#but i also have creative freedom to voice my opinion and disagree with the use

[carebooks]

makes me kind of sad that no one’s made a proper multifemale edit of taylor’s who’s afraid of little old me? bc, okay look, the song is filled with so much female rage that when i see people using it for edits for male characters, and it’s male characters that i like or love don’t get me wrong, it’s like they’re not getting what the song is about. it feels weird seeing it paired to anything other than women and what we’ve struggled with.

[not-the-tie-youre-looking-for]

Something that's been bugging me for years since the Legends finale. If Zhan had been the writer for Rebels, do you think he would have had Thrawn bomb Lothal to bring Ezra out? On the one hand, from Legends Thrawn's portrayal I imagine he would without a second of hesitation. On the other, Canon Thrawn has been much more... restrained? And on a third point, there's the fact that Legends and Canon Thrawn seem like they really could be the same person just at different points of time. cnt in next

...I'm just curious if anyone else was curious if Zhan agreed with that direction taken. Which, on that note, did Zhan ever say anything about his thoughts on how Rebels handled Thrawn? Both from a writing standpoint as well as an acting and musical one (Thrawn's various leitmotifs)?

Oh man. Ohhhhhhhh maaaaan. My friend, you have asked exactly the right person this question, because not only have I wanted to talk about this multiple times before, but I also have ~receipts~. 👀

⚠️Spoiler warnings for Star Wars: Rebels, The Mandalorian, the canon Star Wars novels Thrawn, Thrawn: Alliances, Thrawn: Treason, Thrawn Ascendency: Chaos Rising, and Thrawn Ascendency: Greater Good, and the legends Star Wars novels Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, and Outbound Flight.⚠️

Oh man. Where to begin.

Lets start with who Thrawn is, because depending on who you ask, you're gonna get different answers—whether you're strictly a Legends fan, Dave Filoni, a guy who's only seen Thrawn in Star Wars: Rebels, Timothy Zahn, or just a writer/artist fan like me.

To Timothy Zahn, the man behind our favorite chiss, Thrawn is a character that is constant in both attitude and personality throughout all of his content. In multiple interviews, ranging from Thrawn's debut in Rebels to the latest about the writing of the Ascendancy Trilogy, Zahn states that Thrawn in canon and Thrawn in Legends are indistinguishable.

And so I present the receipts:

In a 2017 interview with The Verge on writing the first canon Thrawn book Thrawn, Zahn is asked the following question and responds as such:

How do you navigate bringing back a character who already has an extensive backstory and audience expectations, with telling a new story that fits in the new continuity?

Actually, I didn’t find that to be a problem. I’d never written Thrawn in this part of the Star Wars timeline, so it was simply a matter of bringing him into the Empire and chronicling his rise through the ranks. It’s still the same character as in the 1990s books, just a decade or two younger and in a very different military and political environment.

In another interview with The Verge in 2018 (a few months after the finale of Rebels aired) about writing Thrawn: Alliances, he repeats this sentiment twice:

Thrawn feels like if it had been written before the canonization purge a couple of years ago, or if you squinted a bit, it would serve as a perfect setup for Heir to the Empire.

Oh, I don’t think you need to squint at all. I wrote him in these two books to fit in with everything else I’d done. So if someone at Lucasfilm snapped their fingers, and suddenly all of my other books were canon, and there would be no real retrofitting that would have to go in. It would all fit together.

Thrawn: Alliances feels more at home in the new canon, especially because Thrawn has been fleshed out a bit more in Rebels. Was there any adjustments for that?

Not really. I’m getting to play with more canon characters like Vader and Padmé and Anakin, but the character himself, I still see him as the same person. He’s got goals, and he won’t necessarily share them with you, but he as long as you’re going the same direction, he’s happy to cooperate and assist along the way.

...and this is referenced again in a 2020 interview with Polygon about writing Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising:

Along with Thrawn’s appearance in Rebels, Zahn would pen a new novel, Thrawn, that chronicled the character’s early days as an Imperial officer. Zahn didn’t have to change anything with the character, telling me in 2017 that “he’s like an old friend who I understand completely.” While Heir to the Empire was no longer canon, a reader could easily read Thrawn as a precursor to that classic novel. Thrawn went on to become a major presence in Rebels, and Zahn continued to explore his origins in Thrawn: Alliances and Thrawn: Treason.

The next day, an interview with IGN was published on the same subject:

Thrawn is an especially unique case because Zahn has been able to effectively continue the work he started way back in 1991 with Heir to the Empire. That novel may not be a part of official Star Wars lore any longer, but as Zahn explained, Thrawn himself is basically the same character regardless of continuity.

[....] The closest comparison between Chaos Rising and Zahn's earlier EU work is probably 2006's Outbound Flight, which is set during the Clone Wars and details the first encounter between Thrawn and the Galactic Republic (while also retroactively laying the groundwork for elements of Heir to the Empire). That novel is no longer canon, but Zahn told us he prefers to operate as if it were. He's making a concerted effort not to retread the same ground as Outbound Flight and to avoid contradicting the events of that novel as much as possible.

So yeah. In Zahn's opinion, Legends Thrawn is Canon Thrawn is Book Thrawn, and there is no difference whatsoever between Thrawns in, say, Outbound Flight, Heir to The Empire, Alliances, and Chaos Rising. I wholeheartedly disagree, but lets move on.

Now that the books are out of the way, its time for Rebels.

In July of 2016, after the trailer announcing Thrawn's canon debut aired, Dave Filoni had the following to say about Thrawn's character in regards to Timothy Zahn:

“I was pretty adamant with a couple of people saying, ‘Listen, we need to have Tim sign off on this. This is kind of a waste of time [otherwise],'” says Filoni. “We, of course, can do what we want with a character that Lucasfilm owns, but without Tim’s okay, what does it mean? That’s not going to be good. Once we had some stuff, we wanted to do what we thought was right and make the character. Then we brought him in. We had the production fully prepared. I said, ‘Look, if there’s something that Tim says that I think is really valuable, even if it changes something dynamically, we need to be ready for that and see what we can do.’ I wanted to make sure we did this right by everybody. We brought him in and we didn’t really tell him why. We just flew him up to Lucasfilm and sat him down in a theater and said, ‘Hey, we’re bringing Thrawn into the show.’ He was like, ‘Wow.’ and I said, ‘Yeah, wow. And I’m going to show him to you right now and you let me know what you think.'”

(Before we continue, keep that first highlighted sentence in mind for future reference. I'm going to come back to that later.)

Fortunately, Timothy Zahn was delighted at the show’s approach to the Empire’s imposing blue-skinned Chiss.

“We showed him some of the scenes with him,” Dave Filoni recalls. “He looked like a kid in a candy store. I think it meant a lot to him not just because it was his character, but because you have to imagine what he went through when it was announced that everything is Legends now, not Expanded Universe. I get that and I’ve always appreciated the work that goes into the Expanded Universe… For Tim, I think it was us saying, ‘No, no, no. We really like your character. We want him to be part of the real thing. The canon universe.'”

So in 2016, before we even saw Thrawn in action beyond a trailer, we were told that Zahn gave the OK, and he was chill with the way Thrawn was created in the show. In 2017, he gave a little more of the background of this process in an interview with FANgirl Blog:

The events of Thrawn dovetail closely with Rebels and shed light on some of Thrawn’s more seemingly surprising actions on the show, like when he appears to lose his temper and yell at Lieutenant Lyste. What was it like to see Thrawn come alive onscreen? Is he how you’ve pictured him in your head?

I don’t see my characters in terms of voice or appearance, but rather as personality or attitude. That said, I very much enjoyed the way the Rebels team brought him to life, in his appearance, voice, and actions.

I also appreciated the freedom I had to tweak certain incidents, such as the one you mentioned, and give additional or alternate explanations for the viewers who may have thought those were somewhat out of character for him.

He doesn't really elaborate on this, but we can assume he had SOME creative input on Thrawn's character, and he was overall pretty happy with the choices made in the show.

But then, we have this from that earlier 2017 the Verge article:

When did you learn that Dave Filoni was intending to bring Thrawn to Rebels, and did you have any input into how the character would be handled?

[...] I didn’t have any real input into how Thrawn was going to be handled, mainly because the lead time of an animated series is so long that much of season 3 had already been finished. But I trusted Dave and the team to do the character right. After all, why bring him into Rebels if you were going to drastically change him? Having seen the entire season now, I think we can agree that my trust was completely justified.

So... he didn't have "any real input," but was satisfied with it in the end? I guess? I don't know. We're getting into some contradictions now.

The last thing I've got in regards to Rebels is an interview Zahn did with the YouTube channel Star Wars Explained after the finale aired, where he responds to the following:

“So, maybe let's jump over to Rebels for a little bit. Now that it has wrapped up, how do you feel Thrawn was represented in Star Wars: Rebels?”

“They did a really good job—they not only understood the character and how to write for him, but they also understood the meta around how you defeat him. The only way to defeat Thrawn is to throw something at him he can't control, or can't anticipate. Given perfect knowledge and control, Thrawn will always find a way to win. But they understood, this is how you defeat him, these are the things we can use against him... so his portrayal in general, is very good; he's smart, he's anticipating, he's a step ahead of everybody, he's looking at clues and picking up on them, so I was very pleased with how the Rebels team handled the character."

I think these quotes answer many of your questions, so to answer your initial question: If Zhan had been the writer for Rebels, do I think he would have had Thrawn bomb Lothal to bring Ezra out?

Yes—but ONLY because at that point, the only established™️ Thrawn content was found in Legends, where Thrawn was a ruthless and calculating warlord.

However!

I do believe that if given the chance to re-write the Star Wars: Rebels finale using his now-canon novels as a solid background TODAY, Zahn would choose to not let Thrawn bombard Lothal's Capital City.

I believe this because he made one single very interesting creative choice when writing Thrawn that completely overwrote Thrawn's pre-established Rebels character: Thrawn was not responsible for the civilian deaths on Batonn—Pryce was.

And that's that on that.

A few months ago I would have ended it there, but today, Thrawn's story is no longer just contained in the novels and Rebels, but also in that of The Mandalorian.

This is where I will proudly say I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Before The Jedi aired, I was 100% sure that the next time we saw Thrawn, it would be nowhere NEAR the Empire, because Zahn was pretty adamant in the novels that Thrawn was only in the Empire to help. His. People.

So now he's apparently doing fuck-knows-what in fuck-knows-where and is STILL associated with the Seventh Fleet and Imperial Warlords???

Huh??? Despite the fact that he held no true loyalty to the Empire or to the Emperor??? It's been months and I'm still confused as fuck. Add to the fact that Zahn also doesn't know what the fuck is going on to the equation and we get a big fat question mark with one pretty clear answer that Filoni said himself that we have to keep in mind:

"We, of course, can do what we want with a character that Lucasfilm owns."

So I don't think Zahn has much control over Thrawn as we would all like to think. We can hope he gives us the crazy Thrawn and Ezra Space Adventure™️ novel all we want, but ultimately, Thrawn's fate does not rest in his hands.

If you guys have more to add please let me know!!! This is, obviously, a topic I am very passionate about, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[bondsmagii]

I mean to ask this genuinely, no hostility, but can you explain how you correlate scp to being in a cult? I dont disagree, I just cant articulate the reasoning as to why I dont disagree, and would like to see where youre coming from with this. Also, could you tag it with cults or cult discussion or something similar, please? Thanks! Have a good day.

OK [cracks knuckles] I will try and keep this as short as possible, but you have to understand I’ve been observing the wiki in the wild literally since its inception, so there is a lot of stuff to consider. anyway let’s buckle up.

[EDIT: after finishing, this is obnoxiously long. sorry. I encourage people to read it though, because yikes.]

I base this theory on a set of guidelines set out for spotting if an organisation might be a cult. generally cults are religiously based; obviously this does not apply here. as far as I’m aware, nobody sees the SCP wiki as a religion (yet). because of this a couple of the points regarding spotting a cult are irrelevant (they concern things like separation from the Church which obviously doesn’t apply) but nearly all of the others (even some religious ones) can apply if we provide context. so without further ado:

Signs You’re In A Cult and How the SCP Wiki Literally Fits Into All of Them

let’s start with the most obvious:

opposing critical thinking

something that has long pissed me off about the SCP wiki has been its complete inability to think critically. staff will literally ban people for criticising them, and the parameters of “criticism” have only grown wider and wider over the years. anything that is the “party line” is sacred; nothing can be improved upon because it’s already perfect, and Staff Knows Best. any policy changes are law, and any dissenting voices are silenced – even among younger staff members (length of service wise, not age wise). I have seen staff put on probation or demoted for arguing against pointless or pedantic policy changes; I have seen people of all levels banned for arguing with staff. if this doesn’t happen right away, arguing with staff over their decisions will absolutely get a target on your back, and they will find a way to ban or demote you as soon as they can.

any criticism on the wiki is frowned upon unless it comes from the Major Staff Members – these are people at the top of the hierarchy who can do no wrong, and as you can imagine, they’ve done some shit. staff has always had a problem with elitism, bullying, and even abusive behaviour (blah blah blah #NotAllStaff, but the ratio is quite concerning) and any criticism of their behaviour or even pointing this fact out is dangerous if you want to remain on the wiki. hell, I know many people who are aware of this who don’t speak up because they’re genuinely scared of retaliation. a lot of staff are really nasty people, and because of this attitude they are beyond criticism.

isolating members and penalising them for leaving

the penalising them for leaving part isn’t strictly accurate, because as far as I know, nobody has ever been bullied or threatened into staying on the wiki. however, I do remember a while back (2011/2012-ish) when the Foundation RP community began to show up on Tumblr, and the wiki began to get a fanbase that wasn’t contained on the site itself. staff were not happy about this and to this day they still constantly try and get a monopoly on all off-site locations. they have an official Offsite Outreach Team (yes, that’s its real name) who “reach out” to communities on other platforms (YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, etc) and set up an Official Presence there, and then they encourage everyone to use the Official Presence rather than the fan-made ones (which are often more established and better/more consistently run). there have been several off-site spats between staff and the fandom, because they arrive demanding the authority and respect they have on the wiki and get Big Mad when they don’t get it. just recently one (now ex) staff member, djkaktus, went absolutely primal on Reddit and banned a whole bunch of the community for daring to say that they didn’t like the new LGBT logo for pride month (many of these people were LGBT themselves and felt as though it was pandering/putting targets on their backs); several more years ago (2014, I believe?) I myself had a run in with the Outreach Team and it was one fucking hell of a headache that ended in a malicious smear campaign against me, so like. yeah.

as for isolating members, they do this via elitism. the above is an example of it (making everyone feel a sense of obligation or loyalty to the Official Presence), but a huge part of it has always been the elitist attitude prevalent on the wiki. the SCP wiki has high standards for writing (allegedly… I’ve seen some garbage on there tbh, same as any other website) and it uses this to bully and demean its users. criticism of writing is overly harsh but highly encouraged; anyone complaining that it was too cruel (which it often is) is ridiculed for being too sensitive. (staff have been working on this for years, but really nothing has changed; people have just gotten more between-the-lines about it.) this encourages a kind of desperation among new users to “rise up the ranks” and earn respect so they can be the ones dishing out the criticism instead; they will do so and then immediately act in accordance to their status, bullying others how they were bullied and sticking to their own “rank”. brief interruption: staff and bootlickers if you’re reading this and thinking of reblogging to defend yourself, the code word is yeet. if I do not see the word yeet in your reply I will know you have not read this thoroughly and tell me why I should then bother reading anything you have to say.staff themselves is incredibly removed and closed off from the rest of the community; they have a bunch of private chat rooms they hang out in, and inter-dating is common. they don’t tend to interact much outside the flock, and are the definition of cliquey. joining this rank is supposed to be an achievement, but really it’s probably the most dangerous place to be. I have seen so many staff members have literal, clinical mental breakdowns over the strain and treatment they suffer.

(there’s nowhere to neatly slot this in, so: I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but SCP fans, when you spot them on other platforms, are snooty. not casual fans, but those involved with the wiki? I can spot them from a mile away, because whenever the Foundation is mentioned, there they are, acting like they’re part of some cool club. some of these people are innocent (they’re just mimicking the behaviour of other members) but some of them really do seem to think that their site is somehow better than whatever site they’re on, and it’s really creepy to see.)

emphasising special doctrines outside of scripture

obviously this is religion-specific, but with context it can fit. if we take scripture to mean SCP lore, and special doctrines to mean differing headcanons, ideas, writing styles, etc… oh boy.

there’s something that’s often said on the wiki: there is no canon. buddy, there is. yes, you can write whatever you want technically, and you can disregard headcanons you don’t like and you can build on different things and theoretically people can just ignore your shit if they don’t like it, but that is not what happens. there is absolutely a canon, and deviating from it will get you downvoted into oblivion and even personally attacked. people will accuse you of the most ridiculous shit, like desecrating the wiki or betraying the universe or whatever. so where does the emphasising part of this come in?

why, it’s simple! if one of these special doctrines (headcanons or whatever) comes from staff or an Approved Member, it’s fine. go nuts. even if it’s something that anybody else would be absolutely slaughtered for, it’s fine if staff approves. there is no creative freedom on that wiki, and anyone attempting to carve a piece out for themselves will suffer for it. one of my close friends still gets hate for an SCP he wrote featuring heavy headcanons and building on existing lore about a well-known character, and some of this hate is because he didn’t set the fucking article out “how it should be”. 

seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders

oh boy. staff are god on that website. they’ll deny it, but they know it’s true. many of them are arrogant and, in my opinion, some of them are pathologically narcissistic. they think they are hot shit, and they encourage people on the site to believe the same. a huge majority of users on the wiki are high school students, so 15-18 years old. the next huge group are college-aged, so 19-22 or so. several staff members are in their mid-20s up to 30s, maybe even coming 40s or early 40s now. when you’re in your mid-20s, it’s very easy to look cool to a 15-year-old. it’s very easy to look at a young userbase and convince them that you’re hot shit, and that’s what staff do. they act like it; most users respond to it, and if anyone dissents? see point one.

staff have always had double standards. from the very beginning of staff, they have gotten away with a lot more than the average user. staff have been allowed to bully, ridicule, harass, dismiss, shit upon, and target people with reckless abandon, usually only meeting punishment when other staff members feel too inconvenienced by them. a lot of the time when they’re punished, it’s a lot lighter than it would have been for an average user (a month ban rather than a permaban, for example). this is seen as almost a point of hilarity for a lot of people, who think it’s cool and just a right you get when you’re staff. you know best, you’ve seen some shit – who can blame you for slamdunking a 15-year-old’s first SCP?

the amount of respect and adoration these people demand is ridiculous, and anybody daring to criticise them ends up on a shitlist. staff show up in other areas (Tumblr or Reddit) and expect that same amount of respect, even among people outside of the wiki who might just be casual fans. they act a lot more important than they are, and demand that everyone treats them appropriately. I’ve seen staff members throw shitfits because they didn’t get enough upvotes for their articles, and many staff members’ quality of work declines when they make staff, simply because they know that they’ll get easy upvotes as soon as people realise it’s a staff member who wrote it. downvotes are enough to get you put on a shitlist. 

publicly, their word is law. you are not allowed to debate with them in the forums if they put a “stop” on the topic; the same applies in the IRC chat. if staff says “stop”, you will be punished if you mention it again. you are allowed to discuss it with them privately, but I think that’s rather insidious, as staff have been known to twist facts and withhold information before. this gives them a public persona of always being right – and something else that cults do is silence dissenting voices so nobody who might agree can see other people saying the same things and feel encouraged/emboldened. 

crossing Biblical boundaries of behaviour

again, we’ll need to contextualise this. if Biblical boundaries are things like sins and all the stuff the Bible says Do Not Do, then in this context these are the wiki rules. staff (and their friends) will constantly cross the rules, as previously mentioned, and they will get away with it.

the wiki rules say “don’t be a dick”. I have caught staff bullying people countless times, and no doubt there’s more I haven’t caught. even out in the open, staff are argumentative, dismissive, rude, intimidating, and oftentimes plain nasty. the wiki rules say “don’t coldpost articles; get feedback”. staff is just out there throwing their shit onto the wiki and expecting an avalanche of upvotes in five minutes Or Else. policies are made that set parameters and staff changes them whenever convenient – for example, the long-standing rule that things that occur off-site are not the responsibility of the Disciplinary Committee (yes, its name.). unless, of course, it’s someone they don’t like. a major staff member bullies somebody on Tumblr? “sorry, it was offsite, not our problem”. someone staff doesn’t like gets into a brief spat on Reddit? banned for harassment. 

there are countless examples of this, from small things to major things like bullying, harassment, and even abuse (or enabling of abuse). staff will punish people for transgressions and then turn a blind eye to a fellow staff member committing a transgression that was ten times worse. they have even protected rapists and sexual predators in the past – another kind of behaviour common in cults, because that’s what happens when you combine narcissism and entitlement with total authority.

that’s the main bulk of it

but now the context has been established, here are a few more concerning things I’ve noticed (quickfire now):

cults shit on former members

and the wiki does the same. any staff member that’s grown fed up of the groupthink and the cliquey attitude and how nasty people are or who has been mistreated by staff themselves; any regular user who feels the same and vocally quits? shat upon. lauded as a bastion of whatever is wrong with the wiki. declared an Enemy and rallied against. it is so creepy.

cults use Us vs Them mentality, especially in language

broad declarations establishing a community and a community spirit in the face of adversity are common in cults. appeals to emotion and loyalty are used in a very manipulative way. catastrophising and fearmongering is common, too. I’m seeing this in how the recent drama with the legal issues is being handled. broad appeals to “defend the wiki”, hashtags being encouraged, emotional speeches from staff about how it’s a make or break situation… 

…and this is being reflected in the absolutely insane comments people are responding with.

this is a fucking writing website. the above is not a normal reaction at all.

the attitudes of regular users quickly grow concerning

people very quickly get obsessed with the wiki and it defines their lives. they seem to feel as though they owe something to it or they need to serve some kind of a purpose; many people try and “get the word out” and become voluntary spokespeople. they go around practically preaching, and I do not see the users of any other website doing this.

cults want full control over how they’re seen by outsiders

and the scp wiki does the same. as mentioned previously, when the fandom grew and spiralled off the wiki to other sites, staff debated for weeks over what to do. brief interruption the second code is shrek is life.they were not comfortable with the idea of the wiki having an independent fandom, and for years now they have been in constant struggle with offsite communities, trying to gain the same amount of control they have over the wiki. it’s impossible to do so thoroughly, and it’s clearly an annoyance for them.

cult leaders will let “lesser” members do their dirty work for them

and guess what staff does? rather than wade in there and get their hands dirty with internet arguments, they’ll sit back and let regular users dogpile on dissenters and say all the things staff shouldn’t be seen to say in public. note how even if this would violate the bullying policies, they’ll just get a warning so long as staff agrees. 

in conclusion

@ everyone on the scp wiki: yall know you’re in a cult, right?

[matildainmotion]

Making Waves by Sophie Lovett

Mothers Who Make’s is hosting a series of guest bloggers, to celebrate and give space for the diverse views and voices within our movement. I am delighted to introduce our first of these: please read on for the Question of the Month, as posed by home-educating mother of two, writer and activist, and MWM Hub co-ordinator for Exeter, Sophie Lovett.

Before you read this post I feel that I should apologise: in case you disagree with me, in case what I’ve written is too much, in case it offends you. But this is Mothers Who Make, and we don’t apologise here for showing up as our whole selves, so instead I will take a deep breath and begin.

This has been a tough year. A tough year after a tough decade. One which, on a personal level, has been filled with many moments of joy – but where the weight of the world has pressed ever harder on my shoulders.

We’ve never lived through a pandemic before.

It’s brought out the best in us, and the worst. It’s brought us closer together, and deepened the divisions in values and circumstance that are tearing our society apart. And it has made the priorities of our government - to put profits above people – very, very clear.

This neoliberal agenda has its roots way back in the 20th century, and over the years we have pretty much come to take it for granted. Notions of unrestrained economic growth, wealth which is available to everyone if they just work hard enough, and the promise of freedom which is earnt by playing by the rules of society - alongside a reality of gaping gaps between rich and poor both on a domestic and international level. In many ways the Coronavirus pandemic has provided precisely the kind of crisis that the neoliberal elite love: an overwhelming distraction that they can use to impose more unpopular policies, accusing people of being unpatriotic or even undemocratic if they oppose them.

Yet it has also sowed the seeds of something new. Off the back of years of campaigning from environmental and social justice organisations, many more people are beginning to realise that the future could perhaps look very different. That the planet cannot handle this unfettered capitalism for much longer – and neither, given the explosion in mental health issues even before the challenges inflicted by 2020, can we. That there might be different ways of living that could be more fulfilling for us and our children, whilst at the same time starting to reverse the destruction we have wreaked on the global ecosystem.

And this – this imagining of a different world – is making some people very uncomfortable.

In England, the government released guidance last week which told teachers not to use resources from any organisation which has advocated abolishing capitalism – even if the materials themselves did not express such a view – as it would imply support for an “extreme political stance” on a par with racism and opposition to freedom of speech. Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of a statement which alienates many anti-racism campaigners and seeks to silence the voices of those who might want to legitimately challenge the status quo, this is a sign to me that they know their power is waning. The neoliberal story is coming apart at the seams, and a new narrative is taking shape which could take things in a very different direction.

As actors in that narrative we have a choice to make about the future that we want to see. And as mothers – and especially as mother makers – we hold in our hands a huge amount of power to shape the world our children will grow up into.

It might not always feel that way.

One of the most effective strategies of neoliberal capitalism is to convince us that we are not enough. That we are deficient in a myriad of different ways, and powerless to take control. It makes us the perfect consumers – hungry for the things we can buy to improve ourselves and make life better for us and our families. And if we can’t buy them – if we are part of the huge swathe of the population struggling to even afford the basics we need to live – we are taught that it is our fault, that we’re just not trying hard enough.

In motherhood especially this can lead to a real sense of disempowerment – a lack of trust in ourselves and our ability to provide for our children. There is so much that is marketed to that desire to give our children the very best start in life: elaborate toys, sleep training programmes, gorgeous clothes, endless baby classes. It plays into the competitiveness which fuels the capitalist fire, the fear of being left behind. It sells us baby walkers (and mini trainers) to get those little people up on their feet as soon as we can, electronic learning games for toddlers in the hope that they’ll know their ABCs before they start preschool, tutors to help seven year olds pass their SATs with flying colours. It rushes us back into the workplace before we’re really ready, no matter that our salary barely pays the childcare fees. It tells us that teachers know our children better than we do, that school is the only place they can get an education, and that compliance with authority is the most important lesson they can learn.

None of this is bad in and of itself – if it works for you then that’s awesome. But if it doesn’t, if the treadmill is making you tired and you’re fed up of searching for the next best thing then stop. Breathe. And work out what it is you truly need.

Our role as mothers may be woefully undervalued by the capitalist system, but we do have the power to choose where we focus our energies, to withdraw our consent from expectations that we disagree with, to challenge the assumptions around the status of mothers (and children) in wider society.

We can choose to raise our children with principles we believe in, to communicate messages to them that deviate from those which dominate the mainstream, to be their allies and their advocates instead of colluding in their oppression.  

And, little by little, we can build a kinder, more inclusive world – one where everyone has value.

If as mothers we hold the future of the planet in each act of care we carry out for our children, as mother makers we are doubly powerful in our ability to reach beyond our inner circle and inspire through the particular capacity of art of all kinds to reshape the narrative and reimagine what is possible.

Creatives are uniquely placed to lead the revolution – and this is I believe a significant reason why the UK government shows such disdain and disregard for the arts and creative industries.  

Just as Media Studies is decried as a ‘mickey mouse’ subject because it directly exposes the techniques the government and their allies use to manipulate the opinions of the population, the Arts in schools are sidelined because they nurture exactly the kind of creativity and independent thought that can be used to challenge the status quo.

It starts in the Early Years, when days that should be dedicated to open ended play are instead filled up with increasingly formal literacy and numeracy, and can be seen right through the education system: ten year olds spending whole terms doing nothing but exam preparation, teenagers being told they can’t study the creative subjects they’d prefer because they don’t fill the right assessment bucket. And it continues in the world outside, as the government response to the impact of Covid has shown so starkly.

Our art is important. Our making is important. It holds a mirror up to the present and shows how life could be, it inspires, it sustains – and it can be an escape route from the treadmill our leaders would rather keep us tethered to.

From the stories we tell to the songs we sing to the materials we choose to the business models we adopt to share our work: we are creating the fabric of the future.

And so this month, wherever you are in your mothering and your making, I would invite you to consider these questions: What are the changes you would like to see in the world? How are you making waves in your mothering? And in your making? What changes (small or large) could you make in either to help create the future you dream of for yourself and for your children?

To read more from Sophie go to: www.raisingrevolutionaries.co.uk and https://www.instagram.com/raising_revolutionaries/

[battleshell]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. tagged by: @dansiere whom im care tagging: extremely informative meme for ppl who have lots of cross-over interactions, i encourage u to steal it from me anyway BUT @sternenteile​ @twelvians​ @stellamris​ @grandtales​

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [ he is a very, very minor NPC that i’ve essentially wrested from the game with my grubby hands; Gerson is a merchant NPC found in Waterfall, the third area of the game focused with water themes. he has less than 100 lines of dialogue (but jam-packed full of info) and doesn’t even have an overworld sprite. although noted to have a history with multiple major characters, it’s not often i’ve seen him be the main focus of any fanfics or art pieces. ]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ put that faaaaaaaar away from me please tyty ]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ i personally believe that Gerson is a strong and potentially powerful monster with fighting capability that could rival some of the stronger Monsters in the Underground due to his background as a fighter during the Human-Monster War, but since has waned in both reputation and fighting skill. we never fight him in game and as such, will never see how he compares numerically, but it’s clear from his dialogue that he knows how to fight professionally/cleverly and would have given a hard challenge. ]

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. [ i mentioned before that Gerson has ties with lots of major characters - I hardly see it being put into action or talked about! i also have a soft spot for elder/older characters in general since they seem to be overlooked in favor for younger characters that carry the action of plots - which I understand and totally get, but I still like to put these characters out there for the sake of it ]

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ he was a funny merchant dude that said “wahaha” a whole bunch of times and carried a magnifying glass; sure he and Frisk would have been good friends after the golden ending but most people have forgotten about their interaction with Gerson once out of Waterfall ]

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ as one of the older if not oldest Monsters in the Underground, or from his reputation as the “Hammer of Justice” from wartime. he is also a historian and is noted to have written a few of the books in the Librarby. definitely known in the Underground, but probably only in that community ]

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. [ as mentioned before, a benefactor to the community and maybe even a sagely figure. a source of wisdom (even if cheeky) and a person of stability ]

How strictly do you follow canon?  — ehhhhhhhhhh both extremely canon compliant and then hands off the wheel, let jesus drive me away~ i only have so much canon material to work with so i have milked as much as offered to me, then went off to forge my own path in order to patch up the missing holes then add a few sprinkles. the base of the character is all there, but if you really want to get invested with him (or me) then we have a lot to walk through.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  old tortoise (NOT TURTLE) guy sells knick-knacks and cracks jokes, knows everyone’s dirty secrets but thinks they’re just funny to think about them than use them. an elder in the community who has stories to tell and lessons to teach, who has lived through half of recorded history and now spends his time just trying to make things around him interesting. a war veteran who protects his community and understands the horror of the world, but keeps eyes looking into the future even in the face of grimness itself. plays the accordion and harmonica, could probably square dance if he knew what that was. will call you kiddo.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  little to no motivation to find a passion for himself that would benefit or service just himself; his entire sense of worth comes from servicing others in some way (being a soldier and protecting people; recording history in order to teach future generations; maintaining a shop in order to literally service others) and lack of action due to decrepitude in old age. close-minded compared to other Monsters, as he doesn’t actually take to think of humans or outsiders kindly; judgmental to the point of being racist. proud and dislikes being one-upped that it could lead to pettiness, and despite his positive outlooks, very pessimistic worldview.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  funfact: Gerson is my first tumblr RP muse ever, and since i was worried about duplicate anxiety when i first started i specifically wrote him since he was a smaller character with less attention - i’ve since learned i have no anxiety about it so it’s no longer a problem, but what keeps me going today is the challenge of writing someone so different from me. the elder aesthetic along with homely, almost cottagecore kind of vibe is also appealing, and the humor that comes with gerson is a joy to write out.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  reading literature, music, artwork, pinterest, replaying the game, and doing little hobbies that would embody the character (collecting or sewing, for example) are things i can do by myself, but with other people i have the most drive when i can have friendly and nonpersonal arguments/debates about character motives or about source material like what made a character act like this or that, or about really anything as long as it makes me seriously think about characters critically and force me to recognize flaws.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? [ unfortunately i’m not a tortoise monster who lived for probably centuries if not decades older than myself, but i enjoy writing older characters and hope that other ppl see the potential gerson has like i do ]

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? [ you know when you have a concept and in your own mind you can see it clearly, without fuzziness or confusion, but you can’t seem to put it clearly into words without it turning into an essay because you need to connect all the other points that’s in the single concept you envisioned? yea. ]

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO [ bro i should.. ]

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ hmu if you got pinterest and i’ll give u tons and tons of boards ]

Are you confident in your portrayal?  YES / NO / SORT OF? [ this is unfair to answer as (AFAIK) i am the only person writing Gerson in... any capacity. despite that i like to think i bring out the humorous side of him, and show ppl that he and other NPCs are tons of potentials and shouldn’t be overlooked because they aren’t popular ]

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO. [ i always believed my style and my skill in not only PSDs or aesthetics, but analysis or understanding was always a bit plain, without much flourish or complexity. while that is appealing on its own and has its own merits, i can’t help but feel i can always push myself to do a little more, add a little flavor, or paint an image that could only be done in writing. although i am doing enough to get the job done, i’m searching for a certain voice of writing that i like and want to integrate into creative writing in order to make it more personalized and more engaging. ]

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. / SORTA. [ i despise pussyfooting and will often tell ppl straight up if i have a problem with them or something about them; straightforwardness, honesty, and integrity are some of my core values and that includes being harsh if it comes to it in order to keep order ]

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  assuming it’s rooted in goodwill or from a point of analysis, absolutely! it’s one of the direct sources for growth and getting better at any craft, but as Tumblr loves to be.... jumpy, i’m always cautious when its not from someone i know.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  YEA BUDDYYYYY

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  absolutely, i thrive off friendly discourse as i mentioned.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  if we don’t discuss it as above, in lit any other case i’d say “well there are other blogs to follow” but since i’m like 99% sure i’m the only gerson blog that isn’t applicable lmao; the point still stands that everyone has the freedom to write a character as they wish. there are valid reasons to dislike a portayal but not a lot of valid reasons to attack someone for it - with the exception of ppl being gross. stop that, nasty.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  strangely. it’s not my job to make people like a character, you either like them or not. if you dislike them for unreasonable points then, to leave in the previous response, “clowns will be clowns, no matter what you do. I just don’t get why you would follow someone if you hate their character to begin with.”

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  of course, as long as it’s polite and all that jazz!

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  depends on the meaning - i like making new friends and i find it easy to talk to new people, be it about roleplay or other things like organizing video game play sessions. however, i also have on multiple occasions have approached ppl privately saying “this is annoying/this is problematic/this is inappropriate, stop” and been met with general disdain for voicing such so Who Knows..... (tm). at least on a private level. here, publicly, i’m pretty relaxed! memes and jokes are abound. as long as a person can be mature and responsible for their actions we can vibe, yo.

[finalmajorrproject]

Chance in Art

Kristin Brenneman

https://chance.dartmouth.edu/course/student_projects/Kristin/Kristin.html

The Necessity, or Not, of a Definitionchance chan(t)s  

1a: something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause.

art ärt  4a: the conscious use of skill, taste, and creative imagination in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced.

Regardless of any opinions to the contrary, Pollock never intended ``mess." Of course, all is virtually subjective in art, abstract or not. He said, ``The source of my painting is the unconscious" (Lachman 509). But make no mistake, for ``I can control the flow of paint; there is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end" (Rohn 114). So, Pollock achieved a state of ``letting go," enough to allow a painting to ``live for itself," not enough to let it control him. As Matthew Rohn states in Visual Dynamics in Jackson Pollock's Abstractions, ``Genuinely random, freely generated strokes of paint would have produced uninteresting, static imagery rather than anything resembling the verve and life of a Pollock" (40). He presents the idea that an abstract artist cannot be compared to a monkey and his random designs because the animal performs with ``no clear visual intent." Though some critics may disagree, he argues that even the human artist's least work will show much more profound imagination than that of a monkey.

Though Pollock remained master of his canvas, certain elements of his drip-methods confounded his complete control, no matter how he believed that there was ``no accident." He couldn't always know how the paint would puddle or how viscous it would be, yet in no way could this in itself set Pollock apart from any artist (Rohn 118). (Even the most realistic painter could encounter a freak in the nature of his medium; this might add a beautiful quality to his artwork and teach him something good, while it might go unnoticed by the observer.) But these factors don't constitute the random quality of Jackson Pollock. Rather, he did vary his method from thoughtful to thoughtless, achieving improvisation in his work. Sometimes he chose where to pour his paint and in what type of stroke; others he relinquished his paint can to the wiles of the irrational, allowing his body to become automated (Rohn 118-20). He interplayed the two dialectical approaches and thus arrived at an expressive ``tension." In essence, Pollock controlled his parameters while welcoming ``the dynamics of spontaneity and flow" (Rohn 42)

Dada: ``the total repudiation of art; the absence of any ulterior motive;" ultimate freedom; the avenue to ``the voice of the 'Unknown'" (Richter 50). Hans Richter, Dadaist and author of Dada: Art and Anti-Art, said this: ``Chance became our trademark. We followed it like a compass." André Masson trickled sand through his fingers onto a canvas as he moved over it in dance-like motions, after first concentrating very hard. ``It is when I have completely switched off my will that my body and my nerves, my subconscious self, know best when and where to let the sand fall" (Richter 55). Marcel Duchamp, inventor of Dadaism in America (while French), experimented with chance especially in his work, 3 stoppages étalon, 1913-14. ``Wind, gravity, and aim" participated as he dropped three threads onto a flat surface and fixed them as random lines (Masheck 39). Thus merged ``precision and unlimited freedom, the actual and the potential" of art, of Duchamp, the forces of thought and of chance. He planned out the problem and invited chance in to work for his end (Masheck 58). 

Hans Arp, premier Dadaist, tore up paper, let it fall from his hands to scatter upon a surface, then he glued down the design, having found what he had vainly been striving for in his art of consciousness. He considered such chance patterns to be fate's work, correlating to Dada's premise of the artist trusting in an outside, ``mysterious collaborator" (Richter 51). Arp said this:

The law of chance, which embraces all other laws and is as unfathomable to us as the depths from which all life arises, can only be comprehended by complete surrender to the Unconscious. maintain that whoever submits to the law attains perfect life." (Richter55)

Though more of an abstractionist than a Dadaist, Paul Klee dealt with chance as well, but in more ``abstract" terms:

an active line on a walk, moving freely, without a goal. A walk for a walk's sake. The mobility agent is a point, shifting its position forward. (Brooks 99)

The line has no goal according to Klee, yet as the father of the line he must have had to relinquish its purpose, simply because as a human being he couldn't avoid thinking about the role of the line. It may not have thought, but he thought enough to establish this formula of its unconsciousness. Hence Klee's correlation to the Dadaists-his value of chance in his artwork, yet his status of control over each piece.

Observing the work and listening to the ideas of these artists, we can see how randomness emerged for them as a creative ideal. Perhaps chance itself, in a general sense, cannot constitute art, but these abstractionists' prominent names attest to the fact that they used it to benefit their individual art. They allowed fate or nature to take its course, often instead of using their minds to plan out a pattern. They formulated no rules, because that would defy chance itself, wouldn't it?

[kayluh1915]

The POSSIBLE Real Reason why Anthony Left S*osh + Why Ian is Seemingly Out of Anthony’s New Picture.

You guys have been waiting for this for a LONG time, so I’m not going to waste another second getting into it! Get ready, y’all! It’s theory time!

DISCLAIMER: 

THIS IS NOT MEANT TO PROVE ANYTHING! This is just a series of speculations and theories that is not intended to be taken as a fact. Everything in this could be 100% wrong for all I know, so please take this info with a grain of salt and DO NOT spread it around as a fact. As always, you’re free to disagree and have conflicting opinions, but don’t be a dick! Please and thank you!

Also, this is very long. I would apologise, but I’m WEEYYY too proud of this to apologise. xD Enjoy!

So, before we get started, I’m going to mention what Anthony stated in his livestream Friday night. Someone asked a question about S*osh and Anthony didn’t really say much, but what he did say was very interesting nonetheless.

“Later on, I may talk about other reasons why I left that I didn’t mention in my video, but that’s all I’m going to say about that now.”

Which is cold cut proof that he didn’t tell the full story in his DEPARTURE VIDEO. Even before that, however, we was able to see evidence that this was so. How? Well one example is at 2:35 of his video, Anthony says:

“I need to do be doing what makes me happiest to wake up each morning. Right now that’s for me to do things on my own again with complete creative freedom.”

Which is fine. When he posted this, it made complete sense... but then only FOUR days later, he was in a INTERVIEW with the Instant podcast called “Hey Guys” and was asked at 29:47 what else he would like to do with all the new freedom he had. His response was:

“It’s overwhelming in the best way ever. Of course I’ll be doing my channel, two videos a week, then I fell in love with voice acting when I voiced a character in the Angry Birds movie so I’d like to do more of that if I can. I also wanna try some traditional acting. I’m writing a TV show pilot that I’ve kind of put on the back burner for now while launching my new channel, but I’m really excited about that.

I’m paraphrasing him a little bit, but you can watch the video for the full quote.

Ummm... Didn’t he just say that he left so he could do things on his own with creative freedom not even five days ago? I mean, it was nothing major but it definitely raised a flag for me. If all he wanted was creative freedom and to do things on his own, then why was he willing to work for OTHER companies to voice act or produce his own TV show that I am MORE than sure are more creatively strangling than Smosh ever was. To me, it just didn’t add up. Not to mention that he would be working with a LARGE group of artists, writers, directors, set designers, etc. So that was the first thing that made me suspicious about what he was telling us. There are other reasons as well like him getting a cameraman and trying to establish a cast not even after a year he said he wanted to work alone, but I’m not going to spend anymore time on this because I have a lot more to cover.

So, if creative freedom isn’t the whole story... then what’s the rest of it? While there are no clear cut answers at this time, I do think I have a reason.

I don’t think that Anthony lied. I definitely believe that creative freedom was part of the reason, but it’s not the main reason. The main reason for Anthony leaving is because of the company and the higher ups.

Think about this for a moment. Anthony said that he kept staying with S*osh because he was hoping that eventually it would feel like the good old days with just him, Ian, and a camrea. Once he realised that it would never be that way again, I think he may have tried to change it back to that. Not exactly like how it used to be, but just a little bit of a change. It is also worth mentioning that according to THIS ARTICLE, Barry Blumberg who made Ian and Anthony into the icons they are today, left Defy only three months before Anthony announced his own departure. They company says that the two moves are unrelated, but are they really? Is it possible that Barry was willing to work with Anthony’s desires but were all of a sudden pushed aside by the new Chief Content Officer? What if the new chief told Anthony that what he wanted was not best for the brand. It wasn’t in the best interest for S*osh, so his desires to get back to how things were was just pushed aside and muted with more cast members. This, my peeps, is what I believe pushed Anthony out of the company.

Need more proof? Look at Anthony’s content. Most of his stuff could have been done with the S*osh brand and even I argue that some of the plot in his videos are straight from former S*osh plots. He could have easily done what he’s doing- and even the things that he wants to do like voice acting- could’ve been done from within the company, but why didn’t he? Because the new chair didn’t approve of Anthony’s ideas. If it wasn’t the new chair, then you can also argue that maybe the CEO didn’t want it to happen. According to THIS ARTICLE, Matt Diamond seems to be more concerned about the monetization of the content than the actual content itself. If the CEO saw Anthony’s move towards the older days as a threat to the money his and Ian’s brand would bring him, then I believe he would have no problems with shutting down his ideas with more cast members or cheesy shows that doesn’t even belong on a sketch comedy channel. Also, in THIS VIDEO, Ian mentioned that he felt like Anthony’s departure was coming and that it wasn’t that shocking when he told him which means that Ian knew that something was going on.

The other reason why I feel like it’s a higher up issue is because a month or so later, Lasercorn and Sohinki left S*osh Games. The company suddenly began losing members. Why? Because the company isn’t focused on the content, but on the money the content is making. I could be completely wrong about all of this and the real reason could be something totally different, but at the moment this is what I think really pushed Anthony away. I do believe that there were also a lot of other things that happened, but I believe that it is the higher ups that put the cherry on top.

Okay, so what about Ian and Anthony? Are they still friends and if so, why don’t Ian collab with Anthony or vice versa? Well, I believe I may have an answer for the worst Ianthony drought in history.

YES Ian and Anthony are still friends as I’ve already mentioned HERE. So if they are, where’s Ian in Anthony’s content. Well, what if Anthony couldn’t leave unless he agreed to a couple of obligations? What if Defy made him sign a contract? It would allow him to mention the brand name, but he would not be allowed to promote it, use the brand in his own content, or have any creative say so... what if that includes Ian? Like obviously he would be able to mention Ian, but what if Ian CAN’T be in his videos because it is part of the contract he signed when he left? If it is true that Ian is included with the brand contract, then that would explain why Ian isn’t in any of Anthony’s videos and it would also explain that seemingly harsh and out of the blue TWEET he made four days after leaving.

He was legally forced to disconnect himself from the company and the brand completely which could also prevent Ian showing up in his videos. Ian is technically a part of the Smosh brand, after all. We know it isn’t Ian’s side of the contract either. We know this because while Anthony was signed on with S*osh, they collabed with MANY other YouTubers who mentioned the brand with no problems. So, why wouldn’t Ian be able to collab with Anthony? Because he signed a departure contract that forbids him from doing so. For how long? No one knows, but I have a feeling that it will expire eventually. The quote from his livestream I mentioned at the start of this theory stated that he may talk about what really happened later. Why not now? Because the contract he signed is forbiddening him from doing so until the legal binding is lifted. 

Again, I could be 100% wrong! This could all just be crazy talk for all i know! I mean, what kind of company would place legal obligations on an employee just because they want to le-

TWEET HERE

Oh...............................

But hey. That’s just a theory...

AN ANTHONY THEORY!

Thanks for reading (pls don’t sue me MatPat)!

[asfeedin]

5 Noteworthy Examples of Corporate Social Media Policies

As a marketer, social media is undeniably important – in fact, in 2020, three-quarters (74%) of all global marketers now invest in social media marketing.

Social media can help you engage with new audiences, increase brand awareness, handle customer service inquiries, and even increase sales. (As an avid Instagram user, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve “Swiped Up to Purchase” on a link from a popular influencer.)

But there’s plenty of risk involved with social media, as well. Among other things, a bad social media post could spiral into a full-blown PR crisis or get your business into legal trouble.

Fortunately, there is a tactic you can use to ensure your social media strategy is safe, consistent, and scalable as your company grows and different employees get access to your social media accounts: a social media policy.

Let’s explore how these five companies created effective social media policies to inspire your own, today. Just remember, there isn’t just one ‘right’ policy for every company. Pick and choose what you like from these five companies to help get you started, and tailor it to fit your culture and business objectives.

But first, let’s dive into a few benefits of a social media policy.

Benefits to a Corporate Social Media Policy

You might be worried about providing too many strict rules on your social media strategy. Will it diminish the authenticity you’re hoping to evoke in your posts, or take too much creative freedom away from your employees?

Fortunately, if done correctly, a social media policy won’t ruin the creative freedom you’re hoping to protect. If anything, it will enable your employees to feel more comfortable amplifying your social media messages on their own channels, knowing each post is fully aligned with your business’s values and tone.

Here are a few major benefits to creating a corporate social media policy:

Maintain consistency of brand voice, tone, and messaging across social channels

Prevent a PR crisis as a result of a potentially offensive post

Enable employees to handle legal and regulatory issues with sensitivity

Protect data privacy of customers and stakeholders

Have effective responses at-the-ready for crises or data breaches, if they do occur

Instill confidence in your employees’ to use their own creativity when creating and posting branded content, as long as they align with the corporate policies

Ensure each new employee will have the tools to create a positive, consistent, and valuable brand message across social channels

Now that we’ve covered that, let’s dive into five businesses that got social media policy right.

1. Best Buy

Image Source

Best Buy has a social media policy in place that preemptively addresses privacy concerns that could arise using social media.

Here are some highlights of Best Buy’s social media policy:

The company does not want information shared that isn’t meant to be public. Common sense? I’d think so, but it can’t hurt to formally reiterate.

Tweeters cannot share Best Buy logos and other items related to the company. Does this seem overly cautious? I guess that depends on the industry you are in. For a big brand like Best Buy, it’s understandable.

Best Buy wants each employee to differentiate themselves and state their tweets and posts are theirs — and theirs alone — and not associated with Best Buy. This ensures, if an unscrupulous employee crosses a line, Best Buy won’t experience such harsh brand backlash.

Best Buy urges each employee (whether posting on Best Buy’s social channels or on their own channels if it relates to Best Buy) to “Honor Our Differences” and never post content that could be seen as discriminatory against any group, for any reason.

2. Walmart

Image Source

Walmart is dedicated to their social media accounts, and believe in social media as an avenue for customer service — because of this dedication, their policy regarding Twitter is reasonable and something I wish more Twitter users would follow in their daily tweeting.

Here are some of my favorite aspects of their policy:

Walmart doesn’t discourage its employees from sharing their own opinions — however, they ask each employee to support their claims with informational sources or links, stating, “We love opinions; we love them even more when you back them up with facts.”

They ask employees to be “polite and courteous, even if you disagree.” They’re strongly against employees using social media to discriminate, bully, or harass.

Walmart advises its employees to “stay on topic”, and only create content that is relevant to Walmart’s community.

Walmart asks all employees to avoid responding to customer inquiries or comments directly unless they’re part of the official Walmart social team. This is a smart move, as it ensures less confusion or ambiguity for customers who are aiming to receive customer service from a trusted official.

3. Ford Motors

Image Source

One of the oldest and most popular automotive makers, you’d expect Ford to be relatively old-fashioned when it comes to social media, but Ford’s rules are both refreshing and straightforward.

One of my personal favorites? “Awareness that what you say is permanent”. In a world largely interested in quick-likes and controversial opinions for the sake of retweets, Ford’s approach is a good reminder that what you say today matters for the future of your company’s reputation.

A couple call-outs:

Ford tells its employees to “Mind your manners”, and treat everyone — from co-workers to suppliers to competitors — with respect.

While Ford wants its employees to “make it clear the views expressed are yours,” it also reminds its staff that “you speak for yourself, but your actions reflect those of Ford Motor Company”. This is a good lesson: people often make judgments about an entire company’s values based on their opinion of the personnel they interact with, so it’s critical even personal employees’ accounts reflect integrity and respect.

Ford’s policy tells its employees “the internet is a public space”, and says “no matter how obscure or secure the site to which you’re posting may seem … consider everything you post to the Internet the same as anything you would post on a physical bulletin board or submit to a newspaper.” This is important. Nowadays, posting on Instagram might seem like NBD, but it’s critical we remember anyone can see what we post (or, what we posted five years ago…). 

4. New York Times

Image Source

One of the most popular media institutions in the world, The New York Times recognizes the price for its popularity — namely, that anything their employees state on their personal accounts could come across as the official opinion of The Times.

To cultivate its social media policy, the Times collected quotes from several Times reporters — this provides additional accountability and a sense of fairness, as it demonstrates several employees’ endorsement of their policy.

Here are some sections worth reviewing:

“In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’ journalistic reputation.” Ultimately, the Times aims to be objective, and that objectivity needs to be applied to its employees’ personal social media captions and comments, as well.

The Times urges its employees to avoid making customer service complaints on social media, and for good reason — the media corporation acknowledges its employees might be given special consideration as a Times reporter or editor, and doesn’t feel it’s fair that their employees leverage this special treatment or tarnish another brand’s reputation.

The Times includes an unusual request in its policy: in the name of transparency, it asks its employees to acknowledge if they’ve deleted a post or tweet with a subsequent tweet, to ensure they appear honest even if they’ve made a mistake.

5. Oracle

Image Source

This Boston-based SaaS company takes a stricter approach to its social media policy, but if you’re in the software space, it’s a good policy to review.

Here are some of the highlights of Oracle’s social media policy:

Oracle appears to be of the ilk that using social media in the workplace is a hinderance to productivity because it could lead to too much personal use. Understandable? Yes. Too strict? Debatable. While it can be good to blur the line between personal and professional in social media, that balancing act isn’t always appropriate in regulated industries.

Employees must establish that all opinions are their own and not Oracle’s, but at the same time, distinguish that they are indeed employees of Oracle. Contradictory? No. Blog posts can increase brand exposure, but employees must be careful with what they say and how they say it, not divulging new features, products, or confidential information.

Oracle advises its employees avoid discussing future offerings or impending product releases due to “potential revenue recognition issues”. This is a good call-out, since unofficial promotions of product launches or additional features could confuse customers, especially if the information regarding those product launches change before official release.

Ultimately, the rules and regulations you choose to include in your policy should reflect your own brand’s values, messaging, and tone. However, hopefully you can use these examples to ensure you include statements that can help protect you against legal or regulatory disputes in the future based on an employees’ social media posts.

Additionally, aim to use your social media policy to increase your social media strategies’ effectiveness and ensure you’re creating a positive brand image on any platform on which you post.

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Tags: 5, corporate, Examples, media, Noteworthy, Policies, Social

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[imran16829]

No Friend But the Mountains Writer Released: Behrouz Boochani Biography, Wiki, Age, Family, Net Worth, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Fast Facts You Need to Know

Behrouz Boochani Biography, Wiki

Behrouz Boochani is an Iranian Kurd journalist who arrived in New Zealand on Thursday. He vowing never to return to Papua New Guinea (PNG) where he was detained. Behrouz was sent to PNG's Manus Island in 2013, after arriving in Australian territory by boat. Boochani is the co-director, along with Iranian filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani, of the documentary Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, has published numerous articles in leading media internationally about the plight of refugees held by the Australian government on Manus Island and has won several awards. His memoir, No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, won the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction in January 2019. The book was tapped out on a mobile phone in a series of single messages over time and translated from Persian into English by Omid Tofighian. Behrouz Boochani wrote a book via Whatsapp from inside a detention centre has finally left the island where he was held for six years by Australia. Behrouz Boochani Quick Bio Born 23 July 1983 (age 36) Ilam, Iran Occupation Journalist, writer, filmmaker, refugee advocate Residence Manus Island Education Political science, political geography and geopolitics Alma mater Tarbiat Modares University Tarbiat Moallem (Kharazmi) University Notable works No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison; Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (film) Notable awards Victorian Prize for Literature Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction

Behrouz Boochani Detention

Mr Boochani arrived on Australia's Christmas Island in July 2013. In the same month, the country's then-prime minister vowed no asylum seeker arriving by boat would ever be resettled in Australia, even if found to be genuine refugees. Australia says its policies are necessary to deter dangerous attempts to reach the country by sea. Boochani began contacting journalists and human rights defenders outside the camp. He collected information on human rights abuses in the field and sent them via a hidden mobile phone to news organizations and advocacy groups such as The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Refugee Action Collective and the United Nations. In September 2015, PEN International (the Melbourne and Norwegian branches of which Boochani is now an honorary member and a coalition of human rights groups launched an international campaign on behalf of Boochani, urging the Australian government to fulfill its obligations at the beginning of non-refoulement, as defined in article 33 of the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees Several campaigns have urged people to write to Peter Dutton, Minister of Immigration and Border Protection, the Prime Minister Australian and high commissioners. Journalists without borders warned that dissent was not tolerated by Iran's theocratic regime, and that "Boochani's freedom would be in great danger if he were forced to return to Iran." Boochani has repeatedly asked for I handed it to the UN. He also became a spokesman for the men in his complex, Foxtrot, meeting with PNG immigration officials and other officials, as well as Amnesty International and UNHCR representatives. He has been moved twice to Chauka, the solitary confinement block built with shipping containers, for three days. He was also imprisoned during the 2015 hunger strike that was stifled by force, spending eight days inside Lorengau prison and released without charges after being asked to stop reporting. He said in a 12-minute radio interview on Autonomous Action Radio before the release of his Chauka movie, Please Tell Us the Time in 2016, that he intended to show the Australian public what the government was doing with the detainees on the island , and spoke of the mental torture caused by the deprivation of hope. In March 2017, Boochani's plight was raised in the Australian House of Representatives by Australian MP Adam Bandt. Although he was forcibly moved to an accommodation outside the detention center a few weeks after it was officially closed on October 31, 2017, Boochani cannot leave the island without travel documents, and the only way to reach the nearby town Lorengau is on an official bus, and refugees are routinely searched in the body when they leave and return. He wrote about what was happening and his fear during the siege that followed the closure, as well as the articles he wrote for The Guardian at that time, among other things, in WhatsApp messages to translator and friend Omid Tofighian, which were later published in its totality . On November 28, 2017, Boochani sent a message to the Australian public through the Asylum Seekers Resource Center (ASRC) and posted it on his website, thanking them for their humanity, and describing the recent peaceful protest of refugees in the island after the closure of the detention center, which was met with force. He said Peter Dutton was not right in saying that his only wish was to come to Australia; They just want freedom and security in any safe country, and they were not free or safe in Manus. In a speech given to the guests at a dinner of the Center for Human Rights Law in 2018, he expressed the opinion that the Australian Government was manipulating its people, using propaganda focused on national security. In a radio interview with SBS Radio, he thanked "the many brave people in Australia who have been fighting this system," saying that Australians are not cruel and if they were fully aware of exactly what is happening, they would not have let Your government does this. Boochani was presented as the subject of the Australian history of ABC TV. He said he would not continue with resettlement in Papua New Guinea, and now regrets his decision to target Australia.

Works from Manus Island

Mientras vivía en el centro de detención de Manus Island, Boochani ha publicado muchos de sus artículos en las noticias en línea y otros medios, como "The Day My Friend Hamid Kehazaei Died" en The Guardian y "Life on Manus: Island of the Damned" en The Saturday Paper y otros de HuffPost, Financial Times y New Matilda. El periodista guardián Ben Doherty, al aceptar el premio Amnistía Internacional Australia en nombre de Behrouz en 2017, dijo que Boochani "... con razón, se ve a sí mismo como un periodista que trabaja en Manus Island, cuyo trabajo es ser testigo de las injusticias y la violencia y privación de la detención en alta mar ". Algunos de sus artículos han sido publicados en sitios web kurdos en Irán. También ha publicado poemas en línea y narra su historia en el galardonado documental animado Nowhere Lines: Voices of Manus Island, realizado por el cineasta británico Lucas Schrank en 2015). La película Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time fue filmada dentro del centro de detención de Manus Island por Boochani, completamente en un teléfono móvil, y estrenada el 11 de junio de 2017 en el Festival de Cine de Sydney. Una crítica de la película fue escrita por el galardonado escritor Arnold Zable. En febrero de 2018, escribió un artículo sobre el asesinato de su amigo Reza Barati durante los disturbios en el campamento en 2014 y la injusticia de los eventos que siguieron. Se incluye un poema sobre su "gigante gentil y mejor amigo", llamado Our Mothers, un poema para Reza. En marzo de 2018, el documental de larga duración, Stop the Boats! (el título que refleja un eslogan del gobierno), dirigido por Simon V. Kurian, fue lanzado, con Boochani y otros. No Friend But the Mountains In July 2018, Picador published his memoirs No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison. Written in prose and poetry, he narrates his boat trip from Indonesia, his detention on Manus Island and the lives (and deaths) of other prisoners, as well as observations on the Australian guards and the local people of Papua. The book was laboriously used in a mobile phone in Persian in fragments through WhatsApp and translated from Persian into English by his friend Omid Tofighian. He postulates that prison is a kiriarchal system (a term taken from feminist theory), one where different forms of oppression intersect; Oppression is not random but intentional, designed to isolate and create friction among prisoners, leading to despair and broken spirits. In his preface to the work, Australian writer Richard Flanagan refers to Boochani as "a great Australian writer." No Friend But the Mountains won the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier Non-Fiction Award on January 31, 2019. There were questions about Boochani's eligibility for both awards because participants had previously limited themselves to Australian citizens or permanent residents, but he was given a waiver by the prize managers and the judges was unanimous in recognizing his literary excellence. The director of the Wheeler Center, Michael Williams, said the judges thought that the story of what is happening on Manus Island is essentially an Australian story, and that "he made it completely consistent with the intent of the awards." In an interview with writer Arnold Zable after the award, Boochani said he has many conflicting thoughts about it, but sees it as a "political statement of the literary and creative arts community in Australia, and all those who disagree with government thinking. " In April 2019, the book received a Special Prize at the Premier Literary Awards of New South Wales, whose judges described it as "an outstanding literary work in its own right", in addition to being "... notable for the circumstances of its production". .... compelling and shocking content. " On May 2, it was announced that the work had won the Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) for the general nonfiction book of the year.

Behrouz Boochani Twitter

"I just arrived in New Zealand," he tweeted on Thursday. "So exciting to get freedom after more than six years. I just arrived in New Zealand. So exciting to get freedom after more than six years. I have been invited by Word Festival in Christchurch and will participate in an event here. Thank you to all the friends who made this happen. — Behrouz Boochani (@BehrouzBoochani) November 14, 2019  

Awards

Diaspora Symposium Social Justice Award in October 2016. On the shortlist of four for the Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Award in the category of Journalism in 2017. Tampa Award, April 2018, presented by Rural Australians for Refugees, for "selfless and substantial contribution to the welfare of refugees". Amnesty International Australia 2017 Media Award, for his work on The Guardian and The Saturday Paper. STARTTS Humanitarian Award (Media), for "Media outlets, journalists or media officers supporting, prioritising and/or raising awareness of refugee issues". Voltaire Award, Empty Chair Award, awarded July 2018 by Liberty Australia. Anna Politkovskaya Award for Journalism, October 2018.] Sir Ronald Wilson Human Rights Award, October 2018. Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, January 2019, for No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison. Special Award, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, April 2019, for No Friend But the Mountains. General Non-Fiction Book of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards, April 2019, for No Friend But the Mountains. National Biography Award, August 2019, for No Friend But the Mountains. Read the full article

[blognotbydesign]

Working Title

After a cursory read of Ian Lynam’s, ‘That’s Entertainment!...’ essay, because that’s all I could manage, I can safely say, ‘One is not amused’.

Firstly, what ghastly design, or lack thereof, and that typeface. I don’t care how he justifies its use, it’s beyond, just beyond disgusting. To me it’s akin to using Comic Sans and that’s saying something.

Also, why does every essay Mark sends us to read (if you can call it this) use so many overinflated words. Side note, I’ll work on a better description for these later. Before I can even read the text, I first have to decipher what every second word or so means... and the list is long, enough to be annoying. If you have a point to make just make it. Don’t beat around the bush I say.

In a vain attempt to understand what Lynam is trying to say, let me break it some of it down into plain English:

Out of the gate, Lynam’s references a neoliberal era: what is this, did or does it exist, or did this guy just make it up? More research needed here! According to Google dictionary, firstly it should have a hyphen between the neo and liberal, and secondly here’s their definition...

Neoliberal adjective relating to or denoting a modified form of liberalism tending to favour free-market capitalism.

Lynam then sets the premise of his essay by stating, 'the sphere of cultural production and assorted economies attached to graphic design consistently ignore intellectualism as operational methodology'.

The puppeteers, the ones running the cultural show and fat cats with all the money who are in charge. This is what I take away from this sentence and it worries me somewhat. Everything is life is orchestrated, this much I know to be true. It’s scary when mentioned in anything remotely graphic design related. The two notions seem at polar ends of the spectrum of corruption and greed... or are they.

Intellectualism noun the exercise of the intellect at the expense of the emotions.

Next Lynam’s goes on to quote Jeffery Keedy's eponymous 2013 essay which describes global style, on an emotional level, as something that ‘sublimates quotidian boredom’.  

Sublimate verb 3rd person present: (in psychoanalytic theory) divert or modify (an instinctual impulse) into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity.

Quotidian adjective of or occurring every day; daily.

We’re numb to the cultural content that surrounds us, immune to its effects and becoming increasingly aware of its lack of substance? I don’t know what either is trying to say, but this my interpretation anyway. 

Ennui noun a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

Extraneous adjective irrelevant or unrelated to the subject being dealt with.

Fordist policies aka Fordism is a tag used to characterise the post-1945 long boom experienced by western nations. It is typified by a cycle of mass production and mass consumption, the production of standardized (most often) consumer items to be sold in (typically) protected domestic markets, and the use of Keynesian economic policies.

It’s odd, considering its more gruesome descriptive nature, but the next paragraph struck me: ‘The political poster today is the semantic equivalent of a bloated corpse floating in an aquatic environment... There is a body, but there is little to distinguish it as unique, much less rebellious in nature.’

At this point in time, 70+ years since graphic design became a recognised discipline, have we simply run out of ideas? When you think back over the course of art history, are we not caught in a perpetual loop of repeat, regurgitate and refresh? Nothing is new anymore. No idea is original.

Semantic adjective relating to meaning in language or logic.

‘Graphic design itself is increasingly fractured and graphic designers must be adept at more skills and specializations than ever before.’ My response to this: as a designer I must become a jack of all [art] trades in order to succeed, and I feel the weight of this pressure.

I disagree with Lynam’s summation that 'designers are more free than ever’. Not when taking into account political correctness and what not. I do, however, feel the tie of my workstation, or more accurately, laptop. I am certain it is preventing rather than aiding me becoming a truly great designer. Yet I cannot escape it. The pressure is always there to learn all the design programmes and packages, become an expert in them and thus a multifaceted designer in order to succeed in the industry.

Polyphonic adjective producing or involving many sounds or voices.

And living, existing, and experiencing life in the midst of a global pandemic, a time that will later become of great historial importance, Lynam’s words that ‘the possibility of actual freedom from control is nearly nonexistent in the contemporary moment’ could not feel more acurate. Forgive my brief meandering into the realm of conspiracy theories but something is afoot here. Whether it’s design we’re talking about or daily life, we are all being controlled by the powers that be, the one percenters or the whatever you may wish to call them. Very little lately feels like freewill and is more akin to an expected response to a predetermined situation?!

It’s funny how many articles and blogs, videos and what nots are being thrown our way to encourage us to use our time in lockdown to play, be creative and constructive when, as Lynam puts it ‘the Information Economy [had previously] destroyed boredom by occupying citizens' time while simultaneously deskilling them’. Now the one thing we do have in spades is time and many, like me, are using it to get back to basics. It’s no laughing matter how easily we are all controlled in this way - to work or play or work again.

Another frightening side note, when someone like Lynam points it out... because I hadn’t stopped to think about it before... Adobe has a virtual monopoly on specific software. With no competition or barely any, economics aside, how does this encourage creativity. In my humble opinion, it doesn’t and cannot. 

Ontological adjective

1. relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being."ontological arguments" 2. showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain.

We are all controlled. Simple. Even down to our creative responses. Just look at Pinterest and Behance, Instagram and other social media platforms for example. We see something, the latest trend or fashion, we mimic it, we embrace it, we try to make it our own but in essence this isn’t what’s really happening, and then we repeat the process all over again and again. 

Ostensible adjective stated or appearing to be true, but not necessarily so.

What others think to be true, is in fact highly likely the opposite. I know this makes me sound like a crazy person yet I cannot help but think it.

Raison d’etre noun the most important reason or purpose for someone or something's existence.

We create reasons to exist. Whether it be to go to college, get married or become a designer, in my case. Without a reason, there is no reason to exist. I mean what is the point to life?

If it is all about money, which largely it appears to be, then as a designer I’m a bit stuffed. While the ‘value of design [may be] increasing socially’, it’s  economic value is not. Too many people think the can become or are designers simply by using Photoshop and selling bits on Etsy. It diminishes the importance of my degree, the value of design and being a designer, the years it will take me to become a bloody good one. But hasn’t this also happened in the wider art world? Many think they are artists, painters, sculptors or potters when they are not. Not even remotely to the likes of Michelangelo or Da Vinci status. 

Reading an exert from ‘an as-yet unpublished essay by Randy Nakamura and Ian Lynam', a realisation that I am about to begin working in a defunked industry is dawning on me with statements such as ‘The ubiquity of the overused catchwords “creativity” and “innovation” are perhaps the surest indicators that a culture is in decline' and ‘...how is it even possible to talk about creativity in a way that is neither insipid nor irrelevant?’, and ‘Innovation, creativity’s idiot cousin, is in barely better condition.’ 

Add play to creativity and innovation and these words are the very basis of my own arguement that in order to be a good, if not great, designer - to create innovative solutions to many of life’s problems - we need to adopt a more playful attitude. I, therefore, cannot agree with Lynam’s statement that ‘almost anything can be considered the product of innovation’. Hard work does not help you innovate. It is but one element in a melting pot of skills and attributes, that not everyone has I might add, needed to cultivate innovation.

With a list of suggested reading and various, rather random, downloadable PDF’s as a last and closing thought to Lynam’s piece, I am left with a complete opposite feeling of being entertained.

http://entertain.ianlynam.com

[ah17hh]

Kanye West “Runaway” Copy Pasta via /r/emojipasta

Kanye West “Runaway” Copy Pasta

God🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿 I love💙 this👆🏻so much🙌🏼. Every single 🕴🏻thing about this 👆🏻masterpiece 🖼 is so beautiful 😍 . The music 🎶 ... Every lyric 🎼... The artistry 🎨 in direction, the creativityin 👩🏼‍🎨 production 🎥 , the cinematography 🍿 , those fireworks 🎇 ... that gorgeous 🔮 bird 🦅 costume on probably the most stunningly ✨ beautiful 🌟 woman 👩🏻 I think I've ever seen 👀 ... The ballet 🩰 dancers 👯‍♀️ ... Wow 🤩! I've watched 👀 this👆🏻 prob a hundred 💯 times ⏰ but it will never 🙅🏻‍♀️ get boring 😑 . I can't 🙅🏻‍♀️ take my eyes 👁 👁 off the screen 📺 for one ☝🏻 second ⏰ of those 34 minutes 🕰 . I 🙍🏻‍♀️ love ❤️ all of Kanye's 👑 work, and it is purely 💦 impossible🙅🏻‍♀️ to pick a favourite ❤️ , but 🍑 if I could only 🙋🏻‍♀️ever listen to ✌🏼two ✌🏼songs 🎵 for the rest of my time 🕰 here on earth 🌍 - it would no 🙅🏻‍♀️ question ❓ be Ghost 👻 Town 🌃 and- Runaway 🏃 . I cannot❌ listen 👂 to runaway 🏃‍♀️ without feeling triumphant 🏆 for some reason, lol 😆. Makes me laugh 😂 , makes me cry 😢, makes me appreciate 🙏🏿 the beauty 💋 in every other human 🧒🏿 being at once ☝🏻 with feeling my own. 🦾 For one ☝🏻 song 🎼 to ignite 🧨 that many 😒😏🙃🙂emotions🙂🙃😏😒in me just feels incredible🤩🥳. And inspiring 😱, and enchanted 💫. Kanye 👑 West 🧭 , as an artist 👩🏼‍🎨 AND as a human 👨🏾being, in my 💁🏻‍♀️ very humble 😌opinion- has harnessed some 🤔 sort of power 🗣 to captivate 😳 people 🕺🏻🕺🏻 educate 🏫 and enlighten 🧠 them- whether it means entrancing them 🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻 with his artistry 🎨 , speaking 🗣🗣 truths 💯 that people🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻 need to hear 👂 but don't always 😒 want to, and not 🙅🏻‍♀️ giving a fuck what anybody🤷🏻‍♀️ thinks 🙇🏻‍♀️ about... While still wishing 🌟 them 🙆🏻‍♀️ the best 👼 & respecting 👥 their freedom 🕊 to disagree (which is usually code for misunderstand ❌🧠/ or not comprehend❌👁 what he is trying to say 🗣. Even worst 😳 case scenarios where people 👨🏾 act especially argumentative 😡 or hateful 😈or just plain ignorant 🐍 towards him 👑 - at his bottom line I always hear him 👑 expressing his desire 😻for🧒🏿👩🏼‍🦱🧕👮🏿‍♀️ everybody 🧒🏿👩🏼‍🦱🧕👮🏿‍♀️to just be happy 😃 , and to feel free 🕊 . Everything I 🙋🏻‍♀️ hear 👂 him preach ⛪️ 🙏🏿 is about working 💪🏼for the greater good of humanity 👥 🌎 , it's about waking up 👁❌💤 it's about freedom 🕊 , it's about art 🖼 and expression 🗣 and feeling 💕 , and more importantly 🧐 actually BEING- okay 😃with oneself 🧒🏿. Understanding 🤨 that we 👥 are each 🙋🏻‍♀️ flawed 😔 but it is these flaws 😳 that make us 👥 unique 👏🏼, and it is our combined👏🏼 uniqueness👏🏼 and flaws👏🏼 that combined👏🏼, make one ☝🏻 absolutely perfect😻 whole. As a human 💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻race, as the beautiful😻 individual ☝🏻expressions of light 💡 and energy 🔋 , spirit 👻 , God 🙏🏿, source 🌎, the universe 🌌 ... Whatever you 🤨would like to call 📲 it, but those are just words 🌝, and the point is it's all beautiful 💥🔥✨💕😻. And we're all beautiful😻💕✨🔥💥. And it is precisely the things that we 🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻 are conditioned ❌NOT ❌to value 💰 or love 💗 about ourselves🙋🏻‍♀️ that make us 👥so perfect 💕 as a united 🇺🇸 whole 🌍 We are ❌not ❌separate, and nobody ❌👥 should ever feel lonely 😩 because of this ☝🏻 . There's 8 billion 🌍 people in the world 🌎 but still so many 💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻 of us feel alone 😢 ... But all at once ☝🏻 we 💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻 should cherish 🙏🏿 the individualities 🙋🏻‍♀️we have each created 🖼 for ourselves, for this s what makes this roller coaster 🎢 ride in space 🌌 fun 🤠. lol. And interesting 🧐 . Of course it is difficult 😤 sometimes to try and remain enlightened 🤓 and calm 😙 in the face 👹 of ignorance 🐍 or hatred 👺, and in any instances where Kanye 👑 has clapped 👏🏼 back or gotten defensive 🥴, they either deserved 🤕 the reality check ✔️, they 👩🏼didn't see 👀 it coming bc their ignorance 🐍 trumped their intuition 👁👁- which is also likely the cause of the initial ☝🏻 issue in the form of a complete 🌍 misunderstanding 😟 due to the fact 💯 that Kanye 👑 is trying to express 🎨 something that they are not🙅🏻‍♀️ ready to hear 👂 or are just not 🙅🏻‍♀️ even close to being on the intellectual 🧠 , emotional 😭 , or spiritual 🙇🏻‍♀️ level that he is speaking 🗣 on- and therefore just not 🙅🏻‍♀️ getting it. These 👏🏼 things are amazing 😉 though, bc for one ☝🏻 , I love ❤️ it that Kanye 👑 is human 🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻 in that regard, it just reinforces everything I 💁🏻‍♀️ said before about embracing 🤗 all those imperfections 🧏🏽‍♂️, and two- ✌🏼 because every single ☝🏻 time ⏰ - it reinforces the exact ✔️ point he's 👑 trying to make but just can't 🤷🏻‍♀️ put into words 🗣 in a way that some people will hear 👂 , or even try to listen 👂 to. Which goes back to my 💁🏻‍♀️original sentiment about Kanye 👑 as an artist 👩🏼‍🎨 . Not a politician 🇺🇸 , not an actor 🎥 , or any other profession 👨🏾‍⚕️ who get paid 💰 to lie and just see 👀 how many 👥👥 people they can get to buy 💴 it. Not 🙅🏻‍♀️ somebody who was groomed 😿 and trained 😾 to tell 🗣 people 👥only what they want to 👂 in a soothing 😎 way that they can handle, and obvi 🙅🏻‍♀️not somebody who was 🧠 🧼 brainwashed 🧼 🧠 to believe anything those soothing 😌 voices 🗣 and paid 💵 liars tell them to believe. Which I 💁🏻‍♀️think 🤨 is why people👥 just 🙅🏻‍♀️don't get him 👑 , or want to disagree 🐍 and attack 🥊 him, or both ✌🏼 . But because he 👑 IS a human 👨🏾‍⚕️ being, as other human beings 👥, we can't 🤷🏻‍♀️expect him to pander to the masses' 🌍 false beliefs or their 🐍ignorance. Hell 🔥 idk even know if it's right✔️ to call 📱 it "the masses" 🌍 honestly it might just be a handful of shitstarters 💩 😡 and dummies 🤦🏻‍♀️ that the media 📸 blows way out of proportion so that from my 💁🏻‍♀️simple pov- his 👑 existence looks 👀 like mad 😡 drama 🗣 when it's really maybe mostly not, lol 😆 . And I 💁🏻‍♀️ already know 🧠 the media 📸 makes the world 🌍 outside my peripherals 👁 look stupid 🤦🏻‍♀️ , violent 🔫 barbaric 🔪... And much, much worse 😔 than it really is 🧐. Because the facts 💯 are, all these nice 👍🏻 , intelligent 🤓 people 👥 aren't disgusting 🤢 or mean 🤬 or funny 🤡(in a bad 🥵 way) enough to make a cool 😎 story 📖 . When in my reality 💯 , I meet woke 👀 af Individuals🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻 wayyy more regular 👯‍♂️ than what any sort of media 📸 tells me my odds should 🤔 be for an encounter 👀 with someone 👑 like that, another human 🕺🏻 being that doesn't want to kill 🔪, rob 💰 and rape 👉🏻👌🏽 me 💁🏻‍♀️ or who's smarter 🤓 than a box 📦 of rocks 💎 is a rare breed 🐕 of person🕺🏻- according to the news anyway. 🙄 Anyway big ass tangent ⭕️ here- (feels appropriate🤓 tho, considering who's 👑 video 🏃 I'm commenting 👩🏻‍💻 on- not gonna lie- lol 😆 ) but anyway. Point being that because Kanye 👑 is so refreshingly 💦 human 👨🏾‍⚕️ like us 👥 aka REAL 💯 , and people 👥 cannot 🙅🏻‍♀️ expect perfection ✔️ in any sort of normal 😐 everyday life 🗺 or interactions 🤝 or behaviors 👹 from other, more or less equally 🥴imperfect🥴 people 👥. BUT- because Kanye 👑 is also the extraordinarily 🏆 talented 👌🏽 and phenomenally 😍 creative 🥳 ARTIST 👩🏼‍🎨 he 👑 is, he 👑 doesn't have to be perfect😇 in any other humanly 😎 possible way, anyway 💯. He 👑 is already perfect 👌🏽 in as many ‼️ ways one human 🕺🏻could be in THAT ☝🏻 department, And... Idk 😐 about y'all 👥, but as one ☝🏻 human 🕺🏻being to 8 billion others 🌍 - I'd much rather y'all 🌎 be as real 💯 and intelligent 🧠 and 🙅🏻‍♀️not giving a fuck 🖕🏿🖕🏿🖕🏿about what others 🐑 think 🤔 , understand 🤓, agree 👍🏻 with,, or like about you... 😛 but also not 🙅🏻‍♀️shoving🙅🏻‍♀️ all the stuff you do 👌🏽👌🏽 give a fuck about down ⬇️ everybody's 🐑 throats and judging 😡 them, bullying 😫 them, ostracizing 🤭 them, or attacking 🥊 anyone who doesn't believe in every single ☝🏻 little 🤏🏿thing you 🤡 do. Respect ✊🏼 . Love 💕 . Joy 😊 . Inspiration 😯 . Passion 🍆 . Freedom 🕊 . Fun 😆. That's ☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻what we 🕺🏻 💃🏻 are all here for 💯 . That ☝🏻 is what every 🕺🏻person 💃🏻 wants at the bottom ⬇️ of their hearts 💞 and souls ❤️ . We 👥pursue it all in different 👀ways and that is what we 👥 should appreciate 🙏🏿 most about being here 🌍 , with each other🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻❤️. Thank you 🙏🏿 Kanye 👑 West 🧭 , for being one ☝🏻 of the many✊🏼, many, teachers 👩‍🏫 of things like this to me 💁🏻‍♀️ personally. And thank 🙏🏿 you to all 🌍 the rest of you 8 billion 👥👥👥- you are all my 💁🏻‍♀️teachers 👨‍🏫 too. I just wish 🌟I knew you 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨all well enough to appreciate🙏🏿 you're being here, 🌏 in person 👀. Because even that value 🏆 and gratitude 🙏🏿 for those that you 💃🏻🕺🏻don't know 🧠, would be awesome 😎 to give ✊🏼and receive ☝🏻on that level 💯 . Even like this ridiculously long 📝 comment of appreciation 🙏🏿 for Kanye 👑 West 🧭, who doesn't know me 😔 and prob never will 😢 , is a type of gratitude 🙏🏿🙏🏿💯 I would like to extend to everyone 🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻🕺🏻💃🏻 on the planet 🌎 for something, if I could😫😫. Because even the 😏appreciation🕺🏻 thrown towards a stranger 🚶‍♀️ in the slightest 🤏🏿, most superficial 💋and completely one-way road ⚠️ type of "knowing 🧠 👀 " someone- like that from a "normal" 🚶‍♀️ person, or in this case a fan 🤩 for somebody they 🌊 admire 💕 , in this ☝🏻 case a famous 🎉🎉🎉 artist 👩🏼‍🎨 , is a step towards 🔜 the kind of world 🌎 we 👥 would live 🏡 in if everybody 👥👥👥could truly 💯 appreciate 🙏🏿 everybody, just in some 🤔 way- any 😨way- or every 🤗 way- or even just 🥳for being here 🌍‼️‼️. But I guess 🤔 everybody 👥can only appreciate everybody 🌍 , if on some level we 🕺🏻🚶‍♀️💃🏻already do. And I think 🤔 that's the level Kanye's 👑 on when he 👑 made this 🎥 🎼 🏃‍♀️ 💿 . Love ❤️ you 🤝 all 🌍🌍🌍 You too, Ye 👑. Thanks 🙏🏿 for giving me 💁🏻‍♀️ this comment 📝 box 📦 to drop 📥some love ❤️ on the world 🌍 . lol 😆 . And to anybody 🤔 🕺🏻💃🏻 who's still reading 📖 this ☝🏻 , may God 🙏🏿 and yeezus 👑 bless ❇️ your beautiful soul ❤️, and I love 💕 YOU 💃🏻🕺🏻most of all! 💯 I believe 🤗 the title of this film 🎞 is where you 👥 can find the meaning 🧐 . Runaway. 🏃 If you 👥 have ever listened 👂 to Kanye 👑 he always talks 🗣about how we 🌍 are slaves 😔 to society 💭 . He 👑 is showing 👀 us within a film 🎞 that the way people 👥 perceive 👁 us and our 👥 own egos 😼 trap 🕳 us into a mold 🗜 that we 🕺🏻💃🏻 doesn't necessarily 🙅🏻‍♀️ represent who we 🌍 are. The bird 🦅 is Kanye 👑 and his 👑 own inner beauty 💄. Kanye's 👑 entire motivation 💪🏼 to create 🎨 and be heard 👂 is the fact 💯 that he 👑 feels shorted 😞 by what people 🐑 think 💭 he 👑 should be or what they 🐑 think 💭 he 👑 should do. He 👑 feels like 🙊 his 👑 true 💯 self, untainted by society, is a phoenix and if he 👑 let's society 🐑 🌍 control 🎮 him 👑 then it will turn ⏭ to stone 💎 . Kanye 👑 wants us 🕺🏻💃🏻 to see 👀 that the stereotypes 🧒🏿🧕👮🏿‍♀️ created by us 💃🏻🕺🏻 limit our own 👥expression, our true 💯 authentic beauty 💄. Now, you 🤡 may think 🤔 it is crazy 😜 to think 🤔 this much 🙊 about the symbolism 📖 but artists 👩🏼‍🎨 don't 🙅🏻‍♀️ make art 🖼 unless they 👩‍🎤 are compelled 😍🤩 by some larger 🌍 mission. Art 🖼 is expressing 💦 the soul ❤️ . Art 🖼 is sacred 🙌🏼. So yes✔️✔️✔️, on the surface 🌊 this is beautiful 😍 and enjoyable 🤪 but for him 👑 , it is so much more 💯. Man 👨🏾 i cry 😭 so much when the autotuned 🎤 part from runaway 🏃 starts ▶️, it's like so beautiful 😍 the mix 🔀 between the song 🎼 and the ballet 🩰 scene. I never🙅🏻‍♀️ realized 🧐 how dope 🤪 ballet 👯‍♀️ was until right I 💁🏻‍♀️ watched 👀 this ☝🏻. They 👯‍♀️ walk on their toes 🦶. Think 🤔 about how much 😣 their toes 🦶 hurt 🤕 . You 🙅🏻‍♀️wouldn't know 🧠 the serious 💯 toe 🦶 pain 😓 that they 👯‍♀️ are in though because they act 🤪 like their toes 🦶 don't hurt 😢 ,but in reality ☝🏻 they 🦶 hurt very 🤕badly 😭. I 💁🏻‍♀️ just tried 🚶‍♀️ standing on my 💁🏻‍♀️ toes 🦶 and I 💁🏻‍♀️ can't 🙅🏻‍♀️ explain 🤨 how much it sucked 😒. Appreciate 🙏🏿 these people 👯‍♀️ who are willing 🤪 to wear 🩰 weird 🦅 clothes and stand 🚶‍♀️ on their toes 🦶, because it is awkward 😫,embarrassing 😣, and painful 😖 . Go stand🚶‍♀️ on your toes 🩰 in a weird outfit 🧝🏽‍♀️. Bitch.🥵

Submitted March 28, 2020 at 05:49PM by unemotionals via reddit https://ift.tt/3aqxyk1

[killingthebuddha]

“If you focus too much on only a personal relationship being the core tenet of your faith, then it means that you’re more easily able to marginalize topics like human suffering, which in some cases is spurred by climate change. We are embodied creatures in this planet, so let’s live like we are,” said Sean Lyon. Credit: Meera Subramanian

WHEATON, Illinois — Diego Hernandez wasn’t thinking much about climate change until last summer, when he was traveling with his family along the Gulf Coast in his home state of Texas, where his ancestors—cowboys and politicians, he said—reach back to the 1600s. His mother suggested they take the “scenic route” for that summer drive, Diego said, his fingers making air-quotes because there was nothing “scenic” about it. All he saw were oil refineries.

“At that moment,” said 19-year-old Diego, who considers himself a libertarian, “the switch kind of flipped for me.” Why are we putting refineries in this beautiful place? he thought. The impacts from Hurricane Harvey, which had hit Houston the previous August and had affected some of Diego’s relatives, were also still lingering in his mind.

“I used to be like, oh, there’s oil, go start drilling, you know, because of course it’s all about the money, right?” he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. But after that family outing, he began to ask questions—”What is it doing to our environment? How is it going to affect us in the next 10 to 50 years?”—and since then he’s had climate change on his mind.

Diego is a clean-shaven, lifelong Christian wearing a cyan blue button-down and polished cowboy boots, and a sophomore at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, which has been called the Harvard of Christian schools. The entrance sign, framed by a glowing bed of zinnias in full bloom, pronounces the school’s motto: “For Christ and His Kingdom.” But while Diego has all the credentials of a true political conservative—president of Wheaton’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, a cabinet member of the College Republicans—he also finds himself genuinely baffled by the right’s stance against acting on climate change.

While many evangelicals are preoccupied with the long-term state of human souls and the protection of the unborn, Diego and the other students I met at Wheaton are also considering other eternal implications and a broader definition of pro-life. They are concerned about the lifespan of climate pollutants that will last in the atmosphere for thousands of years, and about the lives of the poor and weak who are being disproportionately harmed by the effects of those greenhouse gases. While Diego was just shy of eligible voting age in the 2016 presidential election, he’s old enough to vote now. He and other young evangelicals thought hard this year about the politicians on offer, the issues they stand for, and who deserved their votes.

  What’s an Evangelical to Do?

Evangelical Protestants—one in four American adults—are a political powerhouse. They are the single largest religious group in the nation, and they are nearly twice as likely to be Republican as Democrat. And while Baby Boomers are currently the strongest political voting bloc, that’s only because the older you are, the more likely you are to vote.

The current crop of younger people—from Gen X to Millennials to the newly minted adults I met at Wheaton—are poised to dominate the eligible-voter body politic. They would definitively tip the voting scales—should they become engaged. There are signs they might be doing just that. From the Parkland school shooting victims to Millennial political candidates, the youth of America are speaking up.  And, significantly, they accept the scientific consensus on climate change at a much higher rate than their elders.

This is true even of young evangelicals, as the existence of the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) attests.  YECA is a ministry of the Evangelical Environmental Network that aims to mobilize students, influence religious leaders and pressure lawmakers into passing legislation to address climate change. I met Diego at a climate change discussion event on campus that was organized by Chelsey Geisz, a Wheaton junior and a YECA climate leadership fellow.

From Colorado Springs, Colorado, Chelsey, 20, always loved nature, she told me as we sat together in a gazebo in Adams Park, near campus. She’d taken a few classes on sustainability at Wheaton, and last year spent time working at Eighth Day Farm in Holland, Michigan, where Christian volunteers have turned the dirt once trapped below strip mall pavement into garden plots to grow vegetables for the hungry. These experiences meant she was primed when she heard about YECA.

Though non-partisan, YECA is targeting conservatives, since that’s where the facts of climate change have failed to lead to action. According to the organization, they’ve engaged more than 10,000 young evangelicals so far. Along with Chelsey, there are another half-dozen fellows at other schools across the country, helping to build the grassroots movement. The fellowship includes a summer training session that covers the science of climate change, as well as the socio-cultural and religious aspects of the issue. As a YECA fellow, Chelsey organizes campus events such as the session I attended in September and she serves as Wheaton’s executive vice president of campus sustainability, a new position that YECA helped develop.

It can be tough to be an evangelical who cares about climate change, Chelsey said, “because the environmental activists don’t trust you and the evangelicals hate you.” Or they could hate you; she was quick to point out that the evangelicals she knows personally are generally tolerant of her views. “I’m not encountering anyone at Wheaton, even among my most conservative friends, who disagree with climate change,” she told me. She’s having some trouble with her father, though, who’s troubled by her YECA work. He holds a Harvard law degree, works at a company that invests in resource-rich properties, and associates Chelsey’s transformation into a “climate activist” with a liberal agenda he finds suspect. “For a man who has such well-reasoned opinions, I just feel like there’s so much emotion for him that it’s not about the science at all,” she said.

As for liberals themselves, Chelsey said, some of them do treat evangelicals like her with some suspicion. After all, aren’t evangelicals the ones who elected anti-environment Trump?

“I think there’s some misunderstanding about what our faith compels us to do,” she said as the sun set behind her, creating a halo around the edges of her auburn hair.

  Praising Natural Systems

Sean Lyon is a recent Wheaton graduate who was also a YECA fellow while he was in school. He feels that he was born to love the natural world; his first word as an infant was “bird,” after all, and flying creatures remain a passion he can’t quite explain. While in school, he created his own interdisciplinary major of biology and business and spent significant time in Tanzania working with ECHO East Africa, a faith-based sustainable agriculture organization. He still lives in the town of Wheaton, easy commuting distance to Chicago, where he’s volunteering at the Field Museum of Natural History.

Sean, 23, grew up in upstate New York, among “classic North American white evangelicals,” where climate was not a concern and politics were conservative. But his love of the natural world shifted his perspective. He saw heaven on earth, and something worth saving, in every wingbeat he witnessed.

“Every ecosystem carries His creativity in it,” Sean said, “and every species is a mark of His design.” He had a thick brass bangle encircling his wrist, and blue eyes behind clear Lucite-rimmed glasses. Sean drew an analogy to his sister and grandparents, who are all artists. “So how would I treat the art that they created? If I love them, then I’m going to treat their art well. I’m not going to deface it. I’m not going to ignore it. I’m going to really honor it. And so when I see my God as having created everything that I’m interacting with, I want to honor it because that’s a way that I can show my love for this Creator.”

But God didn’t just create singular works, Sean said; he created systems, natural systems that every living being relies on. He hoped that all Christians—no, he corrected himself, all faiths—would unite to protect those systems.

“That’s my current prayer.”

  ‘Structural Sin’

Climate science isn’t questioned at Wheaton College the way it often is in the wider evangelical community. The school is a brick-and-mortar rebuttal to the myth that science and religion must be at odds with each other. When Wheaton students step into their-state-of-the-art science building, for instance, they are greeted with signs stating that a “sound Biblical theology gives us a proper basis for scientific inquiry,” and a display featuring locally excavated Perry the Mastodon, which carbon dating shows to be more than 13,000 years old.

The school is not alone in intertwining commitments to love God and protect the earth, often referred to as “creation care.” The Cape Town Commitment, a global agreement between evangelical leaders from nearly 200 countries, includes acknowledgement of climate change and how it will hurt the world’s poor (and it is required reading for Wheaton freshmen). Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University and an evangelical, has been an outspoken advocate for climate action. And in addition to YECA, there are numerous groups active in this arena, including the Evangelical Climate Initiative, Climate Caretakers, Care of Creation and A Rocha.

In late 2015, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)—the biggest umbrella group of evangelicals in the country, representing 43 million Americans—issued a statement accepting climate change, acknowledging the human contribution to it and encouraging action. YECA’s advocacy helped bring that statement, called “Loving the Least of These,” into being. In it, NAE argues that Christians should be compelled to care about climate change as a matter of social justice, equating those without the resources to adapt to failed farming or dry wells or rising seas as the modern-day equivalents of the widows and orphans of Jesus’s day.

When Chelsey reads the Bible, she hears this gospel of social justice, too.

“Instead of talking about climate change,” she said of her work as a YECA fellow, “I talk about environmental justice. There’s definitely a guilty complex, especially among the white evangelical community, about how complicit we’ve been, and apathetic. People really want to redeem that.”

Chelsey’s framing reveals that she is steeped in a liberal arts ethos friendly to intersectionality, the idea that humanity’s ills, which disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, cannot be conquered until root causes are addressed. This perspective is shaping academic dialogue in both secular and faith-based schools.

But does fighting climate change detract from evangelism? Here there’s a rift within the evangelical community. Should the emphasis be on saving souls or saving God’s creation? And are the two really at odds?

“That’s the Billy Graham evangelicalism,” Chelsey said of the personal salvation perspective, referencing Wheaton’s most famous alumnus. “It’s your faith between you and Jesus.” But the problem with that approach, she said, is that it doesn’t force Christians to deal with larger systems of injustice. “The evangelical community is really limited when it comes to talking about systemic and structural sin rather than individual sin. Most of us have never heard about systemic racism and climate change in church,” she said. Even as evangelical organizations embrace the need for action, the message isn’t coming across from the pulpit. “These things never come up because they’re apparently not gospel issues,” Chelsey said, “But at Wheaton, we think they are.”

For Sean, there’s not one speck of conflict between his love of God and the gospel and his fierce desire to see action on climate change. They’re complementary, he said.

“If you focus too much on only a personal relationship being the core tenet of your faith, then it means that you’re more easily able to marginalize topics like human suffering, which in some cases is spurred by climate change,” he said. “We are embodied creatures in this planet, so let’s live like we are.”

Could his concern for the climate be a threat to his faith? I asked him.

“Actually, I see more of a threat in the idea that we can divorce our lives on this earth and the lives of other people and the lives of other creatures from our life of faith,” Sean said. Better to revel in God’s love. “How much deeper and how much more beautiful is a way of loving Him that involves my whole being and the whole world around me rather than just simply the status of my soul?”

  When Pro-Life Means Entire Lives

Abortion was the entry point into American politics for many evangelicals, after the Supreme Court affirmed abortion rights in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Before that, evangelicals were generally unconcerned about abortion rights, which had the uncontroversial support of Republicans; they were also generally disengaged from voting. Today, the single-issue anti-abortion preoccupation of many evangelicals, now considered a given by many political leaders, confounds some of the young evangelicals I met at Wheaton.

“If we say we’re pro-life, we have to care for people who are experiencing incredible environmental degradation and so directly affected by climate change,” Chelsey said. “If we’re pro-life, that’s a bigger issue to me than abortion.”

Sean agreed. “So many people are now saying, okay, if you’re going to be pro-life you have to be pro all-of-life, lifelong pro-life, which has primarily come up in the immigration debate. If you’re pro-life, how can you be separating children from their parents?”

Diego sees it a little differently. “Abortion is definitely a deal-breaker for me,” he said, even though he said he’s not generally a one-issue voter. He echoed Sean and Chelsey to some degree, agreeing that “being pro-life doesn’t just mean being pro-life to the baby at birth. It also means the life of the mother and the life of the baby after birth.” But when he watched the 2016 presidential debates, he found himself agreeing with some of Hillary Clinton’s points … until he was appalled by what he saw as her “gung-ho” support of abortion rights. He decided he could just not get behind someone with those views.

Young evangelicals wrestle with these difficult choices in the voting booth, confronted with either/or candidates, unsure who will best represent their hopes for life on earth, all life, all of God’s creation. Right now, anti-abortion rights Christians typically have only one party to get behind. And it’s that party, represented in the White House, that is aggressively rolling back climate protections, from pulling out of the Paris climate accord to promoting coal.

  Future Powerhouse at the Polls?

Diego, Chelsey and Sean are the future. This younger generation has grown up with the realities of climate change and political polarization since they were swinging on monkey bars, and they aren’t hesitating to break rank with evangelical Baby Boomers on the issue. They remain faithful and politically conservative for the most part, but they are more concerned about a climate that they will have to live with much longer than those boomers heading into retirement. The shift aligns with a recent Pew poll that found that among Republicans, young adults were far less likely than their elders to support reliance on fossil fuels.

“Every one of the people who I’ve talked to who’s come to my events and engaged in climate issues from a Christian perspective said, ‘My parents don’t agree with me,'” Sean told me.

But even with this clear shift toward accepting climate science among young Americans, the quandary for young evangelicals in the voting booth remains.

Sean, who said he couldn’t in good conscience vote for either party, opted for Jill Stein in 2016.

Chelsey, as a busy freshman in 2016, followed in her father’s footsteps and voted for Trump.  Her father had been singularly focused on getting a Republican on the Supreme Court. Now, she hangs her head about the decision.

Diego, about to vote in his first election, grew up in a struggling, hard-working family in San Antonio. His father showed him how to mow lawns when he was six, he said.  His mother would pick up her raggedy old Bible and tell Diego, “This is what you should base all of your beliefs and all your values on. It shouldn’t be what you hear from someone on TV or C-SPAN or NPR.”

Surveys show that the way people view climate change is determined more by political affiliation, along with race and ethnicity, than by religious affiliation. So while 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, it’s important to remember that about a quarter of the country’s evangelicals are not white, and it is among minority groups that the evangelical community is growing. And on the issue of climate change, Diego’s Latino background makes him part of the American demographic that is most concerned about climate change. He wonders whether his mother deliberately pushed for that “scenic route” to wake him up a little.

What are the choices for these faithful young? With church membership in decline and the Republican party in flux, how vocal these young people are could shape the future of the climate debate. If the Christian right wants to hold onto the next generation, getting right with the planet might prove as important as getting right with God.

Many concerned about the environment rally for more evangelicals to understand climate change and embrace leadership positions on the issue. “It would be a milestone if you managed to take influential evangelists—preachers—to adopt the idea of global warming, and to preach it,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman told the host of Hidden Brain, an NPR science show. “That would change things. It’s not going to happen by presenting more evidence, that is clear.”

And in the book The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, renowned biologist E.O. Wilson wrote a long letter with the salutation, “Dear Pastor.” It is an urgent, heartfelt plea. “We need your help. The Creation—living Nature—is in deep trouble. Scientists estimate that … half the species of plants and animals on Earth could be either gone or at least fated for early extinction by the end of the century. A full quarter will drop to this level during the next half century as a result of climate change alone.”

These new sermons and stories are unlikely to come from older pastors and preachers, most of whom have become representatives of the Republican Party platform that doesn’t want to even acknowledge that climate change is an issue to discuss, let alone embark on the massive undertaking necessary to begin to solve it. But for the young, who will live with the catastrophic predictions that worsen with each new iteration of the UN climate report, there are new stories emerging. They are conversion stories of a new sort, springing from dirt once buried under Midwestern parking lots and held aloft on the wings of Sean’s beloved birds. Preachers and politicians seeking to keep the young religious right in their midst may need to leap past the quagmire of a questionable climate change debate and get right to the root of finding solutions for the generations that will be living into the long tomorrow of a warming planet.

  This story was originally published on InsideClimate News. 

[opalmothnightingale]

Climb the Booksteps & Spring Up & Fly.  Go to School So I Can Too.  Give Me Space So I Can Give You Involvement.  Give You Freedom So I Can Give You Guidance.  Thoughts On My Child.  I Can Only Give You What Works For Me (& Walk With You, Or Show You Where To Look)

2- 24- 18 - 

So it’s all this, thoughts on my child and how to raise her...  I like the overlong titles.  They help me feel humble, real, divested of false value or false virtue or false intelligence, when I know I’m smart, I’m good and valuable, but every thing that I can do to injure my expression without injuring the essential dignity and value of the actual message...  I like to find how to do this, when it occurs to me, not that I search for how to do it.  Maybe one day I’ll do that, come up with how to injure my expression but still allow the true good message to get through to those who are open hearted, open minded, and able to pay enough attention.  Some need sparkling, clever sounding people to give messages but they can find them elsewhere.  Usually those who need such sparkly people would take issue with things that I say, because they are at a more basic or short attention span or unmindful, selfish, greedy or judgmental, falsely superior kind of view of things...  Or dogmatic, or rigid, narrow, one size fits all...  I would upset them with my messages, because of our clashing views.  I used to be like them and don’t judge them but I know the difference between teeny bopper fluff bunny level of understanding vs. college level understanding of these things, so to speak.  

So yeah...  Speaking of that, I want to think of how to raise my daughter, teach her what i want her to learn and feel that she needs to be well and happy in life, and a good person, blah blah, etc.  And I want to learn what I can about how to be happy and well and I feel this is like mothering school for me, because she is teaching me this.  She is my teacher.  Even so I feel I have to send her off to get the heck away from me because sometimes I’m so exhausted and overwhelmed that I’m scraping by in her presence, with her noise, intensity, issues, behavioral things, and disciplinary difficulties (part of the behavioral stuff), and yet if I send her away too long I’ll atrophy, I’ll melt like the wicked witch of the west, in a pile of wax, useless and empty and heartless and amorphous.  

I feel I can give her things, that I’m not only a stepping stone, not only a springboard.  She made a staircase of books and climbed it and jumped off, saying she was flying, right after I thought of what am I to her?  A stepping stone or springboard, etc...  She is known for reading my mind...  So whatever it means, but I like the image she made...

I also feel I can give her space and freedom and autonomy so that I can give her guidance.  People try to control and shape their kids’ lives so much they have no space and flow to work with, and it becomes this rigid thing that can’t grow and can’t think for itself and can’t have room to add more new things... I want her to have so much time and freedom that I can easily sneak in new ideas, new ways to teach and share and show her wisdom, experience, beautiful things, meaningful things in life...  But also to bar out the negative and stupid, fearful and annoying, overthinking, etc ways of the modern western world..  

Raise her to be meditative, open, and alive, in the senses, creative, aware, in herself,...  Not distracted with the world and it’s opinions, debates, complaints and arguments...  

Not for her to be led to disagree and debate with me by know it all kids who influence her or the pressures of society.  So...  For those things not to ever enter her mind because she’s just happy to live our beautiful simple life and never was exposed to a reason to question it. Then once she’s grown up she’ll be so filled with wisdom, knowledge,...  And, so very filled with goodness and good habits,...  and firsthand experiences of the good of our lifestyle,... 

And then from there, fully mature mentally, creatively, in heart, and soul, too,... Then and only then, she will go into the world and see what we gave her was good and not want all the fear and confusion they try to push.  I will have raised her well.  

My life may revolve around being a step to further develop her.  

It’s ok.  I feel it is a good message, though... That what I can give to her is knowledge, wisdom, and practices and habits and the learning through experiences too, and maybe the conferring of energy on her too, to give her spiritual energy that will help her to grow along her spiritual path, and teach her how to connect to her own source of love, guidance, bhakti, love of god, trust in god, and accessing and learning the wisdom of god...  the voice of the world, the answers to the many questions and how to find them, as well as how to heal and manage all the physical challenges and social challenges that I too am learning how to traverse and negotiate these badlands (sometimes for the first time ever trying to learn them).

I want to be able to say to her, this is what works or this worked for me, and I hope it can work for you and if you need more help, this is where I would go to look for guidance or help, and information.  I will walk the path with you if I have strength, energy, mental health, emotional health to manage it.  It’s all I can promise but it’s all anyone can promise, to try to do, because most have no idea the weakness that lies in wait, and doesn’t catch most people, but if another set of conditions hunted down and took down their lives, it would be a different story and they wouldn’t judge me any more..  But this is the world and they can’t see that.  Usually, anyway.  They feel better than me.  Or they blind themselves to their own failures and sometimes blame the victim, the kids, who weren’t raised as they needed...  And sometimes it is the parent child and grandparent, generation of the branches of the family tree all have been victims, because they didn’t get what they needed and tried their best but still made terrible mistakes they had no idea were such terrible mistakes or just felt totally out of control.  

This is what human nature is built on.  That is how I see it.  We try our best yet still sometimes make terrible mistakes yet still often do okay enough in the subsistence level of survival, it’s not a bad life, looking for and holding on to the good kind of level and perception of things...  

And so it’s ok...  But as long as I am not put into a position where there’s more than I can chew so I spit it all out, before I choke and die, worthless to my daughter and myself.  If my husband died?  If I was to die soon?  Then what?  If my daughter was to die?  Then what?  I don’t ask these questions with no reason,...  Some of them are somewhat realistic questions to think might come up soon...  Maybe not, hopefully not but I want to think of it before it happens, before my life is completely shipwrecked and I can’t stand up, walk, think straight, function, maybe, and it all shuttles straight to hell, to the whirlpool of down the drain, too late too little, too bad for you,...

Sometimes I feel I get moments of clarity and then months of confusion and or even months of clarity but too exhausted to write and act and remember the clairty longterm.  So I see what to do sometimes, but then it feels it’s often torn from my arms, and I am lost once more.  Help me please, gods.  Help me believe and trust when my simple human mind and my simple weak sense of control over things is so limited that I really need to have immense faith and take action based on that immense faith as well as alignment, but not too aligned...

Sometimes you have to reach for the stars and hope to land in the sky...  You can’t always pluck the fruit easily in your grasp, the path of ease and comfort and obvious success..  Sometimes you need to struggle and fear and leap into the terrifying unknown.  Law of attraction advocates people to ignore dire situations till they feel more promising, but waiting in such cases can spell total failure and disaster. 

[demitgibbs]

Don’t Be Stupid, You Know Shania Loves You

Contrary to popular belief, some things _do_ impress Shania Twain. The country-pop icon and paragon of leopard print has great admiration for her LGBTQ fans, who she says have become guiding lights in her own life.

Twain’s inspiring story is one of survival, from her childhood hardships while growing up in the small town of Timmins, Ontario, where she raised her three younger siblings after her parents died in a car accident in 1987, to her 2009 divorce from Robert “Mutt” Lange, producer of Twain’s 1997 crossover behemoth Come on Over. The best-selling country album of all time was a game-changer with an impressive track record – 40 million copies sold globally, 50 weeks atop the Billboard country charts over three years, 11 singles released – that Twain still champions in the female-artist arena.

Fifteen years after dropping her last juggernaut, 2002’s Up!, Twain, 52, is again demonstrating slay status to her legions of loyal, boot-stompin’ queer fans. Even a neurological voice disorder called dysphonia couldn’t keep the genre subverter, who once thought she’d never sing again, from recording her long-overdue fifth LP, Now. Released in September, Twain wrote every song, and her shiny résumé got even shinier when the album instantly seized the No. 1 spot on the Billboard albums and country charts.

Country-pop’s comeback queen was an open book during our recent conversation, speaking  passionately and candidly about her LGBTQ activism at the onset of her country career in 1993, having to “agree to disagree” with those who aren’t pro-gay, and bringing drag queens and Bud-guzzlin’ bros together with “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

But, also, you don’t get Shania Twain on the phone without reminiscing on 1998’s VH1 Divas, when Twain shared the stage with an epic mix of icons – Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Gloria Estefan – for one of the most legendary, gay-loved nights in diva (and hair) history.

Do you have enough leopard print gloves to go around for all the gays to partake in celebrating your comeback?

(Laughs) I should make them, right? What do you think would be the preferred fabric? Silk or…?

Velour.

Yeah, like, velvet.

We need a million of those by tomorrow. But first, Shania, after all these years, how do you explain your connection to the LGBTQ community?

I can’t really explain my connection in any sort of theoretical way to anyone. But I would say my intentions are to inspire and connect with people, to be relatable then and now. I think that it is what resonates – we relate to one another, we relate to struggle, and then surviving struggle and celebrating who we are and what we are and appreciating that as a community of people regardless of what it is. Just celebrating together to the anthemic nature of some of those songs, and on this new album there are several like that as well.

Is there something specific you hope to convey to LGBTQ audiences with this album?

Surviving against the odds. A song like “I’m Alright” – just that statement there and telling yourself, “I’m alright. I’ve made it through. I’ve survived.” And with a fist-in-the-air attitude, with conviction.

What was your introduction to the gay community?

I work with a lot of gay people and they’re just a part of my almost daily family world. So, they’re just part of my friends and my community. I guess more when I started to become successful, I was really surrounded by more creative people, and there are so many creative people in this industry who are gay, both men and women. It just becomes the norm.

During some of your rough patches, did you get any sage advice from your gay friends?

Oh, I get good advice from gay friends all the time! (Laughs) I think more than anything I’m inspired by the spirit of where the gay community is right now and that conviction to be who you are. I love standing up for that. It’s just so important to be transparent and open about who you are and to not hide behind fear.

Have you clung to that sentiment as a way to push past your own personal pain?

Completely! I mean, my whole transition into where I am now in this moment has been facing fears and taking that leap of faith myself, and that would be my advice to anyone out there. A gay person who has been living behind their fears and then makes that courageous decision to start living as who they really are and stop pretending and embrace it – it takes a lot of courage.

For me, I’ve just learned that there’s no time to waste. You need to take that leap and be who you are, and we’re in a society now that is making it easier. We still have a long way to go, but there are a lot more outlets.

But the gay community – and minority communities in general – are always fighting. I have a song on the album called “Swingin’ with My Eyes Closed” and it’s a fun party song, but the true depth of the song is about even when you can’t see what is in front of you, you still have to move forward. You can’t move backwards; you gotta keep moving forward and fighting for that freedom to exercise independence and courage.

There couldn’t be a better time for a song like that. In 2013, you tweeted about the Supreme Court overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, saying, “Congrats to everyone celebrating equality today in the U.S. #loveislove.” Why is it important for you to take a stand on gay rights and other LGBTQ issues?  

I just feel very saddened by any kind of oppression in our society in today’s day and age. I mean, it’s so negative. Equality should be a no-brainer, automatic, all the way around. We need to have mutual respect all the way around. Supremacy of any sort is just poison. I just feel like we’re not above each other in any way and mutual respect and an admiration for an individual’s abilities, talents, heart, commitment – I mean, what does that have to do with any minority status that we might be labeled with today, whatever that may be? Certainly, I know that gays feel that.

How does it feel knowing that your songs “Forever and For Always” and “From this Moment On” have probably been the first dance at a number of same-sex marriages?

Awww! That’s lovely. It’s so lovely. But love is beautiful, and music is very much a part of our lives and monumental moments of our lives.

Because country music has long been deemed conservative in its views, could we speak as openly as we are now about LGBTQ issues at the beginning of your career?

I mean, I did. You know what this is really about? This is about pro-equality, this is about pro-mutual respect. And if you’re really for those things in life, then why would there be any boundaries? Why would you side where there are? Why would you a draw a line there?

In the country community, I think it comes down to the fear of potentially alienating conservative fans.

I think everybody has the right to their opinion, and that I would never argue with. That is a huge part of freedom of speech and mutual respect, having the right to your own opinion. If you’re not pro-gay, then you’re not pro-gay, and we just have to agree to disagree. I would never get into a fist fight with somebody who didn’t agree. I just think that would be counterproductive. So, I think we all have to respect each other’s opinions on these issues.

But, listen, with a song like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” – and this is, what, 20 years ago?  I’m over that come a long time ago. A lot of straight men sing “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” just for the sheer entertainment of it. So, I think songs like that have been great, maybe, contributors to bringing us together, if not for anything than just for the common denominator of music and owning that for whatever it means to them, and that breaks down barriers.

WATCH:

How do you reflect on your gender-bending style, when you donned menswear, in that video?

I like to have a sense of humor about everything, especially things that can have a lot of tension. A song like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” just smacks it dead for me. The audience issue is not something I worry about. I’m respectful to my audience and I appreciate them for relating to my music regardless of their point of view on whatever it is, whether it’s politics or social issues. I’m not here to judge.

Tell me about the first time you encountered a Shania drag queen.

I went to an imposter show in Las Vegas and it was incredible. You brought up the country world and maybe how that might be more conservative, but it’s funny, three of the artists that were in the show were myself, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton. I thought that was so wonderful. It’s like, “OK, we’re country artists, and we’re in there!” Any artist that is, on a visual level, very expressive would make a great imposter night subject!

What is the one thing a queen cannot go without if they truly want to feel like Shania Twain?

Probably something leopard print, and I would say a top hat. The boots, for sure!

For gay men everywhere, 1998 was one of the best years as it was the inaugural VH1 Divas, the best and most iconic. It doesn’t get any better than you, Mariah Carey, Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin and guest performer Carole King. Of them, who are you still in touch with?

Mariah Carey. Celine Dion. We still cross paths – it’s great. I always like to catch Mariah when she is live, and Celine, too. It was such a wonderful group of ladies, really terrific.

Who most lived up to the diva title during the show?

I think Mariah had the biggest hair, so probably her. (Laughs)

You were second, I think.

I was! I said, “OK, I gotta look at Mariah’s hair. I want to try for it to be as big as hers,” because she has this naturally big, amazing hair. So I’m like, “Come on, let’s go for it. I know Mariah’s gonna have bigger hair than me, so I’m gonna go for it and have fun with it.” She has that hair that I want, that naturally big hair with this gorgeous wave and those ringlets.

When you all performed “Natural Woman” as your encore, I wasn’t sure who was stealing the spotlight: Mariah’s hair or Aretha.  

(Laughs) I know! Nobody can kill Aretha’s spotlight.

If you did another Divas, what other diva would you want to sing alongside?

Rihanna, for sure. She’s just so awesome. I love her voice; I never get tired of it. Never, never. And we hear it so much on the radio, right? She’s every second song on the radio and I just never get tired of it. Even with “Love on the Brain” – I mean, it just doesn’t get better than that. So, she’d definitely be on my list.

I’m hoping for you and Taylor to team up – our two country-gone-pop queens.  

Taylor would be a good one. She’d be a must on Divas, for sure. She’s awesome. She’s such a great creative person and a super songwriter and really uses her brain, so it’s lovely to watch her.

Lastly, how many costume changes can gay audiences look forward to when you hit the road?

(Laughs) How many would a gay audience find ideal, do you think?

At least 15.

(Laughs) Whoa. OK, that is a friggin’ high demand. I’d have to change every two songs!

As long as you bring out the iconic ensembles, no harm, no foul.  

Gotta have a little flashback moment here and there, yeah!

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/10/26/dont-be-stupid-you-know-shania-loves-you/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/166819963270

[hotspotsmagazine]

Don’t Be Stupid, You Know Shania Loves You

Contrary to popular belief, some things _do_ impress Shania Twain. The country-pop icon and paragon of leopard print has great admiration for her LGBTQ fans, who she says have become guiding lights in her own life.

Twain’s inspiring story is one of survival, from her childhood hardships while growing up in the small town of Timmins, Ontario, where she raised her three younger siblings after her parents died in a car accident in 1987, to her 2009 divorce from Robert “Mutt” Lange, producer of Twain’s 1997 crossover behemoth Come on Over. The best-selling country album of all time was a game-changer with an impressive track record – 40 million copies sold globally, 50 weeks atop the Billboard country charts over three years, 11 singles released – that Twain still champions in the female-artist arena.

Fifteen years after dropping her last juggernaut, 2002’s Up!, Twain, 52, is again demonstrating slay status to her legions of loyal, boot-stompin’ queer fans. Even a neurological voice disorder called dysphonia couldn’t keep the genre subverter, who once thought she’d never sing again, from recording her long-overdue fifth LP, Now. Released in September, Twain wrote every song, and her shiny résumé got even shinier when the album instantly seized the No. 1 spot on the Billboard albums and country charts.

Country-pop’s comeback queen was an open book during our recent conversation, speaking  passionately and candidly about her LGBTQ activism at the onset of her country career in 1993, having to “agree to disagree” with those who aren’t pro-gay, and bringing drag queens and Bud-guzzlin’ bros together with “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

But, also, you don’t get Shania Twain on the phone without reminiscing on 1998’s VH1 Divas, when Twain shared the stage with an epic mix of icons – Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Gloria Estefan – for one of the most legendary, gay-loved nights in diva (and hair) history.

Do you have enough leopard print gloves to go around for all the gays to partake in celebrating your comeback?

(Laughs) I should make them, right? What do you think would be the preferred fabric? Silk or…?

Velour.

Yeah, like, velvet.

We need a million of those by tomorrow. But first, Shania, after all these years, how do you explain your connection to the LGBTQ community?

I can’t really explain my connection in any sort of theoretical way to anyone. But I would say my intentions are to inspire and connect with people, to be relatable then and now. I think that it is what resonates – we relate to one another, we relate to struggle, and then surviving struggle and celebrating who we are and what we are and appreciating that as a community of people regardless of what it is. Just celebrating together to the anthemic nature of some of those songs, and on this new album there are several like that as well.

Is there something specific you hope to convey to LGBTQ audiences with this album?

Surviving against the odds. A song like “I’m Alright” – just that statement there and telling yourself, “I’m alright. I’ve made it through. I’ve survived.” And with a fist-in-the-air attitude, with conviction.

What was your introduction to the gay community?

I work with a lot of gay people and they’re just a part of my almost daily family world. So, they’re just part of my friends and my community. I guess more when I started to become successful, I was really surrounded by more creative people, and there are so many creative people in this industry who are gay, both men and women. It just becomes the norm.

During some of your rough patches, did you get any sage advice from your gay friends?

Oh, I get good advice from gay friends all the time! (Laughs) I think more than anything I’m inspired by the spirit of where the gay community is right now and that conviction to be who you are. I love standing up for that. It’s just so important to be transparent and open about who you are and to not hide behind fear.

Have you clung to that sentiment as a way to push past your own personal pain?

Completely! I mean, my whole transition into where I am now in this moment has been facing fears and taking that leap of faith myself, and that would be my advice to anyone out there. A gay person who has been living behind their fears and then makes that courageous decision to start living as who they really are and stop pretending and embrace it – it takes a lot of courage.

For me, I’ve just learned that there’s no time to waste. You need to take that leap and be who you are, and we’re in a society now that is making it easier. We still have a long way to go, but there are a lot more outlets.

But the gay community – and minority communities in general – are always fighting. I have a song on the album called “Swingin’ with My Eyes Closed” and it’s a fun party song, but the true depth of the song is about even when you can’t see what is in front of you, you still have to move forward. You can’t move backwards; you gotta keep moving forward and fighting for that freedom to exercise independence and courage.

There couldn’t be a better time for a song like that. In 2013, you tweeted about the Supreme Court overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, saying, “Congrats to everyone celebrating equality today in the U.S. #loveislove.” Why is it important for you to take a stand on gay rights and other LGBTQ issues?  

I just feel very saddened by any kind of oppression in our society in today’s day and age. I mean, it’s so negative. Equality should be a no-brainer, automatic, all the way around. We need to have mutual respect all the way around. Supremacy of any sort is just poison. I just feel like we’re not above each other in any way and mutual respect and an admiration for an individual’s abilities, talents, heart, commitment – I mean, what does that have to do with any minority status that we might be labeled with today, whatever that may be? Certainly, I know that gays feel that.

How does it feel knowing that your songs “Forever and For Always” and “From this Moment On” have probably been the first dance at a number of same-sex marriages?

Awww! That’s lovely. It’s so lovely. But love is beautiful, and music is very much a part of our lives and monumental moments of our lives.

Because country music has long been deemed conservative in its views, could we speak as openly as we are now about LGBTQ issues at the beginning of your career?

I mean, I did. You know what this is really about? This is about pro-equality, this is about pro-mutual respect. And if you’re really for those things in life, then why would there be any boundaries? Why would you side where there are? Why would you a draw a line there?

In the country community, I think it comes down to the fear of potentially alienating conservative fans.

I think everybody has the right to their opinion, and that I would never argue with. That is a huge part of freedom of speech and mutual respect, having the right to your own opinion. If you’re not pro-gay, then you’re not pro-gay, and we just have to agree to disagree. I would never get into a fist fight with somebody who didn’t agree. I just think that would be counterproductive. So, I think we all have to respect each other’s opinions on these issues.

But, listen, with a song like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” – and this is, what, 20 years ago?  I’m over that come a long time ago. A lot of straight men sing “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” just for the sheer entertainment of it. So, I think songs like that have been great, maybe, contributors to bringing us together, if not for anything than just for the common denominator of music and owning that for whatever it means to them, and that breaks down barriers.

WATCH:

How do you reflect on your gender-bending style, when you donned menswear, in that video?

I like to have a sense of humor about everything, especially things that can have a lot of tension. A song like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” just smacks it dead for me. The audience issue is not something I worry about. I’m respectful to my audience and I appreciate them for relating to my music regardless of their point of view on whatever it is, whether it’s politics or social issues. I’m not here to judge.

Tell me about the first time you encountered a Shania drag queen.

I went to an imposter show in Las Vegas and it was incredible. You brought up the country world and maybe how that might be more conservative, but it’s funny, three of the artists that were in the show were myself, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton. I thought that was so wonderful. It’s like, “OK, we’re country artists, and we’re in there!” Any artist that is, on a visual level, very expressive would make a great imposter night subject!

What is the one thing a queen cannot go without if they truly want to feel like Shania Twain?

Probably something leopard print, and I would say a top hat. The boots, for sure!

For gay men everywhere, 1998 was one of the best years as it was the inaugural VH1 Divas, the best and most iconic. It doesn’t get any better than you, Mariah Carey, Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin and guest performer Carole King. Of them, who are you still in touch with?

Mariah Carey. Celine Dion. We still cross paths – it’s great. I always like to catch Mariah when she is live, and Celine, too. It was such a wonderful group of ladies, really terrific.

Who most lived up to the diva title during the show?

I think Mariah had the biggest hair, so probably her. (Laughs)

You were second, I think.

I was! I said, “OK, I gotta look at Mariah’s hair. I want to try for it to be as big as hers,” because she has this naturally big, amazing hair. So I’m like, “Come on, let’s go for it. I know Mariah’s gonna have bigger hair than me, so I’m gonna go for it and have fun with it.” She has that hair that I want, that naturally big hair with this gorgeous wave and those ringlets.

When you all performed “Natural Woman” as your encore, I wasn’t sure who was stealing the spotlight: Mariah’s hair or Aretha.  

(Laughs) I know! Nobody can kill Aretha’s spotlight.

If you did another Divas, what other diva would you want to sing alongside?

Rihanna, for sure. She’s just so awesome. I love her voice; I never get tired of it. Never, never. And we hear it so much on the radio, right? She’s every second song on the radio and I just never get tired of it. Even with “Love on the Brain” – I mean, it just doesn’t get better than that. So, she’d definitely be on my list.

I’m hoping for you and Taylor to team up – our two country-gone-pop queens.  

Taylor would be a good one. She’d be a must on Divas, for sure. She’s awesome. She’s such a great creative person and a super songwriter and really uses her brain, so it’s lovely to watch her.

Lastly, how many costume changes can gay audiences look forward to when you hit the road?

(Laughs) How many would a gay audience find ideal, do you think?

At least 15.

(Laughs) Whoa. OK, that is a friggin’ high demand. I’d have to change every two songs!

As long as you bring out the iconic ensembles, no harm, no foul.  

Gotta have a little flashback moment here and there, yeah!

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/10/26/dont-be-stupid-you-know-shania-loves-you/

[untioko]

I Am Proud

For a long time now, about seven years ago I decided to place myself into the Republican party because I realized that were the party of the American people, and as an American, my already innate ideals, morals and thoughts are heavily reflected in the Republican party.

As soon as I began to mention that I stand with America, and for America, the so-called friends I had, and ex-boyfriend became loud, and hostile. They, as have many other, (I realized they were all democrats) people on social media had differing opinions that they wanted to shove down my throat by any means necessary.

The very news media Americans are supposed to be able to trust to not be biased were chanting the same things that average and radical democrats would. If I had a different opinion, if I still do, I am ostracized for it.

None of them would listen to my side of the story. They were all confident that they were right, that they knew everything, and that I was definitely wrong. This made me more reserved, I suppose, continually getting shut down by people who, as Americans, are supposed to listen to me, and then if they still do not agree, debate with me on even grounds.

It did not take me long at all to realize that all the democrats I encountered were intolerant, and hostile. The news media, democrats, and every television and movie tell me the opposite-that republicans are intolerant and hostile. But I have almost never seen that claim to be true. Even on social media, I still see republicans gutted and skinned alive for daring to have a different opinion then the "rest of civilized society."

The democrats would complain that they were just "so oppressed" at the top of their lungs, and yet, they were the only ones allowed to speak at all! For if a republican tried to speak, they were crucified on the spot. Verbally, and sometimes physically maimed.

At rally's, the republicans were a rather peaceful sort. Democrats would storm in, start throwing punches, and then the media would blame the republicans for the violence. I could not understand why I was hearing what I was hearing, how distorted the truth was becoming.

The only oppressed people in America seem to be republicans, and conservatives of all races, and nationalities. We come in all colors and are of most known races, contrary to popular belief. Gay republicans exist too, yet even they are harshly persecuted for not being "truly gay" or for being "stupid". The black republicans are targeted heavily as well for being "a traitor". And I just have to wonder why are only white people "allowed" or "supposed" to be republican?

When being republican is the same as being an American, and supporting America and what She stands for, I see no reason why republicans are labeled "the party of old white men" because I see republicans as Americans and we are all diverse, as mentioned.

And as Americans we damn well deserved to be heard just as much as a democrat deserves to be heard. What the hell is wrong with colleges, talk show hosts and other public-speaking platforms who do not allow republicans to have a voice!?

That is exactly why the republican party is the party of Americans. In America, we have freedom of speech. Tomi Lahren, for example, a beautiful, calm, reserved conservative invited democrats on to here stage to tell their side of the story. I have yet to personally see democrats extend that offer to republicans and mean it. Tomi did the right thing. The American thing.

If republicans were so intolerant, why did Tomi allow Jazz to speak on her stage?

In either case, I have long felt a certain amount of shame in being a republican, because of how we are treated. I have even been scared to admit this for varying reasons, most of which democrats are violent! I also know a lot of public schools blatantly discriminate against republicans. Schools will go out of their way to hire a democrat over a republican and if a teacher reveals herself or himself to be a republican, the school often fires him or her! That's absolutely insane and horrifying.

In America, we are supposed to thrive on opposing ideas, different, unique voices, not shut down nor discriminated against. In a school setting, it is absolutely vital that children be exposed to different view points. Why is the view point of the republican so banned? We do not and never have condoned violence. Some republicans may own guns, but all of the mass shootings have been performed by either Muslims or democrats.

Most violence is committed by democrats anyways as a rule. So why should they solely be allowed to teach America's future children? I know not all democrats are violent. My ex-boyfriend, as stupid and ignorant as he is, and how democratic he is, I still do not think he would hurt anyone. But he's the exception, not the rule.

And look, I do not hate anyone, no matter what their party affiliation is...I just think it's high time that republicans be allowed to speak, and teach children if they have the proper credentials and pass necessary background checks.

At my college, a wonderful, nice woman who was a secretary in the front was fired because she is religious-she wore a cross around her neck, I think. She never spoke about religion at school, by the way, but, yet, she was "let go." And that happened at a small town college. Imagine a big city!

Well, to get to the point, I was snooping about Tumblr yesterday and I found three people who are republicans...and who are PROUD to be republicans...and they are inspiring people, even if one of them is ignorantly pro-choice. I was, well, thrilled to find other people outside of the family who are proud to be a republican.

And while I may still keep my republican opinions to myself at college (I don't want to be shanked) I have decided to shake the shame off. I am who I am, and I know I believe in America and what it stands for. I know I am not wrong. I will at least from now on have pride that I made the right choice all of those years ago, despite how every outside force screamed at me that I was wrong.

After all, I rose above the sheep who all think the same. I am one of the enlightened few, and am glad about that.

So at least on Facebook I am, for better or worse, officially coming out of the closet and saying I am a proud republican.

I'd like to thank my family for pointing me in the right direction. I needed that push. Otherwise I would have blindly listened to the sheeple. I'd also like to thank Mariska a true friend who listens to all of my inane ranting. I'd like to point out that she is not even an American and yet she listens to what I have to say so what is a democrats excuse for not hearing a republican out, I wonder. If someone not of American origin can hear me out, democrats should definitely be able to listen too. Now, maybe she does not agree with me on all of my American ideals. That's okay. I've never faulted her for disagreeing with me. We talk about controversial topics like the adults we are. I state my opinion. She states hers. We talk about it. We don't shut the other out. Republicans and democrats need to be more like us. Listen. Talk. Hear. Sympathize. We don't always have to agree. We can always agree to disagree. That said, I'll say it again, thank you Mariska. I hope our friendship lasts. I really appreciate you as a friend. You're intelligent. Thoughtful. Creative. I do, I like talking to you.