Victorian Pomni
Stranger Things
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
$LAYYYTER

⁂
No title available
No title available
KIROKAZE
hello vonnie
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Three Goblin Art

Discoholic 🪩

★
No title available
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Game of Thrones Daily
d e v o n

ellievsbear

izzy's playlists!

No title available

seen from Saudi Arabia

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia

seen from Spain
seen from Netherlands

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Mexico
seen from India

seen from India

seen from Malaysia
seen from India
seen from United States

seen from Brunei
seen from United States

seen from Brunei

seen from Netherlands
seen from T1
seen from India
@tricksterbelle
Victorian Pomni
Favorite "humans being human" history posts, please
I've seen the collections of favorite tumblr fiction posts; now I'd like to see what your favorite "humans being human" historical posts are. (Because sometimes it is Nice to be reminded that compassion is not something easy for us to lose; we laugh at the same bad jokes; there are entire fossil records of our kindness.)
Here are my favorites-- add on yours.
The story of the RMS Carpathia, with a follow-up (aka one of if not the best pieces of short nonfiction historical writing in the modern age and one that reduces me to tears every goddamn reread)
Bronze-age grave of teenage gamer girl lovingly buried with her sheep ankle bone collection
The 1st-2nd century CE Roman tombstone with a bar joke that reads like a Dril tweet
And even earlier: A 4500-1900 BCE Sumerian bar joke
"Please know that there's an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that's beautiful to you"
Reconstructing Otzi's shoes
The Paleolithic grandmother and the child's fingerprint
Stone-age toddlers had art lessons
Ice-age children played in megafauna-footprint puddles
There once was a little boy who loved ducks
The oldest human burial found in Africa is a toddler; they made a pillow for his head
Henry Kenelm Beste's father loved him very much
"A Timeline of Humanity"
"I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them."
"I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today. It's right-handed. I am right-handed"
A 3rd century dog carved on a marble tomb; a 1st century dog lovingly described and named for posterity
Patrice, a 1st-2nd century dog, was dearly loved
And: we found a Paleolithic dog, buried with its bone
Humanity, unified across time by everyday experiences
The Golden Record sent into space in the 1970s
Ancient Egypt had archaeologists
Egyptian figurine of a woman waiting for her bread to finish baking
The graffiti of Pompeii
Ancient Greek tourist graffiti at the tomb of Ramses V
Hidden messages on circuit boards
The earliest examples of someone chewing on the end of their pencils
"im having feelings about the uffington white horse again"
The vast relatability of Medieval marginalia (and cats peeing on things)
Potoooooooo
What our ancient ancestors would think, seeing us prosper
Engage with older art; it keeps you from forgetting their humanity
"They were just like you and me. They write don't forget eggs, and wondered if their neighbors secretly hated them or if they are reading into it too much. They loved and were loved and they wondered. They wondered about you."
"Why do you study history" web-weaving
And ending on a high note: Ea-nasir and his shitty copper
Is Onfim already mentioned? (I’m sorry if he is and I missed it)
He’s a boy from Novgorod, Russia back in the 13th century, who is remembered by doodles he wrote on his spelling exercises.
He drew himself riding on a horse and defeating an enemy who is presumed to be his teacher.
He wrote “I am a beast” next to a drawing of a creature. The text in the box is a greeting to his friend named Danilo.
Here’s a Wikipedia article dedicated to him. And I also love this art of him!
Welcome twitter users fleeing the absolute cesspool that twitter is going to become as Musk gets his way with his awful ideas! Things are better here, and hey, if you're an old user coming back, they've actually improved shit!
Here's a list of important notes for tumblr usage:
Don't censor words, particularly trigger warnings. Tumblr has a very functional blacklist (found in your settings) that can filter by post content and/or tags. But the word needs to actually be present for the filter to work. Censoring words like r*pe is actively harmful to people attempting to avoid those topics.
Use tags liberally, you have as many as you want, but don't tag unrelated shit. You'll get reported for spam really fast if you do.
Set an avatar and reblog things, otherwise you look like a bot.
You are not obligated to have your real name anywhere in your blog/bio/etc. Most people here use handles.
You can turn your ask box & anons on or off if you are experiencing any kind of harassment. You can also turn off replies on your posts, and turn off reblogs if you need to.
Tumblr has keyboard shortcuts on desktop. You can find them listed under the blog/account menu. Go learn them, they make life so much easier.
Reblog things. Seriously. Also set your dash in chronological order. You can maintain several blogs if need be, but reblogging things is normal, expected, and how you pass along stuff you enjoy.
The majority of people aren't reading your card/dni/blog bio before they reblog stuff. Posts get passed around and the OP often isn't the focal point of the post. Learn to live with it.
Fic writers: you have unlimited words, do not post fics as images.
Reblogs with comments/tags are encouraged. It's not like twitter's QRTs. The OP will see everything there. Know that before you comment.
You have a queue. This means you can set posts up ahead of time to run while you're busy. You can also completely ignore this and just spam your follows whenever you're online. Both are very commonplace
It's not weird to go through someone's blog and reblog old posts. That's actually very normal. If you add /chrono to the end of a tumblr page then you can view all the posts in chronological order to make this easier.
"Spam" liking and reblogging isn't a thing that is a problem. This is invented by people I do not understand. If someone claims this is a problem, they can learn how to turn off or manage their notifications.
The only form of promotional posts that tumblr has is "blaze". There is no ad targeting or any kind of invasions of privacy with blaze. You just get subjected to w/e someone wants to show you. If you want to give tumblr some money to help the company keep going and providing an alternative to twitter, it's not a bad way to do it. You can make people look at cat photos.
Also, we have fun colors here. Plus actual formatting ability. Use it!
People lie on here for fun. Don't accept everything you see at face value, check the reblogs/replies or google something if you're skeptical! Critical thinking is good!
Above all else, be chill, use your block button if you need to, and have fun.
you can stick long posts under a "read more" by either typing :readmore: on it's own line on mobile or hitting the wavy bars that pop up on tumblr desktop when you enter/return to a new line. if you don't do this and instead decide to write literal novel-length posts, you'll get blocked before anyone even bothers scrolling to the bottom of your post.
So I’ve been in and out of hospitals as my condition is getting bad to worse
I am a 29 years old woman living in Hungary, possibly the worst political and economically set back EU country. Our healthcare among with many other things like public education, wellfare or transport is crumbling under Orbán’s shitty policies
This year in February I was diagnosed with MNGIE (Mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalopathy) a condition that affects several parts of the body, particularly the digestive system and nervous system. Currently I am entirely deaf, underweight and in chronic pain. I am doing CAPD at home (peritoneal dialysis) and on the liver transplant list. .
Yet my condition is worsening as I am suffering from gastrointestinal pain, vomiting and hypokalaemia.
Some of my medical documents, I was hospitalized on october 14th with severe vomiting and cramps.
My doctors pretty much gave up on me. Theyre not treating my pain or my surfacing symptons or even expalining it to me. I have reached out to several clinics (one in Germany and one in the UK), but so far I haven’t even got a reply. I am without any help in this and I feel like its consuming me.
I am without a job and my monthly income is around 80k HUF = 195 EUR = 195 USD. With current horrible inflation, that is not enough to last me through meds, the dialysis attachements, monthly trips to Budapest and my special diet.
Please donate to my paypal if you can paypal.me/gameofstyle
Reblogs help as well
Thank you so much!!!
/some pictures after the cut
Keep reading
Empirical research shows bathroom predator concerns are baseless.
“Our side concocted the ‘bathroom safety’ male predator argument as a way to avoid an uncomfortable battle over LGBT ideology, and still fire up people’s emotions.”
COLOUR ME FUCKING SURPRISED
I want people, in particular cis people, to read this and understand what it means.
It means that these groups, these organizations, are so Hellbent on getting trans people outlawed, hurt, and killed, that they will openly lie and admit to lying to stir up emotions. They have no qualms with actively lying and distorting reality.
They have no qualms about misleading people. Actively lying to people.
They don’t care how immoral their actions may be, how much their rhetoric flies in the face of reality, as long as it reaches their end goal of the destruction of “transgender ideology.”
MassResistance and all their ilk want us dead, and should never be trusted, not even for the most trivial of matters. They should be rejected, reviled, despised, because nothing they do is in service of anything but hatred and evil.
And in case anyone actually doubts this, and wants to cry “fake news,” here’s MR’s actual article. Should it get deleted, here’s an archived version. Some choice bits under the cut, if you want to see how vile these people really are.
Keep reading
@asymbina @thefingerfuckingfemalefury
Also worth reminding everyone that the lie doesn’t magically become true when it’s spread by putative feminists in stead of conservatives.
I’m continuing my coverage of dangerous Internet bills in the California legislature. This job is especially challenging during an election year, when legislators rally behind the “protect the kids” mantra to pursue bills that are likely to hurt, or at...
…You know those bad internet bills I keep talking about? Like EARN IT and the SMART Copyright Act and that sort of thing?
Well here’s another one, but this one’s state-based! Specifically, it’s in California, and it basically wants to mandate websites to force you to use your real ID to interact with more or less anything, in the name of “protect the children,” because of course it fucking is.
Now, not only does this fuck over sex workers, but it fucks over everyone privacy-wise, including kids! Imagine being forced to give all of your sensitive data to strangers to basically do anything online. and it becomes clear how much of a nightmare this is.
And that’s even before we think about the implications of eroding online privacy like this in a post-Roe world, or the real probability of privacy leaks!
And make no mistake, as one can probably gather from the famous “this product is known to cause birth defects or cancer in the state of California” labels, this is very likely to affect these services in other states.So this bill is dangerous.
So, if you live in California, contact your members of the California State Assembly and State Senate and tell them not to vote for this bill, because it is awful and will put a wrecking ball through privacy online.
And if you can’t, for the love of god, please boost this. God I’m sick of these bills…
Anomalous occurrences from this post
Part 2:
Part 3:
the ceramic horses i used to own would always be turned to look directly at my bed, no matter what position i left them in when i went to sleep.
Because some people are evidently still obsessed with “critically consuming media” I would like to clarify that refusing to watch a movie or read a book or whatever and getting all your information about it secondhand is not equivalent to critical consumption because you are not doing the consumption part. Engaging with something “uncritically,” versus refusing to engage with it altogether... both of these positions are actually oppositional to critical thinking
My love you don’t *need* to do anything at all, I did not make this post thinking “everyone needs to go out and watch/read shit they find objectionable right this minute,” but simply that it’s a bit hypocritical the way some people constantly harp on and on about “critically consuming” media, all while not thinking critically about their own interests beyond “someone on tumblr/twitter said this is morally objectionable and I believe them.” U can see interactions on twitter all the time where someone is like “is the Care Bears problematic? /gen” and then the reply is like “yeah they did bad stuff, don’t interact” and OP is like “omg thank you!!!” I think that generally speaking a lot of young people live in constant fear of being called out so they are constantly asking which things are Okay To Enjoy, and they are not at all engaging in what is called “critical thinking” when they are doing this. Quite the opposite, it is fear-based decision making, black-and-white thinking.
These are 2 opposite poles of behavior we are talking about; one where you just watch whatever and don’t worry about what it all means, and one where you obsess over your content intake and constantly check to make sure you aren’t seeing anything objectionable. As is often the case, I think the ideal (i.e. most generative, most healthy) position is between these 2 poles. As with our actual diets, our media diets should also be diverse and plentiful. We should consume a lot of different things from a lot of different perspectives. Our worldviews are enriched when we remain open to new ideas and allow ourselves to process them and react to them organically without worrying if the way we feel is okay.
In any case, spending money on things / “supporting the creators” is (in my opinion) an entirely separate issue, given the general ease of piracy. Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card.
Still reeling from the realization that bullet journaling was essentially created to be a disability aid and got legit fuckin gentrified
Like I'm at work and don't have the time to properly organize my thoughts atm but like.
-bullet journalling was invented by a man with a learning disability (99% sure it was ADHD but his website now just says learning disability so I can't be 100%) as a system for organizing his life/way to work WITH his learning disability
-the general concept is bullet point the important things you need to do and use a simple system of symbols to mark whether it's done, rescheduled, cancelled, etc. with very little fanfare, keeping it all in one notebook so you know where to easily find the information at a glance
-people pick it up and it starts getting popular
-bullet journaling becomes an aesthetic movement largely populated by white neurotypicals
-bullet journaling has turned into creating an extremely pretty notebook that has some function, but largely depends on complicated decoration and aesthetic function that takes more time to set up than is tenable for the people it was created for
-new entries to bullet journaling feel pressure to shop at particular stores, use particular brands, purchase lots of stationery purely for its aesthetic value, and prioritize the artistry of the pages rather than the information being stored on them
-people who would massively benefit from the original system can only really find information on it from members of the aesthetic movement. There is now a barrier to entry for ppl with ADHD and other similar conditions, as bullet journaling now requires a focus and motivation to start that these same people often lack or struggle to maintain consistently
-bullet journaling is no longer a disability aid and has become an aesthetic movement largely for middle class white neurotypicals, pushing out the people who the system was created for to begin with
This is the original guide from the person who made bullet journalling. Super simple. Not at all high maintenance.
It was eye-opening to rewatch this after getting used to bullet journal meaning "work of highly decorative art you might journal in if it doesn't detract from the decoration" everywhere online.
No, this is a terrible take and I am beyond tired of seeing it.
It’s ultimately pretty classist, ableist, and also says a lot about what people think of artists.
Seriously, we need to unpack this. This is how people wind up feeling guilty for anything that brings them joy. It cultivates the cultural idea that people with disabilities or who are poor don’t deserve and can’t create nice things.
I have been Bullet Journaling on and off since 2014. I know because seeing the original video was memorable for me - I think it might have been a lifehacker article that linked me to the website he’d thrown up for it back then. Literally that night, I drove to an office supply store and bought a grid paper notebook because that’s all there really was for it in those days. It is a tool I’ve gone back to over and over because it really is just that damn good.
I say all this to say that I’ve been in and around the bujo community for a long ass time.
Naturally a lot of those original creators who were gracious enough to share their Bullet Journaling practice were also neurodivergent. A lot of them also happened to be women, often with creative practices (something neurodivergent folks are often good at and drawn to) that they managed through and later combined with their bullet journaling - because they enjoyed doing that work.
What OP has done is reinforced the idea that ADHD looks a certain way - like their specific tastes and limitations - and that people who are the least bit capable are assumed neurotypical. That’s ableist. Stop.
If you look at a gorgeous bullet journal spread and think “that person is neurotypical” that says so much more about your internalized ableism than that person you’re judging.
Fact is so many of the top bullet journal creators on YouTube and Instagram have openly talked about their struggles with trauma, ADHD, Autism, eating disorders, OCD, chronic fatigue, etc. Ryder Carroll’s own book on his method includes many of these more artistic examples and their stories to encourage people to find what works for them personally. On story shared talked about how including art in their bullet journaling made them want to journal more and that journaling helped them recover from a skin picking disorder.
Art =/= gentrification
Art is healing. Art is something we all need. Whether you include it in your practice is optional. But including it in no way denotes class or disability holy shit.
Bullet journaling is at it’s heart a journaling system - a way to reflect and refine your thoughts and actions. Art journaling has been a long standing practice often used by neurodivergent people who aren’t always the best with words. It is fucking natural that many people wanted to both Bullet Journal and art journal in the same journal. Ryder Carroll has openly talked about it’s a flexible system that can incorporate a lot of different styles of reflection - art is one of those.
You know who tend to art journal - artists and art students. Two groups of people who are very often not middle class. Many are just as in debt any of the rest of us. Many work their art job and their making-ends meet job. They have access to the materials to do these things not because they are super comfortable but because their income relies on it.
Would you tell a carpenter or an electrician they must not be disabled or poor if they build their own bookshelf from scraps or wire in a nicer lighting fixture they thrifted? And hell those trade actually pay more. So really this just seems to speak to the very weird ideas people have about art.
You share responsibility for the ideas you formulate based on social media. How are we in 2022 and people are still not getting that social media is a curated snapshot and demanding anyone hey find to educated them fully about a topic they’ve not investigated.
If you look at someone having a nice time drawing in their bullet journal and being proud of what they made and think I have to do that - that is a you issue, not a content creator issue.
But seriously y’all - the funniest thing about this whole thing to me is just how many people are outing themselves for having formed passionate opinions on this and not just googling “bullet journaling”. Ryder Carroll’s work has consistently been on the front page for years. You not taking the time to read it is not the part of some woman with some fine liners drawing flowers on her cover page for the month.
TL;DR - Poor people and neurodivergent folks deserve and can make beautiful things. Assuming that majority of creators making beautiful spreads are middle class and able bodied pretty much solely on the fact they’re taking the time to make something beautiful for themselves - is itself pretty classist and ableist.
Creators sharing their personal practice do not have to educate you.
You are responsible for your assumptions. Google is right there.
1,372 votes and 251 comments so far on Reddit
Go cheer yourselves up, ladies. The comments are absolutely inspired.
I have exactly one (1) lifehack for every adult thing and that is “admit your ignorance to customer service people”
no, seriously! I know how nothing in adult life works, but I have learned it by calling up the customer service division of whatever agency I am having a problem with and then just asking about whatever the problem is, emphasizing my complete lack of knowledge about the thing.
my actual literal script for these interactions: “Hi, my name is [name]. This is my problem: [problem]. I don’t know how [adult thing] works. could you explain how [adult thing] works?” it fucking works every time.
me: I keep getting conflicting information as to whether my therapist is covered by my health insurance. I don’t know anything about health insurance, so this is very confusing to me. could you explain why this might be happening? health insurance customer service: it’s because your normal health insurance is X company but your mental healthcare is subcontracted out to Y company, and Y covers your therapist but X doesn’t. just always bill Y when you go to your therapist and you’ll be fine.
me: I accidentally put the wrong date to pay my credit card off and I’m afraid it will post before I get paid. this is my first credit card so I don’t know what I’m doing. could you tell me when it will post? customer service person: it will send a message to your bank today, but your bank won’t respond to it until tomorrow when you get paid, so you’re fine. and even if it does bounce, the fee is only $25 and you qualify for a waiver.
me: I went to an urgent care place that said they’d take my health insurance, but now i have a big bill. I don’t know how billing works: can you explain why the amount is so much for such a routine trip? customer service person: it’s because you were out of network at the time. however, since your insurance hasn’t covered the cost of care, the urgent care people should refund you for the cost of the services you paid for. me: [gets actual check in mail for the $200 I spent on testing my pee]
I would not recommend this method for retail (for the love of god, do not tell a sleazy car dealer that you don’t know how cars work), and sure, sometimes you have to speak to the manager or threaten a credit card chargeback or whatever you need to do. but 99% of the time, speaking nicely and admitting to needing help has worked wonders for me, and means I don’t have to stew in terror over doing some adult thing Wrong.
This 100% goes for appliance support as well. If you dont have your instructions or don’t understand how the appliance works or have forgotten the customer service person will CHEERFULLY go through step by step if you admit you don’t know and don’t shout. Usually we can solve the issue, unless you cut your dishdrawer in half so it’ll fit on your boat then i can’t help I’m afraid.
that… that sounds like an awfully specific example 👀
Labyrinth Art by ramone_pia_art
The concepts of NSFW is being cleared of the Internet under the false pretense of children’s safety when it’s really about the people in power sanitising for advertisers and pushing evangelical narratives AND that not enough is done to keep legitimately harmful content off of spaces that minors have access to are ideas that can coexist
can adults have their own fucking space?
a lot of people are misunderstanding this post. minors arent taking away your spaces. the internet is not being made safer for children, it is being sanitised for advertisers.
And also: minors’ spaces are being taken away.
When I was a kid, “barbie.com” looked like this
But now, if you type “Barbie.com” you’re taken immediately to Mattel’s online shop, surrounded by nothing but “shop now” links and toy collections.
Disney channel’s website is now “Disneynow.com” which still has games and shows appropriate for kids, but is aimed towards a younger audience as it combines Disney Jr and Disney Channel properties, and the look of the entire site is very juvenile and not very appealing to kids in the tween and young teen demographics.
Nick.com has been similarly streamlined and is focused primarily on streaming its shows, and the only games still left are 10 apps that can’t be played on browser.
Kid-friendly sites like icarly.com, Poptropica, Club Penguin, Neopets, Webkinz etc used to be insanely relevant and popular spaces built for kids and tweens.
Now, kids are being funneled into less moderated, more exploitative, and more public spaces like Roblox (its dangerous and exploitative nature exposed in these videos from People Make Games: (x) (x)), Fortnite (known for its gambling and microtransaction issues), and social media sites like TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter.
My elementary aged cousins spend their time on Roblox, YouTube, and some less than reputable game sites that are full of ads and stolen/reposted/reskinned games. My sister was on Musically/Tiktok and Twitter in middle school. They don’t have the same options for having fun online that I did when I was a kid, especially not when they get too old for nickjr and disneynow.
The internet has been condensed into about 5 popular sites that are full of ads, and it’s not fair to anyone.
At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.”
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned. “It doesn’t look like my doll at all,“ said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: “my travels have changed me.” the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home.
A year later Kafka died. Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:
“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it’s more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It’s performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.
This is ultimately why propaganda is going to work on you. Because you never learned how to think for yourself and the actual ideology behind things. You simply rely on group think and the bare minimum explanations to tell you what’s good and bad.
Saw this article linked on twitter yesterday and…. yeah. YEAH.
There's something about the way social media... Flattens or obscures regional/geocultural differences between people in a way that is very unhelpful and like. The opposite of what dedicated pen pal programs tried to do in the 20thc that I think really contributes to the meanness and high-handedness people take with each other. Like some things SHOULD land different if you are hearing them from like. Someone living in rural Oklahoma vs your housemate in Chicago, y'know? Someone from like. Bulgaria saying they don't trust communism SHOULD sound different than the person you're at a party with in Manchester. Someone saying all US politicians are the same to them who lives in Somalia SHOULD feel different than some white anarchist trust funder in Seattle. But instead everything gets read as if someone very very like you is saying it and saying it To You and like... Yeah that would be annoying if that was what was happening but its not and I feel like we are encouraged to not see that idk
“what do we do about people who fake disabilities to get ssi” we throw them a fucking party for pulling off the most difficult and unrewarding grift of all time. literally i don’t care
i wholeheartedly embrace the fuck-the-systemness solidarity of this and therefore have to make sure i understand both sides … so we’re saying ‘fakes’ do not hurt the ppl with true disabilities who have to fight tooth and nail for benefits?
sadly i have firsthand work experience in this area, via medical office with FT social worker, and i promise, the folks ‘faking’ would be the last people you’d want to party with…thankfully our docs were EXTREMELY rigid about identifying said grifters. honorable mentions, 100% real:
• 40 yo M: “can you just give me disability, i need time away from work to pursue acting career. they don’t give us FMLA or anything”
• mid-aged couple: sentenced to community service by local court, requesting SSID status to exempt them from having to fulfill. the task what assembling mailers
•45 yo F: “i just want the placard for better parking spots at work. can’t you just get the doctor to say i’m disabled?”
•50 yo M: orthopedic injuries presented to obtain opioids and SSID benefits, MD reviews all MRIs and CTs, clean. patient denied both requests. storms out of office, throwing his cervical collar down in waiting area on way out as limp magically disappears
i’ll open myself to critique here, suffice to say, i cannot help but think such characters have not contributed to the current screening state of this program. and anyone not getting what they actually need bc of it is anything short of infuriating for me. it’s super fucked, thinking about every single actually disabled person denied for every person faking that has been approved. not who that limited pool of collected public funds is for.
The grifters you have mentioned are painfully easy to identify. Many of the literally told you that they were faking it. They do not nearly justify the incredible difficulty involved in the process of actually getting approved.
You can be fully, provably disabled and you will get denied. People who judge your case often ignore evidence collected from everyone from family members to doctors to deny people. The reasons they give that you can keep working display a stunning amount of ignorance to how disabilities actually work or are intentionally attempting to deny people the tiny pittance of money given to people who desperately need it for basic survival.
The average approval time in my state is 21 months. Nearly two years going without what you desperately need to survive. If you try to earn some money in that time just to keep yourself alive it will be used as evidence against your case. No matter how damaging that work is or how unsustainable it is in the long term. For this reason many disabled people are forced into illegal and dangerous work simply because they cannot survive for two fucking years without any help, such as sex work. If they get caught trying to survive it will be used to deny the claim.
Now one might think that you could maybe save up before hand and make it through the process that way. Not so. With only a few exceptions, if you have at any time in the process more than 2000 dollars to your name it will be used as evidence against you. This 2000 limit will continue indefinitely as long as you are receiving benefits, and the government will monitor your bank account at all times so if it goes over your benefits will be canceled.
They will frequently demand for you to justify how you survived in the intervening period. How did you pay rent? How did you buy food? They will use your answer against you when they make your decision.
The amount of pointless, redundant, and difficult paperwork involved is another major barrier. Of course while they may take upwards of 6 to 9 months each step of the way, but you might receive a piece of mail that you have to respond to within days or it will be used against your case, or your case may be denied outright.
The form I had to initially fill out was 21 pages long. My wife and I both had to fill out another 14 page long document. I had to fill out details on the make and model of my car, because apparently people are worried that I might be driving a sports car. If you car is too nice they will use it against you. You are only allowed one car ever even if practically you really need two.
I attempted to apply for disability a few years ago. I messed up a couple questions because I did not understand them and it was used to deny my claim. I had to start from scratch, including resetting that 21 month waiting period.
The fact that I am a stay at home mom taking care of my daughter best I can is used against me.
The entire process is so strict and difficult to navigate that there are successful businesses called “disability advocates” that are practically required for a successful case. Fortunately their are laws that say they can only get paid if the claim is successful, and there is a cap on how much they cost so its nothing to lose. Of course this involves filling out even more paperwork, communicating with people, more work and more effort.
You need medical professionals to back up your claim or it will almost certainly be denied. Only Doctors are good enough. Mentally disabled and can’t afford several weeks of sessions? Physically disabled but you can’t afford a specialist doctor? Your chances of approval just dropped like a rock.
If at any time you act in such a way that isn’t stereotypically disabled there is a significant chance it will be used against you. The minimum capabilities required to go through the process are practically evidence against your case as well - for example, being capable of a coherent explanation of your symptoms and difficulties, Even if you broke down crying during the interview for a half hour because it is so difficult, is seen as proof that you are “capable of communication”, which was the exact reason given for my last denial. In the minds of the people making the determination I was capable of communication, which meant there had to be some job somewhere I was capable of performing.
If you have good days that fact will be used against you. If you go to an interview and don’t show glaringly obvious symptoms there is a good chance it will mean you will be denied.
The entire process is designed to discourage attempts. It is split into three stages. The first stage has only a 30% approval rate. The people you are talking about above never get far enough to even count against that approval rate. There is evidence in the form of leaked documents that people who do qualify are rejected instead simply to lengthen their approval process and discourage people to get them to drop out of their attempt. The first appeal has around a 10% approval rate. Only at the third stage, an actual court hearing with a judge, is there an approval rate in your favor at just over 50%. These three stages each may last between 6 and 9 months, which is why the approval process takes nearly two years.
At every step you will have to fill out more redundant paper work.
Those approval stats, by the way, are assuming you got one of those disability advocates. If you didn’t your chances drop significantly at every stage.
Almost all of these things are so strict in the name of “catching frauds” who may not absolutely need it.
The process is extremely difficult, humiliating, is difficult to survive, and is likely to fail. Almost no one gets approved their first time attempting the process, even if they plainly on the face of it absolutely need the benefits , because the process is so difficult. So a fraud would have to go through that entire painful process and succeed. So what do they get?
It will be around 700 to 800 dollars a month at most. Not enough to really live on, your going to be making hard choices between medicine, food, and shelter. You wont ever have nice things or live comfortably. And it comes with major restrictions that will force you into poverty and keep you there as long as you are part of the program. Any reasonable attempt you might make to better your own situation will be used to take your benefits away, you are not allowed to lift yourself out of a painful, difficult life of poverty. Many disabled individuals have to continue dangerous and illegal work, like sex work, in order to make ends meet.
By the way, if someone is doing sex work on the side and is caught, that will be reported as “fraudulent” abuse of the system. There are a good deal of other types of “fraud” claims used to deny benefits to people who need them and inflate the reported fraud numbers to justify these harsh screening methods.
This is what is meant by the original post. The screening process is so impossibly over the top and the benefits so little that the idea that fraud is a real problem on any scale is laughable. But it continues to be something people are obsessed over. Obviously we would not like actual frauds, but the entire structure of disability benefits is built around the obsessive attempt to prevent even one fraudulent case no matter how many actual disabled people suffer and die for it. “Fraud” is first and foremost an excuse to deny disabled people the tiny amount of help they desperate need just to survive.
So if somehow in some extremely rare case a person actually goes through that entire extremely difficult process just so they can live in poverty and pain with a pittance of survival money then I literally do not give a single fuck and neither should you. Stop obsessing over the minuscule chance of fraud and start recognizing that the insane screening process and laws in place are not due to supposed fraud attempts, it’s due to a desire from those who put those laws and screening process in place for us to just die because they see us as nothing but a drain on society.
Statistically speaking your “extremely rigid” docs are most likely denying tons of legitimate cases because they do not understand disabilities, which is extremely common (far more common than not), and using these honorable mention cases as justification for how good they are at clocking ‘fakes’. They are the reason we have to perform humiliating stereotypes of disability at every turn or be denied. They are virtually certainly one of the biggest parts of the problem.
So no. Fakes do not actually hurt us.