Early DS9 Garak would not recognize himself as the baddie in this meme.
If you post stuff about the Paradox of (In)Tolerance or memes like this in order to inform the vulnerable that you see them and consider their concerns to be your concerns, this does not really pertain to you. Different people have different understandings of the function of a meme or a pithy saying and that is part of what makes communication in this medium so bedeviling.
However, there is a sort of "In this house we..." type of poster who I believe understands themselves as doing an act of communication with the explicit intent to shame bigots and to inform bigotry curious normies that its not okay.
I am extremely pro-discourse with anyone who is acting in goodfaith on an interpersonal level and I am still pro-discourse with people who are acting in badfaith if done with the express purpose to try to provide a better representation of the ideas the badfaith actor routinely strawmans. Meme wars ain't that. Or at least shallow memes.
And this? This is a shallow meme. I'm sorry, but it is. Its a weak form of engagement that feels good to share, may reassure some allies, but if reassurance isn't the point, then its almost entirely a waste of bandwidth. And let me state again: reassurance is a valid use of bandwidth, I just don't think most people sharing this stuff have that as their primary motive.
Let me unpack this using Garak as a case study.
Among the majority of Star Trek fans whose complaints about Discovery don't begin or end with "identity politics" it ought not to be controversial to call early DS9 Garak a fascist. Heck, depending on your feelings about his actions in "In the Pale Moonlight" Garak may very well still be a fascist, albeit one who is questioning, until late into DS9.
He's not a fascist in the sense that he checks every silly little box that would describe a German who has bought into an Aryan fantastical reimagining of malignant Italian nostalgia for the "good old days" of the Roman Empire. Rather Garak appears to be believe in the innate desirability of a strong paternalistic state that advances the interests of its people, as defined by its oligarchy, through expansionary violence abroad while using hefty amounts of coercion backed by threat of violence to ensure order at home.
This is fascism not as a specific historic belief system, but rather the colloquial fascism. A thermostatic measurement of how fast the average citizen can be exposed to state violence, how narrow their civil liberties are, and how fast those liberties can be suspended if authorities within the state deem it necessary. Rights are far from inalienable in the face of the collective good, as dictated by a narrow elite whose only accountability is censure or murder by a peer.
Colonization, assassination, and disinformation are tools without intrinsic moral weight detached from their aims. Murder isn't wrong because murder is wrong in Garak's world, murder is either an effective means to an end or it isn't. In Garak's moral universe, if murder is useful then murder is good. There's really never any sense from Garak that he is burning his decency to build a paradise he will never see - ala Andor's Luthen Rael or The Operative from Serenity. Garak lives easily with the things he's done, even enjoying throwing the way that Sisko benefited from the way that Garak did what Sisko himself understood was necessary but could not morally bring himself to do when it came to the murder of the Romulan Ambassador.
It might register on some level to Garak, especially later, that he's been conditioned by his society broadly and by his Obsidian Order training specifically to be far from unbiased when considering violence as a tool and thus he gives less weight than he probably ought to the downsides like blowback, unintended consequences, or just the risks of becoming too reliant on violence relative to other options. But ultimately it takes several seasons of exposure to Federation moral and practical arguments about the plurality and nonviolence to wear Garak down.
One could even argue he doesn't truly become a convert to something resembling Federation secular humanism until he is forced to watch proud Cardassia become a barely tolerated vassal to the Dominion and its these people that he, Quark and others have sneered at as soft, too trusting rubes who are willing to die to protect Garak from his own people. To be sure, its the Dominion that bombs Cardassia, but I think we can safely say that Garak understands by the end that its generations of self serving Legates, Obsidian Order directors including his own father, and their ruinous ideology with its unchecked ambition and stifling of imagination that set that particular historical Rube Goldberg machine in motion.
But for early Garak, his ruthless cultural chauvinism wasn't bigotry as he would understand it. The system produced unequal results by design but to him it wouldn't appear to be personal. Garak lived inside a zero sum ideology and thus it was necessary for his people to sabotage and loot other peoples. It was necessary for Garak personally to lie, torture, assassinate, and massacre. He didn't hate other races and cultures, he just preferred Cardassians be the ones to be the masters in a universe of dominator and dominated.
This is the archetypal reader who I most imagine as needing to see themselves as targeted in this meme but instead would gloss over it and find nothing controversial. At best, the reader who needs to see themselves in this meme would be irked by the meta signaling that their lib friends think they're racist and tolerate overt racism in their midst.
Still, they don't see themselves as the baddie because most of them are not Nick Fuentes or Nick Fuentes adjacent. There's only ever been a few thousand Proud Boys and that's according to the Proud Boys who have every reason to exaggerate. Instead what the average reader of concern is is comfortable with unequal outcomes, comfortable with social orders ordered by the stick rather than the carrot because they assume it creates meritocracy and even if it doesn't, a system that is more likely to issue a loan to people like themselves and less likely to gun them down in a routine traffic stop ensures their status and comfort are unlikely to be challenged in a world of scarcity.
Garak probably even thought Cardassians are biologically more intelligent than Klingons or Nausicaans because he thought the cultural products of Cardassia were intrinsically superior to those of the Klingons and the power and prosperity of the Cardassians relative to the Nausicaans were evidence of innate superiority. As for the Federation's dominance, most of the Federation's enemies rationalize it as a house of cards that will fall apart if enough pressure is applied to a pain point, while Garak and Quark would come to have a more nuanced view. They saw the Federation as a Human Empire hiding within a web of co-dependency, acquired favors, and cultural exports like root beer that erode out the foundations of enemies and result in assimilation if they're not careful to police their cultures.
It's not a stretch to think that the secular Cardassians told themselves they were civilizing the religiously stringent Bajorans and liberating them from their rigid caste structure by replacing it with a new, meritocratic hierarchy in which merit was defined as loyal and effective service to the Cardassians. Meanwhile slavery was a natural condition of those who could not be trusted to serve directly below the Cardassian overseers who were "reparenting" the Bajorans and redirecting natural resources back to Cardassia as payment for "services rendered."
The occupation of Bajor through Garak's eyes would not be an act of hate, far from it, but rather because the Cardassians were empirically superior so how could that be bigotry? The Bajorans could complain and kill all they wanted in the mistaken belief they deserved sovereignty but facts don't care about your feelings.
Gul Dukat on the other hand knows he's your villain and while he would prefer you recognize his superiority and love him for his magnanimity in being a less harsh master than some or the "supreme act of generosity" that is granting the Bajorans their freedom; a part of him would be tickled to know he lives rent free on your Promenade.
So what does this have to do with non-fiction? Think carefully about whether you think there are more Gul Dukats or Elim Garaks in the world and communicate appropriately. Communicate effectively.
Damned if I know what effectively even is, we've had ten years to figure this out and have demonstrably and spectacularly failed. I suspect a lot of it has to do with communicating better offline or 1:1 with people who already know us as more than just a witty handle and an avatar and thus can see as more fully human with hopes, dreams, fears, and feelings. I'm not unaware of the irony of this message coming at the end of a lengthy social media diatribe.
I have no context for the meme, which I’ve never seen before, but the rest of this post is terrific, one of the best things I’ve read about Garak. Garak remains a fan of state violence even when that violence has been directed specifically and life-destroyingly at him.
I'm coming to realize how vital it is to keep a running list of shit you did in the past few weeks so that you can participate in small talk. It's literally not anything to do with them being interesting at all it's just having Something to say to give people even the barest thing to hold on to. It's so you don't get into the "what have you been up to" "nothing much what about you" "yeah same" trap. Literally just say something.
What have you been up to? Um well it's getting warmer so I've been having to brush my cat every day.
Like no it's not that interesting of a thing to say. But now they can respond to it. They could say, man yeah it really is heating up, I've been trying to think of things to do inside more often. Or, oh you have a cat? What's their name?
Like. It's Something. All you need is Something. And if you're like me and your brain immediately goes blank upon entering small talk then keeping a list will help you remember things to say.
Honestly, Tvyek is pretty miraculous. It’s permeable to water vapor but not to water, it’s nearly impossible to tear, but can be easily cut. It’s cheap and made entirely without binding chemicals. In addition to being used for wristbands, it’s used to wrap construction sites to keep out water during construction, for tear-resistant envelopes at Fed-Ex, coveralls for mechanics, and my wallet, actually.
Fun tip, though it looks like paper, Tyvek is plastic, and cannot be recycled with paper.
Copyright governs who has the "right" to produce and distribute "copies" of books/music/movies/creative works. This is where fair use doctrine applies, because most creative works are referential by nature.
Weird Al is allowed to parody everything because he's operating under copyright law, not trademark law.
Trademark governs who can "trade" under what "mark" i.e. the brand identity of a company. Companies don't own their trademarked word forever, but they maintain the exclusive right to sell things under that brand in their specific market sector. Patagonia doesn't own the name of a geographical region, they just own the right to be the only company using that name to sell clothing and outdoor gear.
A drag queen name can be a parody of a clothing and outdoor gear company.
A company's trademarked logo can be used in parody creative works, with more leeway if it's not for commercial purposes. Trademark parody is allowed! Patagonia has been aware of and allowed Pattie Gonia's trademark parody for years.
Trademarks are specific to market sector. Actress Chase Infiniti could start a makeup line named after herself and her trademark would not infringe on the Infiniti car brand because they are different markets and there is no risk of confusion. Pattie Gonia could probably trademark her name to sell frozen veggie burgers and Patagonia would not care.
Drag queen Jan Sport did a collab with JanSport bags. What Jan Sport almost certainly did not do is independently apply to register "Jan Sport" as a trademark in order to sell bags on her own, because that would infringe on JanSport's own trademark in the bag market sector.
What Pattie Gonia is not allowed to do -- the thing that Pattie Gonia actually did do and is being sued for -- is apply to register "Pattie Gonia" as a trademark to sell clothing, because apparently Pattie is in talks with North Face and HydroFlask to sell "Pattie Gonia"-branded gear. These companies probably won't finalize anything unless Pattie shows that she actually owns the trademark. Unfortunately, "Patagonia" is already a registered trademark in the clothing market sector, and these two names are too similar to exist in the same sector (see: "likelihood of confusion" legal standard).
Your drag queen name can parody a clothing company. You can parody the trademarked logo of a clothing company. But you cannot use the same name to then go on to also become a clothing company.
In order to maintain their own trademark, Patagonia must sue for trademark infringement. If they don't sue, and Pattie Gonia gets her own trademark, Pattie could sue Patagonia for infringement on her trademark. You can see why Patagonia won't be dropping this suit no matter how much you harass them.
Yes, Pattie's legal fees to fight this will cost more than the $1 she's being sued for. Pattie could also not fight this, withdraw her trademark application, not spend any money, and carry on being an environmental activist drag queen named Pattie Gonia. She would probably be better off making nice with Patagonia in the hopes of a Jan Sport-esque deal where Pattie designs an exclusive fabric and Patagonia maintains the trademark, but apparently Pattie's legal team has been sassing off to Patagonia in their communications for years, has applied for a trademark they should 100% know they'll never get, and has now decided to play the victim on social media just in time for Pride month, so I don't know how likely that is. I guess we'll see!
This is mostly correct, but I’d like to offer a small correction. The product deal with Hydroflask and North Face apparently occurred in 2022, and HydroFlask got Patagonia involved to make sure everything was in the clear. It seems like Patagonia was very agreeable about everything at the time, and only asked that Pattie Gonia and her partners avoid using the Patagonia logo and font or similar images, and to avoid putting the words “Pattie Gonia” on any products. This is the email exchange from 2022, from the recent Patagonia trademark complaint, including Pattie Gonia apparently agreeing to the limitations.
The new conflict is from Pattie Gonia using the Patagonia imagery and the Pattie Gonia name on her own merchandise. This is the email Patagonia sent, with the images they feel conflict with the 2022 agreement.
Pattie responded to that by disagreeing that she had broken any agreement, and also obliquely threatening to expose Patagonia for making tactical gear for the US military?
It’s possible that Patagonia understood the terms from 2022 to be a good-faith ongoing agreement about keeping the brands separate, and Pattie interpreted it as an agreement limited to the now-ended North Face and Hydroflask collaboration. It’s also possible that Pattie Gonia didn’t believe she was actually agreeing to anything at all, since her responses were very neutral, though positive in tone, up until 2025. The email chain does, however, show what I think is a very clear effort on Patagonia’s part to protect their trademark while also showing support and goodwill towards Pattie in her use of the Pattie Gonia stage persona.
Reblogging this because I think it provides an interesting explanation of the legal side of this whole mess, but to be clear the Only Correct Reaction here is to understand that copyright and trademark are Fucking Stupid, not to get out your torches and pitchforks to defend teh poor innocent cowpowation from a scawy yucky-wucky dwag queen.
Pattie selling shit with her stage name on it Really Obviously isn’t going to have any negative effect on the continued lining of Patagonia CEO pockets, as if that even fucking matters, and no amount of waxing poetic about “well they have to 🥺🥺🥺” is going to make me say anything other than “fucking stupid if true then”.
Y’all gotta stop jumping to defend corpos just because blah blah trademarks blah blah copyrights. As the famous post implies y’all are not temporarily embarrassed vivzipops.
You will struggle to defend Pattie Gonia with the argument that "trademarks are fucking stupid" when this all started because Pattie applied for a trademark of her own.
In terms of whose pockets are being lined:
Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.
The unusual move comes at a moment of growing scrutiny for billionaires and corporations, whose rhetoric about making the world a better place is often overshadowed by their contributions to the very problems they claim to want to solve.
At the same time, Mr. Chouinard’s relinquishment of the family fortune is in keeping with his longstanding disregard for business norms, and his lifelong love for the environment.
(NYT Gift Link)
Since 2022, 100% of Patagonia's profits have gone to climate and environmental causes. They have completely restructured the ownership of the company so that this will continue in perpetuity.
I like Pattie Gonia and I admire her environmental activism, but Patagonia's $100 million toward climate causes every year forever has orders of magnitude more impact. I support Patagonia maintaining its trademark however necessary to continue this work, and it is actually deeply distasteful to me that Pattie is willing to spin this routine trademark suit as "a corporation trying to erase an activist" when there is very obviously no path to legal victory and the only possible outcome is reputational damage to the only major corporation literally ever that has been singularly, intentionally, innovatively, and against all odds structured to give a fuck. Patagonia is a unicorn among corporations and we are starting a smear campaign against it for what. Selling slightly different t-shirts? Crab bucket ass activism.
80s misogyny saved the Star Wars galaxy because Darth Vader wasted all his time and effort trying to convince his starry-eyed gayboy empath son to become an evil space fascist when if anyone had any point asked his daughter “hey do you ever just want to KILL these people” she would’ve been shooing lightning out of her hands to prove a point in like 10 minutes
I honestly think being intersex is WAY more common than a lot of people realize.
Like, not just 1.7%-2% kind of common. I mean like 10-20% kind of common. That's how common I actually think intersexuality is, especially when I hear all these stories about people who just realized they had vulvar hypospadias, since they thought it was perisex-typical. Or all these people who just realized that PCOS and NCAH are intersex, since they thought those were perisex-typical. Or all these people who are starting to accept that their micropenises are intersex traits instead of feeling ashamed about them. And on and on.
I've actually been saying this for a few years. Because so many forms of intersexism are things you'd only ever even know about if you got genetic testing, and for most people, there's no reason to.
A lot of being intersex is like "precocious puberty", clitoromegaly (large clitoris), micro phallus (very small penis), afab with chest and facial hair before menopause, amab with breast growth and minimal body hair... Etc. Any sexual development or endogenous cause of sexual development that deviates from the rather narrow boundaries of clinically "Male" and "Female" is intersex.
I understand that there is discussion of masking by autistic people that is much more honest and in-depth, but so much of the stuff I see sort of leans on the assumption that masking is something one chooses to do in order to appear "normal"
In reality, I think the behavior pattern that we name as "masking" is the natural behavioral and psychological result of being consistently punished for attempting to acknowledge your own reality during formative developmental periods. And I'm not sure that "masking" is a clarifying word to use for this
OK OK OK, someone in the tags said that they don't know the degree to which they are masking, bc they don't know what is normal/expected and therefore have no way of knowing how much they're altering themselves to fit into that expectation (thank you for articulating that!!) and I think that clarified a lot for me about my problems with the framing of masking.
Because that method of trying to "unmask" will always fail, bc it hinges on the assumption that there is a core underlying Self that is being Covered Up with the mask.
In reality, one does not have a chance to develop a true "self" due to the circumstances of their development. this is broadly true for almost all humans (SHOW ME AN UNALTERED TRUE HUMAN SELF,) because of the heavily social nature of how our selfhood intersects with other people's perception of us, but in some people it is much more marked and detrimental than others. What I think is the issue at hand is not the Self, but rather the internal experience. The Self is a construction we build to understand ourselves as beings, and it is heavily informed by our understanding of our own experiencs. understanding of those experiences is the actual issue. Being able to identify and name the effects that moving thru the world have on you. And teasing out how those acknowledgements of one's internal experience have been punished out of us.
The "recovering from burnout as a high masking person" post does use this framework, but I think that referring to people whose sense of their own internal reality has been so warped and shattered that they have to completely learn from scratch as "high masking" is just not intuitive and that it communicates what is being discussed... Poorly. I understand that that is the language that is used by the community broadly rn, and I don't object to individual instances of its use, but I do think that we would be better served in these conversations by framing it differently than "masking"
I also see people framing even the most basic social skills (things like "tolerating mild discomfort" and "avoiding offensive phrasing of desires") as masking. At a certain point I think we have to be aware that there is a degree of curtailing one's personal self expression inherent in existing within a society, and that autistic people are not the only people who have to be aware of societal norms and contort selves to exist within them as part of experiencing that society. The difference is of course in the degree of contortion required to fit neatly into the society, not the phenomenon of having to contort in the first place.
It bugs me! And I think it creates unnecessary friction among communities of people first discovering autism and is susceptible to a weird kind of reverse curb cut effect where unmasking (== "stretching out and de-contorting from the society in which you live into a more comfortable shape") is set aside as something Just For Autistics, as if there aren't lots of groups of people whose existence is policed and shaped and bonsai-trimmed into painfully stunted or twisted shapes. Which, of course there are, and not all of them are groups where a mental health framework is remotely appropriate (e.g. constraints on the acceptable behavior of black people especially in gendered contexts), so why are we framing so much advocacy this way?
so many ppl are tagging this "ik not autistic but-" or "i havent been diagnosed but-" and then describing the exact thing i am talking about. which i think illustrates in real time why the framing of this as "autistic masking" is not serving a lot of people well. its bonsai kitten shit. its cptsd shit
not every mutual fits neatly into an archetypal medievalism but there are some mutuals that im like yeah addressing you as “my liege” would come strangely naturally
andulkaphoto
discoholicmusic
stormborns
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
jbbartram-illu
