Kos•mo•ŝi•po

Just a raccoon on the internet. Friend of Eggbug. WAALB. 🗣️💦⚪️

[left-reminders]

[tearlessrain]

funniest possible site to get this on

[audible-smiles]

My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.

[silverhand]

I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.

This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.

Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.

Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.

Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).

Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).

I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.

It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.

[stealingpotatoes]

i don't know what older adults were on about when they said being a teenager was good <3

[notaplaceofhonour]

will never not be mad about gig economy apps making a 4 star rating mean “unacceptable quality”

[notaplaceofhonour]

Doordash will suspend you below 4.2 stars.

Uber drivers can be suspended at 4.6 stars.

Lyft drivers risk suspension under 4.8 stars.

Even for apps where they don’t have a publicly stated minimum, their algorithms will bury you.

4 stars does not mean 4 stars. It means 1.4 stars.

If you give a person a 4 star rating, to these companies, you are not saying “I was mostly satisfied with the service, but there’s always room for improvement”—which is what 4 stars should mean—you are voting for them to be fired.

[notaplaceofhonour]

Genuinely, do not ever give people 4 star ratings on gig service apps for any reason that is not a safety issue where their continuation on the app could seriously hurt people.

If someone gives you “just OK” service where you don’t want to give them 5 stars, but you don’t actively hate their existence and hope they die, just don’t rate them.

[astriiformes]

The polar opposite of corporate accounts trying to come across as hip and super friendly are the ones for libraries, aquariums, parks systems and the like, that are basically just trying to get people excited about learning and the wonder of history/science by posting things like this:

[mangopatch]

[demonladytakkuri]

You know how much I would lose my mind if I was at an aquarium and turned a corner to see a wild ass heron staring at a fish tank

[thesweetiepienovels]

You have got to get it through your head that social media is literally pushing negative content to keep you engaged. Most people are not assholes! Not by a long shot! Most people do not look like those insane beauty standards they’ve pushed on us. Social media is a trap for your mind. It convinces you the worst is normal and the rare is common, until you forget what real life actually looks like. Of course, always be aware of your surroundings because unfortunately, there will always be crappy people, but this world is a lot bigger than your feed would have you believe.

[barneycalhounslutmoments]

honestly this whole genAI debacle has been a very awesome way to tell which companies truly do not give a fuck about making products or services people actually want. which already-billion-dollar companies are willing to shed what's left of their humanity in the name of *maybe* making more money using technology that is immensely destructive and historically never has been profitable and everybody fucking despises. which companies will fire thousands of employees and alienate all of their consumers in order to *maybe* save money. we here at google have decided to make our main products completely fucking useless because we hate you

[epilepticsaints]

[if-you-see-gay-me]

[magnetictapedatastorage]

[heatandapathy]

Needs the last part

[captainscarletsc]

[scoundrellyfeline]

@heatandapathy you forgot the best part

[tsamired]

you are never living this down

[fleshdyke]

godawful post i made when i was 14. let me escape it please god

[richcrazydad]

Never!

[somecallmekay]

NOT EVEN IN DEATH

[dynamaxed]

hi! carey means needs help still - he's the voice actor for frylock in aqua teen hunger force! adult swim screwed him badly and pays no residuals and barely paid him during the show's run. he has heart failure and survives on con earnings, plushie sales, and donations while waiting for disability to get back to him. posts used to make the rounds for him, but haven't in a while, so i wanted to make a new post!

if you'd rather buy a plushie - here's the shop he and his wife run!

[firecrystals]

update: CAREY MEANS AND HIS WIFE ARE HOMELESS AS OF A FEW DAYS AGO

his wife also been in an accident and has been down and out due to illness and injury

ppal + gfm + site shop

[afurioushawk]

[afurioushawk]

[frustratedasatruar]

Real and growing possibility of him dying live on tv and nobody in the room noticing for minutes on end.

Likes charge, reblogs cast.

[aleprouswitch]

Herbie Hancock trying to figure out how to fix a mixer, c. early 80s.

[babyboodle]

[lastoneout]

this is my entire stance on the "american food is bad" discourse summed up

[thebeatleshermajestydotmp3]

Listen man, its a work week, you just got done your shift at the dollar store, youre in a rural area and the local waffle house is a 35 minute drive away and driving from the waffle house back home will be another 45 minutes, so what youre gonna do is youre gonna pick these four bad boys up from the dry goods aisle, drive home, cook some Carolina long grain rice with a little bouillon cube stirred into the cooking water, and in a separate skillet, youre gonna add a tsp of veggie oil or if youre lucky some butter and cook down some of that garlic. Then add a little extra oil and if you have spinach or any hearty greens, youre gonna throw them in your skillet with some salt and cook them down, if not thats okay. But youre also gonna transfer your rice from the pot into the skillet with your garlic (and veggies if youre lucky) and stirfry that rice for a minute or so. The bouillon cube didnt quite season your rice to your liking, so youre gonna throw a little extra pinch of salt. Perfect. Then youre gonna turn off the flame and add parmesan to taste. You take a look in your fridge and you see that you have a little parsley left from the last time you were able to clock out early enough to stop in at the local Food Lion and its still in good condition. Youre gonna wash that parsley, dry it, give it a quick chop, and finish your fake risotto with it and a couple splashes of lemon juice.

You have some rice left over so you know whats for dinner tomorrow night and you can sleep soundly. Country girls make fucking do.

[strawberrycatcrowbar]

I really like Mythical Kitchen for showing you can cook good and fun things from almost nothing, that it compares to more expensive ingredients, and you can make a meal with jarlic, shaker cheese, and pasta water

[think-queer]

I'd like to point out that most of these are also extremely helpful to disabled people.

Having some of the prep work out of the way is hugely helpful for a variety of people.

Unsteady hands that make it unsafe to mince garlic? No worries, just open up a jar.

Executive dysfunction that makes the step of juicing lemons feel like a Herculean task? Just skip that step by using the bottled juice.

Fatigue that leaves you without enough energy to grate cheese? Get the pre-grated kind instead.

Disabled people also may struggle to get to the grocery store frequently, even if they don't live in a rural location, and these things are more shelf stable than buying something fresh.

[klapollo]

at planned parenthood and they're playing regular show

[klapollo]

[cutecipher]

"dude if you don't get this abortion benson is gonna fire us"

[terracloak]

you know who else got aborted?

[sabertoothwalrus]

let's get ✨vulnerable✨

[neilarmstrong]

In terms of science communication and space exploration advocacy, Elon Musk has sent us back into the fucking Stone Age.

[neilarmstrong]

It’s hard enough to encourage the public to see the value in space exploration, especially when the problems facing society right now are so intense that space exploration seems frivolous and needlessly expensive by comparison (keyword “seems”) but now that this clown is the face of the future of space, it’s doubling, hell, tripling down on the idea that space exploration is a fantasy for bored billionaires that would rather fuck off to mars and escape the problems of earthly society (problems that they had a starring role in creating) rather than spend a penny of their wealth to help remedy them. Tale as old as time for a science communicator. Heard it a million times. But now it’s so much harder to get people to understand the other side of the coin because the nightmare scenario is already here and his name is elongated muskrat

[neilarmstrong]

To add a little bit of context as to what that value actually is… The thing I hear the most in this conversation is “we need to take care of this planet before we start thinking about other ones.” Yes, I agree. The well-being of our planet and it’s people should be out top priority. But we can’t properly take care of our planet if we don’t fully understand it.

The Earth does not exist in a bubble. It’s part of a dynamic and ever-evolving solar system, and galaxy and universe. He have to look at the earth in that context to be able to know and care for it. To care for a planet, we have to know how planets work. When doctors treat patients they look at the medical record, they look at family history, they look at symptoms and compare them to known diseases to find a diagnosis.

How did the earth form? What was it like in the past? Why did it change? That’s the medical record.

We’ve got the earths siblings in the neighborhood. Why is Mars a frozen desert? Why is Venus a molten hell scape? Could those things happen here? That’s the family history.

What kinds of things are floating around our neighborhood? Could they affect us? All this is necessary to diagnose the Earths problem, to anticipate the direction it’s going, and to help it heal.

And the minute we get an asteroid scare, that’s when folks start asking why we weren’t looking up 🙄

[neutrinotempest]

As a science communicator at a well known establishment, 10000x this. We have a student program that talk about Earth systems and how missions like Landsat were so useful to understand our own planet better FROM SPACE. I could go on and on but just, like, reread OP's thoughts, they're perfect.

[funkyness]

at least can all we agree that the original gay flag with the magic and sex colours is BEAUTIFUL and it should make a comeback

[funkyness]

what’s more iconic than this

[azeroundivided]

What about the final version of the flag by the original creator?

Gilbert Baker added a 9th stripe shortly before his death, with the new stripe representing diversity. He added this stripe in reaction to the 2016 US election. It’s unfortunately not as well known as the 8 and 6 striped versions.

Here’s an image of him sewing together the 9 striped rainbow flag.

[laurasinele]

Happy pride month everyone