PeanisPlague

the most common style of misinformation i see on tumblr is the fake news headline. it's an image or multiple images of a headline and sometimes an attached story. easy tips to discovering whether this is real or not:

is there a link in the post? click it and see where it goes. no link? possibly fake, possibly the poster just didn't include it.

google the full headline, not just key words. even better, google the headline with the full headline in quotes so you get exact matches. can't find a match? probably fake.

is there a clear url/website attached to the headline? if so, go to the website and search for the headline. can't find a match? probably fake.

is there an author? google them. see if they're real. see if the subject of the article matches the stuff they usually write about. see if they have social media where they may have posted the headline. can't find an author, or they seem way off-track? probably fake.

is there a date? a story written in 2002 may have very different ramifications than a story written in 2022. it depends on the subject, but some subjects change rapidly and even a 5-year-old story may be out of date. see if you can find anything recent. if not, it may be fake or out of context.

go to google news and do a quick scan. this is going to work better for headlines that are about world news, but it's still worth a try. google news also allows you to search stories and limit by date. see if you can find a matching headline. if you can't, it may be fake or old news.

general tips:

don't trust social media. just don't. please. people can and will say literally anything they want. anything you read on social media that has real-world implications, you should fact-check.

you may think it's overkill, but google everything. even things you're mostly sure of. reading more headlines and more news can help you get better at discerning between real and fake headlines.

every source of information is biased in some way. try to seek out less biased sources. look up the bias media chart (here's a link) and use it to find sources that do less biased and more original reporting.

think about bias as you're reading. who is the author writing for? why are they writing? what do they want the audience to feel? what facts are they choosing to include or omit? how might the presentation of the facts change if someone with a different perspective was writing?

there are also websites dedicated to fact-checking. this works best for major world news, but try snopes or factcheck. the rand corporation has a huge list of tools for rooting out disinformation as well.

there's nothing wrong with asking for help, but if you genuinely cannot figure out if something is real or not on your own, and you give up trying to figure it out without help, you run the risk of believing and even spreading misinformation. some misinformation is essentially harmless (a celebrity's favorite color, for example). some misinformation is incredibly dangerous. please please PLEASE check your facts. it is quick and easy and worth it.

There should be a much bigger focus on like... Yoga as a way to gain muscle range in recovery from injury. Weight training so you can carry your kids when they get tired, or so you can put your mate on your shoulders during a gig to see better. Looking into diet choices so you can cook a homemade meal for friends. Rock climbing or obstacle courses or parkour because when was the last time you, as an adult, got to look at a fun challenge and say to your pal 'gaun then, bet you cannae dae that, race ye'? Football, rugby, basketball, dodgeball, it's about playing, not about... Dress size or some such bullshit.

Everyone I know who enjoys exercise has these sorts of reasons - my dad's an avid climber because it lets him have fun with his friends completing physical puzzles and cheers him up when he's stressed, my mate cycles because it helps his leg injury hurt less and means he can have fun hanging out with people for longer without being in pain, when I stopped eating meat and started having half a thought about nutrition it made me genuinely enjoy cooking for the first time. You should be encouraged to walk or jog because there's something interesting over there, not out of some sense of aesthetic burden.

Capitalism has driven us to a point where the narrative is "you're ugly and morally deficient, which are of course the same thing, unless you do fitness programs you hate chasing an arbitrary standard". There's no fun in it any more.

Chimpanzee natural body odor smells like baby powder! They are potentially the best smelling primate out there.

Aka: public displays of affection vs performative displays of affection

I was talking to me mom today about PDA and, we got on the topic about how there really are two types of PDA: the first is really just displays of affection where you just happen to be in public and the second being where you are engaging in displays of affection specifically because you are in public.

I don’t know if I’m, exactly, explaining this right but like: sitting close next to a SO on a couch at a coffee shop because you enjoy sitting close to the person would be a public display of affection while, like, making a post on Facebook about how much you love your SO even though your SO doesn’t use Facebook and will never see it would be a performative display of affection.

And, I mean, there is kinda, probably, an overlap between the two but, I did decide to look it up and found this:

Although a number of people said they participated in PDA, 32% of people who identify as women and 37% of people who identify as men said that they had engaged in PDA in a strictly performative way. So it really wasn’t about being caught up in the moment with their partner — it was about grabbing other people’s attention.

(Medium text) Aka: public displays of affection vs (italics) performative displays of affection (end plain text and italics)

I was talking to me mom today about PDA and, we got on the topic about how there really are two types of PDA: the first is really just displays of affection where you just happen to be in public and the second being where you are engaging in displays of affection specifically (italics) because (end italics) you are in public. End plain text

[id: an extract from the linked article reading: Although a number of people said they participated in PDA, 32% of people who identify as women and 37% of people who identify as men said that they had engaged in PDA in a strictly performative way. So it really wasn’t about being caught up in the moment with their partner — it was about grabbing other people’s attention. end id]

So, apparently, it is actually a thing

Link to article:

So, apparently, it is actually a thing.

Zim Junior

I'm sorry... the Invader Zim comics can't just drop THIS and walk away from it

Some poplar in various goofy outfits my friend suggested :D

stretch is the sole reason candy is banned in the bone household smh

and my personal favorite: “I wish you all the best, but I do hope you one day suffer for your sins”

These are hydrocolloid bandages. They work wonders at pulling fluid through skin and absorbing all that gunk. 

You can cut them down to size, wear them on your face at night, and in the morning you’ll see a noticeable difference plus the bandage visibly absorbs the goo and it’s gross but weirdly satisfying.

In reality there are far too many skills for any one person to learn and do on their own, let alone do well, which is why the agricultural revolution came with specialisation of roles, so that a farmer can be a farmer full time and the person who makes bricks can make bricks full time. It’s just that these kinds of people (white men almost exclusively) have a blindness to all the areas in which other people do labour necessary to their safety/comfort/wellbeing.

…anyway you can read read the beginning here