Puffs, a weedfluencer with over half a million Instagram followers. 

"You gotta be sure that's where you wanna take your life before you post. Because you have to be able to take on the judgement that's gonna come with expressing yourself."

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Caution, it gets gross 😖😖... I knew I messed up as soon as I put them in.... 😂😂 Old school and new school @stiiizy join powers to get snot out of me in the fastest way 😭😭😭😭

A post shared by Koala Puffs 🐨💨 (@koala.puffss) on Mar 12, 2019 at 1:59pm PDT

You'd think that in the year of our lord 2019 we'd have moved past the taboo of being 420 friendly on main. Cannabis decriminalization across the U.S. is at an all-time high, along with the general population's support for further legalization.

Yet while many of us are passing the blunt (or at least not harshing people's buzz) IRL, the stigma around talking openly about cannabis online remains. 

Elon Musk got the not-so-dank wake up call when he started posting vague (awful) 420 jokes on Twitter, culminating in a smoke sesh no one wanted or asked for that landed him and his company in hot water. Musk also drank alcohol on the same podcast, though, and no one cared two shits about that part.

And if Musk, a person with endless Fuck You Money and fame, doesn't have enough privilege to protect himself from online pot-shaming, who among us mortals does? Not even weed influencers can post to Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook without facing repercussions that feel like we're stuck in 1998.

The cost of a pot-sona 

In early 2018, YouTube went on what appeared to be a marijuana-based purge, deleting and giving strikes to swaths of weed influencers' channels. Soon after, it started happening on Instagram. While both companies cited community and user policies about depicting, smoking, and selling drugs on their platforms, others theorized that the crackdown pertained more to advertisers' trepidation after a litany of unrelated scandals from big names like Pewdiepie and Logan Paul. 

But by and large, the fear of being publicly weed-friendly on social media isn't about getting banned. It relates to the unique stigma of making cannabis part of your online persona.

Koala Puffs said the nine months after she quit her corporate job to pursue cannabis influencing was the hardest in her life. Her family, friends, boyfriend, and her boyfriend's family couldn't get behind her pro-bud rebranding.

"Nobody changed their minds until I was 200,000 followers deep," she said. But to this day her mom still thinks she's just outgrowing a college phase.

"I 100 percent still experience stigma from within my family," said Arend Richard, who went from 420 YouTuber to cannabis CEO after launching The Weedtube, a weed-friendly alternative to YouTube that's releasing a new app Saturday in response to the crackdowns. Granted, the weed stigma in his family is only exacerbated by their larger difficulty in accepting another aspect of his identity as a gay man. 

"But I will say, if you want your family to not judge you for using cannabis, just start a cannabis company, and get it written up in Forbes," he joked.

SEE ALSO: OK, everybody: Stop pot-shaming Elon Musk

Since taking on the business side recently, though, even Richard went back and deleted over 200 posts from his Instagram. Because legitimate cannabis businessmen also need to avoid the stereotypes associated with the stoner label, which seems to stick like glue in an age when social media signifiers define so much of how other people perceive you.

Reefer gladness

Particularly, Richard doesn't like to post himself in the actual act of smoking, even though a tutorial video teaching people how to smoke was what first began his path into cannabis influencing. That conscious curation is part of a larger shift in how people are expressing their cannabis use online.

"At first, over-consumption was kind of the game in the cannabis industry to get a following. You just did The Most," said Richard. 

When total prohibition was the law of the land in America, seeing copious amounts of weed, bongs, and blunts was an exciting novelty. But now it's possible for just about anyone with enough money in certain states. 

"We're in the biggest change in trends for online cannabis communities right now, moving more toward positivity and less toward over-consumption," said Richard.

Cannabis/beauty/wellness influencer and yoga instructor Brittany Tatiana (or sweettatas) quite literally embodies this positivity movement, by normalizing weed as a lifestyle choice on social media.

She got into weed influencing after a car accident left her with chronic pain. Unable to go back to her corporate job for six months, weed became her best alternative to the opioids doctors prescribed. At the time she'd already began dabbling with modeling and beauty influencing, building a following and doing promotion with a few brands.

But then she made the fateful decision to take the leap into letting her 420 flag fly. "I guarantee you I lost jobs and contracts because of it. Immediately," she said.

"It's been hard for me to represent my full self and not have people judge me based on what they see in one post," Tatiana said. Straddling the more commercial beauty industry and the cannabis-friendly world is like walking a tight rope.

"It's been a real battle with friends and brands. It's a fine line to cross. So I just try to be conscious about what I post."

Tatiana hesitates to post herself smoking too, for example. But overall, "it basically comes down to a day-to-day, case-by-case basis. Am I OK with how this post represents me? Do I believe in it? Would I want my younger self to post it? Is this true to who I am?"

She decides whether or not to post by thinking of her weed habits almost like a diet, or any other wellness lifestyle activity. Would she post a picture of a smoothie because it feels good and is part of her wellness regimen? Is that also the case for her marijuana-related post? 

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Grateful and riding the high from yesterday’s 420 Live! Still time to tune in... @hightimesmagazine #wcw (watch their live stories before 420pm today) w/ host @jenaealt and guests @sanctuaryfw 🔥 #grateful #sweettatas #cbd #hightimes . . . Use my code SWEETTATAS on @cannasmack 🌿 @organicflame 🌿 @foriawellness to receive sweet 420 discounts.

A post shared by Brittany Tatiana (@sweettatas) on Apr 11, 2019 at 10:36am PDT

"It comes down to choosing how you're gonna show it, and what cannabis means to you," she said.

But the risk is always there, especially since the stoner label seems to dominate any other way you define yourself. 

"I worry in general that it'll put me in some sort of box that I don't want to be in. Even though these days, it's becoming a way bigger box."

That caution should be part of everyday people's process for posting 420-friendly stuff on personal social media channels, too — regardless of whether or not they live in legalized states like the influencers we talked to.

The legal case against legalized marijuana

Because any career development expert will warn you that companies do look at your social media before hiring. There have also been a few cases of people getting fired in legalized states like Colorado for using medical marijuana even when they're not on the job.

A 2015 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management found that a vast majority (94 percent) of HR professionals with employees in legalized states still have formal policies against cannabis, with 73 percent in medical marijuana states and 82 percent in recreational states characterizing them as zero tolerance.

This strict approach might be showing signs of changing since 2015, though. More recent suggestions from the HR group advise companies to handle weed in the workplace with more nuance and care. 

It me.

Image: vicky leta / mashable art team

"We've yet to see robust employment protections be adopted across legal markets regarding an individual's cannabis consumption," said Justin Strekal, federal lobbyist at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But there are some emerging cases, like a recent ruling in Massachusetts that sided with an employee suing his company for wrongful termination over medical marijuana.

Still, posting about weed is far more penalized in the workplace than, say, a post about happy hour with your coworkers.

When it comes to criminal persecution, aside from the occasional headline-worthy case, "there's not an epidemic of law enforcement arresting individuals for posting about marijuana online," said Strekal. 

"But that still doesn't change the fact that it's their legal right to arrest an individual for smoking cannabis, especially in criminalized jurisdictions. And if you post evidence publicly that could be used against you in a court of law, you are volunteering evidence against yourself," he said. 

Even if the police aren't out to get you, those kinds of posts can add fodder to other legal battles, like child custody. And looking at the racial divides for how marijuana is prosecuted in the real world, it's likely that some of those biases translate into who's more likely to get away with posting about weed, too.

"The application of law enforcement when it comes to cannabis is clearly racist. Full stop," said Strekal, pointing to the ACLU's famous report on how the war on marijuana is racially biased. The 2015 report found, "marijuana use is roughly equal among blacks and whites, yet blacks are 3.73 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession."

That also tracks with the general demographics of 420-friendly influencers which, at a cursory glance, tend to be disproportionately white and often female. 

Largely, the answer to whether you should be open about weed through your online persona depends on who you are. Beyond profession, local marijuana rules, and your age, your IRL community is another major factor in determining whether or not it's OK. Because, as Strekal pointed out, social media is mostly regulated by algorithms and abuse reports. 

"So the biggest question an individual needs to ask themselves is how are my friends going to respond to this? Is my social bubble going to report this as abuse to these platforms?"

Tatiana agreed, saying that, "If you live in a community of churchgoers, they won't respond well. And it's going to get around. So it's really a question of who you are, what you're willing to stand up for."

Taking the hit, for a cause

Interestingly, though, despite all these risks, repercussions, and cautions, lots of people still do get 420 friendly on main anyway. Just search 420 on your preferred social media platform. You'll find plenty of weed content.

Let the good vibes roll.

Image: vicky leta / mashable art team

And an overwhelming majority of those posts will be positive, much like what researchers found when they tracked attitudes towards marijuana on Twitter between 2013 and 2016. 

Anecdotally, it feels as if we all live under the hazy threat of social media leading to pot-shaming or worse in the real world. But statistically, positive social media chatter around bud just keeps getting danker.

That is the fundamental tension with cautioning people against sharing their weed consumption. While people should remain mindful of the repercussions, the truth is that fighting the stigma largely takes place in social spheres like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. At least that's what some recent studies found, suggesting a link between positive social media and support for legalization.

Let's be real

"People are making a point to be more open about it because they're done with that shit. We can all see it for a lie now. And posting, like, 'I'm smoking this joint,' or 'my mom takes CBD pills' — that's people taking back their power. That's sending a message in and of itself," Tatiana said.

As we all know, social media is never a perfect reflection of the world as it is. Like the #FOMO travel pics that dominate your Insta feed, posting is about creating a collective ideal.

Until marijuana is legalized on the federal level, no one can tell you it's perfectly OK to be 420-friendly on main. At the same time, changing public perception by normalizing weed online just might be how we keep the wave of support for decriminalization and legalization alive.

Solving the issues around being weed-friendly online is a chicken and egg problem — or rather, a bud and the flower problem. Because in the world of social media, pretending we all don't smoke weed is so damn tired — but wishing everyone on your feed a happy holidaze is totally wired.

WATCH: Kim Kardashian wants a 'zen-like CBD-themed' baby shower

[flipfundingstuff]

Improve Your Communications, Improve Your Inclusivity

Demographics in the United States are diversifying with each passing year. More importantly, our understanding of and focus on inclusivity is growing. That means many of the phrases and jokes of the past are no longer acceptable. The adverse reactions these sayings can cause are nothing new, but it’s no longer socially acceptable to cause harm in the name of thoughtless attempts at humor.

The way we talk to others is a representation of our character, so any business that wants to be known for values needs to ensure their communications reinforce them. You can paste all manner of inspirational mantras on your walls, but if your leaders use crass “bro” talk around employees, you’ll lose all credibility.

“An inclusive work environment doesn’t just happen; it requires sustained effort,” says an inclusivity report from McKinsey. “Stresses from COVID-19 and extended isolation are driving a range of negative emotions in employees. On top of that, recent prominent examples of racial injustice have affected many employees in ways that cannot be left behind when work begins. This is especially true for Black employees. While the systemic nature of racism demands systemic action, individual actions are an important part of supporting employees and ensuring they can continue to make meaningful contributions.”

It’s clear that any improvements need to start at the top. You and your leaders should speak openly and often about how you can set an example for inclusive communications. You’ll also need to decide how you’ll deal with those who fail to live up to your company’s standards.

Inclusivity Is Good for Business (and the Soul)

There are obviously ethical reasons for using inclusive speech. When we target or isolate others with our language, we often cause substantial damage. Over time, these offenses pile up to the point that self-esteem is destroyed and trust becomes impossible.

Treating others fairly and respectfully requires empathy. Using this powerful relationship tool, we can improve our actions not because we have to, but because we want to. Understanding the way other people are impacted is an essential part of becoming better versions of ourselves. It allows us to step out of our self-serving world, which inevitably brings personal growth and happiness.

But inclusivity isn’t merely a heartwarming topic—it can also have a direct impact on your bottom line. Research shows that businesses that effectively incorporate diversity “are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.”

When your business embraces diversity and inclusivity, those positive values emanate into the world. People value authenticity so much more than the aforementioned “words on the wall,” so your actions will attract employees, partners, and customers.

Benefits that come from a diversified business team include better retention, broader range of perspectives, stronger internal culture, better engagement with the community, and the kind of brand loyalty that you read about in business books.

Some Phrases That Need to Go

You might be wondering if parts of your speech are potentially offensive. Well, you guys, I have some great advice that’ll help you speak in a way that’s respectful to all mankind. In case you didn’t notice, that previous sentence has a couple of issues. First off, “you guys” is a gender-specific phrase that can be offensive to some groups. Likewise, the word “mankind” is another unnecessarily gender-specific term.

Let’s try that again: Don’t worry, everyone, I have some great advice that’ll help you speak in a way that’s respectful to all humankind. To improve the inclusivity in your communications, consider ditching:

Sports analogies: While they’re effective expressions for those who enjoy and understand sports, these types of analogies are relics of the male-dominated business world that has alienated other groups for centuries. You might not think there’s anything wrong with telling your team that a certain situation calls for a “full-court press,” but if even one person is left unsure of what you meant, why wouldn’t you want to use a more accessible phrase?

Gender-specific terms: As noted above, our language is replete with phrases that single out a specific gender. For every self-promoting term such as “chairman,” “foreman,” or “spokesman,” there’s a female-disparaging idiom such as “old wives’ tale.” By adjusting our speech to apply to everyone in the room, we’ll show the scope of our sincerity.

Exclusionary idioms: Some idioms, such as the aforementioned “old wives’ tale,” are tied to historic prejudices and should be rejected on moral grounds. But another issue arises with local idioms that will only be understood by those who have ties to the region. Make an effort to communicate in a way that will resonate with your entire team, regardless of where they grew up.

Disability-related terms: Whether it’s referring to someone as “deaf” because they didn’t hear what you said or saying that something is “retarded,” there’s a multitude of non-inclusive (and despicable) terms that must be purged from a successful business environment. A good rule of thumb is to imagine how you’d feel if a family member had a certain disability, then only speak in a way that you’d be comfortable with.

Insensitive words about the LGBTQ+ community: This is one of the most historically underrepresented communities in our country. Terms such as “tomboy,” “gay agenda,” or “she-male” are offensive, outdated, and just plain inaccurate. Educate yourself so that you can communicate in a way that incorporates the LGBTQ+ community, rather than push them further away.

While it’s easy to relate to the friends and family we grew up with, it can sometimes be challenging to know the best terminology for more diverse settings. There are a couple of ground rules that can help alleviate any unintended offenses. First, only highlight differences when relevant and necessary. Second, if you’re unsure of what terms to use, ask someone who would know.

As you strive to eliminate labels and broaden your reach, your business will become the type of place that people respect. You may not get every conversation right, but it will be obvious that your heart is in the right place.

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New story in Politics from Time: Balloon Drops? Out. Roaring Crowds? Gone. But, Says NBC’s Lester Holt, There’s Still A Convention to Cover

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

We’re only a few hours away from the first virtual political convention from gaveling into session and it’s already clear things are going to be very, very different.

For one, the journalists who normally crowd the convention hall for the big moments are going to be dialed in from their kitchen counters and living room couches like other Americans still stuck at home in the middle of the pandemic. There won’t be rogue delegates to interview or random chants from the floor to cause embarrassing, off-brand moments. There may still be surprises, but they’re likely to be the kind that have been scripted and executed by the conventions’ producers.

For veterans of past conventions, the all-remote set-up is just the latest hiccup in this year’s election season as the world grapples with coronavirus. Both parties have almost entirely switched to streaming schedules and cut way back on the hours of floor programming. The Democrats’ convention starts tonight, followed by Republicans’ show this time next week. News organizations will still treat the evenings as the political ground zero that they are, but there’s just a lot less sizzle in the offing as the very campaign trail has turned into a very long Facetime. There may be some upside to cutting back on the hours and hours of speeches: a quicker and less inefficient night of political preening.

Ahead of the conventions’ start, I caught up with NBC News’ Lester Holt, the first Black man to be a U.S. network newscast’s solo anchor. He will be leading the network’s coverage of the conventions during 10 p.m. hour. With ratings up for flagship news broadcasts across the networks, we talked about how he’s been framing the colliding stories of a pandemic, racial justice, and a presidential campaign that politicizes everything, including masks. For the next two weeks, Holt will be reporting from NBC’s Midtown Manhattan studios — a spot he’s only seen a handful of times since March. Our conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.

You’re about to anchor a global event while not there. What is that like?

Well, it’s particularly strange for me, because one of the hallmarks at Nightly News is that I like to take viewers to the story. I want to talk to people. I want to bring a personal connection to the story. And, of course, we have lost that ability on a lot of the things we cover. Part of conventions are the conversations in the hallway, it’s the people you run into. You pick up little nuggets along the way. This is going to be very different watching in a studio people who may be giving speeches from their living rooms or their kitchens.

This is kind of terrible on a personal level, isn’t it?

Oh, sure. It is. It’s just one thing that we took for granted that’s been taken from us. From a personal level, I had a lot of expectations this summer. I was going to be covering the Olympics. I was going to be covering these two conventions, traveling to wherever the debates are. None of those things are happening, but the process of electing a President goes on. Like so many Americans and so many businesses, we’re figuring it out as we go along.

This year has been a rough one for our business. You mentioned the Olympics, which is an NBC institution. That’s off the table for the moment. We’ve got no conventions, no campaign road warriors. How do we as an industry make it through this while also continuing to do exceptional journalism?

The candidates simply aren’t traveling. I mean, the President has been traveling some and within the White House bubble. We’ve had some access in Delaware to Joe Biden, but you’re right. We’re not able to cover things the way we used to. Thank God for Zoom and some of the other technologies we’ve been able to employ. But I’m not going to lie: It’s hard to replace that one-on-one contact, that ability to cultivate sources and just listen to people and voters and decision-makers about what’s happening.

Your audience is used to a visual medium. We’re going from balloon drops and pandemonium to what is basically a Zoom happy hour. How do you get your audience ready for that?

The speeches will be the speeches. But at least with the Democrats, you’re not going to hear a crowd roaring its approval or reacting in any way. I guess in this aspect, we’re going to be really focused on the words themselves, because the performance art that is part of conventions, that part is going to be missing. The imagery is so different. You mentioned a hall with balloons dropping. We’re going to see somebody’s toaster in the background.

Might we actually be getting to a point where we’re looking at the ideas instead of pageantry?

I think so. Look at the four years ago. “Lock her up” became a mantra for some of candidate Trump’s supporters of that time. Those moments, we probably won’t see. And so we’re going to be forced to focus on the messages, the timing, the words as opposed to how the crowd reacts or those surprise moments in the crowd or the demonstrations. I would argue that we’re not going to have as many distractions that we might otherwise have.

If this whole thing is scripted from the start, why bother with it?

They bother because they know that they’re going to get the television coverage. You and I are old enough to remember the days when it was wall-to-wall convention coverage on the networks. That’s not happening anymore. But it’s still valuable real estate on network television. So I can’t imagine either candidate even considering for a moment not doing a televised convention. It’s still part of the process.

Where will you be physically sitting during this?

I’ll be in Studio 1A, The Today Show studio, with Savannah Guthrie. Of course, we’ll be physically distanced. Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd will be in a studio in Washington, D.C., so four of us will navigate through the evenings.

On the personal side, being able to go to the studio, and sit next to Savannah is a huge upgrade. I’ve been sitting in a spare bedroom for the last several months doing Nightly News by myself every night. It’s been a lonely existence. I’m not complaining. Obviously, there are a lot of people going through tough times. But the ability to come back to 30 Rock and sit in the studio is something that I’m personally excited about.

Have you embraced what the rest of us have during this: a suit, tie and athleisure below the desk?

I’ll be honest. I’m usually wearing jeans, but I gladly put on that jacket and shirt and tie. Now, having said that, I have gone out to do interviews for Nightly News pieces and Dateline. So I’m not inside all the time. But in terms of anchoring, it’s primarily been from a home.

We’re in the middle of three major stories converging at once, and the story on race has been one where you’ve been pretty frank. Do you have a platform that perhaps Norah O’Donnell and David Muir don’t?

People look at me. They expect me to have an opinion or to be affected by these things. That doesn’t necessarily show a bias but it’s a recognition of who I am as a person. People come to this broadcast presumably because they trust me and they respect me. If I didn’t say anything, I think it would be disappointing. Now, I choose my words carefully. But I don’t think it’s a bias to want this country to live up to its ideals, that it’s a bias for this country to be fair, that it’s a bias for people to want their police to function in service of people.

This might be the biggest story of our career. The whole mantra is journalism is a first draft of history. You have a say in what goes in the history book. What makes the cut?

I wrote the intro to the broadcast last night. We’d just come off another weekend of huge crowds of people, openly defying local and the state regulations. This didn’t air, but it was something to the effect that when the history is written of why this country failed in dealing with this pandemic, volumes will be spent on our inability to do the simple things like wearing a mask and socially distancing. That’s a paraphrase, but it’s pretty close. I think it’s appropriate sometimes to call it like it is.

This is an important time for journalism. This is an important story. And when it landed at our doorstep, I thought, ‘Alright, you know, we’ve taken three and a half years of a beating, of people trying to discredit us, but this is a story that everyone has to pay attention to, that people will recognize the importance of a free press.’ That happened, but then the politics creeped back into it. I guess I was a little naïve. I didn’t expect that.

I thought that this could be seen for what it was: a health threat that we all shared. Instead, suddenly it became seen through the lens of blue and red again. That was crushingly disappointing. It worries me about our future that even something like this has been marred by politics.

Can we purge the politics from it, or is it too late?

I think it’s too late. Most people get what it takes to fight this disease. They understand masks and social distancing. This has become almost the new global warming. The planet is getting warmer. That’s not a political statement, but it is for some people. COVID is spreading because too many people are crowding together. It’s not a political statement, but some people will see it as such.

How dare you embrace science and fact?

The thing is as journalists, we obviously have to report the body of science on this, which is huge in the direction of social distancing and get that mask wearing. We don’t want to be caught up in a political debate. I don’t want people to think I’m being political when I say we should all be wearing masks. Unfortunately, that’s what the environment has kind of led us down the road to.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

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[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Balloon Drops? Out. Roaring Crowds? Gone. But, Says NBC’s Lester Holt, There’s Still A Convention to Cover

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

We’re only a few hours away from the first virtual political convention from gaveling into session and it’s already clear things are going to be very, very different.

For one, the journalists who normally crowd the convention hall for the big moments are going to be dialed in from their kitchen counters and living room couches like other Americans still stuck at home in the middle of the pandemic. There won’t be rogue delegates to interview or random chants from the floor to cause embarrassing, off-brand moments. There may still be surprises, but they’re likely to be the kind that have been scripted and executed by the conventions’ producers.

For veterans of past conventions, the all-remote set-up is just the latest hiccup in this year’s election season as the world grapples with coronavirus. Both parties have almost entirely switched to streaming schedules and cut way back on the hours of floor programming. The Democrats’ convention starts tonight, followed by Republicans’ show this time next week. News organizations will still treat the evenings as the political ground zero that they are, but there’s just a lot less sizzle in the offing as the very campaign trail has turned into a very long Facetime. There may be some upside to cutting back on the hours and hours of speeches: a quicker and less inefficient night of political preening.

Ahead of the conventions’ start, I caught up with NBC News’ Lester Holt, the first Black man to be a U.S. network newscast’s solo anchor. He will be leading the network’s coverage of the conventions during 10 p.m. hour. With ratings up for flagship news broadcasts across the networks, we talked about how he’s been framing the colliding stories of a pandemic, racial justice, and a presidential campaign that politicizes everything, including masks. For the next two weeks, Holt will be reporting from NBC’s Midtown Manhattan studios — a spot he’s only seen a handful of times since March. Our conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.

You’re about to anchor a global event while not there. What is that like?

Well, it’s particularly strange for me, because one of the hallmarks at Nightly News is that I like to take viewers to the story. I want to talk to people. I want to bring a personal connection to the story. And, of course, we have lost that ability on a lot of the things we cover. Part of conventions are the conversations in the hallway, it’s the people you run into. You pick up little nuggets along the way. This is going to be very different watching in a studio people who may be giving speeches from their living rooms or their kitchens.

This is kind of terrible on a personal level, isn’t it?

Oh, sure. It is. It’s just one thing that we took for granted that’s been taken from us. From a personal level, I had a lot of expectations this summer. I was going to be covering the Olympics. I was going to be covering these two conventions, traveling to wherever the debates are. None of those things are happening, but the process of electing a President goes on. Like so many Americans and so many businesses, we’re figuring it out as we go along.

This year has been a rough one for our business. You mentioned the Olympics, which is an NBC institution. That’s off the table for the moment. We’ve got no conventions, no campaign road warriors. How do we as an industry make it through this while also continuing to do exceptional journalism?

The candidates simply aren’t traveling. I mean, the President has been traveling some and within the White House bubble. We’ve had some access in Delaware to Joe Biden, but you’re right. We’re not able to cover things the way we used to. Thank God for Zoom and some of the other technologies we’ve been able to employ. But I’m not going to lie: It’s hard to replace that one-on-one contact, that ability to cultivate sources and just listen to people and voters and decision-makers about what’s happening.

Your audience is used to a visual medium. We’re going from balloon drops and pandemonium to what is basically a Zoom happy hour. How do you get your audience ready for that?

The speeches will be the speeches. But at least with the Democrats, you’re not going to hear a crowd roaring its approval or reacting in any way. I guess in this aspect, we’re going to be really focused on the words themselves, because the performance art that is part of conventions, that part is going to be missing. The imagery is so different. You mentioned a hall with balloons dropping. We’re going to see somebody’s toaster in the background.

Might we actually be getting to a point where we’re looking at the ideas instead of pageantry?

I think so. Look at the four years ago. “Lock her up” became a mantra for some of candidate Trump’s supporters of that time. Those moments, we probably won’t see. And so we’re going to be forced to focus on the messages, the timing, the words as opposed to how the crowd reacts or those surprise moments in the crowd or the demonstrations. I would argue that we’re not going to have as many distractions that we might otherwise have.

If this whole thing is scripted from the start, why bother with it?

They bother because they know that they’re going to get the television coverage. You and I are old enough to remember the days when it was wall-to-wall convention coverage on the networks. That’s not happening anymore. But it’s still valuable real estate on network television. So I can’t imagine either candidate even considering for a moment not doing a televised convention. It’s still part of the process.

Where will you be physically sitting during this?

I’ll be in Studio 1A, The Today Show studio, with Savannah Guthrie. Of course, we’ll be physically distanced. Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd will be in a studio in Washington, D.C., so four of us will navigate through the evenings.

On the personal side, being able to go to the studio, and sit next to Savannah is a huge upgrade. I’ve been sitting in a spare bedroom for the last several months doing Nightly News by myself every night. It’s been a lonely existence. I’m not complaining. Obviously, there are a lot of people going through tough times. But the ability to come back to 30 Rock and sit in the studio is something that I’m personally excited about.

Have you embraced what the rest of us have during this: a suit, tie and athleisure below the desk?

I’ll be honest. I’m usually wearing jeans, but I gladly put on that jacket and shirt and tie. Now, having said that, I have gone out to do interviews for Nightly News pieces and Dateline. So I’m not inside all the time. But in terms of anchoring, it’s primarily been from a home.

We’re in the middle of three major stories converging at once, and the story on race has been one where you’ve been pretty frank. Do you have a platform that perhaps Norah O’Donnell and David Muir don’t?

People look at me. They expect me to have an opinion or to be affected by these things. That doesn’t necessarily show a bias but it’s a recognition of who I am as a person. People come to this broadcast presumably because they trust me and they respect me. If I didn’t say anything, I think it would be disappointing. Now, I choose my words carefully. But I don’t think it’s a bias to want this country to live up to its ideals, that it’s a bias for this country to be fair, that it’s a bias for people to want their police to function in service of people.

This might be the biggest story of our career. The whole mantra is journalism is a first draft of history. You have a say in what goes in the history book. What makes the cut?

I wrote the intro to the broadcast last night. We’d just come off another weekend of huge crowds of people, openly defying local and the state regulations. This didn’t air, but it was something to the effect that when the history is written of why this country failed in dealing with this pandemic, volumes will be spent on our inability to do the simple things like wearing a mask and socially distancing. That’s a paraphrase, but it’s pretty close. I think it’s appropriate sometimes to call it like it is.

This is an important time for journalism. This is an important story. And when it landed at our doorstep, I thought, ‘Alright, you know, we’ve taken three and a half years of a beating, of people trying to discredit us, but this is a story that everyone has to pay attention to, that people will recognize the importance of a free press.’ That happened, but then the politics creeped back into it. I guess I was a little naïve. I didn’t expect that.

I thought that this could be seen for what it was: a health threat that we all shared. Instead, suddenly it became seen through the lens of blue and red again. That was crushingly disappointing. It worries me about our future that even something like this has been marred by politics.

Can we purge the politics from it, or is it too late?

I think it’s too late. Most people get what it takes to fight this disease. They understand masks and social distancing. This has become almost the new global warming. The planet is getting warmer. That’s not a political statement, but it is for some people. COVID is spreading because too many people are crowding together. It’s not a political statement, but some people will see it as such.

How dare you embrace science and fact?

The thing is as journalists, we obviously have to report the body of science on this, which is huge in the direction of social distancing and get that mask wearing. We don’t want to be caught up in a political debate. I don’t want people to think I’m being political when I say we should all be wearing masks. Unfortunately, that’s what the environment has kind of led us down the road to.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

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