our days of (head empty) chaos

alex | likes: art, psychology, the macabre | and then

[animentality]

[guerrillatech]

[marzipanandminutiae]

my dad worked in HR for a big company before he retired. they offered summer internships for the children of employees, which I did for a few years during college. the pay wasn’t high, but you still did basically the same tasks as a full-time employee in your department

and it was WILD

I’d finish a task in a day, only to be told that was my task for the week. my boss was blown away and raved about my efficiency. which was very nice but like…dude. you gave me about 6 hours worth of work, and that’s at a leisurely pace with an hour-long lunch break. why are you so impressed?

eventually I started messing around on my phone for hours to drag the tasks out longer, because I felt bad when my boss had to scramble to find things for me to do. I got like ten fanfic chapters written per month that way

meanwhile, at my last retail job, I got in trouble for talking to vendors at the adjoining stalls during slow periods

[adhd-hippie]

[ID: Tweet by Josh Fruhlinger @jfruh that reads as follows “An underdiscussed aspect of modern capitalism is that most low-wage jobs tightly regulate what you’re doing at all times while you’re on the clock and most high-wage jobs consist of hours of unstructured time in front of the computer during which you can do whatever.” End ID]

[amalgamasreal]

It’s A THING for people that have worked in minimum wage jobs or the service industry for more than a few years to lose their shit when they enter the proper “corporate” world and see just how much “easier” things are by and large. That they’d been told for years that the minimum wage job they were doing was the easy/stress-free job, compared to the big scary corporate gig. When instead at the corporate offices we’re spending two hours out of the day trying to decide where we want to go for lunch and then spending two hours at lunch, because we make our own hours. At least back when we actually went into the office.

Don’t get me wrong, I will randomly have a couple of weeks/months where I’m working 17 hour days back to back, but you know what’s not happening on those days? I don’t have a manager yelling at me for taking longer than a 15 minute break, I don’t have to clock in during that time because A) I’m salary, and B) even if I was hourly my time would be tracked at the end of the week as billable hours rather than some by the minute system that a manager could look at with a microscope to find out if I was “goofing off”.

[alexseanchai]

The other truly irritating part is, the deal is supposed to be, low wage means low responsibility and low stress. High responsibility means high wage and probably high stress, though that part isn’t an inherent part of what the inherent trade-off is supposed to be.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Ken has accepted that his true destiny and ultimate desire in life is to be a trophy boyfriend and he’s content with that. I’m happy for him.

[ladyloveandjustice]

In honor of the barbie movie, have what is now my most popular post of all time (i don’t know how to feel about that)

[emmanuelleriva]

Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby (1938) dir. Howard Hawks

[bugsongs]

[fricktic]

made some versions of the agony grip for my friends for when the whole gang gets it . including different levels depending on the anguish

and a joyous one for when there is love abound

[sillayangel]

can i make a contribution?

for when the whole gang is being real autistic about something

[sunshinecassette]

For when you say something absolutely horrid in the group chat

[times-chu]

Three blind mice.

[zzoupz]

[programaticallydelicious]

This is a neutral post

Feel free to stop here and rest before journeying to the posts below.

[spadedfox-deactivated20230116]

spreading these occasionally would be nice…

[justawriterinprogress-deactivat]

As someone with major anxiety who can’t fucking stop themself from scrolling, i appreciate posts like this

[reffitt-blog1]

Stop on by and rest by the fire. I have some bread to share

[closet-keys]

[ihavealavalamp]

[thesoftboiledegg]

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.

[tojidoro]

my little meow meow 🐈 ‹𝟹

[abbaswift]

this tweet is life changing

[mortimermcmirestinks]

always remember, friend,

now go in peace

This meme was inspired by the piece "Lucky 10,000" by Randall Monroe.

[cipher-fresh]

[ID: “One man’s [“Yeah, the Time Knife, we’ve all seen it” meme] is another man’s [“Was anyone going to tell me?” meme] /End ID]

[ceekari]

internet heiroglyphics

[russianspacegeckosexparty]

White girls need to drop the AAVE and bring back "AS IF!!! 😒" and "GET IT TOGETHER" like y'all were eating in the 2000s!

[taken-for-pomegranted]

bring this back

[pocketkris]

i cant look at "y/n" and place my own name into it. thats a name on its own. y/n is a character to me

[ex-riddlecats]

but can this ai "generate" you some bitches? lol.

[eternalgirlscout]

in my experience nobody stops having a favorite animal when they grow up but people DO stop asking. well now i'm asking. what's everyone's favorite animal mine is the noble manatee

[jetix]

Tumblr really needs a "dont ever show me this post again" option