Twitter has always been bad, but the angry reaction to the photo of people having friends is proof that it's become even worse. The people angry over someone else having friends in a rented apartment are just miserable people who just want to commiserate in nihilism. The only thing that keeps them from being the worst people there is that it's become overrun with Nazis.
Right? What world is this where owning some furniture and plants and renting an apartment is an unattainable luxury? Are they commenting from a tent under a subway bridge?
It’s very nicely decorated but I suspect she just has a good eye and great sense of style, looks like thrift store finds and hand me downs. The plants look awesome, and are a testament to habitual maintenance of her home.
I'm convinced that "what's-the-name-but-it-has-BLOOD-in it," is doing a bit. It's as overreaching as true believers can be, but something about it tells me there's a self-awareness in the way it's written that true believers don't possess. Back before things went truly batshit online, we'd admire that as a thing of beauty, rather than just another voice among the billions screaming past each other now.
Basically, if they get a Substack, I would like to subscribe to their newsletter. Because, unlike you, CHH, I am never going back to Twitter; in fact, I believe my account that I created in 2012 or so has maybe like six tweets, all of which are now old enough to be tweentweets.*
*I do not apologize for putting that out in the universe; someone else would have coined it eventually, just out of sheer probability alone. But I do apologize for possibly putting in your brain, CHH. Maybe even to *some* of the commentariat. ;)
Everyone saw that post about the lady who has coffee with her husband in the garden every morning and decided that was the standard to which every jealous, miserable loser must behave when they see someone doing something normal.
I didn’t see that post, but is the correct solution to just invite your girlfriend to have coffee in the park every morning. It should inspire not infuriate, these are not unobtainable things.
Exactly this! I mean, i've hung out in countless apartments like that in my 20s, all the stuff inside either held onto since college, leftover from past tenants, or picked up at stoop sales and flea markets.
I need to write this up, but a big part of twitter toxicity is that a lot of prominent posters’ style of talking and arguing were formed in the pressure cooker of highly argumentative forum subcultures - Reddit and 4chan on the right (libertarian and fascist wings), and tumblr and somethingawful on the left (woke and asshole wings). But they have since left those forums and emerged into the Twitter thunderdome
This is why people become Nazis. When you have nothing in life but negativity, where else do you have to go but down?
If hatred and negativity are like drugs, then imagine discovering the wonders of right-wing extremism: literally all of your pain in life is caused by Jews (also Blacks, Gays, Immigrants - the people the Jews allegedly want to replace you with).
It's literally like a junkie finding a giant suitcase full of heroin.
Left-wing extemism is a little bit similar in its toxicity, but requires a certain degree of self-flagellation ("I've been a part of an evil capitalist system!" or "I bear the guilt of my white oppressorship!") that might not be everyone's cup of tea. Not everyone would be into the masochism of left wing politics.
But far-right politics is just straight up fear and loathing, a race to the bottom of your psyche. This is why so many of these guys are also into pedophilia - same idea, a race to the bottom: "How can I be the most vile and horrible person?"
Far-right beliefs are sadism. Far-left beliefs are masochism.
Crazy thought experiment, which leads to interesting philosophical questions that probably just lead to a different kind of horror:
What if there was a uniquely American far-right movement akin to fascism, but in this case it stuck to the ideal that anyone can be an American, if they stand for our fundamental founding beliefs and rights? If they truly took to heart that America is an idea, and as long as you put your first loyalty to Country, and only after your oath to protect the Constitution is satisfied, can you then turn your allegiance to God/Allah/Odin/etc., or to tribal/ethnic affiliations, what have you?
Fascism is almost always conceptualized against an Other that threatens the Nation - in other words, something that is immutable, like the Jewishness of people who had long given up the Judaic faith.
Sure enough, we are hearing some blood-and-soil claptrap from the real cranks, but our history on this land is so short, and "white identity" is something that many "white" Americans can't really fit neatly into; the KKK didn't have Blacks to harass in many places they operated in the 1920s, like rural Pennsylvania. They were after immigrants, especially if they were Catholic.
My parents married in 1973, and my paternal grandmother had a close friend that said that she felt so sorry for my grandmother, because her son married a "Papist Half-[insert old ethnic slur for Sicilians, which weren't just Southern European, but MAYBE also part [insert archaic name for Muslims, less an insult and more like calling a Black person a 'Negro,'] and Half-[insert ethnic slur for a particular group of Western Slavs - it doesn't matter whether the person is actually Czech or Slovak or whatever, they all get called this, you know the one.]".
But what is fascism when adopted by a group of free people who would do anything to protect an idea, that has nobility? Where anyone (and in this scenario, I mean any ethnicity/race/whathaveyou).
If anything, there's something almost *Soviet* - I say that specifically as opposed to Communism - about some other document, not of what even they would have considered any sort of divine being's words, because the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism became a secular religion. Could something like that come from our founding? I'll need to noodle on this more later.
Anyway... this marriage business was *1973!* In Pennsylvania! And not in the part of town where all the Irish insisted on settling together and letting those religious and political tensions come right along with them, despite the fact that you could probably have resettled the entire population of Ireland - including Ulster - after the great potato famine in the United States so far distributed from one another that, for a generation at least, few to none of those countrymen would even encountered another. It'd be like every hamlet and village would have the one Irish family. Who the KKK would probably focus their white-hot-hatred of a people who were whiter than they were in skin color, but the narcissism of small differences would coalesce until they beat the man half to death, but the Sheriff (the Grand Dragon around these parts, natch,) instead charged the Irishman for public drunkenness and that his testimony was of no use.
So, the one Irish guy in every small town ends up "the town drunk," whether he is or he isn't, because *reasons.*. So maybe this idea isn't an improvement after all.
I really need an editor this morning, but I got very little sleep last night, so I'll enjoy the mild euphoria of just writing stream of consciousness before I have to go work in the data mines. At least I have an ergonomic split keyboard now, but unless I wanted to have to go on disability while waiting for a $350 requisition to be approved at the recommendation of... this supposed ergonomist never saw an office ailment he couldn't resolve with a standing desk; at least not until someone found out those desks cost like $900 each, and they weren't ordering more. After that, they bought these weird telescoping towers to supposedly do the job for $150; of course, after a few months, one broke/tipped over and landed an employee in the emergency room with a broken foot.
I don't know what happened after that; it happened a few days before St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2020. For all I know that desk just got left in a heap to this day.
You're right that was quite a run-on, but entertaining :)
I think the kind of "fascist" movement you propose is kind of impossible as a far right enterprise. Right wing beliefs are inherently ethnic and religion based. What you propose is in a way the polar opposite - liberal fascism, but in an old-school New Deal kind of way.
Arguably what you propose has actually in a way been tried before - the US during (and perhaps to some degree after) World War 2. We had a militaristic government forcing the country into a massive military conflict using excessive jingoism and persecution of any group not deemed American enough (see Japanese internment camps). Sure, was nowhere near as bad as the Nazis, the Soviets, Italian Fascists, etc. But still, rights were violated, geopolitical goals were put ahead of people, dissenters were marginalized and sometimes persecuted.
Don't get me wrong, I completely support defeating the Nazis and Japanese Imperialists during WW2. It's just that fighting major wars sometimes requires getting a little bit "fascist." The same idea applies to Lincoln during the Civil War. Rights were violated, dissenters were persecuted, etc.
For fuck's sake why? After everything you just said, it's like a drug addict describing Queensbridge circa 1989 and saying they plan to move back there after escaping to Wisconsin.
Seconding what James said. You don’t have to do this! Either do slightly less deranged, Xitter-free MST or forgo MST altogether. We’ll still love you anyway! 😊
That just looks like a cluttered apartment that 20 somethings would rent together and get a bunch of tchotchkes from stoop sales and flea markets to make it look cozy. People are nuts!
Yeah that’s what gets me — it’s very easy to accumulate Stuff like this (especially over many years) without having a lot of genuine wealth. Ask me how I know!
There’s this weird flex these days online (that reminds me of this famous Monty Python sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE) Where people want to brag that anything remotely pleasant is a sign of gross wealth. “You got an ice cream one summer by the beach as a kid? Wow UP AGAINST THE WALL FOR YOU!”
It’s so funny because it positions itself as progressive, but it’s not that far removed from when conservatives complain that someone on welfare owns an iPhone or goes to a nice restaurant once in a while. Or that food stamp recipients are using them for something beyond the barest of necessities.
Well, no, it’s very far removed from that. When someone with guns takes money from me and gives it to you because of your alleged destitution, it is completely reasonable for me to object to you partaking in luxury goods.
On the other hand you have people mad that someone has a cool houseplant.
A smartphone is required by many jobs now, including jobs that low-income people try to access (some have specific phone apps they require applicants to use, or use TFA that requires a phone with an authenticator app). "The occasional nice dinner" is hardly a luxury. It would bother me if someone was using their income assistance to buy a Lexus, or to get fancy steaks once a week. It doesn't bother me that they're doing these things because I don't think a requirement of poverty is to be miserable and never have any fun, and no humane society or person in it should want that.
Anyway, it is in fact similar to the "you must be rich if you have nice things in a clean house" mentality, because it's based in the idea that anything beyond the basic things required to survive is privileged excess. You're not seeing the connection because you seem to buy into that mentality yourself.
No, it’s the opposite impulse. The conservative impulse is “don’t take things from me so that others can have nice things”
The impulse here is “don’t let others have nice things” with an implication of “take their nice things and give me nice things”
The system you are advocating for involves using violence to take things from productive people and give it to unproductive people, then chastising them when they complain about how it’s used.
They aren’t the same. You’ll notice that no one starved recently when “benefits” were paused. They aren’t about helping people “survive poverty”.
my thing w sludge is why are the onions necessary. like how much nutritional value can they possibly have. why not make it w onion-free vegetable blends.
An almost philosophical question, but I think reminding to make an appointment is the sort of initiative neither she nor the average man wants to take.
it is true that when these guys receive a revelation from god, it's always "god wants me to bang a bunch of women". (That’s right on page one of the cult leader handbook!) it's never "god wants me to make sacrifices for the good of the world". well, other than Jesus, of course.
It's amazing how these people never hear "God told me to work hard, go to medical school and dedicate myself to AIDS research" or something useful to broader humanity.
It’s not even just sleazy dudes. Anyone who grew up around “personal relationship with Jesus” evangelicals (I wasn’t raised by them, but I went to public school in the suburban Midwest) has a million stories of when their friends insisted “God was calling them” to do something, and it was always something they really wanted to do but their parents or other authority figures said no. I remember when a homeschooler friend I knew from a community youth orchestra I was in posted on Facebook about how “God was calling her” to go to Liberty University but her parents didn’t want her to (because I guess even if they were fundie enough to homeschool her in an area with good public schools, they still wanted her to get a better college education than that place offers). Whenever I asked them what made them think it was God calling on them it was always something along the lines of “I want something really bad and I prayed on it and still want it.” Ok, well, I also can have strong and persistent cravings for specific things without believing in God and somehow this doesn’t sound all that different.
You didn’t get an answer so I’ll take a crack at it.
From your profile you seem to be very religious so I’m not sure if I’m the person to give you advice, but Liberty is kind of infamous for being much more restrictive on students and faculty and what is taught/researched even compared to most very religious schools, so that means that degrees from there are generally taken less seriously than from those other schools. But that all depends on what you want to do, if that matters to you. I will say, as a professor at a large public university in a very religious and conservative part of the country, you can find the religious fellowship you seek at a lot of schools. I don’t want to give too many details about where I am because I prefer to stay anonymous, but we have a lot of students here like you (guessing based on your profile, I don’t know you!) and they don’t just fit in but are arguably the majority of the student body. They have started many large and active Christian student organizations that host all kinds of events that many more students partake in, also. There are plenty of places where you not only won’t be alone, but will find whole communities of others to support you in your faith.
If you’re curious about an outsider’s view of Liberty that I remember being very fair and good-faith and keeps an open mind, and gives a good idea of how student life there differs from a more secular college (albeit from about twenty years ago now), you might find the book The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose interesting. I was around your age when I read it and I found it a really fun, fast and informative read! Hopefully it can make your decision easier.
But in general, the best advice you’ll get is from people who are doing what you want to do with your life. Best of luck with the college search and application process! I remember those days (went through it three times, in a sense, because I have a PhD), and I know how stressful it can be especially around this year — so sending all the good vibes!
Re, Twitter - your life will be better off without it. Yes, there are a couple good things on there. But in general, the negatives far outweigh the positives and that makes your short life on Earth worse. I tried BlueSky and similarly didn’t last 24 hours. There seems a certain “frog in a boiling pot” phenomenon where I don’t think people realize how bad it’s gotten because it’s been that way for years now. But when you walk in with fresh eyes, it’s almost insane how poorly humans treat each other.
I got the vibe that it's being a baby. Something gives me the feeling that the people who want this life didn't get a chance to be a baby enough at the appropriate age.
This kind of affect is everywhere, not even relegated to kink. Like adult LEGO and Harry Potter and Disney stuff, along with talk about "adulting" and being "three raccoons in a trench coat," there's just a compliment of people who decided to chase the high of having a pizza party birthday and resent the fact that they have to be responsible grown ups.
Most people who talk about adulting are actually doing grownup things. Actual people in arrested development are not as self-aware and justify their life in some or the other way.
I dont think adults enjoying material originally meant for kids is that much of an issue - these brands actively courted the kids as they grew up. You even get architect lego sets that are quite serious. With Harry Potter, the characters aged with you. Disney... idk, but they are based on timeless stories that are meant to teach you values, and it's not that crazy to use them as cultural touchpoints. I see my own kid grow out of media that isn't targeted at her anymore, but stuff like Disney does a very four-quadrant targeting so the whole family finds something to enjoy in it.
There are some people who make these things their whole life, and those are the folks I'd wonder about. The ones I knew had some sort of intense trauma happen at a young age (parents divorce, typically).and they soothed themselves with Disney movies, and since that pain didnt go away for them, they still self-soothe with Disney.
Wouldn't be surprised if the control kink is something similar.
I find it a little more weird when people are into children’s media they discovered as an adult (like YA adults, or the Bluey adults who are not parents) but even then most of those people aren’t particularly maladjusted relative to other people their age; they’ve just decided they prefer unchallenging comfort food in one area of their life. I remember going to fan conventions when the “brony” thing was at its height in the early 2010s. For the most part, the bronies weren’t any weirder than any other nerds at those cons who were there for comic books or anime or sci-fi. The ones who lived with their parents were usually people of an age where it is normal to live with their parents. Eventually that seemed to shift, but only because it stopped being the big new shiny nerd thing, most people left, and then it was basically only 4chan incel types — and it wasn’t the ponies giving them brain worms, it was the 4chan and incel stuff.
But yeah, being into Disney and HP because it’s part of your childhood doesn’t say anything about your overall maturity and it’s also nothing new—can find plenty of examples of Boomers and Gen X shelling out for childhood nostalgia. A significant chunk of Disney adults are over 50.
There were some attempts by some popular thinkpieces to connect the popularity of Disney or Harry Potter with adults with the “I just want to be a sexy baby” “I’m too hot to work” “I don’t dream of labor” immaturity, but I always thought it was a reach. For starters, a lot of nerdy and fandom hobbies, from cosplay to putting together elaborate Lego sets and gunpla, are in fact a ton of work! These are not people afraid to put effort into things and lift fingers. I also feel like I see the “sexy baby” stuff from people who would insist they are way too hot and cool to get within ten feet of anything that could be described as “fandom.”
Yeah...I definitely think people just get nerdy about stuff and some of it is cool for whatever reasons, some is uncool, while some is creepy. Like the guys and girls super into sports are nerds (especially the ones wearing costumes to games) the same as Star Trek or D&D or Harry Potter. Reading psychological trauma into it is probably telling on yourself more than anything (but probably also not that).
Star Trek really turned a corner when they leaned into the Orions being not just matriarchal but really jumping into the female led relationship and straight up femdom on Lower Decks. I suspect a lot of hotel housekeepers curse after every Trek convention about the amount of green body paint that ends up splattered and smeared on every surface.
Trek-based (and sci-fi-based in general) seems like a more interesting roleplaying scenario for BDSM than the usual milieu around it. My wife complains enough about putting on an outfit for foreplay and sex, and that takes only a few minutes. No one is breaking out the Costco-sized tub of green face paint, slathering it on for an hour and a half; you'll spend a lot less time in the throes of passion in character than you'll spend disappointed afterwards while also looking like you set off the wrong color bomb entirely at your sister-in-laws' gender reveal party.
Yeah, to be clear (since I wasn't in the earlier comment), it's the people who only read YA and/or demand some kind of "validation" for it that I find strange. I'm not going to not read a book whose premise interests me because of who it's labeled for - that said, I usually find that even good YA books feel a bit overly simplistic or pat in one way or another. Like too upfront about whatever message they want you to take away, or if it's a mystery it's extremely easy to solve, or just could have gone further in some way. Which is fine for their audience, especially as they're often designed as a kind of "intro" to other books of a similar genre (for instance, YA dystopias you could argue are kind of onboarding teens for Orwell and The Handmaid's Tale). But I have trouble understanding adults who are wholly satisfied with just this stuff and never want anything more substantial. That said, I also get that not everyone wants the same things out of media and not everyone wants to be challenged. That's genuinely fine, it's the weird demand for validation and the fact that that pervades *everywhere* there is to discuss books online (and sometimes even offline) that is irritating. (A lot of things are made more irritating by the new demand online to "validate" everyone's subjective preferences, in fact!) It's not like people who spend their free time reading litfic are the majority in society either, you know?
I've had people tell me Bluey really is worth it who normally have opinions on TV I respect, but man, I have tried watching it with my nephew and I will never get beyond "very good kids' show, not really sure what I would be getting out of it watching it on my own as a childless adult though"
To be clear, I am also a huge nerd who loves anime and Star Trek so it's not like I'm purely into high culture, but I do think that what age that something is developed for does often reflect in it whether intentionally or not. I've never agreed with the famous C.S. Lewis quote - you absolutely can find great media for kids or for teens that has diminishing returns when you're past that age. I've more than once read a YA novel that I felt meh on now but was like "man, I would've loved this if it existed when I was 15."
And in terms of brands for 90s-00s kids stuff courting Millennials and Gen Z as they grow — a huge chunk of what you’ll find on the big official Pokemon merch site, Pokemon Center, is stuff that is specifically for adults. Wedding invitations and cake toppers. Baby shower decorations. Gardening tools. Fancy dinnerware and place settings and table runners with a subtle Pikachu theme. Those are not there for little kids! And they are also not there for the kinds of adults who never leave their parents’ basement either; these are specifically oriented around milestones like home ownership, marriage and parenthood because there are adults who have achieved those who buy Pokemon stuff. Case in point: My sister and her husband had those plates on their wedding registry. And it’s the same deal for Disney, Harry Potter, Star Wars and so on.
I had a very weird experience once. Dated a guy. He was into some weird kink stuff and we decided it's not gonna work. Years later, he reached out and asked me if I'd come over and Dom him and his wife, because apparently im very bossy. I said no and blocked him.
Maybe this is what that is? Them getting to be babies together?
Feels like it comes from an impulse to relive their issues and make it better, but then they just like keep retraumatizing themselves.
Sigh. Sounds exhausting. I just freak out and run away the moment people start talking about these things. One of the reasons why I’m still single cause this sort of thing has become so common now.
That's so sad it's become common. I have like one friend who is in that type of scene and my main takeaway from interacting with their friends who are also in it is that there's a lot of people who have unresolved mental issues and are too online.
I'm not even angry or outraged by the reaction to the apartment tweet. The accusations of Ai; the awkward use of "privilege" as a insult; the foot fetish guy. It's all just so... pathetic. Being a social media user is becoming more and more uncool by the day and I'm lovin every minute of it Jerry.
I am sorry that is the experience for me and I can relate so much bc this is literally why I quit Twitter as well as my bad habit of trying to see for reassurance whenever I see news that makes me anxious…
And the righteous rage and deride I think is very addictive and may of us including myself easy fall for “actively looking for things to be mad about and feel superior that you are better than them”…
If you’re not sleeping on a mattress on the floor with your clothes in a pile, are you really down with the common man’s struggle? If you don’t eschew your friends in favor of staring at the bare wall painted eggshell-landlord-special-white, then you’re the most privileged snowflake on the internet.
Alternative decorations include:
- only decorations are marvel Funko Pops on shelves with LED backlighting so that your audience of four on Twitch can see you’re a real fan
- That one huge mushroom cloud poster your RA had on his wall in the dorms. You asked for it at the end of the semester and he gave it to you because he was graduating. You’ve put it up in every bedroom you’ve had for the last ten years.
- Another 72in television.
- Stacks of sneaker boxes on top of an IKEA pull-out bed sofa. A drum set. Electric unicycle. Two hundred pounds of assorted kettle bells, collecting dust. You don’t walk through this room so much as climb. Your roommates keep closing the door whenever it’s open because of the smell.
The "Total Power Exchange" thing reminds me of the Internet drama over the woman who was in a 24/7 BDSM relationship like that, and insisted that therefore her coworkers needed to refer to her husband as "her master," or they were discriminating against her relationship and it was just like homophobia or something.
Of course, if I remember correctly, this was on Reddit, so more than likely it was a troll. But it did contribute to The Discourse on Twitter for a while. Some of the BDSM discourse can get really out there!
Twitter has always been bad, but the angry reaction to the photo of people having friends is proof that it's become even worse. The people angry over someone else having friends in a rented apartment are just miserable people who just want to commiserate in nihilism. The only thing that keeps them from being the worst people there is that it's become overrun with Nazis.
Right? What world is this where owning some furniture and plants and renting an apartment is an unattainable luxury? Are they commenting from a tent under a subway bridge?
It’s very nicely decorated but I suspect she just has a good eye and great sense of style, looks like thrift store finds and hand me downs. The plants look awesome, and are a testament to habitual maintenance of her home.
I'm convinced that "what's-the-name-but-it-has-BLOOD-in it," is doing a bit. It's as overreaching as true believers can be, but something about it tells me there's a self-awareness in the way it's written that true believers don't possess. Back before things went truly batshit online, we'd admire that as a thing of beauty, rather than just another voice among the billions screaming past each other now.
Basically, if they get a Substack, I would like to subscribe to their newsletter. Because, unlike you, CHH, I am never going back to Twitter; in fact, I believe my account that I created in 2012 or so has maybe like six tweets, all of which are now old enough to be tweentweets.*
*I do not apologize for putting that out in the universe; someone else would have coined it eventually, just out of sheer probability alone. But I do apologize for possibly putting in your brain, CHH. Maybe even to *some* of the commentariat. ;)
Everyone saw that post about the lady who has coffee with her husband in the garden every morning and decided that was the standard to which every jealous, miserable loser must behave when they see someone doing something normal.
I didn’t see that post, but is the correct solution to just invite your girlfriend to have coffee in the park every morning. It should inspire not infuriate, these are not unobtainable things.
Exactly this! I mean, i've hung out in countless apartments like that in my 20s, all the stuff inside either held onto since college, leftover from past tenants, or picked up at stoop sales and flea markets.
I moved away after college and would later find my college stuff at parties at random people's houses when I came back to the area.
One party I went to had a... ahem... "borrowed" subway sign.
I need to write this up, but a big part of twitter toxicity is that a lot of prominent posters’ style of talking and arguing were formed in the pressure cooker of highly argumentative forum subcultures - Reddit and 4chan on the right (libertarian and fascist wings), and tumblr and somethingawful on the left (woke and asshole wings). But they have since left those forums and emerged into the Twitter thunderdome
The key is the rug, which really ties that room together. Rugs like that cost either $200 or $12,000, which makes it hard to tell how rich they are.
Or you found it at the side of the road, it has a hole in it, but you just put a side table over it.
Ngl, I do get envious about look-how-cool-my-friends-are pics. But I don’t think it follows that people need to stop having friends, or apartments!
What are Nazis doing that is worse than this? Genuinely don’t know what Nazis even means now.
This is why people become Nazis. When you have nothing in life but negativity, where else do you have to go but down?
If hatred and negativity are like drugs, then imagine discovering the wonders of right-wing extremism: literally all of your pain in life is caused by Jews (also Blacks, Gays, Immigrants - the people the Jews allegedly want to replace you with).
It's literally like a junkie finding a giant suitcase full of heroin.
Left-wing extemism is a little bit similar in its toxicity, but requires a certain degree of self-flagellation ("I've been a part of an evil capitalist system!" or "I bear the guilt of my white oppressorship!") that might not be everyone's cup of tea. Not everyone would be into the masochism of left wing politics.
But far-right politics is just straight up fear and loathing, a race to the bottom of your psyche. This is why so many of these guys are also into pedophilia - same idea, a race to the bottom: "How can I be the most vile and horrible person?"
Far-right beliefs are sadism. Far-left beliefs are masochism.
Crazy thought experiment, which leads to interesting philosophical questions that probably just lead to a different kind of horror:
What if there was a uniquely American far-right movement akin to fascism, but in this case it stuck to the ideal that anyone can be an American, if they stand for our fundamental founding beliefs and rights? If they truly took to heart that America is an idea, and as long as you put your first loyalty to Country, and only after your oath to protect the Constitution is satisfied, can you then turn your allegiance to God/Allah/Odin/etc., or to tribal/ethnic affiliations, what have you?
Fascism is almost always conceptualized against an Other that threatens the Nation - in other words, something that is immutable, like the Jewishness of people who had long given up the Judaic faith.
Sure enough, we are hearing some blood-and-soil claptrap from the real cranks, but our history on this land is so short, and "white identity" is something that many "white" Americans can't really fit neatly into; the KKK didn't have Blacks to harass in many places they operated in the 1920s, like rural Pennsylvania. They were after immigrants, especially if they were Catholic.
My parents married in 1973, and my paternal grandmother had a close friend that said that she felt so sorry for my grandmother, because her son married a "Papist Half-[insert old ethnic slur for Sicilians, which weren't just Southern European, but MAYBE also part [insert archaic name for Muslims, less an insult and more like calling a Black person a 'Negro,'] and Half-[insert ethnic slur for a particular group of Western Slavs - it doesn't matter whether the person is actually Czech or Slovak or whatever, they all get called this, you know the one.]".
But what is fascism when adopted by a group of free people who would do anything to protect an idea, that has nobility? Where anyone (and in this scenario, I mean any ethnicity/race/whathaveyou).
If anything, there's something almost *Soviet* - I say that specifically as opposed to Communism - about some other document, not of what even they would have considered any sort of divine being's words, because the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism became a secular religion. Could something like that come from our founding? I'll need to noodle on this more later.
Anyway... this marriage business was *1973!* In Pennsylvania! And not in the part of town where all the Irish insisted on settling together and letting those religious and political tensions come right along with them, despite the fact that you could probably have resettled the entire population of Ireland - including Ulster - after the great potato famine in the United States so far distributed from one another that, for a generation at least, few to none of those countrymen would even encountered another. It'd be like every hamlet and village would have the one Irish family. Who the KKK would probably focus their white-hot-hatred of a people who were whiter than they were in skin color, but the narcissism of small differences would coalesce until they beat the man half to death, but the Sheriff (the Grand Dragon around these parts, natch,) instead charged the Irishman for public drunkenness and that his testimony was of no use.
So, the one Irish guy in every small town ends up "the town drunk," whether he is or he isn't, because *reasons.*. So maybe this idea isn't an improvement after all.
I really need an editor this morning, but I got very little sleep last night, so I'll enjoy the mild euphoria of just writing stream of consciousness before I have to go work in the data mines. At least I have an ergonomic split keyboard now, but unless I wanted to have to go on disability while waiting for a $350 requisition to be approved at the recommendation of... this supposed ergonomist never saw an office ailment he couldn't resolve with a standing desk; at least not until someone found out those desks cost like $900 each, and they weren't ordering more. After that, they bought these weird telescoping towers to supposedly do the job for $150; of course, after a few months, one broke/tipped over and landed an employee in the emergency room with a broken foot.
I don't know what happened after that; it happened a few days before St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2020. For all I know that desk just got left in a heap to this day.
You're right that was quite a run-on, but entertaining :)
I think the kind of "fascist" movement you propose is kind of impossible as a far right enterprise. Right wing beliefs are inherently ethnic and religion based. What you propose is in a way the polar opposite - liberal fascism, but in an old-school New Deal kind of way.
Arguably what you propose has actually in a way been tried before - the US during (and perhaps to some degree after) World War 2. We had a militaristic government forcing the country into a massive military conflict using excessive jingoism and persecution of any group not deemed American enough (see Japanese internment camps). Sure, was nowhere near as bad as the Nazis, the Soviets, Italian Fascists, etc. But still, rights were violated, geopolitical goals were put ahead of people, dissenters were marginalized and sometimes persecuted.
Don't get me wrong, I completely support defeating the Nazis and Japanese Imperialists during WW2. It's just that fighting major wars sometimes requires getting a little bit "fascist." The same idea applies to Lincoln during the Civil War. Rights were violated, dissenters were persecuted, etc.
Makes sense to me, thanks!
"Anyway, I will return to Twitter"
For fuck's sake why? After everything you just said, it's like a drug addict describing Queensbridge circa 1989 and saying they plan to move back there after escaping to Wisconsin.
Because you guys like MST!
Seconding what James said. You don’t have to do this! Either do slightly less deranged, Xitter-free MST or forgo MST altogether. We’ll still love you anyway! 😊
Also, snakes. 🐍
Fun fact: youtube.com/@snakediscovery
Gotta get an intern for this stuff Yglesias style.
I would guess Yglesias spend more time on twitter than roughly 99% of people.
We thank you for your service
The funny thing is I read MST as mystery science theater, and thought "yeah, I guess this newsletter is kind of like that"
If you don't want to be on twitter but still want to write the articles, you could try outsourcing the "research" phase
No way. I pay so she can damage her brain compiling all this material so I don’t have to.
That just looks like a cluttered apartment that 20 somethings would rent together and get a bunch of tchotchkes from stoop sales and flea markets to make it look cozy. People are nuts!
If they find this crazy, i wonder about their living conditions? Mom's house?
Yeah that’s what gets me — it’s very easy to accumulate Stuff like this (especially over many years) without having a lot of genuine wealth. Ask me how I know!
There’s this weird flex these days online (that reminds me of this famous Monty Python sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE) Where people want to brag that anything remotely pleasant is a sign of gross wealth. “You got an ice cream one summer by the beach as a kid? Wow UP AGAINST THE WALL FOR YOU!”
It’s so funny because it positions itself as progressive, but it’s not that far removed from when conservatives complain that someone on welfare owns an iPhone or goes to a nice restaurant once in a while. Or that food stamp recipients are using them for something beyond the barest of necessities.
Exactly! “Wow, you have friends? Tell me you’re bougie without telling me…”
Well, no, it’s very far removed from that. When someone with guns takes money from me and gives it to you because of your alleged destitution, it is completely reasonable for me to object to you partaking in luxury goods.
On the other hand you have people mad that someone has a cool houseplant.
If anything it’s the exact opposite impulse.
A smartphone is required by many jobs now, including jobs that low-income people try to access (some have specific phone apps they require applicants to use, or use TFA that requires a phone with an authenticator app). "The occasional nice dinner" is hardly a luxury. It would bother me if someone was using their income assistance to buy a Lexus, or to get fancy steaks once a week. It doesn't bother me that they're doing these things because I don't think a requirement of poverty is to be miserable and never have any fun, and no humane society or person in it should want that.
Anyway, it is in fact similar to the "you must be rich if you have nice things in a clean house" mentality, because it's based in the idea that anything beyond the basic things required to survive is privileged excess. You're not seeing the connection because you seem to buy into that mentality yourself.
A smartphone ≠ an iPhone.
No, it’s the opposite impulse. The conservative impulse is “don’t take things from me so that others can have nice things”
The impulse here is “don’t let others have nice things” with an implication of “take their nice things and give me nice things”
The system you are advocating for involves using violence to take things from productive people and give it to unproductive people, then chastising them when they complain about how it’s used.
They aren’t the same. You’ll notice that no one starved recently when “benefits” were paused. They aren’t about helping people “survive poverty”.
Many Such Snakes.
LOLOLOL
I can’t get over the dental appointments thing! Like, is it dom to make the sub’s dental appointments or to have her make them for you?
The synthesis between "millenials get anxiety from trying to schedule an appointment on the phone" and "zoomers are all porn-brained trad weirdos."
Maybe the sub has to make them and then-- attend them. Experience pain.
This might be why my husband makes me eat Sludge
my thing w sludge is why are the onions necessary. like how much nutritional value can they possibly have. why not make it w onion-free vegetable blends.
It's the Steve Martin/Bill Murray scene from *Little Ship Of Horrors*
An almost philosophical question, but I think reminding to make an appointment is the sort of initiative neither she nor the average man wants to take.
it is true that when these guys receive a revelation from god, it's always "god wants me to bang a bunch of women". (That’s right on page one of the cult leader handbook!) it's never "god wants me to make sacrifices for the good of the world". well, other than Jesus, of course.
It's amazing how these people never hear "God told me to work hard, go to medical school and dedicate myself to AIDS research" or something useful to broader humanity.
It’s not even just sleazy dudes. Anyone who grew up around “personal relationship with Jesus” evangelicals (I wasn’t raised by them, but I went to public school in the suburban Midwest) has a million stories of when their friends insisted “God was calling them” to do something, and it was always something they really wanted to do but their parents or other authority figures said no. I remember when a homeschooler friend I knew from a community youth orchestra I was in posted on Facebook about how “God was calling her” to go to Liberty University but her parents didn’t want her to (because I guess even if they were fundie enough to homeschool her in an area with good public schools, they still wanted her to get a better college education than that place offers). Whenever I asked them what made them think it was God calling on them it was always something along the lines of “I want something really bad and I prayed on it and still want it.” Ok, well, I also can have strong and persistent cravings for specific things without believing in God and somehow this doesn’t sound all that different.
Love that even fundie parents were like "Liberty? Oof you can do better than that".
Wait so is Liberty not a good school? I thought it was since I'm thinking of going there.
You didn’t get an answer so I’ll take a crack at it.
From your profile you seem to be very religious so I’m not sure if I’m the person to give you advice, but Liberty is kind of infamous for being much more restrictive on students and faculty and what is taught/researched even compared to most very religious schools, so that means that degrees from there are generally taken less seriously than from those other schools. But that all depends on what you want to do, if that matters to you. I will say, as a professor at a large public university in a very religious and conservative part of the country, you can find the religious fellowship you seek at a lot of schools. I don’t want to give too many details about where I am because I prefer to stay anonymous, but we have a lot of students here like you (guessing based on your profile, I don’t know you!) and they don’t just fit in but are arguably the majority of the student body. They have started many large and active Christian student organizations that host all kinds of events that many more students partake in, also. There are plenty of places where you not only won’t be alone, but will find whole communities of others to support you in your faith.
If you’re curious about an outsider’s view of Liberty that I remember being very fair and good-faith and keeps an open mind, and gives a good idea of how student life there differs from a more secular college (albeit from about twenty years ago now), you might find the book The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose interesting. I was around your age when I read it and I found it a really fun, fast and informative read! Hopefully it can make your decision easier.
But in general, the best advice you’ll get is from people who are doing what you want to do with your life. Best of luck with the college search and application process! I remember those days (went through it three times, in a sense, because I have a PhD), and I know how stressful it can be especially around this year — so sending all the good vibes!
It's not just Jesus - there are dozens of people who are called by God to service
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/19/nx-s1-5476267/the-number-of-shakers-in-the-u-s-rises-to-3
They generally don’t talk about it in the same way, though.
Movers and Shakers indeed.
Re, Twitter - your life will be better off without it. Yes, there are a couple good things on there. But in general, the negatives far outweigh the positives and that makes your short life on Earth worse. I tried BlueSky and similarly didn’t last 24 hours. There seems a certain “frog in a boiling pot” phenomenon where I don’t think people realize how bad it’s gotten because it’s been that way for years now. But when you walk in with fresh eyes, it’s almost insane how poorly humans treat each other.
The other day, I realized we should not call it your "feed". We should call it your "trough".
Eat up, little piggy! Eat up, eat up for the fattening!
Godly polyamory guy has seven kids. Oh his poor wife. Gurl he straight up trapped you.
Terrifying actually.
BDSM is just “I just want to be a worm” gender slop at this point.
I got the vibe that it's being a baby. Something gives me the feeling that the people who want this life didn't get a chance to be a baby enough at the appropriate age.
This kind of affect is everywhere, not even relegated to kink. Like adult LEGO and Harry Potter and Disney stuff, along with talk about "adulting" and being "three raccoons in a trench coat," there's just a compliment of people who decided to chase the high of having a pizza party birthday and resent the fact that they have to be responsible grown ups.
I have a husband, two children, a mortgage, a law license, and a display of Harry Potter Lego minifigues. It’s really not that deep.
Most people who talk about adulting are actually doing grownup things. Actual people in arrested development are not as self-aware and justify their life in some or the other way.
I dont think adults enjoying material originally meant for kids is that much of an issue - these brands actively courted the kids as they grew up. You even get architect lego sets that are quite serious. With Harry Potter, the characters aged with you. Disney... idk, but they are based on timeless stories that are meant to teach you values, and it's not that crazy to use them as cultural touchpoints. I see my own kid grow out of media that isn't targeted at her anymore, but stuff like Disney does a very four-quadrant targeting so the whole family finds something to enjoy in it.
There are some people who make these things their whole life, and those are the folks I'd wonder about. The ones I knew had some sort of intense trauma happen at a young age (parents divorce, typically).and they soothed themselves with Disney movies, and since that pain didnt go away for them, they still self-soothe with Disney.
Wouldn't be surprised if the control kink is something similar.
I find it a little more weird when people are into children’s media they discovered as an adult (like YA adults, or the Bluey adults who are not parents) but even then most of those people aren’t particularly maladjusted relative to other people their age; they’ve just decided they prefer unchallenging comfort food in one area of their life. I remember going to fan conventions when the “brony” thing was at its height in the early 2010s. For the most part, the bronies weren’t any weirder than any other nerds at those cons who were there for comic books or anime or sci-fi. The ones who lived with their parents were usually people of an age where it is normal to live with their parents. Eventually that seemed to shift, but only because it stopped being the big new shiny nerd thing, most people left, and then it was basically only 4chan incel types — and it wasn’t the ponies giving them brain worms, it was the 4chan and incel stuff.
But yeah, being into Disney and HP because it’s part of your childhood doesn’t say anything about your overall maturity and it’s also nothing new—can find plenty of examples of Boomers and Gen X shelling out for childhood nostalgia. A significant chunk of Disney adults are over 50.
There were some attempts by some popular thinkpieces to connect the popularity of Disney or Harry Potter with adults with the “I just want to be a sexy baby” “I’m too hot to work” “I don’t dream of labor” immaturity, but I always thought it was a reach. For starters, a lot of nerdy and fandom hobbies, from cosplay to putting together elaborate Lego sets and gunpla, are in fact a ton of work! These are not people afraid to put effort into things and lift fingers. I also feel like I see the “sexy baby” stuff from people who would insist they are way too hot and cool to get within ten feet of anything that could be described as “fandom.”
Yeah...I definitely think people just get nerdy about stuff and some of it is cool for whatever reasons, some is uncool, while some is creepy. Like the guys and girls super into sports are nerds (especially the ones wearing costumes to games) the same as Star Trek or D&D or Harry Potter. Reading psychological trauma into it is probably telling on yourself more than anything (but probably also not that).
Star Trek really turned a corner when they leaned into the Orions being not just matriarchal but really jumping into the female led relationship and straight up femdom on Lower Decks. I suspect a lot of hotel housekeepers curse after every Trek convention about the amount of green body paint that ends up splattered and smeared on every surface.
Trek-based (and sci-fi-based in general) seems like a more interesting roleplaying scenario for BDSM than the usual milieu around it. My wife complains enough about putting on an outfit for foreplay and sex, and that takes only a few minutes. No one is breaking out the Costco-sized tub of green face paint, slathering it on for an hour and a half; you'll spend a lot less time in the throes of passion in character than you'll spend disappointed afterwards while also looking like you set off the wrong color bomb entirely at your sister-in-laws' gender reveal party.
Oh yeah. Discovering YA stuff as an adult isn't so bad, but kids material isn't great.
Yeah, to be clear (since I wasn't in the earlier comment), it's the people who only read YA and/or demand some kind of "validation" for it that I find strange. I'm not going to not read a book whose premise interests me because of who it's labeled for - that said, I usually find that even good YA books feel a bit overly simplistic or pat in one way or another. Like too upfront about whatever message they want you to take away, or if it's a mystery it's extremely easy to solve, or just could have gone further in some way. Which is fine for their audience, especially as they're often designed as a kind of "intro" to other books of a similar genre (for instance, YA dystopias you could argue are kind of onboarding teens for Orwell and The Handmaid's Tale). But I have trouble understanding adults who are wholly satisfied with just this stuff and never want anything more substantial. That said, I also get that not everyone wants the same things out of media and not everyone wants to be challenged. That's genuinely fine, it's the weird demand for validation and the fact that that pervades *everywhere* there is to discuss books online (and sometimes even offline) that is irritating. (A lot of things are made more irritating by the new demand online to "validate" everyone's subjective preferences, in fact!) It's not like people who spend their free time reading litfic are the majority in society either, you know?
I've had people tell me Bluey really is worth it who normally have opinions on TV I respect, but man, I have tried watching it with my nephew and I will never get beyond "very good kids' show, not really sure what I would be getting out of it watching it on my own as a childless adult though"
To be clear, I am also a huge nerd who loves anime and Star Trek so it's not like I'm purely into high culture, but I do think that what age that something is developed for does often reflect in it whether intentionally or not. I've never agreed with the famous C.S. Lewis quote - you absolutely can find great media for kids or for teens that has diminishing returns when you're past that age. I've more than once read a YA novel that I felt meh on now but was like "man, I would've loved this if it existed when I was 15."
And in terms of brands for 90s-00s kids stuff courting Millennials and Gen Z as they grow — a huge chunk of what you’ll find on the big official Pokemon merch site, Pokemon Center, is stuff that is specifically for adults. Wedding invitations and cake toppers. Baby shower decorations. Gardening tools. Fancy dinnerware and place settings and table runners with a subtle Pikachu theme. Those are not there for little kids! And they are also not there for the kinds of adults who never leave their parents’ basement either; these are specifically oriented around milestones like home ownership, marriage and parenthood because there are adults who have achieved those who buy Pokemon stuff. Case in point: My sister and her husband had those plates on their wedding registry. And it’s the same deal for Disney, Harry Potter, Star Wars and so on.
I had my fingerprints on the actual factual Space Shuttle, real flight hardware. You will pry my Lego Space Shuttle fleet from those cold, dead hands.
Why can’t both people be babies together omggg
I had a very weird experience once. Dated a guy. He was into some weird kink stuff and we decided it's not gonna work. Years later, he reached out and asked me if I'd come over and Dom him and his wife, because apparently im very bossy. I said no and blocked him.
Maybe this is what that is? Them getting to be babies together?
Feels like it comes from an impulse to relive their issues and make it better, but then they just like keep retraumatizing themselves.
Sigh. Sounds exhausting. I just freak out and run away the moment people start talking about these things. One of the reasons why I’m still single cause this sort of thing has become so common now.
That's so sad it's become common. I have like one friend who is in that type of scene and my main takeaway from interacting with their friends who are also in it is that there's a lot of people who have unresolved mental issues and are too online.
I think for a lot of people it’s also a lack of language with which to talk about desire. I wrote about how people kept saying I was a “sub” and I was kind of pushed into accepting that definition of myself when I don’t even believe that domination and submission is a thing with me. https://open.substack.com/pub/theculturalromantic/p/they-said-i-was-a-sub-but-i-am-a?r=2uunh&utm_medium=ios
I feel you. This was really hard to navigate while dating.
Everyone wants to be the baby, but no one wants to be the pedophile.
oh jesus christ!
If both partners make each other feel really safe that's kind of what a relationship feels like
one can only dream
I'm not even angry or outraged by the reaction to the apartment tweet. The accusations of Ai; the awkward use of "privilege" as a insult; the foot fetish guy. It's all just so... pathetic. Being a social media user is becoming more and more uncool by the day and I'm lovin every minute of it Jerry.
I am sorry that is the experience for me and I can relate so much bc this is literally why I quit Twitter as well as my bad habit of trying to see for reassurance whenever I see news that makes me anxious…
And the righteous rage and deride I think is very addictive and may of us including myself easy fall for “actively looking for things to be mad about and feel superior that you are better than them”…
If you’re not sleeping on a mattress on the floor with your clothes in a pile, are you really down with the common man’s struggle? If you don’t eschew your friends in favor of staring at the bare wall painted eggshell-landlord-special-white, then you’re the most privileged snowflake on the internet.
Alternative decorations include:
- only decorations are marvel Funko Pops on shelves with LED backlighting so that your audience of four on Twitch can see you’re a real fan
- That one huge mushroom cloud poster your RA had on his wall in the dorms. You asked for it at the end of the semester and he gave it to you because he was graduating. You’ve put it up in every bedroom you’ve had for the last ten years.
- Another 72in television.
- Stacks of sneaker boxes on top of an IKEA pull-out bed sofa. A drum set. Electric unicycle. Two hundred pounds of assorted kettle bells, collecting dust. You don’t walk through this room so much as climb. Your roommates keep closing the door whenever it’s open because of the smell.
I have many vices but I'm glad a Twitter account is not one of them.
I’m pretty sure that girl wants a mom. Which frankly, most men are not socialized to be.
The "Total Power Exchange" thing reminds me of the Internet drama over the woman who was in a 24/7 BDSM relationship like that, and insisted that therefore her coworkers needed to refer to her husband as "her master," or they were discriminating against her relationship and it was just like homophobia or something.
Of course, if I remember correctly, this was on Reddit, so more than likely it was a troll. But it did contribute to The Discourse on Twitter for a while. Some of the BDSM discourse can get really out there!