[hipstafootprint]

Dance Macabre · Zurich 2025

[closet-keys]

My friend Ahmed (@ahmed-motaz) is 16 years old. When we check in, I ask him how he's doing, and he describes his life in Gaza. He has been enduring absolute terror this week as the zionist occupation continuously launches military attacks on displaced families living in refugee camps. Ahmed's family is starving, and their damaged tent rips open from bullets and shrapnel from nearby bombing, letting in insects and rats. No child should have to endure this trauma.

[closet-keys]

Please help Ahmed to survive. Share this. Donate. Keep @ahmed-motaz in your thoughts and prayers, and wherever you can, push for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. All Palestinian children deserve to grow into Palestinian adults.

[ahmed-motaz]

Friends, I'm pleading with you now. My family and I could die at any moment because the b0mbing hasn't stopped since yesterday. Shrapnel and bullets have just torn our tent to pieces. It's uninhabitable now, and worse still, my brother has been in the hospital for four days in critical condition. He urgently needs medicine. Please h@lp us and save our lives by d0nating so we can leave G@za and buy medicine for my brother. Please d0nate so we can repair our tent. Please h@lp us and don't abandon us.

[sapphling]

people love the social cantagion/"only contagious mental disorder" model of restrictive disordered eating because it's a very clean comfortable pleasant way to ignore the fact that disordered eating is quite often just the most logical response to being inundated with the message that fatness is morally and medically repugnant, socially unacceptable, sexually repulsive, a fate worse than death -- and you can see this in the very way people express concern for the visibly anorexic, lamenting that they "weren't even that fat" and "didn't even need to lose weight." these are things you will never, ever hear if you're fat and your anorexia almost kills you, btw

[sapphling]

like i think that "role modeling" and the glorification of dangerous thinness play a part in this, i do think it's irresponsible to model this behavior for young women, but placing the whole weight of disordered eating as a phenomenon on the shoulders of ariana grande or any similar figure falsely locates the problem within the superstructure. your average teenage girl is being put less at risk by waifish starlets than they are by constant, grinding, "well-meaning" daily fatphobic jabs about food and their weight by their parents, teachers, doctors, siblings, classmates, friends etc. and moreover by the general observation that life is actually made crueler and materially harder for fat people

[estrellasrojas]

could you or your followers please recommend some readings about creating art? i completely stopped making anything shortly after the genocide in gaza began because i had such a visceral reaction to pretending my artsy shit had any value when the world is ending, but i'd like to evaluate that impulse.

I think it may help to look back at how other artists have responded to catastrophes, from the brutality of industrial imperialism to the slaughter of World War I to the Holocaust during World War II. What you say reminds me of what Theodor Adorno said about this in Negative Dialectics:

"Perennial suffering has as much right to express itself as the martyr has to scream; this is why it may have been wrong to say that poetry could not be written after Auschwitz."

I would recommend looking into how artists like Käthe Kollwitz, Max Ernst, Elizabeth Catlett, Wilfredo Lam, and Carla Lonzi approached this problem of creating art in a world of suffering. I'll also list some texts that might help you think about aesthetics of liberation:

"Art and Socialism" by William Morris

Modern Artists on Art ed. Robert Herbert

"Poetry and Knowledge" by Aimé Césaire

The Aesthetic Dimension by Herbert Marcuse

"Let's Spit on Hegel" by Carla Lonzi

"To Write Poetry After Gaza is a Necessity" by Huda Fakhreddine

[natoapologistblocker]

If your communism takes issue with Funko Pops, Labubus, and other assorted consumer products, pointing to them as the pinnacle of capitalist rot, then you've successfully translated your Catholic morality into communist language. Commodity production is nothing compared to private control over banking, infrastructure, and the other commanding heights of the economy. Your aesthetic objection to symbols of consumer culture is not praxis

[estrellasrojas]

Catholic morality is mostly about the value of justice in distribution and not consumerism (see Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum, the foundation of modern Catholic social teaching). Criticizing consumerism is pretty consistent for any political, cultural, and religious movement that has aspirations for society other than the infinite accumulation of capital.

Commodity production is not separate from private control over the commanding heights of the economy—after all, what is capital but command over society’s labor through ownership of exchangeable wealth (whether in the form of cash or assets)? Capitalist society is a totality formed by the intimate link of production and consumption alike in the circulation process. Even the production of surplus-value is founded in the productive consumption of workers who use up raw materials in their transformation, with the use of tools and machines, into finished consumer products to be sold. And the workers are compensated with wages which are to be spent on whatever produced commodities are made available to consumers of their means.

Objecting to the aesthetics of consumer society just as easily carries over into political resistance to the power of capitalists to organize public space. For example, the earliest participants in art nouveau (mostly coming out of the socialist Arts and Crafts movement) were trying to provide an alternative and dignified form of mass, public art to the manipulative slop of the rising advertising industry. Communists like Giancarlo De Carlo historically considered architecture, as an art of public space, to be an extremely important site for class struggle and collaborated with working class militants to create designs that would encourage the participation of residents in organizing the shared spaces of their own everyday lives. Even aesthetically-motivated resistance against the destruction of ecosystems for the construction of Walmarts or suburbias is also already a political campaign to limit the power of capital to command society’s appropriation of space.

If we critique the most obnoxious and wasteful trappings of consumer culture, like the cheap plastic crap that is destined to sit in landfills for millennia and almost never degrade, that can just as easily be an entry point into communist politics. Obviously it isn’t everything, but there’s no reason to pretend as if there’s an incompatibility between critiquing the ideology promoted in the sale and advertising of quantity over quality consumer objects and the capitalist status system tied to acquiring them. Cultural revolution is important for communists, because we can only get anywhere on the basis of regular poor people actually fighting for control over the conditions of their own lives and demanding a life lived with dignity. And that means attacking all everyday degradations that we are subjected to, from exploitation to advertising to abandonment

[clubcope]

bro said he was beleaguered i was like well look what has beset you

[scavengedluxury]

Manchester, February 2013.

[tomatoluvr69]

Get enough sleep get enough fiber get enough iron wear sunscreen every moment of every day dont get dehydrated don’t slouch brush perfectly floss too keep your tires full of air get your oil changed check your brakes and alignment get new tires get your yearly inspection get your yearly pelvic exam remember your flu and covid shot research the candidates for district attorney take your recycling to the curb on the right day try to limit red meat, alcohol, ultra processed food, sugar and sitting down don’t use screens before bed exercise constantly you’re not socializing or being touched enough meditate daily make sure your clothes are constantly acceptable wash your hair before there’s even a hint of grease don’t have any unsightly hair anywhere don’t drink foo much coffee or sugary drinks or carbonated drinks or anything with citric acid or your teeth will rot change your sheets every few days and your pillowcases daily and you should be also throwing out your pillows every year or two apparently don’t use any kind of cutting board due to the unique drawbacks of each available kind walk 15 min after every meal don’t eat right after brushing but also don’t brush thirty minutes after eating yet somehow brush your teeth every morning and be on time for work also and make sure you’re weight training and make sure you’re doing everything you can to prevent eventual osteoporosis and arthritis moisturize your skin every day keep your prescriptions filled try to avoid being stressed at all costs because it’s the silent killer prioritize your mental health but don’t let any of these habits slip and don’t lose your important documents and keep the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector fresh and deep clean your fridge often and clean your entire house often and exchange pleasantries with every acquaintance and keep yourself polished and presentable at work and stretch before bed every night and buy new kitchen sponges when they wear out and make sure you have laundry detergent and dish soap and olive oil and only eat healthy fats and make sure you’re doing everything to prevent the skyrocketing rates of colon cancer in young people and soak all your berries so that they actually get clean and wash all your produce and buy organic so you aren’t ingesting four million pesticides and avoid animal products but also eat a lot of lean meat and dairy for the protein and eat 30g of protein at every meal and prioritize whole grains and complex carbohydrates and moderate your sugar intake and replace your toothbrush every six months and your running shows every 90 miles clean your car out often and make sure no one smashes your tail light in the parking lot and keep a printout of your up to date proof of insurance in your glovebox even if you don’t own a printer and put a sizeable portion of each paycheck into retirement portfolio replace your windshield wipers and close your kitchen down every night and eat two servings of dark leafy greens per day and do all of this and still get enough rest so that you’re able to give the 40 hour workweek your all. And if you fail to do any of these things you’re a disgusting failure slob

[jessiewithaj]

me, stunted 12 year-old whose only representation of trans women had been ace ventura and jokes about shemale prostitutes, "well, i guess when i'm like, 40, and everyone i have any obligation to is dead, i can get a bunch of sex change surgeries and fuck gross men for money. but at least i'll kinda look like a girl."

real transfem representation really could've saved me a solid 15-20 years.

[jessiewithaj]

this feels particularly relevant with the global push to chase minors off social media. none of it is about protecting kids, it's about control. it's about cutting off vulnerable, marginalized, young people whose only opportunity to learn more about their own gender and sexuality--and find other people who are like them--is through social media platforms.

queer, particularly trans representation hasn't come all that far in 20 years. maybe there's less blatant transphobia, but there sure as hell isn't any widespread positive representation. we have multiple generations of trans women and men who were only able to explore their identities during adolescence in online spaces. and kids today are being stripped of that.

be wary of any legislation or changes in corporate policy that cites "protecting kids". it's never about protecting anyone, it's about control. there are a lot of parents that'd prefer to keep their kid in the closet 'til it kills them than watch them actually explore their identity.

[slackville]

R.Crumb

[guelwaar]

i have formed an opinion that isn't worth expressing

[scavengedluxury]

Toledo metro station. Naples, November 2015.

[robertbrook]

London March 2026

[girlwith15cents]

it's still kinda crazy to me that like most people do not consider my disability disabling. like the average connotations people have for it is that it's kinda annoying for me and them and im not working hard enough to counteract the symptoms and that's my fault. that's the normal, common thought about it. i cant even say im disabled, even if i add the "mentally" part to it which is quite honestly kinda fucking annoying and insulting to have to do cause of the connotations of that to neurotypical people, because they'll just laugh at me when i say what it is. or say "oh yeah i think i got some of that in me too, but i make it work :)"

[girlwith15cents]

genuinely tho why is it so in vogue to make fun of people with adhd? why must i sit here and watch some of my closer friends talk about it like im just lazy and making shit up?

[silicacid]

Killing children like Ruqaya is not enough for Israel. They took her body too

Routinely withholding the bodies of Palestinian children shot and killed by Israeli soldiers is just one more injustice on the long list of

Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least 31 Palestinian children since June 2016, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP). Four of the children’s bodies have since been released to their families, while 27 Palestinian children’s bodies remain withheld by Israeli authorities. The rest remain in Israeli authorities’ custody, some for years, so their families are unable to lay their children to rest. That’s because depraved indifference to Palestinian life, even in death, is Israeli state policy.

[withbriefthanksgiving]

15 Feb 2024

[chantssecrets]

Alice Neel, James Hunter Black Draftee, 1965

[caribbeanangel]

HAPPY JAMAICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY 🇯🇲