think it's a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead. that there isn't their life and our life. nor your life and my life. that it's just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled w it as deep as entanglement goes. v neat i think.
TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!
WHAT THE FUCK ITโS CHRISTMAS EVE WHY DID SOMEONE REBLOG THIS
TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
TOMMORROW IS HALLOWEEN
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN
If you want me to take seriously your principled opposition to voting for Biden-Harris, then you need to persuade me of your alternative proposed action. If itโs your revolutionary groupโs coupe planned for November second, email me your manifesto and maybe Iโll sign up. If itโs not something thatโll finish repairing the last four yearsโ damage before Election Day, I want to know why not both. I want to know why you think your plan will be easier to implement under four more years of Trump than under four years of Biden. If you persuade me of that, email me your manifesto and maybe Iโll sign up. However if all youโve got is a list of complaints against Biden and Harris then you do you but, no matter how groundful your complaints may be, I donโt see the difference between you and a Russian psy op from 2016.
Louder for the people in back:
I know we sometimes like to fantasize about what the world could be like if we could wish our favorite people into power.
But trust me when I say: you really do not want our political system to be like that in reality.
*it wonโt be.
the Cable version of that tweet thatโs likeย โthe REAL alex would never pass up an opportunity to dieโ
Cool situation weโre getting into hereย
Thereโs not even any reason to fire an employee over wearing a facemask. This is purely just making an ideological position thatโs gonna get people killed
If only 100% of the workers decided not to return to work. Business canโt run w/out employees. Sadly, since a 1x payment of 1200 really doesnโt help anyone, ppl are forced to put themselves and their loved ones in danger to put food on the table. Wonderful country we live in.
You'll notice that LGBT pride parades are being cancelled, and LGBT people are not complaining and calling it an injustice.
Meanwhile, Christians are calling it an injustice that churches are being closed, and conservatives are calling it an injustice that stay at home orders exist.
That's because LGBT people actually experience injustices, so they know when an injustice is happening. They face way too many injustices to label everything they don't like as an injustice. And they're not defying social distancing orders to have the parade anyway.
We also know the consequences of an unaddressed pandemic.
[id: Someone in a jacket. The back of the jacket has a pink triangle on it. In white letters, all caps, there is this message: "If I die of AIDS - forget burial - just drop my body on the steps of the F. D. A." At the bottom of the photo is the edge of the photographer's thumb. Here is written the name "David Wojnarowicz". end id]
I wonder where the break happened that such wide swaths of younger fans donโt grasp fandom things that used to be unspoken understandings. That fic readers are expected to know fiction from reality,ย that views expressed in fic are not necessarily those of the author, that the labels, tags and warnings on various kinkfics are also the indication that they were created for titillation and not much more, please use responsibly as per all pornography. The โproblemโ isnโt that so-called โproblematicโ fic exists but that some of the audience is being stupid, irresponsible, at worst criminal, at best not old enough to be in the audience to begin with. And thatโs on the consumer, not the author who told you via labels, tags, ratings, warnings and venues what their fic was about and what it was for.
I canโt stress enough how important this post is
Tumblr. Tumblr is what happened, with its never-ending scrolling, with its lack of nested contents (or ANY comments, when fandom sailed here from the old world), with its tags instead of membered communities.
Tumblr turned fandom content into mindless consumption instead of community. Iโm no expert on human behaviour, but Iโd put money on this.
When Authors stopped being friends and turned into content providers, new fandom members never learned to care.
โWhen authors stopped being friends and turned into content providersโ
Well that reframed my view of every fandom Iโve touched for the last five years, and it explains a lot.
I really cannot emphasize how the lack of comments and nested comments impacted fandom. It turned fandom into a series of one-way relationships. Social media is extremely uninteractive compared to mediums like journals and forums.
Even โTumblr conversationsโ, where you reblog each otherโs posts back and forth and it turns into a dialogue, extremely limited. You can generally only do this a few times.
But thereโs another, insidious layer to this, which is how reblogs work: itโs easy to create new โrealitiesโ or versions of postโฆwithout people realizing that other versions exist. If two differnent people reblog from the same person to add a comment, then other people reblog from them adding further comments, youโll get something like this:
That is 14 different versions of the same post someone could see. Fourteen separate realities right there!
You might be seeing this:
While someone else will see this:
Now repeat things over several years and hundreds, if not thousands, of posts, and you can see how this can quickly lead to separate realities.
Even if people know each other, or are in the same fandom!
Something to note about how and why this happens. See those gray lines connecting the various dots? Those are profitable to the social media companies. That nebulous gray blog encompassing the two stars/fans, or the invisible hypothetical line connecting those two stars? That is not profitable. So companies are not only disincentivized to facilitate that connection in the first place, but actively try to prevent it too!
Compare this to how journals, forums, listservs, and other older fandom platforms operated:
Now, this is a very vague visual representation of multiple different platforms, but there are three main things I was trying to indicate.
Social media removed reciprocation, communication, and agency in content consumption. Fans react to either passive consumption because thatโs the only way to stay sane in such an overwhelming platform, or to extremism because thatโs the only form of agency they can truly have in their fandom experience. Fandom isnโt something you participate in, itโs something that happens to you.
And if this sounds familiar to any social science majors out there, you mightโve taken a course about group dynamics, ideological persistence, and/or had to study about the proliferation of social and/or political movements. Nicky Case has a lovely interactive webapp that lets you play around with these concepts and experience this in just half an hour of playing around:
The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds
This is an excellent read on Tumblr fandom, and encapsulates some of the things about the platform that give me pause before posting.
I think that what weโre experiencing now, as a reaction, is a resurgence of individual communities. More often than not these days, I see that individual fandoms or groups within fandoms have a Discord or other place to talk away from Tumblr.
I think that may also explain why some people tend to like more than they reblog. Reblogging means leaving yourself open to (often extremist/purity-motivated) criticism of your choices - or leaves the OP open to similar criticism from your followers, with you as the involuntary middleman whose reblog made that connection possible.
Likes and drafts are private - you can collect posts in a place where no one sees them but you. It doesnโt have to be a public statement. It can just be a thing that caught your interest for whatever reason, that you wanted to be reminded of.
I strongly encourage anyone who hasnโt already to read this essay on how web 2.0 has changed fandom
itโs not just tumblr, or twitter, itโs a fundamental shift in how people act online in the era of social media and algorithm-driven interaction towards advertising revenue
what I REALLY donโt like is this post was made in 2017
i have NEVER seen such a long and specific phrase trending
but the man deserves it
My friend says not to vote in the upcoming election because our liberal establishment is no different from fascism and because Trump's policies are merely an extension of existing policies (like the ICE concentration camps that were established under Obama). How would you, being a leftist like me and my friend, respond to this attitude?
When I was in high school there was one cataclysmic, catastrophic, Very Important school board meeting.
It was a perfect storm of religious freedom, LGBT Rights, and Holy Shit Youโre Talking About Taking Daycare Away from Students Who Are Parents.
The first thing, religious freedom, was exceptionally stupid but I think itโs a great example of how shitty the suburb I lived in was and what we were dealing with. Basically the D&D club that I started was accused of being Satanists and the Campus Christian Club was trying to get us shut down for worshipping satan. (I live in the fucking WORST part of LA County, I swear). The defense for the D&D club was pretty simple: If weโre worshipping satan as an on-campus activity at lunchtime we have every right to do so just like the Campus Christian Club an in fact if the Campus Christian Club got us shut down for practicing a different religion theyโd made a very effective argument for shutting down their Praising Christ on-campus lunchtime activity.
The second thing was ANOTHER conflict with the Campus Christian Club - this was more serious. This was โHigh schoolers shouldnโt be exposed to deviant lifestyles and therefore we need to shut down the Gay/Straight Alliance.โ At that point the GSA was also very new and I was also the VP of it. Spoilers: we were allowed to continue existing and we had speakers come in from time to time - we had grownups who talked to us about dealing with homophobia and resources for what happened if your parents kicked you out; we had a trans woman in her 50s come and talk to us (in 2003!) about transphobia and dysphoria and how to cope. The adviser handed out a packet to all of us that had the suicide hotline number right at the top, I know at least three people used that number the first year. The defense for the GSA was actually another handy-dandy page out of the ACLU handbook: The Campus Christian Clubโs definition of deviance is something they have a right to hold but not to impose on other people - if you ban the GSA based on being โdeviantsโ you are imposing someone elseโs belief system on us so knock it off unless you want to be a fun LA Times story.
The third thing didnโt have ANYTHING to do with the Campus Christian Club and was much worse because it had to do with funding and teen moms. The third thing was โThe district believes itโs a waste of money to continue to pay for childcare at the district continuation school; if you canโt afford childcare you should have thought of that before becoming a teen mom, good luck getting a babysitter while youโre trying to finish high school.โ Four of the students from the continuation school had showed up with their children and their defense of the daycare program was basically (and understandably) โWhat the fuck you fucking ghouls we just want to finish school and itโs one fucking daycare provider on campus you already have to pay the insurance for childcare providers for other schools in the district what the fucking fuck.โ
The D&D Club, GSA, and Childcare for Teen Parents Program were all allowed to continue existing.
By one vote.
By someone who had recently been elected to the school board.
By four votes.
Four people went out and voted that November. Four people filled in a bubble on a ballot.
The GSA did fundraisers to pay for STI testing and suicide prevention. My friend Michelle graduated on time with her daughter waiting in the crowd. Knowing that adult trans people could survive and exist and thrive and love themselves was lifesaving information for a few kids in the GSA.
Four votes. If four people stayed home thatโs a hundred fewer STI tests, thatโs wondering if Michelle would ever be able to get a job when she didnโt have a diploma and couldnโt hire a babysitter. Thatโs three dead queer kids and another two homeless.
And it didnโt happen. Because four people filled in a couple of bubbles one night in November.
Voting is not activism but it is by no means useless. If your friend is incapable of distinguishing fascism and liberalism that sounds like a them problem and it sucks to be them; that amount of nihilism is hard to carry around.
People who criticize leftists for โelectoral apologismโ or whatever for voting are the โyet you participate in society, curious. I am very intelligentโ comic
Yeah, the systemโs shitty. Yeah, it sucks and should be overthrown. But itโs not overthrown YET so we may as well take advantage of the few areas of harm reduction the system allows. Voting doesnโt mean you STOP doing direct action or that you stop pushing for change, it just means youโre doing the single easiest real-world thing to alleviate suffering. And if it doesnโt work who gives a fuck - you did the bare minimum and it cost you a small amount of time.
Vote and then go hand out food in the park or cut the valve stems off a cop car if youโre feeling angsty about conceding to the system.
(also FUCK, you have no idea how much I hate having to defend the Obama administration but please go talk to a trans person about whether it is easier or harder to get healthcare in their state under Trump or under Obama. I fucking hate liberals but I donโt think that theyโre actively interested in overturning Roe V. Wade. Fuck this political purity culture and go learn about harm reduction.)
THIS.
Seriously, history shows that this kind of political purity is pretty useless for achieving your goals, (and sustaining them for any length of time), in the real world.ย If you actually want to live to see change, youโre going to have to get at least a bit pragmatic about it.ย And that includes using the tools you have right here, right now, to affect whatever little bit of change you can manage for now.ย Then keep going.
And being able to vote is one of the most important tools youโve got.
(Original comic by Will McPhail)
with both covid-19 + the primaries going on Iโve heard ppl say some truly awful stuff about โboomersโ as if all old people are rich conservative white men who deserve to be wiped out, so I drew up this graphic feat. stories of some of the elders Iโve met through work and activism.
โboomerโ is not a coherent class. now more than ever it is imperative that the working class stands together, while celebrities sing silly songs in their mansions we must organize to meet community needs, regardless of age we are all comrades in the same fight!
Chuck Tingle is already on it, yโall
In 1969, a group of children sat down to a free breakfast before school. On the menu: chocolate milk, eggs, meat, cereal and fresh oranges. The scene wouldnโt be out of place in a school cafeteria these daysโbut the federal government wasnโt providing the food. Instead, breakfast was served thanks to the Black Panther Party.
At the time, the militant black nationalist party was vilified in the news media and feared by those intimidated by its message of black power and its commitment to ending police brutality and the subjugation of black Americans. But for students eating breakfast, the Black Panthersโ politics were less interesting than the meals they were providing.
โThe children, many of whom had never eaten breakfast before the Panthers started their program,โ the Sun Reporterwrote, โthink the Panthers are โgroovyโ and โvery niceโ for doing this for them.โ
The program may have been groovy, but its purpose was to fuel revolution by encouraging black peopleโs survival. From 1969 through the early 1970s, the Black Panthersโ Free Breakfast for School Children Program fed tens of thousands of hungry kids. It was just one facet of a wealth of social programs created by the partyโand it helped contribute to the existence of federal free breakfast programs today.
When Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the party in 1966, their goal was to end police brutality in Oakland. But a faction of the Civil Rights Movement led by SNCC member Stokeley Carmichael began calling for the uplift and self-determination of African-Americans, and soon black power was part of their platform.
At first, the Black Panther Party primarily organized neighborhood police patrols that took advantage of open-carry laws, but over time its mandate expanded to include social programs, too.
Free Breakfast For School Children was one of the most effective. It began in January 1969 at an Episcopal church in Oakland, and within weeks it went from feeding a handful of kids to hundreds. The program was simple: party members and volunteers went to local grocery stores to solicit donations, consulted with nutritionists on healthful breakfast options for children, and prepared and served the food free of charge.
School officials immediately reported results in kids who had free breakfast before school. โThe school principal came down and told us how different the children were,โ Ruth Beckford, a parishioner who helped with the program, said later. โThey werenโt falling asleep in class, they werenโt crying with stomach cramps.โ
Soon, the program had been embraced by party outposts nationwide. At its peak, the Black Panther Party fed thousands of children per day in at least 45 programs. (Food wasnโt the only part of the BPPโs social programs; they expanded to cover everything from free medical clinics to community ambulance services and legal clinics.)
For the party, it was an opportunity to counter its increasingly negative image in the public consciousnessโan image of intimidating Afroed black men holding gunsโwhile addressing a critical community need. โI mean, nobody can argue with free grits,โ said filmmaker Roger Guenveur Smith in A Huey P. Newton Story, a 2001 film in which he portrays Newton.
Free food seemed relatively innocuous, but not to FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, who loathed the Black Panther Party and declared war against them in 1969. He called the program โpotentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for,โ and gave carte blanche to law enforcement to destroy it.
The results were swift and devastating. FBI agents went door-to-door in cities like Richmond, Virginia, telling parents that BPP members would teach their children racism. In San Francisco, writes historian Franziska Meister, parents were told the food was infected with venereal disease; sites in Oakland and Baltimore were raided by officers who harassed BPP members in front of terrified children, and participating children were photographed by Chicago police.
โThe night before [the first breakfast program in Chicago] was supposed to open,โ a female Panther told historian Nik Heynan, โthe Chicago police broke into the church and mashed up all the food and urinated on it.โ
Ultimately, these and other efforts to destroy the Black Panthers broke up the program. In the end, though, the public visibility of the Panthersโ breakfast programs put pressure on political leaders to feed children before school. The result of thousands of American children becoming accustomed to free breakfast, former party member Norma Amour Mtume told Eater, was the government expanded its own school food programs.
Though the USDA had piloted free breakfast efforts since the mid 1960s, the program only took off in the early 1970sโright around the time the Black Panthersโ programs were dismantled. In 1975, the School Breakfast Program was permanently authorized. Today, it helps feed over 14.57 million children before schoolโand without the radical actions of the Black Panthers, it may never have happened.
