Something with rain and bows

there’s a reason it targets young girls. there’s a reason it hinges on making grown women look tiny and helpless and weak. there’s a reason that it is normalized to the extent that what is ostensibly not a healthy act is seen as being a “good” choice and something to be proud of. 

young people are just completely submerged in it. adults forget that kids pick up on fucking everything and they hear their parents and their teachers and everyone on this planet not eating red meat this week or on juice cleanses or denying denying denying themselves (”oh good for you! i’d never be able to be so well-behaved”). they learn really, really fast that “fat” is a funny, not-good, close-to-a-swear word - to the extent that my usually well-behaved five year olds will devolve into crazy giggles because i asked “pass me one of the fat markers please”. they don’t react like that to anything else, just “fat” which they know is bad/off-limits/terrible. 

and we pretend we’re so confused by obesity and by the skyrocketing eating disorder rate - a rate of diagnosed eating disorders, mind you, since disordered eating is now essential to many american eating traditions - and we blame millenials or GMOs or whatever won’t make us look a multi-billion dollar industry in the eye and realize. they literally teach us from a young age what is essentially a restriction/denial cycle that is very close to a binge cycle. they teach us “good” and “bad” and “safe” foods but don’t supply the money for us to obtain those foods (and god forbid you live in a food desert) while also selling us Magical Cures For Magical Transformations. 

and of course it works. you teach people to crash diet and lo and behold their metabolism becomes entirely dependent on your cycle of starvation/refeeding. the statistic that most people gain back the weight they lost isn’t because people are these terrible people have no self control (but they sell that idea to you, don’t they), it’s that their metabolism was trashed and the way they look at food cannot change in the span of a crash diet - if it takes someone with an eating disorder seven years to recover, we understand that, but if someone overweight gains back their lost weight it’s “a shame”. and the diet culture wins both sides, i want you to understand that. they make money of of you either way. they know that you’re gaining the weight back but fucking scrambling - they know you’ll try to buy their product because last time it worked to buy atkins or weight watchers, and they know that when you’re losing the weight, well, goddamn, you’re going to be an advertising board for them because we teach each other that this is coffee-break material, isn’t it. 

and we sell each other on it. we say, “oh this worked for me, you’ve gotta try it.” none of the people we speak to are nutritionists, but everyone on the internet has a degree in medicine, so don’t worry, if you step outside in a bikini and are not unhealthy levels of skinny (oh but it’s healthy if it’s the right kind of skinny), you will be reminded to lose weight. we keep our women running on such low levels of carbs/calories/fats that they’re permanently exhausted, weak, emotionally drained - and then we crow women are just crazy. meanwhile men get the opposite treatment that is unhealthy in a different way – the obsession with masculinity through food, of all things, that salad is “rabbit food” and that a real “man’s meal” is red meat and beer. 

and god forbid you say, “this shit is fucking predatory, it’s evil, it’s controlling people’s bodies” because you’ll get fifty-seven “okay, fatty” comments that miss the point completely, because the companies are really, really smart and they learned: if you call someone fat, you can ignore them completely. and anyone who isn’t “into dieting” is therefore fat and incapable of healthy eating. healthy eating, is of course, defined by the company - but hey! you can help that person realize they’re just a stupid/dumb/ignorant fatty. or if they’re somehow magically not fat, you can tell them, “well, one day you will be.”

[[This is Isaiah Hine’s high school presentation on white fragility. You’re not going to get a simpler explanation, in my opinion, so if you’re white you should really read this. Below are Isaiah’s notes on each slide.]]

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What is White Fragility?

Robin DiAngelo is a professor at Westfield State University and author of What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy.

I’m sure you’ve all seen these ‘defensive moves’ in action before. “I didn’t mean anything by it” “I wasn’t trying to be offensive” “I have a black friend” “Not all white people”

People are often more worried about being called a racist than actually doing something racist. In America white people often don’t even have to consider race. They often think of themselves as “raceless” white is conditioned to be the norm and everyone else is considered “raced” or “colored”. White fragility allows white people to govern when and how race is discussed. White people expect to be educated on racism, and in a nice way.

—

Why Is It A Bad Thing?

White people never learn as a result and are allowed to continue saying and doing racist things. White people prefer to hear these things from other white people but because other white people don’t know enough about racism, they cycle continues. When people of color do things like the BLACKLIVESMATTER movement, many white peoples responses were “all lives matter” this is white fragility. Proclaiming that black lives matter does not inherently mean that other lives don’t. This statement is made because society continually shows us that black lives don’t matter in america and these are the lives that need the affirming. We already know that white lives matter, it doesn’t need to be stated. White people are very used to being the center of things and when they aren’t it makes them uncomfortable.

—

Why Does This Happen?

They couldn’t answer me.

What’s that you say? These are clearly the feet of a dinosaur, not a bird? WHY NOT BOTH?

This is Australia’s very own dinosaur, the second-largest bird in the world, the emu. Say hi!

They roam around Australia making ‘wonk-wonk’ noises under their breath and glaring at everything. And the dads take care of the babies! They sit on the eggs…

They look after the tiny stripey adorable things….

They look after the less tiny less adorable things…

And they even look after the great big menacing things that are almost as big as they are.

But here’s the catch. All emus look pretty much alike. Especially when you are a tiny stripey adorable thing. All you can see of your dad is is great big dinosaur feet (see picture #1). So there is one very unrealistic thing about all the adorable terrifying dinosaur family photos above:

I have never seen an emu family in the wild where all the babies are the same size.

Here is the reason!

Emu dad and his emu babies are roaming about wonking and glaring at everyone. Suddenly emu dad sees another emu dad! A threat!

Emu dads do some display threats with dancing and bouncing and fluffing and… look, it’s very serious business, okay?

If this does not work to see off one emu they might progress to actual fighting.

Oops, sorry, you wanted the dignified version. Here, have some ART:

MAGNIFICENT.

Either way, this encounter will end up with one or both adult emus zooming away as fast as he can run. This is very fast.

This is the other thing they do besides wonking and glaring, by the way. They run. Fear the running emu.

Anyway, this leaves all the tiny and medium-sized and semi-large stripey things milling around making confused tiny “cheep? wonk?” noises and basically just following whichever pair of large feet they can find.

HI DAD

And so mostly when you see a male emu with a gaggle of youngsters at heel, they are all different sizes. Who knows whose they are? Not him! But he’s going to look after them anyway.

but anyway, this lady came thru my line buying a book and the review on the front said: “few books are well written, fewer still are important, and this book manages to be both”

as i handed her the bag i was trying to say “thanks, youre all set” and instead my brain mashed up the review and i said “thanks, youre important”

there was this short pause in which i tried to figure out what the fuck id just said. she blinked and then said “oh thank you! youre important too!”

Which, actually, not such a bad thing; I’m a big guy and can come across as imposing pretty easily. The position calls can help defuse that, and also help avoid collisions.

because i used to think ‘oh, that’s sexy and mysterious, etc’

and now i think of this

“Is that a baby rabbit?” she asked, observing his huddled form. 

“IT’S SIX BABY RABBITS AND YOU CAN’T TOUCH THEM,” replied Ernstad, contriving to look twice his usual size and at least three times his usual fierceness. 

me: no

gamer: i must be way older than u