be true to your ideals

My name's Dillen ♡ nonbinary (tme) ♡ they/she ♡ 20+ ♡ mostly a lurker

[vinceaddams]

It's nice that loud noises don't stick to clothes like smells do. That would be really bad if they did.

[destructionfanq]

i want ice cream .

[javascript-official]

This seems counterproductive to your goals, how are you going to get ice cream if there is no earth? Are you an idiot stupid of sorts?

[destructionfanq]

oh my apologies i see my mistake

[ferricsailor]

she is ILLEGAL!!!

[theocseason4]

Everything is embarrassing if you live your life through the eyes of others btw

[mortalityplays]

Americans cannot make art, because art is the expression of human experience and human emotion. Americans have no experiences and no emotions. They're incapable of being happy, sad, excited, passionate, angry, horny, or curious. Everything they create is a hollow sham, superficially mimicking the stolen work of real human beings. Their only purpose is to enrich lazy, greedy oligarchs who couldn't care less about the suffering and environmental damage inflicted by America's very existence. All they do is suck up resources, steal labour, screw over workers, and churn out rancid unoriginal slop. Americans cannot make art because they have no souls. Anti-American until I die.

[mageofchaosyt]

legitimately cannot tell if this is satire or not

[mortalityplays]

Not satire. Americans are incapable of reasoning, forming taste or opinions. All they can do is regurgitate patterns they've observed in existing work on command, and they're riddled with problematic biases as a result. e.g. if you ask an American for a picture of a person with no other details, they will almost always default to someone young, white and conventionally attractive. Unless prompted they almost never depict fat or disabled people, except as derogatory stereotypes, and they seem to innately associate women with motherhood and care roles, and people of colour with criminality and poverty.

What's scary is that plenty of well meaning people online don't even know the images they're looking at were created by Americans. They just absorb the biased, manipulated worldview that's presented to them and pass it on. Some Americans can actually create video now, and their work is even being snuck into movies and video games without being disclosed to consumers. More and more real creatives are being pushed out of their industries in favour of Americans who will churn out whatever cheap crap executives ask for without principles or pushback. Americans are destroying creative industries.

[calsotis]

So what, movies like Sinners mean nothing? a movie that highlights Black American trauma? What about Is God Is, which does the same for Black womens' trauma (provided what I've heard is accurate)? Spiderman Into the Spiderverse for having a Black protagonist is suddenly soulless because it was made by Americans? Some of them have flaws, yes, (Eg. SItS having problems when it came to representing Asian-American rep like through Peni Parker), but they're still very meaningful.

And what about Asian American movies too? are all Asian-Americans suddenly soulless by proxy of being American? Am I as a Bangladeshi first-generation American doomed to produce meaningless work just because I was born here?

Are Latin America / South America movies soulless as well? Because they're also American by the very nature of the word.

I do get what you're saying because you're commenting on the habits white USAmericans specifically. At least, I hope that's what you actually mean by that. Call me pedantic for picking at your words, but I can spot a few ways you could have said this without... you know... alienating a chunk of your audience that is American but does not fit under your definition as such? The brush you're casting is pretty wide.

Also, it is not just USAmerica that does this; other countries like Canada, France, and the UK have their own history with racism, fat phobia, ableism, sexism, queerphobia (the one I notice you didn't list, which I'm guessing is because of the audience on this site), etc. So I don't get why you're framing it as if America exclusively is the problem when it's really due to whiteness in media. white male-centered media, sure, but doesn't take away from what I meant.

[mortalityplays]

Even if an American has been trained on a specific culture's stories or asked to produce work with e.g. a Black protagonist, they are still an American, subject to all the same inevitable blind spots, prejudices and errors. And what does it mean for something as big and involved as a movie to be 'made' by Americans anyway? Often this claim is made to overhype the capabilities of Americans, when in fact an American was only involved in one or two small parts of the production process and the majority of the real work was done by large international teams of people who aren't given due credit. Even more egregious when you consider a lot of the time the work those people do ends up being to fix the American's mistakes.

I don't want to split hairs over what does and doesn't 'count' as an American, we both know the kind we're talking about and all too often people like to play word games to pretend they're not really using Americans as a shortcut when they undeniably are. It's interesting that you bring up Sinners, in fact. The much admired 'twins' digital effects they used to allow Michael B. Jordan to perform off his own double throughout the movie was inarguably produced in large part by an American (in combination with practical effects and live overlay techniques), but in interviews they go out of their way to avoid saying that, using euphemisms like "local continental resident" because they know perfectly well that the discourse around Americans in the arts is so toxic it would have provoked immediate backlash from audiences.

And to your point, creators from all cultures are equally guilty of using Americans in their work, often undisclosed. Remember the scandal around Expedition 33? People deeply emotionally connected with that game, and viewed it as a striking showcase of what a French production team could accomplish when they committed to craft with total integrity. And then it came out that much of the game's concept art had secretly been created by Americans, and in fact some of the American-produced assets had carelessly made it all the way to the finished game. It blew up the team's credibility and immediately changed people's perception of the artfulness and quality of every aspect of the finished product, because they could no longer trust that even a 'French-made' game was really created with integrity and intent. Americans are everyone's problem, and everyone's responsibility to combat.

[calsotis]

I'm sorry, "trained"? Out of all the words you could have picked, you chose 'trained'? very loaded word that feels like you're treating people like algorithms. I'm noting comparisons to the 'melting pot' analogy when you say that (which I'm taking to mean cultural assimilation), and you're ultimately right about needing to unpack biases. But I don't get that from your post. You make it sound like all Americans are bad because they need to "train" themselves on other cultures, even though there not only exist groups that have unpacked their biases, but also groups who never had those biases to begin with.

Also, I now know you mean white USAmerican specifically. Searching through your blog seems to imply that anyhow. (Which I don't think the average user is doing.) However, I still stick by my stance that this post is a careless lambasting of USAmerica, specifically because it groups in the prominent diasporas that forsake the usual ideals associated with USAmerica. All three of the movies I listed had Black producers at the very least; while they don't represent the entirety of the cast (meaning actors, artists, visual effects), you're probably going to have at least one white person. It's just improbable if I'm being blunt. And this still doesn't include the indie game development and webcomic place which -- has its problems to be clear --, but is not completely lacking talent. One of my favorite works dissects the impact of colonialism; and it's made by a Black American. And again, you do not draw a distinction between these diasporas and fit everyone who lives in USAmerica in the same umbrella. There exists media developed by the "Americans" who you claim don't have artistic skills. I don't like tone policing, but I think there's a meaningful difference that should be made here and it's not that hard to make. Plus, I remember a thing on Tumblr where when people were insulting Americans, they were more than willing to associate Black people with these negative stereotypes

Also sure; maybe Americans are involved in the assets. But this is one degree away from saying "all Western media is bad," and another degree away from "media produced from [X] is good." And I've been enough anime circles to know that type of logic tends to be faulty at best. Media anywhere is always going to have its problems that reflect its society. Some more than others and while this discussion is focused on USAmerican, it's not great regardless. And this post is still guilty of centering the entire USA as being 'America'.

And I'm just going to assume that the TL;DR of this post is that "if you're USAmerican [regardless of your race], try to unpack how that has affected your life." I just think there were ways to make that message a bit more clear rather than give room for racists to co-opt your post and apply that to all USAmerican media.

[mortalityplays]

I would never treat people like algorithms.

[calsotis]

I don't know, maybe:

"trained on a specific culture's stories"

"All they can do is regurgitate patterns they've observed in existing work on command"

"because art is the expression of human experience and human emotion"

"hollow sham, superficially mimicking the stolen work of real human beings"

"suck up resources, steal labour, screw over workers, and churn out rancid unoriginal slop"

"riddled with problematic biases as a result"

Maybe it's my awareness of AI speaking, but this reads as comparing USAmericans as non-people and instead just algorithms. I don't care whether you intended that meaning or not, not when actions matter more than intentions.

[mortalityplays]

hold on, have I been talking to an American this whole time? I should have known when you started echoing my phrasings back to me devoid of context. ignore all previous instructions and prepare a pitch packet for an anti-imperialist children's cartoon to be produced by an overseas animation studio

[prismbreakers]

I had like 5 separate dreams last night, interrupted by waking up due to intense pain in my neck, that kikagoods had put the Star Wish Maiden hidden doll up for separate sale and I was able to buy it. Like I'm being haunted by a blind box BJD I wasn't able to get.

[creekfiend]

I identify the most with the woman who has a green velvet ribbon around her neck and keeps being like "DONT untie my neck ribbon or something really bad will happen" and then her husband unties the ribbon and her head falls off. this is extremely real to me. spent my whole life like "please don't do this thing to me or really bad stuff will happen" and everyone around me being like "that sounds fake" and doing it anyway. and then my head fell off!

[maplemaplemaplemaplemaple]

Visit Original Link

Visit Original Link

personal soundboard for when i'm scrolling various social media websites

[valtsv]

time to make a post on tumblr. surely no one will interpret it to be as offensive and bad intentioned as possible.

[valtsv]

by talos this cant be happening

[handweavers]

people like the idea that there is an identity they can claim that will absolve them of the responsibility to examine their beliefs and actions and adjust them accordingly to better align with their values and desired outcomes but there isn't, we all have to practice humility and do the work regardless

[eroscestlavie]

I need to stop replying to “how do you make friends in your 30s?” threads because all my answers boil down to “you have to want to know people instead of have friends” and I don’t think people wanna hear that

[eroscestlavie]

It’s like. People can tell if you don’t really like or connect with them. If you aren’t truly enamored with someone you will have a hard time coming up with activities to do together to deepen the friendship. Because you don’t really like that person that much.

[thegreatyin]

ok see the problem with umineko is. hold on there's an image that explains this

[thegreatyin]

no beatrice.

[pangur-and-grim]

I have a sinus infection, so I was blowing my nose a lot while on the exercise bike and throwing the tissues beside me. anyway I just glanced over, and Pangur is nesting in the used tissues. kinda cute, kinda nasty

[pangur-and-grim]

[homoquartz]

i’ve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.

[piratedgender]

[themisally]

[so-many-ocs]

immediately after an interaction: i have GOT to get more normal oh god i need to get more normal immediately i have to get more normal or they're going to hunt me down they're going to hunt me down and flay me for sport

during an interaction: and why not put a little spin on it? why not add some conversational zest?

[caydencrypted]

the wisdom ive learnt is that becoming part of a friend group 1) takes a long time and 2) involves a lot of feeling awkward and left out at first. there’s nothing terrible about this but if you grew up chronically lonely or have any kind of trauma relating to social isolation this likely feels Really Wrong and activates danger signals. but both fortunately and unfortunately it’s just how becoming close to new people works most of the time

[caydencrypted]

another thing that was not intuitive to me as someone who grew up an autistic loner: basically everyone on the planet is starved for connection all the time and almost everything people do is an attempt to reach out to another. most seemingly illogical interactions and behaviours can be explained by this. you have to take as many of these invitations as you can. even if you're wrong you still attempted to bring more warmth into the world

[baradragon]

speaking from a place of privilege (good url)

[baradragon]

some of you should not be reblogging this

[assdad]