Meow 🐱

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

I make prosthetic feet, none of the costumers know the person who made their prosthetic is schizophrenic.

I go to the grocery store, none of the fellow shoppers or cashiers know I'm schizophrenic.

I take the bus, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I go to concerts, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I sing karaoke at bars, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I pass my neighbors in the stairway, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I walk in the park, none of the owners of the dogs I pet know I'm schizophrenic.

Sure, these people may notice that I seem anxious, odd, maybe spaced out at times, but they don't know I'm schizophrenic.

So you don't know that if the strangers around you are schizophrenic either. We are ~0.3-1% of the population. We are everywhere. We are your coworkers, your classmates, your neighbors, the people at the grocery store or on the bus, the people singing at the bars and concerts, the people in your friend group or family. We are part of your community, part of society, part of your life. You wouldn't know unless we told you, and we often don't because of the unfair stigma against us.

Just please consider that we may be close by the next time you choose to make fun of us, or demonize us, or erase us.

And yes, we are also the people speaking to someone that isn't there on the side of the road, or living in a long term psychiatric facility, or locked up in prison, but we are all still part of your community, part of society and part of your life and deserve the same respect that any other human deserves.

I don't know why the authors of PoliLingua act as if Trump's verbal misogyny and racism wasn't very much part of his "original intent".

me: "whose fucking dog is this?"

dog owner: "it's mine!"

me: "are you going to put a leash on that thing?"

DO "yes, i'm working on it."

me "why would you take a dog to a park with wildlife and let it off leash?"

DO: [silence]

me: "why would you do that???"

DO: "because i'm an asshole."

me: "... uh. yeah. good job, because you're an asshole."

i then left, a little bit stunned by that response, and we very pointedly avoided each other for the rest of our respective walks at the park. it occurred to me that what brought out that answer involved not making a single accusation, only demands for an explanation-- not unlike asking someone to explain a tasteless joke, sometimes the best approach to making people realize they've done something stupid is making them explain it themselves.

I made this transparent PNG the night he died in preparation for one of the many ways I was going to memorialize him--a surface rug in his likeness that I planned on laying directly in the line of his favourite sunbeam. And I uploaded that PNG here, because this is the website where people post their cats.

I was not expecting the reception I got. Many people have pointed out that this post has more reblogs than likes, and how insane that is in 2025 when reblog culture is at an all time low. I didn't even talk about the fact that Burger passed away in the original post, it wasn't a tearjerker reblog bait or anything like that. People just loved Burger that much, in the same way I fell in love with him at first sight. He was such an ugly kitten.

Anyways, it's really special to me that so many people have reblogged my best friend. I made this PNG to memorialize him in a completely different way, and you all wound up doing just that in ways I never even imagined.

Thank you. Wherever he is, I know the sun is shining.