raspberryreverie

[raspberryreverie]

One of those insidious little things I notice sometimes is how much the window of 'appropriate for children' content has shrunk within the past 20 years. The range of things it is socially acceptable to show a 10-year-old has never been more limited, and it's happened incredibly quickly.

Take, for instance, Star Trek: TNG. I grew up watching TNG. I was a little young for it as it was airing, but it got syndicated almost immediately and they would show an episode most weekday evenings on the Space Channel, and I'd watch it with my lifelong Trekkie mom. This was a very common thing. I was by no means unusual for watching Star Trek as a child.

Star Trek: TNG has lots of sex in it! It's never explicit (unless you have a particularly niche interpretation of some of the borg stuff) but on many an occasion you'll have a few characters doing a bit of making out followed by a closing door or fade to black, and then they wake up in bed together. If you know what sex is, you know that is what is being implied here. Even my 8-year-old self, whose understanding of the subject mostly came from books of ancient mythology that used words like 'ravish' and 'the pleasures of the couch' a whole bunch, could tell that what was happening was sex.

And I am not bringing this up as a 'see, I watched all this inappropriate stuff and I turned out just fine!'. I'm bringing it up to argue that TNG's level of sexual content is not inappropriate for children (I'm not using the legalese 'minors', because I think that lumping children and teenagers together in this conversation would make it nonsense. Star Trek is obviously appropriate for teenagers. Don't use 'minors' when you mean either children or teens, it just muddies the waters).

The point is that Star Trek: TNG was very obviously designed to be watched by children and teenagers. There's a whole character in the main cast whose role in the show is to be an audience insert for children and teenagers. The moral tone of TNG, its occasional dips into 'don't do drugs, kids' type messaging, and its general avoidance of graphic violence all scream 'we are designing this with an audience of children - but not just children - in mind'. It's a family show. It's supposed to be watched by the whole family.

Which means that, until at least the end of the 90s, this amount of sexual content was generally considered appropriate for kids to see. It's not pornographic - it's not even graphic. Maybe the very most conservative parents wouldn't let their kids watch TNG, but that might have had more to do with all the socialism and atheism.

So, why did that change? Why do we now have such a strong bullwark between 'things kids are allowed to know about' and 'things for GROWN UPS ONLY 18+ Minors DNI', and why have we relegated even the most discreet references to sex to the second category only?

And the next time you find yourself experiencing that knee-jerk 'think of the children' reaction, consider: would what you're looking at have been ok on Star Trek: TNG in the 90s?

[raspberryreverie]

People know that the whole "don't portray [harmful action] because viewers might recreate it" thing is a rule for children's shows right? It's supposed to be shit like "don't show peppa pig playing with fire so we don't get sued if a kid watches it and burns their house down." Not like, fanfiction for adults.

[raspberryreverie]

Obligatory AI hate post bc I intend to be even more annoying about this

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[raspberryreverie]

My uncle just sent this to me

He understands my level of humor

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[raspberryreverie]

I think "slop" is a strong contender for world of the year 2025, as it seems to be universally recognizable as a description for the majority of output produced in the name of Return on Investment.

Sure it means algorithmically generative slop now, but look at housing construction, durable appliances, food, automobiles, you name it and tell me it's not just more slop. If enshittification is the process, slop is the result.

[raspberryreverie]

also while i’m ranting about gender i always see debate about whether girls are rewarded for being tomboys or not and it’s like. actually girls are rewarded for mirroring whatever the situation demands of them. girls can’t be too prissy and refuse to play in the creek, but girls also can’t show up to girly events covered in mud. girls can’t have makeup art as a hobby or else they’re superficial, but if they never wear makeup they’re a slob and dumpy, etc. it’s not that girls are universally rewarded or punished for being tomboys, they’re rewarded for bending over backwards to always be exactly right for any given situation and punished for breaking those boundaries. so yes a classically pretty girl who cleans up nice is rewarded when she can ALSO be a tomboy. but a girl who is a tomboy all the time is definitely punished for never being able to achieve that prerequisite feminine side. this debate is over now thanks

[raspberryreverie]

Just a couple of ads on tumblr that I screencapped for no reason. I've had text posts with the phrase "die in a car crash" in them get age restricted just btw. Unrelated.

[raspberryreverie]

insanity that they trained us to dislike body hair. body hair. that's just fuzz. that is just FUZZINESS!!! humans being fuzzy, it's one of our most adorable traits????

[raspberryreverie]

at the fishing tournament yesterday btw there were age categories bc it was all-inclusive and we didn't want like 60 year old anglers competing against 4 years olds obviously.

so anyway this 14 year old boy entered in the 11-15 age bracket and he saw a huge fish in the water he became absolutely determined to catch. i don't think he even wanted to win anymore. he just wanted that fish specifically. but his line wasn't strong enough for such a big fish and didn't have the ideal bait.

enter: two 15 year old boys who didn't know him. they saw what he was trying to do, and they were clearly experienced anglers, and they got involved in the chase. they got the right bait and the three of them spent hours with their lines in the water, until the first boy finally hooked the fish. they talked him through the slow challenge of endurance. he couldn't reel in all at once because the fish was too heavy for his line and it'd break.

he finally reeled it in, but they didn't have a net. it took all three of them, lying on their bellies, six hands on the fish, to pull it out of the water. they put it in a big bucket of water for the weigh-in (we just subtracted the bucket+water weight after), gave their new friend careful instruction on how to handle the fish so he could pose for a hasty photo without injuring its spine, and then carefully placed the fish back in the water.

in the end, he won first place in his age bracket. one of the other boys who helped him tied for second with a 12-year-old competitor, and he gave her the trophy.

then during the drawing, where participants won prizes randomly if I pulled their name from a box, I happened to pull his name and he got a great prize so it all came around.

Idk. the teamwork. the serendipity of friendship. the graciousness. the consideration for the fish. Just some things that made me happy.

[raspberryreverie]

Just saw a post that reminded me that when i was in the botanical gardens today there was a new sign with a photo of a cat and so clearly i was like oho? botanical garden mascot cat?? (mascat even) and went to see what the sign said and the sign said . See this cat? This cat is here all the time. she WILL beg you for pets. do not listen to her she is a fucking liar she will bite bite kill you. we do not own her. we do not know who owns her. if you know please fucking tell us. which is funny enough as like a sign purely because you know some botanical garden employees found this out the hard way but particularly funny because i MET THIS CAT WEEKS AGO. in the botanical gardens. she was sunning on a bench and very politely asked me for pets and was very nice for like ten minutes and then she bit me (not very hard, didn't break skin or anything) at which point i sternly told her well in that case i would not be petting her anymore and left and she followed me OUT of the gardens DOWN the street for a good bit, again shamelessly begging for pets. what an accomplished little criminal. neighborhood famous for lying and betrayal. god forbid women do anything

[raspberryreverie]

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

[raspberryreverie]

absolutely grooving to this thank you so much

made an animal crossing soundfont cover of jobim's águas de março <3

[raspberryreverie]

made an animal crossing soundfont cover of jobim's águas de março <3

[raspberryreverie]

rotting