Terrible, Beautiful Sparks in Space

There’s something called culture. People (especially USAmericans) think of culture as cultural dress, cultural food, cultural music. These are culture, but they are only the very superficial aspects of it. Like the icing on your cake. Far more deep rooted is the more meaty bits of culture: the attitudes, the ideas, the taboos.

There’s a guy on tiktok who has done a series that shows this very well, of Germans Vs Irish. In one video the German offers the Irish person two kinds of tea, green or black. The Irish person keeps putting off the choice with things like “Oh sure whatever is easiest”, “Which have you more of?” and, “Ah sure I don’t want to cause a fuss” whereas the German just wants a straight answer. This is a cultural difference of politeness.

Here in the UK, accents mark your class very openly. They let everyone know where you’re from (though this has become less pronounced in the last 50 years,) and what your background is. A lot of people (especially northerners, but also a fair contingent of working class southerners) face discrimination on the basis of their accents.

Some of us (myself included) even change register (though I believe USAmericans call it code switching) in and out of our regional accent and a close approximation of RP. We learn to do it because it makes us seem more intelligent (even though it shouldn’t) and helps us be taken more seriously.

Thus, our country carries a lot of baggage when it comes to accents. Especially those of the working class who have had their accents made fun of, or have faced discrimination based on it.

So when someone outside the country (usually USAmericans) makes fun of our accents they’re stepping on a lot of cultural taboos and boundaries. Especially because the “It’s Chewsday, gonnae wot-ch sum yewchube innit” is a working class accent.

Now, that’s not to say we can’t take a joke, but this is the kind of joke you share with someone who you have been friends with for a while. My boyfriend often will pick up on the way I say certain words, in much the same fashion I pick up on his idiosyncrasies of speech (English isn’t his first language so he says stuff like close the lights, which is adorable.) If we aren’t predisposed to liking you, then the joke you’re trying to make is more like an insult.

The way I like to think of it is if you were in a pub, and made those sorts of jokes to someone. If they knew you, and they liked you, they’d probably laugh along. If they didn’t like you or know you, they would punch you in the jaw.

Even now, after decades in Scotland, I still don’t sound Scottish. The English hear a slight lilt but that disappears as soon as I spend any time with them.

When Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who, people were surprised that he used his own northern accent, instead of performing with an accent like every Doctor before him. That was only 15-ish years ago.

Even now, this still happens - James McAvoy made a very vocal protest a couple of years back about a critic who complained about the use of Scots accents and only applauded the “plummy English” accent of one character in a play.

There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.

And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.

But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.

How do we break it to boomers with actual brain damage and nostalgic brainrot, and the 'tradwife' thirsting Andrew Tate fans that bodyfat, average attire, an overall lack of professional haircare or makeup, and non-conventionally attractive women existed and represented the vast majority of women across all of history?

And that, yes, in fact, their belief that "all women were hot skinny super models" in x timeframe is because they keep posting images of fashion models, actresses, idealized pinup art, and creepshots of actual teenage girls instead of middle aged, elderly and ordinary women from whatever era. Man, history sure was an insane person's exact perfect paradise consisting solely of people specifically they were attracted to--when filtered through a cherry picked lens of solely famous glamor girls instead of just women workers, family photos and life events taking place anywhere outside of Hollywood.

It really does irk me that one day people will assume all of the 21st century consisted of women who looked like whichever three actresses are most remembered one day and a few odd instagram filtered images--because already, a massive wealth of evidence already exists to the contrary for all of prior history and people are still somehow convinced everyone on Earth was a size zero with perfect hair and makeup for all of human history. That's just not how anything works. It's not how women work. It's not how humans work.

Another fun fact, the majority of surviving articles of clothing from eons ago were extremely petite, extremely glamorous, and unfathomably tiny. You know why? Because they ..weren't worn. This is a well known example of survivors bias in the fashion industry. Expensive gowns and teeny martini dresses were usually only worn once or twice, if not solely worn by manikins in high end stores. Most people kept a consistent and small wardrobe for their entire lives. New clothes were rare, often custom fit or taylored by family at home, or hand-me downs from sibling to sibling. These clothes that were worn to death and destroyed from decades of use were thrown away. They didn't survive to the modern era because they were overly worn, large, and unglamorous.

Think of it this way, you might save your prom dress or your wedding dress but you're not saving the teeshirt with spaghetti stains on it for future generations to see. Why would you? Those are the clothes that don't survive.

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