But more seriously, I agree with everything that you've said and I think that this is a very very valuable point: Well thanks for the fucking warning, I guess we'll write this one off before it starts since if you can't laugh at yourself and have no flexibility in your dogma or ability to tolerate people who have different tastes to you, we can't be friends.
Someone once gave me an ultimatum on friendship. My only ultimatum is that if someone gives me an ultimatum, I am out of there. I detach and move on. That level of inflexibiity is not conducive to basic human interactions of any meaning.
I was thinking back to that conversation we had outside the BFI last year and to a couple I've had with friends of mine on long drives or whatever where we both approach the same problem from our differing perspectives and try to find common ground, because usually regardless of our politics our values are roughly the same. Tumblr strikes me as very fixated on the precise wording of the details and somewhere in that the actual bigger meaning gets lost: like "if i just get the shibboleth right, it doesn't matter what my intentions are".
That level of inflexibiity is not conducive to basic human interactions of any meaning.
Yes yes. Tumblr makes very little sense to me especially because there are so many who claim to be liberal and advocating for minorities but are so, so dogmatic. Like. Liberal dogma? Is basically not a thing. It's a contradiction in terms. But I go on Tumblr and realise I'm apparently a bad feminist. I kind of suck as a woman. And if I'm in a minority group, like religion or nationality (and, on this side of the pond, we know exactly what it is to be Irish), I am probably bad at that too because I don't fulfil the absolute rigid requirements of Tumblr.
I suck as a woman too! HIGH FIVE. And oh, I'm a bad gay, but I'm not a queer, because queers are RADICAL AND COOL AND DON'T WEAR GOLD (this was an actual thing) and I wear gold and am not radical or anything else and I'm really lazy and I just like banging ladies...
BUT MS LANYON EVERYONE KNOWS WHITE PEOPLE CAN'T BE MINORITIES. And you're bad at being Irish because... of ... some reason.
Why is saying we're all human bigoted? Are we supposed to humour those ridiculous people who insist that they are REALLY this special snowflake fantasy animal (because that's, like, totally the same as being transgender)?
I used to say "if I don't like you then we can't be friends" but I've realised that there's rarely been a time in my life that I haven't had at least one fairly close friend I don't like very much. So even that's not a definite.
The argument runs that saying "we're all human" denies the different experiences people have by emphasising our commonality, because apparently requiring people to have some basis in of fellow-feeling before they're asked to understand different experiences is just TOO MUCH.
OH COME THE FUCK ON. I'd say I can't believe people say this, but unfortunately, I can.
Honestly, the first thing I think of whenever I see Tumblr is "Holden Caulfield would have a field day." AAAAaaaand now I want to read a modern-day "Catcher in the Rye" fic where he's the ultimate troll. And it probably doesn't exist. And that probably means I'm going to have to write it.
Abundant agreement, which is quite common when I see things you write. I too stopped reading or listening to news some time ago. The rage is contagious and it was making me so tired.
In my day to day life I see fewer people than ever, perhaps too few.. but I find that the more I seclude myself, the more grateful I am that there are people like redshira and cavalorn, to name a couple of the handful, who have been somewhere on my radar for a decade or more and still care. Wasn't it one of the things in that Baz Luhrmann effort about sunscreen; people who knew you when you were younger being more important as you get older? Or did I imagine that? Anyway, I like the way you put it very much. People you've known for long enough to know your lumps and bumps are less likely to shave them off. Quite so.
I'm not sure if it's the age you knew them at so much as just having a good long run of knowing each other means you're less likely to feel like you've UNCOVERED THIS SECRET SIDE to someone OMG I DON'T KNOW YOU AT ALL flounce etc., and more like "ah I see Steph/Anwen/Shira/Del are having A Day again" and pass by it without incident.
According to tumblr I am a bad feminist because most of my friends are male. Obviously this has nothing to do with all the environments I engage in being male dominated. Nooo, I'm just being a horrible person because my experience can't be true while theirs undoubtedly is.
Likewise, the fact that the majority of abuse I've suffered has been from women means it wasn't really abuse and I am letting the side down EVEN THOUGH I am perfectly willing to support the idea that my experience is not usual!
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But more seriously, I agree with everything that you've said and I think that this is a very very valuable point: Well thanks for the fucking warning, I guess we'll write this one off before it starts since if you can't laugh at yourself and have no flexibility in your dogma or ability to tolerate people who have different tastes to you, we can't be friends.
Someone once gave me an ultimatum on friendship. My only ultimatum is that if someone gives me an ultimatum, I am out of there. I detach and move on. That level of inflexibiity is not conducive to basic human interactions of any meaning.
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That level of inflexibiity is not conducive to basic human interactions of any meaning.
HUMANS GROW! HUMANS CHANGE! yeah.
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HUMANS CHANGE YES.
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BUT MS LANYON EVERYONE KNOWS WHITE PEOPLE CAN'T BE MINORITIES. And you're bad at being Irish because... of ... some reason.
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I used to say "if I don't like you then we can't be friends" but I've realised that there's rarely been a time in my life that I haven't had at least one fairly close friend I don't like very much. So even that's not a definite.
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Honestly, the first thing I think of whenever I see Tumblr is "Holden Caulfield would have a field day." AAAAaaaand now I want to read a modern-day "Catcher in the Rye" fic where he's the ultimate troll. And it probably doesn't exist. And that probably means I'm going to have to write it.
Reply
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In my day to day life I see fewer people than ever, perhaps too few.. but I find that the more I seclude myself, the more grateful I am that there are people like redshira and cavalorn, to name a couple of the handful, who have been somewhere on my radar for a decade or more and still care. Wasn't it one of the things in that Baz Luhrmann effort about sunscreen; people who knew you when you were younger being more important as you get older? Or did I imagine that? Anyway, I like the way you put it very much. People you've known for long enough to know your lumps and bumps are less likely to shave them off. Quite so.
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According to tumblr I am a bad feminist because most of my friends are male. Obviously this has nothing to do with all the environments I engage in being male dominated. Nooo, I'm just being a horrible person because my experience can't be true while theirs undoubtedly is.
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