#bad sj

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

So much of internet discourse is focused on labels and internal thoughts and purifying yourself and it’s all just so... bad.

[fierceawakening]

http://okbutts.tumblr.com/post/166381442936/raposadanoite-collection-okbutts

this

this is the thing that isn’t TECHNICALLY gaslighting but is super similar so I think we should be able to call it that

“your opinion is Problematic so the thing you said happened did not happen lol lol”

[newhologram]

Honestly, it just feels like they’re saying ND people should be willing to take misdirected anger from other ND people just because they have the right to vent about NT Karens. That if someone calls me NTK on my post, I shouldn’t fight it because this person is mad at NTK, not me personally and if I complain, now I’m Bad. And this is how most of this kind of discourse feels to me, whether about cishets or whatever. It feels like everyone is expecting those of us on the same side to be okay with being treated like shit and accused of being the enemy so that other people in the community can blow off steam. 

No. No one is required to be your personal placeholder punching bag. Kindly stop.

[newhologram]

An important distinction needs to be made here which is the main reason people keep fighting us when we talk about how uncomfortable Neurotypical Karen as a reactive meme has become for those of us who are trying our best to recover*. They get mad and think we are talking about one thing, when we are talking about another, and despite our repeated efforts to clarify this for them, they still choose to be angry with us and and apparently now it’s traitorous to be friends with anyone who is not disabled (what??)

*recovery doesn’t really mean, in this context, “to get better completely” because this is not possible for some of us considering we just have different functioning. I will never be normal but I can still work hard every day at caring for myself, even if my best is cracker crumbs in bed with a vomit bucket by my side. Recovery is an everyday thing for the rest of life, for many of us.

WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT: people using this meme against actual disabled people, calling their recovery or advice posts “neurotypical”

WHAT WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT: our right to address that ignorant people often give unsolicited and rude advice about how to “cure” ourselves

Again, we are upset about how we only ever see this meme used on disabled people to shit on whatever they’re doing to take care of themselves, when the meme itself refers to something that generally happens in person. 

I have not yet seen any posts like this 

“hey eat kale it’ll fix you, ur disease is just a construct of big pharma” 

“wow we can’t all be neurotypical, karen”

*laugh track*

Instead all I ever see is 

“hey it’s hard but sometimes if you force yourself to make your bed and vacuum the floor, you’ll feel so much better in your environment” 

“WE CAN’T ALL BE NEUROTYPICAL KAREN/LOL OP IS SO NT/ETC” 

“but I have several mental and chronic illnesses and this is something that really helps me, I was just sharing it on my blog for my spoonie friends?” 

*crickets* 

Every time we bring this up, someone yells at us and says “but this meme is to talk about ABLEISM fuck you” and we’re like “so why do you keep using it to be an asshole to disabled people online by constantly assuming any advice post is coming from someone who is NT?”

And no one has ever, ever had an answer for us. 

Because that’s just it. The meme went from being a kindasorta funny for a minute commentary on a very real issue we face in the world, and became, “every advice post is automatically written by an NT, let’s all make fun of them for having normal brains even though most of the time we’re making fun of actual disabled people :)!!!! DRAGGED” (the same way people assume any post criticizing feminism is written by a white cishet man, oh dear how wrong you are) and all it is doing is spreading this idea that you have to be miserable and helpless to count as disabled. 

And that is really... um... ableist...? And dangerous! 

One more time for anyone who still has a hard time understanding this: advice posts about how to cope/live with illnesses are generally written, surprisingly, by people with illnesses. These posts are assumed to be written by “a neurotypical *boo hiss*” and mocked, even after the OP explains themselves as being ND.

Simplified even further: disabled people keep being mocked for taking care of themselves, and it freaks me out because we are already at risk for shit like suicide when we believe “why even bother?” because we feel doomed to a life of suffering, so please stop! 

Pretty please before you feel the urge to meme your little heart out on an advice post by a literal stranger and get a bunch of high-fives from your buddies, maybe consider that without asking or maybe even just going to their blog, you cannot know from a post if someone’s brain functions differently. 

Think before you meme, kids.

Signed,

someone who almost died this way several times over the past 4 years when my lifelong illnesses suddenly became fully developed and I thought my life was over

Princess of Pain New

[newhologram]

I just saw discourse about the fact that Static Shock dealt with racism and a lot of other issues. Like people are complaining that racism shouldn’t be depicted in cartoons at all... how have we gotten to this point, where the mere mention of a bad thing that actually exists IRL makes the show problematic? Like, if I made a show that addressed the suicide rate in people with chronic illness, is that problematic too, or am I bringing something very important into the conversation? The purpose of the episode was to talk about racism. Are we just supposed to only make media where we pretend these things don’t exist? Come on now, the show is old now and the message is still really relevant, especially today. Static Shock was such an important show. Virgil was so important for so many reasons. 

[newhologram]

"I'm allowed to hurt anyone and everyone because there's a chance some of them might actually be evil and deserve it" seems to be a very strongly defended belief on this site and it worries me.

[newhologram]

Modern horror story I’ve experienced a few times: you meet someone IRL who seems cool enough, they might be really creative, seem really fun and laid-back. 

Then you see that on social media they have a huge boner for telling people to kill themselves.

*shudders and burns sage*

[newhologram]

How are you so brave against the people who try to start shit with you online?

It’s like I said, a mountain is not moved by the horns of a little beast. They cannot hurt me, and to try to hurt me over their intentional misreading of my words in order to try to accuse me of something is simply ego-wanking. 

#wokepeople like that feel that they have to create enemies out of strangers online so they can look cool (when frankly, we have plenty of real enemies to be fighting right now).

They would rather waste their time creating arguments out of nothing, and being manipulative, than actually making a difference out there in the world.

This is why I’m so done with online SJ. Sure, I talk a lot about important subjects. I talk about abuse, ableism, mental illness, racism, sexism... but I’m long past those icky days of trying to “drag” people. 

I’m not here to drag. I’m here to plant seeds and to guide, inspire, teach, and help. 

And yes, there are people who I cannot reach and who I need to block because they are aggressive and only want to be cruel to me because it’s the only control they feel they have in their lives. 

I feel bad for them, but I simply do not have the free time. I am too busy caring for my body, making connections, guiding other spoonies, and working on my career. 

And as satisfying as it is to get that rush when you judge someone... it’s not our jobs to judge other people’s holograms. If they aren’t at that stage in their life yet, then that’s their problem. I can try to help, try to plant those seeds. But in the end, if they are going to transform into a better person, that is up to them. 

In order to become a better person, I had to step outside my comfort zone. I had to face things. I had to take the script that has been given to me by the universe and realize... it’s not about the things that happened to me. And I don’t fix those things by being mean to people who are insufficiently #woke. 

I get asked and told stupid shit e v e r y d a y about the fact that I’m queer, disabled, mixed race, etc. EVERY DAY someone has some stupid stereotypical assumption about my body, my sexuality, my culture. 

I can be mad and steam about it and feel frustrated.

Or I can look at what the universe is offering me and smile, whether or not I decide it’s worth my energy to explain something in that moment. I can teach, if I feel like it, or I can say, “today I’m tired and I don’t have time to explain to someone that me not having a gender or sex preference in partners does not mean that I “switch between” liking girls and boys, wtf.

What good is sitting all alone in your room (accusing random people online of being #problematic based on out of context words)?

Come hear the music play (of diverse life experiences, the music that helps you understand why we have these bad things, so we can dismantle them and make life better for us all)

Remember, it’s all a game. We have just forgotten, and so we turn cruel and bitter and mean and we abuse others in the very name of stopping abuse. 

It’s all backwards. Come to the cabaret.