Frankly, kid, you're overestimating the importance of and overpoliticising your personality quirks

[snowgrouse]

Is there a term for the thing where activisty people start ranting for some cause, and very very soon, it ends up being so very individual and personal about that blogger in particular (when they're projecting their own personalities, likes, orientations and whatever onto a greater cause and insisting that that represents all people that cause

Comments

[cavefelem]

I've read that supposedly offensive phrase again and again now and I still don't get what's wrong about it (since it isn't the gender variance thing). What IS bisexuality about if not being attracted to more than one gender? (Disclosure to potential non-Grouse readers: I'm bisexual, or whatever the term-du-jour is for a person attracted to more than one chromosome combination.)

I also didn't know what granola was until they started selling it in posh food stores here. Now I figure it's like overpriced hipster cereal. Americans have all these associations of foods with race or slavery or such that Europeans just don't get, though - I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was racist or sexist or otherwise oppressive to say you don't know what granola is...

[snowgrouse]

I really didn't get that rant (I've lost the link now and don't feel like going back), because there were loads of other things there saying "if you think bisexuality means X, don't write us." And it was all *her* ideas of what bisexuality was and what it meant to be Aware and shit. There were no explanations whatsoever as to what it was that was offensive to her about that phrase--it wasn't asexuality either, I don't think, since she addressed that in a different line. This is what I hate about that whole culture because it's all so... insider-y. There is no way for an outsider--whether it's a straight person or an old queer like us who hasn't kept up with the times and the changing lingo--to even *get* inside without being yelled at violently for getting things wrong. How in the fuck am I supposed to know which terms to use if they don't even tell me what these terms mean?!? And why something that's been perfectly neutral before (like the term "bisexuality" itself) is now the evillest thing ever--to some uppity American kid I have

[cavefelem]

I think it's at least partly on purpose, this fence-building by obscure terminology. It allows people to feel smug, superior and righteous and to "call out" others who don't know a term that was invented last week among three of their friends in a cereal café in a hipstery part of San Francisco. It's not so much about definitions or rights or understanding as it is about elevating oneself - if it was any of the above, they would take care to explain what their terminology means.

[snowgrouse]

Yeah, absolutely. It goes hand in hand with this desperate need to be special that this hipster culture is breeding--everyone wants some sort of label now, some sort of diagnosis now, some new gender and sexuality and neurology. Whereas everyone should just take a step back and relax, because who the fuck was it that said all people weren't special and unique? You know? That's what baffles me. Like they are accepting this idea that somehow, the masses are right? The same way they accept this idea, now, that apparently to be female is to like pink frilly things and to be vain and giggly and stupid? And to accept that what the TV writers ship is canon and that if a ship doesn't have a chance of being canon, it's not worth shipping

[ataslightangle]

Huh, I had no idea that granola was a lesbian culture thing in the US. I just like the way the stuff tastes...

And hmm, I do find it ironic the way some people seem to completely isolate themselves - and in turn what they're supposedly fighting for/defending/whatever - by creating these bizarre, often needlessly complex and often completely confusing terms and creating impenetrable boxes for things. Being so fucking hipster about it.

[snowgrouse]

There? You see? You're secretly gayer than you thought