At least three geese in a trenchcoat

Personal blog, I post what I post

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[pangur-and-grim]

two “cats” interacting

[fausphorus]

Got possessed in the middle of my work shift.

[moghedien]

I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with

But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy

[moghedien]

Here he is, the Aldi Cowboy

[lovesicklobotomy]

[metal-autistic-coven]

Happy pride month to him

[animusbell]

celestia is such a funny character like she's constantly manipulating twilight and friends to do shit instead of just asking and you could arguably frame that as being bc she's a "god" and pushing fate to her design or whatever, except that she engages with the group like a normal and relatable person, which makes it more like villainous machinations, except 90% of this manipulation goes towards things like "I don't want my party to be boring shit again. put my little country girl blorbos in there with zero prep so they fuck it up bad"

[animusbell]

you think you've fucked anything up around princess celestia and she's like heh. no worries. all according to keikaku

[jukashi]

Celestia instantly makes more sense as a character when you ignore the princess stuff and remember that she's a 1000+ years old wizard. Of course she does manipulative trickster stuff to teach moral lessons and/or cause chaos to amuse herself, that's classic wizard behavior. Of course sometimes she's actually socially awkward and bad at personal relationships and has bad ideas that she thought were good that result in her eating shit embarrassing style, that's classic wizard behavior. Of course she lets the aristocrats and nobles run around being assholes she's still running on wizard advisor programming, she's basically trying to merlin the entire upper class of equestria instead of just a king and some knights. "Yeah uuhhh we'll release the incarnation of chaos himself from his ancient prison because we think this shy girl can be friends with him", terrible plan if you're thinking like a ruler, amazing plan if you're thinking like a wizard. Just look at Canterlot 'Castle' for five seconds and ask yourself if that's in any way a castle. No. Wizard tower, yes. Wizard.

[animusbell]

You are so right actually

[ellievsbear]

Fluffy puppy

[tim-official]

that poll going around of the guy who thought "people only eat tofu as a bit because they're deranged vegans" or whatever really crystalizes something that i have never been able to precisely say - which is "a nonzero fraction of people who start picky-eater discourse just happen to precisely hate those foods which are not from north america and refuse to introspect on this whatsoever"

[tim-official]

In contrast some people say "there aren't any picky eaters in Asia 🙄" but this is laughably untrue. I have a cousin in India who refused until his 20s to eat anything in a sauce. as you can imagine in India this was difficult. he basically had to pick things out of curry and wipe them dry

[bobcat-pie]

[hollowedskin]

[distinguishedenthusiastcatt]

In Pride month, I think it's important to remind you of this iconic dialogue. You don't have to talk about who you are if you don't want to❤️

[interestingmistakes]

Reblogging this manually. Op doesn't want credit for fear of being terminated.

[damndorothea]

i saw this somewhere else but reply / tag what you did today so everyone can see that we all did something different today

[godsfavoritespecialangel]

The chances of your fish committing credit card fraud is low, but never 0

[tuxankhamun]

[machine-saint]

we justifiably give Biden a lot of shit but I think "at least 3" is the funniest possible response to some right wing dipshit asking you how many genders there are

[madnessofmen]

wait it gets better

[escuerzoresucitado]

[churlsgonewild]

[whitepeopletwitter]

[ramshacklefey]

No IDs, but these tags got me in a huff:

So ok look. The point is not the flared leg by itself. These cannot be yoga pants. These are, and you have to understand this if you are too young to have worn them, BLUE JEANS. And this was the last years before all jeans were 70% spandex.

They were denim, and they weren't bell bottoms. They hung loose from the knee in a way that would make a wizard envious. We all walked around like we were wearing hakama. And they dragged on the ground. That was important. Ragged cuffs. If your jeans weren't so long that they had ratty cuffs, they were embarrassingly short.

And the thing about denim is that it's a twill weave and it's cotton. So not only does it hold a lot of water, it wicks. Walking around in these suckers on a wet day could get you wet to the knees even if you never stepped in a puddle.

Then you'd go inside and take off your shoes and try to avoid letting your freezing, wet, filthy pant legs touch your skin.

Yoga pants. Hmf.

[elodieunderglass]

people in cold climates would have a tide line of white marks around their knees (if they were normal height) in the winter.

From wicking up road salt.

[taibhsearachd]

The visceral memory of that time is something that never leaves you. Everyone's jeans were many inches higher in the back than the front because you kept stepping on the hem and ripping it off. Your lower legs were so very cold. Every new pair of jeans literally enveloped your entire foot, they were so so long re: leg-to-waist ratio. Walking on a rainy day was a legitimate workout. You have no idea.

[souvenirs]

[spitfaggot]

happy birthday, gilbert baker. (june 2, 1951 — march 31, 2017)

[nariarts]

Longtime readers may be aware of how much I relish an excuse to bully a company, so I'm sharing the wealth;

Clothing company Patagonia is currently sueing drag queen Pattie Gonia for "irreparable” harm to their brand.

To be clear; Pattie named herself after the region in South America.

So Pattie is asking people to politely ask Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.

I'm extending the invitation to all of you, because sueing a drag queen for 'infringement' in the current political cultural landscape is vile. Especially a drag queen who has raised millions of dollars for non-profits, uses her platform to raise awareness for climate activism, and fully aligns with Patagonia's apparent climate-conscious mission statement.

They're claiming they're sueing for $1. They're actually asking her to stop using her name, and pay over $1 million in legal fees. They're straight up harassing her.

In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen.

Anyway. Be respectful(ish), but feel free to be annoying on Patagnoia's socials, asking them to 'DROP THE LAWSUIT'

I think they have a twitter and tiktok too!

[carriesthewind]

Unfortunately, Pattie is lying.

"Pattie named herself after the region in South America." Come the fuck on. https://www.self.com/story/pattie-gonia-backpacking-drag-q

Patagonia is not trying to "take away her name." Patagonia has no problem with her calling herself Pattie Gonia or performing as such, or using it for activism, or whatever. They are suing her to stop her from directly competing with them with a substantially similar trademark in clothing sales.

You can read the complaint here.

The relevant prayer for relief is on page 34-36. It asks the court to stop Pattie from selling, distributing, or advertising, "any goods or services that display any words or symbols that so resemble the PATAGONIA trademarks as to be likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception;" destroy the merch she was selling that would so cause confusion; and to not do it again in the future. It doesn't ask for damages more than $1 and for attorneys fees (aka pay us back for making us have to file this stupid lawsuit).

It also asks the court to stop Pattie from trying to register her drag name as a trademark specifically to sell branded apparel that says "PATTIEGONIA" - aka the same market, to an overlapping sales base.

2. Yeah this is 100% a "brand conflict." Patagonia had no issues with her existence, her drag name, her activism. (According to facts in the complaint, which she has not denied) it had no issue with even her partnering with competing brands, as long as

When Pattie started selling her own branded merch, Patagonia tried to reach out to her to resolve things informally. They were not able to do so. (And in my opinion, the email from Pattie in response looks really really bad - as I read it, it is essentially a threat to try to use her fanbase and progressive credentials to attack and harm Patagonia's brand if they try to enforce their trademark. And to be clear - if she has issues with Patagonia's actions as a brand, using those as a private threat against the company to advance her commercial interests while continuing to publicly directly associate herself with the brand - examples both in the lawsuit and in this thread: https://bsky.app/profile/kathryntewson.bsky.social/post/3mnbadc2egk2e - is. Well, I don't think it's behavior that looks good for Pattie.)

They filed this lawsuit b/c she filed to trademark the "Pattie Gonia" brand to directly compete with Patagonia in the same market. This is 100% a brand conflict. She's just lying to people.

Two other quick comments:

OP above used scare quotes around "irreparable" harm. This happens every time there is a lawsuit for injunctive relief and the person posting about it wants to make the plaintiff sound unreasonable and absurd. Irreparable harm is just literally the legal standard for injunctive relief.

I think OP's comment that, "In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen," is ironically a good demonstration about the potential for brand confusion. Based on this comment, OP is demonstrating that their assumption, should they see "Pattie Gonia" branded clothing, is that it would be a collaboration. But Pattie Gonia wasn't trying to work with Patagonia. She specifically said she did not want to do so. She wants sell her own merch.

On Pattie's website, she says about this lawsuit,

I agree with Pattie on this point. But right now, while there are so many attacks on both the climate and on queer people, especially trans people? To lie about a (legally speaking, entirely reasonable, lawsuit from a brand that was - as far as any actual legal analysis I have seen ) and to use people's fears and concerns in the - as OP says - "current political landscape" - to try to sell you her own merch? (Because that is what the lawsuit is about. She is telling you to harass Patagonia so she can sell you branded merch instead.)

I have a lot of feelings about someone taking the energy - our fears, our need to protect each other, our love - of our community, and redirecting it toward their own commercial benefit. It's really hard for me to see what Pattie is doing in any other light.

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges