Many Such Takes: Conservative America, Steve Jobs' Daughter, Activist Games, Eldest Daughters
The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free
Welcome to Many Such Takes! For those unfamiliar, this is a free weekly segment (I also do lots of other stuff!) For Many Such Takes, I stay up to date with the latest and most chaotic Twitter discourse so you don’t have to.
In case you missed it, check out my latest free Trump impression:
“Conservative” America
Very often, a pro-conservative account will post images of what they believe to be a “real” or “traditional” American landscape, and it’s almost always a blue district in New England. The latest:
Because it’s happened so many times, people picked up on it immediately:
Is it evil to post my own tweet?
But while everyone was going berserk over the most beautiful parts of America, this lady was going viral for top-tier Englandposting, which really makes me want to go to England again:
Steve Jobs’ Daughter
Last week, a Twitter account drew attention to the fact that Steve Jobs had a hot daughter, posting an image from the aformenioned daughter’s (Eve Jobs) Instagram:
I remember when it happened and I considered posting it to MST, but ultimately decided it wasn’t funny or interesting enough. However, this week it became funny and interesting when Nikita Bier, the head of Product at X/Twitter, gave $10,000 in monetization cash to the guy who posted it after he complained that his monetization payout wasn’t proportional to the impressions of the post.
Clearly this was some kind of funny one-time stunt (and a pretty bad idea, I would say) but it opened a Pandora’s Box of other users who went similarly viral, demanding Nikita give them what is rightfully theirs, because ultimately someone winds up “defining Internet culture for 24 hours” every day.
Nikita clarified (vaguely) by saying that they are looking for “new ways” to reward and recognize influential creators. But I assume this also requires you to tag him and beg for more money, which is frankly something I’m not willing to do. Good luck out there!
Activist Games
Another day, another gamer mad that Woke took away the giant bazungas in his video game:
On the one hand, I know I would be very mad if someone took away all the Woohoo in the Sims, but on the other hand, it feels like you shouldn’t need massive boobs to enjoy a game that, well, isn’t about boobs (I maintain that Woohoo and various sexual dramas is a major part of the Sims strategy, if you will.) Surely, if you need sexy ladies to turn you on, you have a plethora of free Internet porn at your disposal.
We got a bunch of good parodies too:
This one was my favorite. So simple, so clean. So perfect:
Eldest Daughters
I’m debating writing my own separate post on this (let me know if there’s any desire for that) but Taylor Swift’s new song, Eldest Daughter, is bringing out a lot of feelings for eldest daughters who believe they were victimized by their birth order and gender—generally, that they were held to unreasonably high standards that didn’t apply to the rest of their families, not having a childhood because they were given too much responsibilities, and an obligation to perform domestic labor not expected of their siblings.
Only one problem—I just don’t believe this happened to Taylor Swift or most of the women talking about this.
Not to be the Friend Who’s Too Woke, but I feel like the eldest daughter phenomenon is kind of specific to particular cultures, maybe including very large white American families but probably not including white American families with two kids. Sorry! It feels like the latest buzzword that could be used by the majority of women (the only person who doesn’t qualify as the “eldest daughter” is someone with a big sister) to explain what basically amounts to having anxiety and low self esteem. The following criteria could apply to almost anyone who wants to see these traits in themselves. It’s giving “gifted child burnout” or “child of emotionally immature parent” which I wrote about before.
Funny Tweets/Other Happenings
Sure, for the sake of the dead dog:
What a great idea, why didn’t I think of this:
I knew the whole oldest daughter syndrome thing had gone way too far when someone I know started trying to diagnose my daughter with it. She’s two and doesn’t even have any siblings yet.
I read too many newsletters to remember who wrote what, but someone was calling herself the eldest daughter, even though she had an older brother... because she was the first girl child. Like, that's not what 'eldest daughter' means. You weren't parentified, which is a real thing, and much of what I take eldest daughter discourse to be about: putting yourself aside for other family members, either because you were told to, or because you felt it was the right thing to do.
I'm an eldest daughter who was a rule follower and studied hard and tried to always to do the right thing. I may have regrets/a teeny bit of anger over various childhood issues, but I'm an adult and know that I wasn't truly harmed. I wasn't forced to care for my younger brother, and any high standards I felt I needed to hit were mostly self imposed and because it didn't occur to me to be otherwise.
Taylor Swift has a younger brother, but since she has been a professional musician/singer/celebrity since she was a young teen, I'm not sure how she is an eldest daughter as we define it. Rule follower and hard worker, sure. But parentified? They moved states to give her a career, uprooting her brother from his own life. If anything, it's Taylor's brother who probably has the more interesting story to tell.