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@pancake-angst
peepaw chilchuck
Turn your volume up
The world has moved on
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/11/lapsarianism/#nostalgia-is-a-toxic-impulse
Douglas Adams wrote, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things."
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/11/lapsarianism/#nostalgia-is-a-toxic-impulse
I think about this quote whenever I get angry at the technology around me. When I rail against the Great Enshittening, am I simply committing the sin of nostalgia ("Nostalgia is a toxic impulse" -J. Hodgman)? I am, after all, old.
I've written before how conservatives' yearning for "simpler times" is really just a wish to be a child again. The reason times seemed simpler during your childhood is that you were a child, and if your parents did their job, they shielded you from a lot of the complexity of their adulthood so you could enjoy your childhood:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/24/hermit-kingdom/#simpler-times
That's where the "National Customer Rage Survey" comes in. It's been surveying a panel of 1,000 representative consumers every three years for a decade, continuing a research project that started in 1976. The survey measures respondents' attitudes towards the businesses they deal with, and as of 2025, it's fair to say, customers are pissed:
https://customercaremc.com/2025-national-customer-rage-study/
We're experiencing more problems with the products and services we use. Those problems are more severe, they make us angrier, and they produce lingering stress. More and more, we are seeking revenge on the businesses that piss us off.
So it's not just me, an old man yelling at the cloud. The world is getting shittier.
The latest Customer Rage Survey inspired The Guardian's Heather Timmons to launch a new investigative series looking at how fucked up everything is. Her inaugural installment is very good, and it's drawn a massive reader response:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/04/us-consumer-rage-prices-economy
I spoke with Timmons this week about the series. She told me she's been deluged with emails from readers who feel that the world is different now – and many of them cite my work on enshittification. Timmons wanted to know what advice I had for her readers. I told her that I don't think you can solve this as a consumer, because this isn't a market problem, it's a political problem, and shopping isn't politics:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/#stop-fucking-that-chicken
Later, Timmons forwarded one of those emails to me. It gave an eloquent and evocative account of just how rancid the vibe is these days. The writer said that when they and their spouse encounter this rot, they cite Stephen King's Dark Tower novels, quoting the oft-repeated phrase from that series: "The world has moved on."
At this point, I should warn you that the following contains some Dark Tower spoilers, so if you're planning to read a decades-old (but very good) dystopian western/science fiction crossover series, and if spoilers bug you, this might not be the essay for you.
Spoiler alert!
people of colour deserve to be able to enjoy fluff and escapism and transformative media and silly fandom stuff the same way that everyone else is allowed to, i think. there’s a lot of unexamined hostility toward anyone who isn’t white; sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes it’s not. there needs to be far more love and support for poc, and far less defensiveness and tolerance regarding racism in spaces like these.
You ever think about many peices of media have zero women and thats just perfectly normal but if a peice of media has an all female cast people get... like that? Women should be allowed to kill over this btw
same but it's black people
That's right
Woopsie
I am so, so sure that my cousin meant to type something else, but I'm going to cry. Welcome to my bathroom themed bathroom... Pictures of other people's bathrooms on the walls... Little bathtub figurines on the sink... Soap dispenser shaped like a toilet... Life could be a dream... in my bathroom themed bathroom...
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
"everyone should get more aromantic" can appeal to tumblr's sensibilities but I genuinely think everyone should also get more asexual. I don't mean everyone stop having sex, what I mean is
Sex is not essential. You can live without it. Full stop.
Not having sex isn't shameful or a sign of failure. It also doesn't make anyone boring.
You are not entitled to having sex with anybody and nobody is entitled to having sex with you.
Sex is not what makes someone an adult.
Nobody's worth is defined by how much sex they have or don't have.
Sex is not equally important to everyone.
You can have fulfilling and happy relationships without sex.
You should only have sex on your own terms, not because you feel like you owe it to someone, or because you feel like you'd be incomplete without it.
Know your boundaries around sex and be firm about them. Know how to respect other people's boundaries.
The previous point also applies when it comes to discussing sex. If someone doesn't wanna talk about it or hear about it you have to back down.
Anything can be sexual but not everything has to be sexual.
I think if you want to understand bigotry against aromantics, I have a good case study. Let me talk a little about my dad's family.
My dad has 4 half siblings and two step siblings. They're all a decent bit younger than him. When I was a teenager, we went to a family reunion, and I realized something—my dad did not respect his siblings. He looked down on all of them. He saw them as fuck-ups and overgrown children. My dad had the American dream: well paying management job, suburban house, wife, and three kids. My aunt and uncles did not. Excluding my aunt, none of them were married or in serious relationships. They hadn't really settled into long term careers. Several of them were working the kind of jobs that get called "Unskilled labor." So he looked down on them because the youngest one was in his thirties (and several were much older), and yet none of them had "settled down" into what he saw as lifelong, permanent careers and relationships and lives. He was polite to their faces, sure, but I heard how he talked about them behind their backs, to my mother.
And then a few years ago, we visited his brothers again for Thanksgiving. And I realized something again--he respected them now. He saw them as equals. Why? Well. All of a sudden, every single one of them had serious, committed romantic partners. They didn't even need to still be with those partners—one of my uncle's fiance passed away from cancer before they could marry—just having had one showed that they matured into a real adult participating in society. In fact, at one point, my aunt was telling my mom about how one of my uncles was no longer living in an apartment she owned, but instead, after having a steady girlfriend for about a year, he moved in with her. And my mom literally said to my aunt, "wow. Look at that. He finally grew up."
One of the lines that frequently gets repeated about anti-aspec sentiment is "why would anyone hate asexuals/aromantics/etc? They aren't even doing anything." And that's exactly it. In the eyes of amatonormative culture, we aren't doing anything. Adults are supposed to do things. That's how you become a member of society.
I know that my father will never see me as a successful adult. He will never approve of my life. And I think most people would assume that that's because I'm trans. And don't get me wrong, he sure as shit doesn't like or respect that, but I do think if given enough time, he would get used to it. He would eventually realize that it isn't going away. And if I settled down with a spouse and a respectful job and a few kids, he could see me as a successful adult that he could be proud of anyway. But of course, that's not going to happen. Because I'm aromantic. So I'm never going to do that one thing that signifies that his job is complete, and I'm officially a full-fledged adult. I will perpetually be that fuck-up kid who won't settle down. In my personal case, that's okay. My dad is a conservative piece of shit, and if he doesn't approve of you, that just means you're doing something right. But on a societal level? This kind of attitude is a massive problem. Aromantics deserve to be treated like adults, and to feel like the accomplished adults that they are. We should feel like we belong in society.
@rammyrue’s tags because holy shit this is so accurate and important
herc has had enough
i'm sorry i never did your tag game. i love you
obsessed with this silly tiger
[Jaws music]
[Jaws music]
— wait, what the fuck? where did it go? where did it go?
@animangacreators challenge 32 — amc hotel ↳ first floor, kitchen: make an edit about the most delicious looking animanga food (Witch Hat Atelier)
Lot's going to shit in my own life, but I am distracted by being pissed off at the new trend of assigning home decor colors to various neurotransmitters and neurotypes. "these colors to avoid cortisol" and "these colors for autism" and critically all of it is neutral shit.
Reactions to colors is incredibly personal and apt to change over time. There is not some universal pallet of colors that cause cortisol and also that is not how cortisol works!