can't not @cant-not - Tumblr Blog

i'm doing it yall!!! after 10+ years as @herstrionics i'm starting anew. fresh account fresh username fresh follow list. no sideblogs this time: all my dumb interests, self-involved monologuing, and other nonsense in one spot.

i'll be wrapping things up across all my existing blogs over the next few days. if u would like to follow the new account plz let me know and i'll be happy to share the URL! otherwise i thank u for this time we've shared and wish u well.

cant-not

rebloggin across sideblogs for visibility! holler if you'd like my new username

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Unicorn rests in a garden in collage!!! I saw the tapestry irl a couple weeks ago and I was obsessed w it 🦄🌷

cybernetic-remain

md collection

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“Hung on my bedroom wall is the quote attributed to Joan of Arc: “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.” However my life unfolds, goes my thinking, is how I am meant to live it; however my life unspools itself, I was created to bear it.”

— Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias

drip-2-hard

into-the-weeds

[AVOID THE TEMPTATION TO MAKE CHOICES THAT ARE FAMILIAR BUT NO LONGER SERVE YOU]

#my therapist @ me for the past ohhh 8? 10 years?#to be clear i have gotten better about doing it #but the list of familiar choices that do not serve me is so very long

roycohn

hi i hope to not upset anyone w this i'm genuinely asking because i kind of agree w the feelings but i don't know how to put it into words: why are a people mad at the barbie discourse going on rn?, i more or less get ur points but i still feel like rolling my eyes at the ryan gosling nomination too, i'd like to read the different pov's from whats going on twt pls, thank u. im not part of cinephile tumblr or twt i just came across ur post

i think a big part of it is just that a lot of us who really follow the industry and support female filmmakers have grown a little weary of the way greta gerwig and her work have become this lightning rod that attracts both insanely misogynistic criticism, but also attracts a core audience of female viewers who are... i don't think it's misogynistic to say this, but not very sophisticated in their critical thinking abilities, and who vibe with gerwig's aesthetic and storytelling because it soothes their man-made insecurities about consumerist, frivolous stories about "girlhood" (white, suburban, middle-class, gender-conforming heterosexual femininity) not being "taken seriously." a lot of people really like her work (and sofia coppola tends to appeal to the same people) because it's not very complex - it tells you what to think, rather than inviting you to think for yourself, and what it tells you is "women are complicated. it's hard to be a woman. women have souls and brains and desires. sometimes they even go to the gynocologist." that's fine but i tend to prefer my movies to have something to say that hasn't already been covered by the song bitch by meredith brooks! but that core group of fans are the ones who appear to be driving this discourse about how barbie "isn't being taken seriously" by the hollywood gatekeepers, when it was literally nominated for eight oscars, made a billion dollars, and gave both robbie and gerwig the biggest blank checks of all time for whatever projects they pitch next. it's also really annoying to see people act like hollywood has personally Done A Misogyny to margot robbie, whose campaign and press run since may has been all about her work as a producer on this film, by nominating her in her capacity as a producer and not as an actress in an incredibly competitive year with several other actresses i'd put in the best actress category over her.

all that being said, i think there also needs to be room for nuance on the fact that gerwig still made a PRETTY GOOD MOVIE, and that barbie still managed to be an interesting, inventive, mildly incisive film with a fresh and invigorating visual language (okay, i just mean "practical effects," but still) while also balancing its primary duties of "making mattel IP look appealing" and "making a billion dollars in a market that is increasingly hostile to anything that isn't a superhero greenscreen dry-fuck" and that is a big deal! and writing it off as a "toy commercial" for purely stupid women is... well, it's just a skosh misogynistic, babes! both sides of this debate are just being incredibly annoying and in all of it, greta gerwig is basically reduced to a cipher - she's either The Embodiment Of Evil Corporate White Feminism or The Only Woman Who has Ever Directed A Movie, and the specific successes and failures of her artistry completely fall by the wayside. this is a familiar pattern to any of us who are also fans of, like, taylor swift or jennifer lawrence or any other tall blonde woman artist who annoying people on the internet have decided owes them something. but it's still incredibly obnoxious. and once again all i can do is reiterate that this discourse would not be so much of a thing if people simply WATCHED MORE MOVIES BY WOMEN.

i hope this somewhat helped clarify my thoughts, at least. everyone is annoying!

#a good post

contac

#and they're right to do it

millenial strategy cont: for my pseuds, i use different accounts on different services, although i do also have loosely connected accounts under the same pseud (they don't explicitly link to each other, but i let information overlap and wouldn't deny that they're all me).

i did have a period in the late aughts/early '10s where i was on facebook as my "irl" self, but the privacy issues with social media feel worse than they did in the earlier, lj/yahoo groups/forum days, and it didn't feel worth it to stay. i think i would rather not be online than have to be online without a pseudonym

as for public-facing pseuds, lol no, i can't even imagine what that would look like. it doesn't tend to come up in conversations, but i usually just pretend i don't have social media or am a lurker only

this is fascinating, tysm for sharing. i used to be too much of an attention-seeker to not have at least one shareable social account, but w the ways platforms and user behavior are changing, pretending to be off it entirely strikes me as perhaps a better strategy

my millennial strategy is that all my online accounts are pseudonymous, and i even maintain some pseuds separately from others, so as not to give too much info away in one place

yeah i feel this. so you also maintain any accounts that are IRL-facing, like that you'd share with friends/fam/coworkers? or nah?

actually! im curious about this and would love to hear: fellow millennials, do you maintain a separate online/fandom identity from your IRL identity? if so, what does that look like? (separate accounts on the same apps? different apps for different audiences, like using twitter just for fandom and IG just for friends/fam?) has yr approach changed at all from our super-anonymized early-internet forums-and-lj youth to the current literally-everyone's-on-social-media landscape? i am mr burns laying on the bed kicking my feetsies and twirling the phone cord, tell me tell me

i think....i am gonna make a new blog.......one blog to rule them all. no sideblogs. all my shit in one space. start fresh. no fear. who cares.

#no one cares. that is the value-neutral truth.#and that's a good thing for me to internalize.#but ough. it's hard!!