I scream Into the Void @queenfaerie13 - Tumblr Blog

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Seriously

#dnc 2016 #politics #sotired

Unfriended in 2016

We will lose friends over this election. No matter what we do, or how patient we all try to be, this election cycle will show us who we can still be friends with, and not for the reasons we might have otherwise thought. Hamilton’s line “see you on the other side of the war” applies a little too closely to certain circumstances.

I’m not talking just about finding out that your friend from high school is a terrible racist. That info would come out eventually and doesn’t need a divisive campaign to do it. I refer to those friends that are instigators online. The ones who you start to think, maybe I need to un-follow them until the election is over. You start to see these memes (oh good lord the memes), that you know aren’t 100% accurate, but you’re wondering if fact checking them is actually worth it, and whether anything will be gained from doing so. It’s not. Don’t do it. Someone will though.

You see, we don’t all have the ability to read, snark or sarcasm online. So when something gets posted, even in the most innocent way, someone is taking it as a personal attack. That is a rabbit hole and before too long you’ll realize you have no idea how long you’ve been in wonderland.

A friend realizes that a meme posted isn’t accurate, so they post “actually….” in the most pleasant way and suddenly, all hell breaks loose. As though they’ve been accused of being wrong about everything they’ve ever believed in because the meme they posted wasn’t fact checked, and someone had the audacity to mention it. (Guys, watch what memes say, don’t believe everything you see on the internet).

After that initial bit, you’ll notice that anytime someone says anything online, snarky or otherwise, it’s seen by another person as a personal affront to them. “I’ve seen so many of these false memes I just want to share this article so we can all fact check our internet findings.” Immediately the person trying to spread an article around is the enemy. A “Friend” assumes the post was due to a “fight” on their wall a couple days prior. Words are said that cannot be unsaid.

Every post they make from this point on about almost any subject seems to be dripping with anger and posts tend to have more capital letters than you thought possible. You didn’t realize how angry this friend was, and you start to wonder what happened in their life. You feel like a bad friend because you think you missed something – but at this point, there may be no going back.

This election cycle (as well as other social movements currently in play) is full of a lot of strong feelings, and opinions. Somewhere along the way some people have gotten overly sensitive to differences of opinion, in short, people who disagree with them no longer have a voice in their world. They surround themselves with the idea that they know what’s right, and leave very little room for other people to also know what’s right. Some of these decisions we make, and policy changes we fight for this year might not really have a Right or Wrong choice.

The worst part about all of it is chances are, for the most part, you all actually agree on a lot of these issues. This isn’t a difference of opinion on platitudes, stances, or even the talking points. This is a difference of opinion on how to express an opinion.

Let that sink in for a second.

We are losing friends over people’s ability to express their opinions in a respectful way. Then the lack of ability to debate these opinions in an intelligent way without offending each other is adding fuel to an already stupid fire. When did this happen? Is it a product of growing apart from friends? Is Facebook just bringing out the worst in people (this is likely)? Is 2016 just too hard for any of us to get through without being angry?

The one thing I do know is I’ve seen friends who have known each other for 20 years “unfriend” one another on Facebook, because of a fight over something that was never meant to be a fight. The conversation, if held in person, would have been one of those that just got louder and louder without anyone changing what they’re saying (or hearing the other person). A fight, where in the beginning they basically agreed, but one tried to make a separate point and the other didn’t see it, and they just kept yelling.

I know that not all of our friendships will survive until the election; I guess we’ll see if any are rekindled afterwards. In the mean time, maybe I’ll just stick to posting pictures of my cat.

she’s a really cute kitty.

#politics #memes #2016 #facebook #unfriended #pundits #kitty

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNiqpBNE9ik)

Thank you, Jon Stewart, for always being able to put into words what so many of us can’t.

#RNC #LateShow #Politics #Givemeabeak #2016

gnatsattack

I live in a world where Mewtew is quoted alongside Mother Teresa.

queenfaerie13

Be welcoming and accepting.

#pokémon #caring #acceptance #life

Find Joy

This is going to be a post about Pokémon go, from someone who doesn’t play Pokémon Go – so please forgive if I misrepresent any aspect of the game, I’ve tried to do my research, but again, don’t myself play.

Distractions. Fun. Games. We all need them from time to time. It’s important to all of our well beings to have them in our lives. If we are constantly vigilant about what goes on in our world and never allow ourselves to feel joy – we will not be happy healthy adults.

I’ve noticed some people posting things to the equivalent of “there are more important things to worry about in the world right now than Pokémon Go.” My response to this has been a resounding, “Meanwhile water is wet!”

Of course there are more important things in the world than a game everyone is playing on their phone. More important than going outside and getting fresh air, more important than the 7 year old practicing Map reading during his summer vacation, and certainly more important than that previous socially anxious person talking to a stranger in the park about a Pikachu they totally just caught. </snark>

Look, I know that the world right now seems to be a dark and dismal place. I know that we need to rise up and make changes, and fix a lot of these issues left to our generation by previous ones. We all are aware (at least mostly) of the Black Lives Matter movement, the refugee crisis oversees, the financial uncertainty of Brexit, and the elephant in the room that is our current election cycle. Here’s the thing though, you can NOT spend every minute of every day, thinking about all that.

I’ve noticed that people who are either quick to point out the flaws with Pokémon Go, rather than the weird amount of good it’s doing (like seriously its sort of weird how much this is bringing people together), tend to be people whose entire Facebook feed is current events, which is fine, we all should care about those things, and follow the news. For some of these people, though, they’ve made it their lives. They’ve centered their identity and place in the world around being active, or even in some cases, an activist. What that means is they can’t see something frivolous as being good. All they see is the hours they think should be spent on causes A, B or C (likely all three from what I’m seeing). They see everything else as a waste of time.

Something that brings you Joy isn’t a waste of time. Notice I capitalized Joy? I did it because we need more Joy. We need to think of Joy as not just an expression of emotion, but as something we need to collect more of (was that a bit of a stretch? I’m sorry it’s about to get worse). Joy is the rarest of Pokémon’s that eludes many of us on a daily basis. Dead-end jobs, student loan payments, sexism, racism, medical debt, you name it, we see it. It’s hard to find Joy beyond all of that, so why deny people something so important under the guise of caring too much about your fellow man?

Let people enjoy the game. It doesn’t mean that they are forgetting about the ills of the world, it means they’ve found a rare spot of Joy in an otherwise dark place. Don’t try to shame someone for what you view as not being committed to the world. You can still talk to people about these current events, just because your friends are all posting about this fun new game they’re playing and you’re not, you can either enjoy that they’re enjoying it, or continue to post things, they’ll probably comment on them. Resist the urge to tell them they’re “wasting their time” or “should have more important things to do”. All that proves to anyone is that you’re incapable of feeling Joy anymore. And that is just sad.

Pokémon trainers, young and old: I do not play your game, but I am so happy that so many of you have found this great moment of Joy. Share that Joy with each other, and those around you. I believe this game will make you all better people, more friendly and outgoing people who will be able to fix this world one day. Go out there and “catch ‘em all.”

Naysayers: Don’t hate Pokémon for distracting the world. The world needs a distraction every now and then to remind us that there can be good in it. Its new, it’s shiny and the excitement will die down soon enough. Your feed will go back to mostly depressing news articles and pictures of people’s pets. You just have to ride it out. But please, do find your own Joy. It won’t mean you care less about the world, it just means you also care about yourself.

What’s your Joy?

#pokemongo #joy #pandahugs #life #happiness

The world turned upside down....

#scary #2016 #world #history #news

Let me tell you what I wish I'd known, when I was young and dreamed of glory: You have no control: who lives, who dies who tells your story.

George Washington in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda

#Hamilton history linmanuel

(via GIPHY)

#giphy #bored #rick and morty #over it #i just got bored

Show the world we want a phone worth keeping! #phonebloks http://thndr.it/15eLEMU

Fashion Week Bitterness

In watching all the clothes at NYC fashion-week appear online in various places - I realize that I want to sew all the things - as well as the fact that fasion designers have lost their marbles.

Some of the collections are solid; what we expect from houses like DVF and Herrera. And then there are half collections that are clearly in some Sound of Music esque tale involving bed-skirts and curtains as clothing. Zac Posen's collection has come cute (if not paper doll esque dresses) to show and a couple of what I would consider show stopping numbers - and then there were the bed-skirt dresses.

I previously posted one of these offending garments. The fabrics are pretty, I'll give him that, but oh god the ruffles. It only invokes bed-skirt/curtain valances. I can not fathom what event these would be appropriate for short of on the set of some orphan movie.

During fasion-week I like to follow Tom and Lorenzo, not just for their delightful commentary (they always seem to have their view grounded in reality), but also they post the most pictures of the collections the fastest. Its so much easier than hitting refresh on any of the other flooded websites. They, of course, blog the Final collections (decoys included) of that show we love to hate: Project Runway.

Now in its *whatever freaking season* we've seen our share of good and bad decoy collections. Usually you can guess who will make it to the finals based on those decoy collections. I got to say...the fact that all of us still watch this dreck is a testament to either the programming of our minds by television strategists or the human condition of self punishment. In these last few seasons its gotten harder and harder to figure out what 3 or 4 designers should be there based on these collections. I'll watch it, like the rest of us drones, just to find out. Scream at the TV when an undeserving designer wins - and laud the producers next season for adding in some extra bit to try to keep this show fresh just because it happened as a natural course of action this season. From last season we got the Tim Gunn save (since the person he fought to keep actually won the season after almost being eliminated by judges who just didn't like her it seemed). I'm thinking maybe next year they'll actually make them PASS the psychological exam. See if someone actually gets hit. Project Runway: THUNDERDOME!!!

I digress, what was I bitching about? Ahh yes, Project Runway. It looks like they're getting prepared to force another All Stars version down our throats. These are usually better designs, less drama, better judging (aka reality tv boring) episodes of this show. Of course, the producers have decided to include winners (not all winners mind you, that would at least be interesting), in order to maybe irritate all the fans. I'm not sure what they're spinning us anymore. We'll watch it too. Like we have before, like we will again. No matter how many sharks this franchise has jumped.

I will spy on the rest of fashion week from my fashion voyeur computer chair - shooting off snarky bits here and there until I find something better to bitch about. ;)