Who hears the listener?

She/her pronouns

[only-cat-memes]

[unconventiononthelawofthesea]

saw someone post "I don't understand why anyone would have separate 'winter tires' unless they're just looking for things to spend money on" and looked at her account and she's from LA. which is funny but I think we're all guilty of similar behavior sometimes. if you see people spending time and effort on something that seems stupid to you it's worth considering whether you're the Californian in this scenario

[c-53]

How do cats just manifest trash. You’ll vacuum your entire house and turn around and your cat will be running around with a kind of cardboard that didn’t exist until two seconds ago.

[pocketss]

Ummm she's literally sensitive :/

[buddie-romance]

thank you ao3 for being an archive and not an algorithm. thank you for letting me like things without consequences, thank you for being free with no ads, thank you for having lawyers to defend our freedom of speech. thank you tag wranglers. thank you to all authors and thank you ao3

[headcanon-fodder]

Just get 'em in the back of the knees and they buckle no problem

[fresh-bag-of-ham]

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!

[sexshopshenanigans]

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.

[scarlet-rosepetals]

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.

[fresh-bag-of-ham]

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.

[secretbraintwin]

To summarize: Trademarks are important because it helps prevent assholes selling sweatshop clothes and tricking people thinking they’re supporting environmental activism

Pattie Gonia applied for a trademark of her name so they could sell merch because she *also* doesn’t want the sweatshop-ers making money off the name she made for herself. She does a lot of work raising money for environmental causes and this would be a way to increase that. She doesn’t feel it’s fair that other artists get to sell merch but she doesn’t. Pattie Gonia does not believe the name/logos are close enough to Patagonia’s to infringe on their trademark since it’s a pretty obvious parody. She points out that the logo they circled in red was fan-made, not what she was trying to sell. She thinks they’re being petty so yeah, she’s going to make noise in the way that gives her the most attention and paints her in the best light

Patagonia believes the name Pattie Gonia is close enough to open themselves up to losing that trademark so they’re suing not to protect themselves from her, but from the aforementioned sweatshop owners

And for some reason, 0 discretion is allowed for Patagonia to let this slide and only go after true grifters.

Kinda seems like we should be more angry with the system than either of these parties involved?

[beardedmrbean]

[weterpete]

Um no I'm pretty sure those are both switches

[spookyscarysnails]

[petefoxshend-deactivated2018062]

“Big Pharma” okay are we talking about how privatization and monetization has deeply corrupted the field of medicine or are you talking about how you think chemicals in the water are making the frogs gay

[greyramblings]

“GMOs”? Are we talking seeds that grow sterile plants and patenting genetic modifications then destroying any competition no matter how small they are? Or are we talking life saving rice with vitamin a to make sure kids don’t go blind in regions not suited for other high vit a veg? … or are we talking about your chidoodle?

[thememedaddy]

[yasmin1000000]

“So basically my couch has electricity and I use it to charge my battery powered doorbell”

“Okay that makes sense”

[la-reine-du-disco]

Now explain it to a Japanese samurai from the year 1218

[rui-cifer]

"do you know how waterwheels grind up grain in a water mill using the force of running water? We found a way to create a huge source of force that runs all the time and can transfer its force over long distance. I can tell you in more detail, but that's the basics. Now that is a chime that has a mechanism that one can press instead of having to open the door to let you know that you are waiting to be let in. It requires the transferred force to make the mechanism work and that wire is how we transfer the force to the chime."

[sizhens-deactivated20250415]

[mediocrefantasy]

i love these sort of posts because they feel like a vision of a kinder and more thoughtful world that I wish more than anything was the mainstream instead of the exception

[mildmayfoxe]

1) any stretching is better than no stretching

2) any vegetable is better than no vegetable

3) statistically you will never be the worst person at anything, there is always someone in the world who is worse at stuff than you are

[oberonsson]

Dame Archer kicks McDougal’s Scots ass there in the rain at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire - August 11, 2018 - Photo by Douglas Herring

[anarcho-wormism-deactivated2019]

😮

[garrettauthor]

Oh NO.

[treacleaergia]

me, a sheltered noblewoman: Pray who is that brave knight? Dame Archer:*turns around* me: gasp! *instantly in love*

[dirtyriver]

Alicia Archer

[ex-sang-uination]

my bi heart………

[ohmightysmiter]

I’VE NEVER SEEN THE ADDED PICS

[hrefnatheravenqueen]

[nyx-belial]

*dies*

[garrettauthor]

Oh shit.

[notlostonanadventure]

GAY KNIGHTS

[unicornofdarknessstuff-deactiva]

Fellas I’m real gay

[thecarrott]

@0hheytherebigbadwolf HELP!!

[0hheytherebigbadwolf]

Every June this inevitably winds up back on my dash. And I appreciate that. And I will reblog it. Every time.

[rockitcat]

Hey, it’s @archerinventive, and the Pride Knights!

[thegaymertrainer]

Ribbon dancing I was not aware of your evolution 🤯

[janmisali]

do you think your response to this poll will be the less common one?

yes

no

Voting ended onJun 5

[dragon-in-a-fez]

this is like the prisoner's dilemma of polls. the only way to get it right is if we ALL vote yes! and we trust each other to figure that out and vote yes! unfortunately, that will never happen

[goldenleopard34335]

hm? i voted no and I was right

[dragon-in-a-fez]

ah shit I misread the poll I thought it said "most common". I gotta stop trying to defeat lying sphinxes first thing in the morning

[nariarts]

Longtime readers may be aware of how much I relish an excuse to bully a company, so I'm sharing the wealth;

Clothing company Patagonia is currently sueing drag queen Pattie Gonia for "irreparable” harm to their brand.

To be clear; Pattie named herself after the region in South America.

So Pattie is asking people to politely ask Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.

I'm extending the invitation to all of you, because sueing a drag queen for 'infringement' in the current political cultural landscape is vile. Especially a drag queen who has raised millions of dollars for non-profits, uses her platform to raise awareness for climate activism, and fully aligns with Patagonia's apparent climate-conscious mission statement.

They're claiming they're sueing for $1. They're actually asking her to stop using her name, and pay over $1 million in legal fees. They're straight up harassing her.

In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen.

Anyway. Be respectful(ish), but feel free to be annoying on Patagnoia's socials, asking them to 'DROP THE LAWSUIT'

I think they have a twitter and tiktok too!

[shadow-manor]

This is being discussed heavily on Bluesky, such as here.

Patagonia is suing specifically for trademark infringement, and they're suing for the sum of $1. If they don't sue, then that means they could lose the trademark. They aren't trying to "silence" them or prevent them from using the name, they're specifically protecting their company trademark. They'd have to sue *anyone* who was using such an obvious knockoff of their logo; in this case it happens to be a drag queen.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

you'll have to forgive me for not weeping for a billion dollar company's trademark being violated

[shadow-manor]

Go nuts. The point is that this isn't a company trying to dogpile on a drag queen, it's a company following a standard legal practice to protect its trademark. Disney does it all the time.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

... yes, and I also hate Disney? I don't understand what you think you're selling me on here

[shadow-manor]

If you get a soda out of a vending machine and it has a Coca-Cola label but it's actually a knockoff made with ditchwater, that's obviously okay because Coca-Cola is a huge corporation and it's thus fine for someone to violate their trademark.

You can hate Patagonia all you want, but the lawsuit is about anodyne trademark law, not specifically that a drag queen is involved.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

and what part of Miss Gonia's schtick is doing the harm equivalent of tricking someone into drinking ditchwater exactly?

[shadow-manor]

...the trademark part.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

right, okay, I forgot that she's singlehandedly putting Patagonia out of business by using a silly joke name

[netherator]

if Patagonia loses their trademark, which they would if they didn't sue and win (again for one dollar), there would be no assurance against people putting a Patagonia label on amy dogshit

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

well I hope Amy Dogshit enjoys wearing the label I think she'll look very nice

[jessbadger]

Absolutely insane to see this shit playing out like this. It is not bootlicking to say laws are specifically for a purpose and they protect not only large companies but small companies and small creators and the general public from harm and confusion. Patagonia was literally turned into a special trust and non-profit to fund environmental protection and climate change work.

Meanwhile Pattie Gonia has been called out and criticized about their misappropriation of indigenous peoples work and not giving credit to those in those spaces when she’s used their work as part of her “brand” because let’s be real. In both of Patagonia and Pattie Gonia’s situations this is brand. If we’re going to play purity politics then be genuine about it and hold everyone to their word, because Pattie Gonia is making money on their brand and that’s partly why their releasing this statement and being so public. It’s a PR push.

This is like the opposite of the McDonald’s coffee case playing out and it’s going to be studied in law school as an absolute insane PR thing that had nothing to do with the real facts of the case, the law, or reality of the situation.

[secretbraintwin]

Can someone explain to me why companies *have* to sue any small fry doing a parody to protect their trademark instead of just choosing to sue when they feel there is an actual risk to their brand?

[fresh-bag-of-ham]

Patagonia is not suing because of parody -- they seem to have had friendly communication for years with Pattie and supported her work.

Patagonia is suing because Pattie has filed for her own trademark of "Pattie Gonia" to sell clothing.

Patagonia does not own the name Patagonia forever and ever amen, but they specifically maintain the exclusive right to sell clothing labeled "Patagonia" so long as they continuously ask the courts to prevent anyone else who asks from using the name "Patagonia" or names similar enough to it to be confusing... TO SELL CLOTHING.

Pattie framing this as "a corporation trying to erase an activist" when Patagonia the company has done more to support the environment than Pattie by orders of magnitude and seemed honestly committed to supporting her work until she, to be clear, filed a conflicting trademark application so that she could make brand deals with North Face and HydroFlask to sell "Pattie Gonia"-branded merch via Patagonia's main direct competitors actually pisses me off. This lawsuit was filed in January but only on the eve of Pride month are we "breaking our silence" to goad fans into pointlessly harassing an outdoor gear company's socials to drop a lawsuit that they clearly wouldn't have filed if they'd had any other option (no really, go read it)? Uh huh. I'm sure. Either Pattie Gonia's team doesn't understand trademark law or this was a cynical self-promotional exercise from the beginning.

You can be a drag queen named after a clothing brand, you can playfully parody a clothing brand, but you can't be shocked when that clothing brand doesn't let you also become a clothing brand...

[secretbraintwin]

But Weird Al can sell parody music, right?

Why aren’t companies forced into suing him?

I’m not trying to be argumentative, I really don’t get why some parodies are legal and fine and some HAVE TO BE SUED, when both are making money off the parodies

[nariarts]

Longtime readers may be aware of how much I relish an excuse to bully a company, so I'm sharing the wealth;

Clothing company Patagonia is currently sueing drag queen Pattie Gonia for "irreparable” harm to their brand.

To be clear; Pattie named herself after the region in South America.

So Pattie is asking people to politely ask Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.

I'm extending the invitation to all of you, because sueing a drag queen for 'infringement' in the current political cultural landscape is vile. Especially a drag queen who has raised millions of dollars for non-profits, uses her platform to raise awareness for climate activism, and fully aligns with Patagonia's apparent climate-conscious mission statement.

They're claiming they're sueing for $1. They're actually asking her to stop using her name, and pay over $1 million in legal fees. They're straight up harassing her.

In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen.

Anyway. Be respectful(ish), but feel free to be annoying on Patagnoia's socials, asking them to 'DROP THE LAWSUIT'

I think they have a twitter and tiktok too!

[shadow-manor]

This is being discussed heavily on Bluesky, such as here.

Patagonia is suing specifically for trademark infringement, and they're suing for the sum of $1. If they don't sue, then that means they could lose the trademark. They aren't trying to "silence" them or prevent them from using the name, they're specifically protecting their company trademark. They'd have to sue *anyone* who was using such an obvious knockoff of their logo; in this case it happens to be a drag queen.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

you'll have to forgive me for not weeping for a billion dollar company's trademark being violated

[shadow-manor]

Go nuts. The point is that this isn't a company trying to dogpile on a drag queen, it's a company following a standard legal practice to protect its trademark. Disney does it all the time.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

... yes, and I also hate Disney? I don't understand what you think you're selling me on here

[shadow-manor]

If you get a soda out of a vending machine and it has a Coca-Cola label but it's actually a knockoff made with ditchwater, that's obviously okay because Coca-Cola is a huge corporation and it's thus fine for someone to violate their trademark.

You can hate Patagonia all you want, but the lawsuit is about anodyne trademark law, not specifically that a drag queen is involved.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

and what part of Miss Gonia's schtick is doing the harm equivalent of tricking someone into drinking ditchwater exactly?

[shadow-manor]

...the trademark part.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

right, okay, I forgot that she's singlehandedly putting Patagonia out of business by using a silly joke name

[netherator]

if Patagonia loses their trademark, which they would if they didn't sue and win (again for one dollar), there would be no assurance against people putting a Patagonia label on amy dogshit

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

well I hope Amy Dogshit enjoys wearing the label I think she'll look very nice

[jessbadger]

Absolutely insane to see this shit playing out like this. It is not bootlicking to say laws are specifically for a purpose and they protect not only large companies but small companies and small creators and the general public from harm and confusion. Patagonia was literally turned into a special trust and non-profit to fund environmental protection and climate change work.

Meanwhile Pattie Gonia has been called out and criticized about their misappropriation of indigenous peoples work and not giving credit to those in those spaces when she’s used their work as part of her “brand” because let’s be real. In both of Patagonia and Pattie Gonia’s situations this is brand. If we’re going to play purity politics then be genuine about it and hold everyone to their word, because Pattie Gonia is making money on their brand and that’s partly why their releasing this statement and being so public. It’s a PR push.

This is like the opposite of the McDonald’s coffee case playing out and it’s going to be studied in law school as an absolute insane PR thing that had nothing to do with the real facts of the case, the law, or reality of the situation.

[secretbraintwin]

Can someone explain to me why companies *have* to sue any small fry doing a parody to protect their trademark instead of just choosing to sue when they feel there is an actual risk to their brand?

[dragon-in-a-fez]

legally, if they don't sue, they can later be deemed to have "abandoned" their trademark.

Pattie Gonia has tried to file a clothing trademark that directly, clearly overlaps with Patagonia's. if Patagonia doesn't sue, then in a year or two, another company can come along and start a clothing brand called "Patogonla" that only sells poor quality copies of Patagonia designs made exclusively by slaves in sweatshops, and no one can stop them because Patagonia doesn't have an enforceable trademark anymore.

is this a reasonable way for the trademark system to work? probably not. can Patagonia change that system? no.

[secretbraintwin]

Looking through the reblogs, there’s a lot of contradictory information. Some people said she never actually filed a clothing trademark, fans of hers made those images.

I tried looking at her Merch page and there’s nothing there so does that mean it didn’t happen or she took it down due to the lawsuit?