Mercury Jellyfish

"Tumblr Smart" is the way I've come to (grumblingly) think of it — a sort of blind copying of the voice and surface level qualities of deeper thought, without any underlying rigour. Some counterintuitive idea which can "explained" in a single followup sentence and a dense that by knowing this you're smarter than some outside group

(Though bonus points for the fact that back in the day people got lots of pretty basic facts from books that today you osmosis pretty hard from the generic discourse. He was 10% smarter to a 90's audience than a modern one)

I'm not sure this is a tumblr thing so much as an internet thing. Internet Smart. Could be Reddit smart just as easily.

I presume we are just using Tumblr as a catch-all for the internet because we are on Tumblr; I am with you actually in thinking of Reddit first, as Pratchett is a bit of an older gen writer. But I have seen it enough here as well for the substitution to land.

In the US there are definitely that subculture of northeast WASPs who will wear the same sweater for 15-20 years and are proud of it, but the median rich person is a lot more on the consumer side of the lifestyle spectrum, and the specifics of the metaphor fall apart when you’re talking about Balenciaga selling $1500 sneakers

Also, the other half of the Boots Theory - that part of being poor is not having enough money at any one time to make larger purchases that would save you money in the long run - just seems straightforwardly correct to me? Like, that's a significant part of being poor. Not the only part, or the cause, or whatever, but it is a very real phenomenon

This is not a statement about rich people, and you're missing the point terribly if you think that it is. It is a comparison between the spending of a poor person and an adequately well off person. Plenty of people, for instance, do not have the space or resources to run a freezer, and can only freeze what little fits in the ice box corner of their larder fridge. I on the other hand, have that capacity, and so I can save hundreds a year by batch cooking. When Pratchett is talking about wealth, he is talking about the wealth of having a non-leaking roof over your head. The wealth of having more rooms in your house than people who live in it. The wealth that the lower middle class used to enjoy, and increasingly does not in this world.

prev dont leave this in the tags

locked the fuck in get my money up

Once we the readers grab all of these details (starting with this one), and put them all together, it gives the picture of the whole novel being rather futuristic. Considering how one of the elements of the gothic genre is how the past collides with the changes of the present, it's very fitting that Jonathan talks about the ancient english building that the Count wants to move in... With the help of a modern camera.

Full title: Architecture of return, escape (The British Museum)

I worry about having a kind of ‘thinking the stripper likes me’ relationship with an animal

game of the year 2026

reblog if you’ve had an online friendship that’s lasted more than 2 years