Random Stuff

The fuck? You ask. Those sound like a couple of hustle culture, low level tech bros. Yes, yes they are. And they spent $80,000 on a knitting domain name thinking that they’re going to make millions.

Yes.

Really.

Do they knit? No.

Are they aware of Ravelry (the leading social media & marketplace site for knitters & crocheters)? Also, no.

Have they reached out to notable knitting pattern designers? Also, no.

Are they familiar with the culture of Local Yarn Stores? Also, no.

Does one of them at least have a 6 year old who learned to use a knitting loom? Yes!

Did they make a terrible podcast that insulted and talked down to their future clientele? You betcha.

Courtesy of the Wayback Machine

They consider their only real competition to be box stores, China, and grannies who have run a blog for 20 years. 😬

And the Chinese are apparently disadvantaged because they don't list things properly, they don't knit, and they can't do videos because no one wants to see Asians in videos. Customers only want to see "western people" in their opinion.

It's implied the old ladies are in the same category as small businesses?

So there's all this good in-between market space that they can take advantage of to do... well they're gonna sell stuff apparently using Amazon. They clearly don't know what yet, but they're gonna have innovative stuff. At least a dozen products maybe more!

Their business model:

Also they didn't want to go with fishing as their new business because it's so simple with its lures and poles. No room for innovation there. 🙃

Would you be surprised they mentioned coming up with their ideas over drinks multiple times? Also they talked about it while on a road trip? They looked up the metrics on the word knitting and thought the market was reasonably in the 41k range. You know not too saturated or something?

Basically they're setting this up as a demonstration of look how I made my money and if you follow my capitalist recipe for just fucking around and hoping other people are stupid enough to click links on google, you too can make boatloads of money! type thing. So they didn't really think the knitters would find out about it this soon and dogpile on them for their bs, because if you listen to them they don't care about knitting. Their podcast wasn't for knitters. It was for other folk interested in get rich quick stuff. I think one of them said something like website names were the first NFTs as if that was a good thing.

They basically deserve every incensed remark at their little venture.

Have him become Sisko’s best non-main cast friend, because they both love cooking, and sharing recipes. And this dude is the only other person on the station who gets it.

lil nas x, a gay black man, using satanic aesthetics is an intentional choice to create social commentary. jazz and rock n roll, styles of music invented and developed by black people, were called devil music. queer people are constantly maligned as being in legion with the devil. this is exactly the kind of trope he is invoking and subverting here.

it’s also worth considering why the blood of a gay black man may be seen as more “unclean” in comparison to that of a straight white man—like perhaps gay black men were particularly at risk during the AIDS crisis.

lil nas x understands what he’s doing and he’s right to point out the double standard.

And the skateboards themselves look like this:

lil nas x, a gay black man, using satanic aesthetics is an intentional choice to create social commentary. jazz and rock n roll, styles of music invented and developed by black people, were called devil music. queer people are constantly maligned as being in legion with the devil. this is exactly the kind of trope he is invoking and subverting here.

it’s also worth considering why the blood of a gay black man may be seen as more “unclean” in comparison to that of a straight white man—like perhaps gay black men were particularly at risk during the AIDS crisis.

lil nas x understands what he’s doing and he’s right to point out the double standard.

And the skateboards themselves look like this:

When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective. 

No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream. 

A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’ 

You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions. 

I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior. 

See, for example:

Monsanto’s business practices vs. GMO hysteria;

Epstein’s book vs. QAnon;

George W. Bush’s use of 9/11  as a pretext to invade Iraq vs. “9/11 was an inside job”

This jacket is CGd which I kind of get but also not really.

But yeah like while Evans is wearing the cap costume and most of the other sift costumes are real, the Black Panther costume is full CG, the hard suits they wore in Endgame were all CG:

Design is hard