i gotta say i agree that exposing children to algorithmic content feeds is going to make them grow up with one billion new kinds of mental illnesses and it’s a serious societal problem that urgently needs addressing but it makes me v. v. v. uneasy when i see posts going around that identify this issue and come to the conclusion ‘this is why it’s important for parents to know what their kid is doing online’ and uh girls there are a lot of kids out there who would be dead if their parents knew what they were doing online
“yeah this aspect of capitalism is extremely alienating and traumatizing” and im nodding and smiling and then they add “which is why we must retreat to the safety of the family” and i start abruptly high-pitched screaming like a fire alarm
i always give a lazy two finger salute when cars stop for me at a crosswalk and it’s devolved so much that at this point I feel like an icon of jesus whenever I cross the street
car: stops for me at a crosswalk
me:
oh blessed art thou automobile for you have served the meek and humble. go on your way knowing your act of kindness has saved me 2 minutes on my trip to the bodega
40,000 years ago, early humans painted hands on the wall of a cave. This morning, my baby cousin began finger painting. All of recorded history happened between these two paintings of human hands. The Nazca Lines and the Mona Lisa. The first TransAtlantic flight and the first voyage to the Moon. Humanity invented the wheel, the telescope, and the nuclear bomb. We eradicated wild poliovirus types 2 and 3. We discovered radio waves, dinosaurs, and the laws of thermodynamics. Freedom Riders crossed the South. Hippies burned their draft cards. Countless genocides, scientific advancements, migrations, and rebellions. More than a hundred billion humans lived and died between these two paintings—one on a sheet of paper, and one on the inside of a cave. At the dawn of time, ancient humans stretched out their hands. And this morning, a child reached back.
I want an ice maker and enough room in the freezer for a pizza and that is IT.
I want the dumbest fridge you got. Gimme the orange tabby of refrigeration. I want my fridge to pull the wrong lever and turn my enemies into llamas instead of killing them. I want the following features: keeps things cold, has compartment that keeps things colder, a door that opens and shuts.
“Here at Stupid Jeff’s Dumb Appliance Warehouse we sell the dumbest fucking appliances. Check out this fridge. This fridge won’t ask you about your day, this dumb fucking fridge doesn’t know what an Elon Musk is and won’t fucking tell you what bullshit that dumb monkey is slapping into his phone today when you try to get some fucking milk. We took out all those "smart” electronics and in their place we put a loaded Glock 9mm that is put right up to that light that turns on when you open the door, which is the smartest thing in this fucking stupid fridge and let me tell you that fucker is on thin goddamn ice, if it gets too smart and tries to turn on before you open that door, the Glock will blow it to hell. Speaking of ice, this stupid fridge makes it. It makes ice, it keeps things cold, it comes with shelves. It’s sturdy enough that when your ex comes back to your place looking for their stuff that they think they left behind like nine months ago and they know that you don’t have it, but they wanted an excuse to come start a fight with you and throw a chair at your head but miss you and hit your fridge MICHAEL, this fridge will keep trucking because it gives zero shits and it only lives to keep things cold. Come to Stupid Jeff’s Dumb Appliance Warehouse, if you ask us if we have an app, we break your kneecaps.“
I cannot put into words how much I Fucking Loathe the fact that when you search something on youtube now it will randomly intersperse blocks of “people also watched” and “for you” into the results. That’s not what I searched for, youtube. I typed in a search query because I wanted to see search results, not random unrelated garbage you have placed in my way apparently to either inconvenience me or force me to scroll further for actual results. I despise your wretched little games and every time I see it I can only instantly close the tab as I am overcome with the urge to burn something down.
“I despise your wretched little games” perfectly conveys how I feel about the entire algorithm/attention economy
They also refuse to actually show the parameters you searched for. If you sort by “upload date,” the first few videos might be more recent ones by upload date, but anything past that you’ll find a video that was uploaded five years ago, then five months ago, then three years ago, etc, which—NO! That’s NOT WHAT I ASKED FOR!! PUT THEM IN ORDER!!!
Also sometimes the “people also watched” bullcrap will not only be entirely unrelated, it will also be videos with violent, sometimes outright triggering thumbnails. I’ve gotten some AWFUL unrelated video thumbnails just when searching for video game music videos.
also greg is the most bisexual-coded cartoon dad ever
so greg you’re telling me your conservative family doesnt approve of your musical awakening coming from a naked gay icon in gnc/drag makeup and they want to send you to the military but you ran away and changed your name and ended up with a musical aesthetic best described as indie glam rock dad with a non-binary space alien gf instead? das crazy, tell me more about how straight you are
So I ended up with free time at the end of my first class today, so I was like “do yall wanna see a vintage meme?” and turned on “what does the fox say”. Expected like. A laugh from the kids, or even just a “wtf is this mx?” which is. A reasonable reaction to What Does The Fox Say.
But instead of a reasonable reaction. all of my students watched the first 60 seconds with jaws agape. And then this one kids turns to me like the fucking eye of Sauron and literally goes:
My husband told me I also should share the next part of this story, where I, feebly trying to defend my honor against a child, said, “No, this video was just big when I was in college!” and he scoffed, rolled his eyes, and absolutely obliterated me by saying, “So did you go to furry college?”
To everyone pointing out my icon: do I have a fursona? Yes. Does that make me a furry? Almost definitely. Do you admit that to a 12 year old who has just accused you of being a furry, in front of 23 other 12 year olds, with 25 instructional days left in the year? Absolutely THE FUCK not!!!
i just realised i never seen the Indigenous America map so…this is what I found
The bottom one is spoken languages.
Here’s a map that includes the names of groups in their own languages, plus a bunch of groups that aren’t on the above maps. And here’s the full sized PDF.
“The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I’m not a trannie or a fag so I don’t care, just give ‘em the medicine they need.”
“This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility.”
One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.
I think this is something young people in particular are confused about. My dad has always had a slightly off color sense of humor, he always feels the need to privately ask me “boy turned girl or girl turned boy?” if I mention a friend and stress said friend’s pronouns, and yet when we had repair work done in the house and the worker was listening to a podcast discussing the evils of transgender people and how to cleanse society, he went out of his way to contact the owner of the business to discuss his disappointment with that worker’s conduct and stress the negative effect that could have had if there had been trans kids in our home.
Our allies will never be perfect. They will never use the perfect language or have the perfect politics. But we have to appreciate those allies and meet them where they are, especially if they are willing to learn.
When marriage equality was up for debate, I remember the regulars in the pub going “Fuck it, why not, let the poofs be miserable too if they want to!”
Somehow that sentence includes both a slur and a hetero “marriage is misery” joke, and is still more supportive and welcoming than the well-spoken people who wanted to have “a civilised debate”.
PSA, there’s a really nasty Discord scam going around rn. If one of your friends DMs you, starting off with a simple “hello” “how are you”, may even joke around a little, and then starts asking you to look at a game/project they’re working on, don’t click the link, don’t download anything. If you can reach that friend through non-Discord means, reach out and let them know they got hacked.
One of my friends said the link takes them to a very convincing video game page that has in-game screenshots and stuff, and then gives you an option to download a playtest zip file or something. That download exploits a weakness Discord apparently has for password protected zip files and steals your Discord log-in and changes your account info to the scammer’s account info. Two of my friends lost their accounts. Be careful.
Slight adjustment to this… Apparently the virus scrapes all your passwords and files on your computer, not just Discord… It just uses Discord to gain access… Friend had a picture of his license saved on his computer, and apparently the scammers even got their hands on that… So it’s a nasty little hack…
*facepalm* So, given that sex ed in the US is a tire fire:
Vagina-having people have a shorter urethra, which means we’re more prone to UTIs because the bacteria doesn’t have to travel as far to get up into your bladder and cause a problem.
Which means if you’re exposing your bits to bacteria (as with sex), peeing will flush out bacteria in the urethra. (Urine isn’t actually sterile - that’s a myth - but you’re *supposed to* have a little bit of bacteria - that’s how bodies work. But it still flushes things out that shouldn’t be there.)
Oh! You should ALSO pee after you masturbate, especially if it involves penetration with fingers/toys/etc
So I’ve blocked like five transphobes on this post, which I feel should have been relatively uncontroversial.
If you’re one of the people saying “You meant ‘women’”, fuck you. I meant “people who have a vagina, regardless of their gender or lack thereof”, and you can go fuck yourself with a cactus.
And you should pee afterward, so you don’t get a UTI.
