yo

1. Do not do age verification.

Oh no I dropped my link, what a horrible thing! Sure hope this doesn't get reblogged until it reaches users from the UK and Brazil!

If you saw THIS tweet/story:

By @japan_nobunaga, it's fake! It's made up! You're right besties, it's completely fictional! And the over the top writing is the "character" of the account which we can all rightfully criticize!

We know this is fake because the writer said so to the New York Times:

Nobunaga, the Japanese wanderer whose reverential written meditations on X about bottomless baskets of chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant in the United States, isn’t quite what some observers have taken him for, either. He is a pseudonymous character. He isn’t on his way to any World Cup games, either.

In response to a direct message, Nobunaga’s creator said the premise of the account is that an ancient samurai had traveled through time and space to land in the American heartland. When he wrote that “the trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it,” it was meant in a spirit somewhere between parody and cultural commentary.

Okay? Great. Fantastic. Treating this as real or legitimate is incorrect and also yes it's fair to criticize the characterization of Japanese people vis-a-vis an exoticizing ancient time traveling samurai. (I mean spoiler, samurai aren't an ancient thing to begin with.)

Now, SIMULTANEOUSLY, this tweet by @kamone_tv?

This is REAL and they were interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about it:

@kamome_tv has been at the games in Texas, posted loads of videos of fan/game content to their YouTube account, and has been regularly tweeting about it. They ALSO even posted some highlights/guide for folks based on their time in Texas!

We know they're a real person, it's not all made up BS, they're a huge Marinos fan, and CRUCIALLY the auto translation of the tweet shows me they referenced a SPECIFIC aspect of Japanese dining culture:

Tweet [image of chips and salsa]: I didn't order this, but it was here from the start

Is stuff like this paid?

Like the otoshi you get in Japan?

Key word here: Otoshi. Keep this in mind.

Maybe I just have not been to enough restaurants in Japan but everyone insisting that Americans are being gullible idiots because there *are* free bottomless small appetizers in Japanese restaurants that are both abundant and common is...stating something I have never really seen in any restaurant in japan? I could be wrong! Maybe I just didn't go to the right places! I'm not an expert!

That being said, the things I HAVE seen and experienced in Japan:

My meal is a set and I didn't realize that set included this specific appetizer item (ex: got a small mug of French onion soup with my omurice set)

or you paid a flat dining fee for your time/experience of a number of courses. (Like a lot of meals are not necessarily a specific set meal price, you could instead be paying for a time slot or minimum amount of courses of something that may also go over that amount).

That free thing isn't free at all, it's otoshi (also known as tsukidashi) and it's being added to the bill whether I ordered it or not.

Yes, Japanese restaurants often provide small appetizer dishes you didn't order when you sit down. No, those aren't always free! You pay for otoshi, like @kamome_tv says.

Many a visitor to Japan has been bewildered when they go out for food and drinks and receive a dish that they didn’t order—and then are charged for it too. In Japan, this dish is called “otoshi”, also known as “tsukidashi” in the western Kansai region, and it’s a sort of indirect cover charge for bars and places that serve alcohol, similar to the “coperto” service fee charged in Italy.

Otoshi are a widely accepted practice in Japan and is even written into Japanese law.

Rakuten - Gurunavi: Otoshi

So yes, an actual Japanese person visiting Texas for FIFA games tweeted asking if chips and salsa were truly free, or if they were "like otoshi," which you get a small added charge for on the bill in Japan. It's usually a really negligible fee (and it feels kind of like giving a tip or seeing a small gratuity fee) so if you don't know Japanese or don't realize otoshi adds a charge, or if you didn't closely examine your receipts...you might totally go to Japan and assume the little bowl of edamame was completely free!

The first tweet got memed because it's over the top and written to be intentionally ridiculous as a mock-samurai and it's not real. That account is questionable and has some propaganda and hateful things on that account. People who read the story's voice as having an intentional affect to sound completely over the top in exoticizing the experience were correct.

The second tweet however IS a real Japanese fan remarking on an actual cultural norms difference between Japan and the US — where in Japan the small amount of food you get whether or not you ordered it *is* commonly charged on your bill (otoshi), and in the US the food you get when seated that you didn't order is typically completely free and not charged anywhere on the bill.

Not always! Not all the time! But like, typically, this is indeed a cultural difference! And Americans aren't stupid if they believed this was a cultural difference that is real, because it....is....

One example being fake garbage doesn't mean anyone talking about this is mindlessly consuming American propaganda.

Likewise, I saw a comedian make jokes about excitement over American free refills where he was being over the top about it on purpose. Him intentionally spoofing something by exaggerating it does not mean that there were not actual non-americans being pleased with getting a free drinks refill while being tourists.

Not everything is propaganda or made up or being infantilizing. Some things ARE made up, and some are totally made up and other things are only exaggerated for comedic effect, and some people are being infantilizing, and those things existing doesn't mean there weren't also true experiences being talked about.

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

By alextinsley on instagram

Earlier my little sister slammed her closet and room door-- not out of ange as far as im aware, she just pushed them too hard. I yelled at her to stop it.

she said she would, but it was clear from her tone she just said so out of obligation and was annoyed. i tell her to stop making loud noises a lot, so she probably assumed this was just another example of that.

realizing this, i explained her the reason: our rooms are right next to each other. When she slams doors, the wall shakes. When the wall shakes, my mirror shakes, and if it shakes too hard it can fall and break

after the explanation, she apologized genuinely and actually understood the reason instead of just thinking im nagging her or just want quiet. the fact that she knows the reason means shes more likely to remember, and she can apply the knowledge in different ways: "even if my older sibling isnt home, their mirror could still break, so i still shouldnt slam the door." She knows im not just trying to annoy her or assert dominance over her like a lot of rules and demands we give to children do- i just dont want my mirror to break. It helps her understand cause and effect.

Would this result be the same if i had just screamed at her or spanked her? Or did it make more sense to just explain? After all, it was a simple mistake. I could see my parents doing the same thing-- when you close a door, youre not usually thinking about the walls in the other room.

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!