#lockdowns

[godisarepublican]

[hybridmindthoughtsreloaded]

The MAGA Vice President everyone!🤣🤣🤣🤣

[culturevulturette]

It's a mystery!

[1000rh]

The official responses to the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the opacity of medical bureaucracy. The changing rules, and the jargon they were delivered in, reminded many of every confusing and queasy doctor’s office visit they’d had. Lockdowns reminded some of all the times it felt like the cure was worse than the disease. COVID exposed the craven policies of governments interested in health only as far as it could keep people working. It made many people feel, more powerfully than ever before, that they live in an age in which they are surveilled but neglected, in which they are managed but not heard.

– Derek Beres, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker, Conspirituality (2023)

[rockinjohnny]

Big Pharma SILENCED Scientists on COVID | Dr Mike Yeadon | Neil Oliver

[alpaca-clouds]

Modern Loneliness And Parasocial Relationships

With the entire drama going on with Baldur's Gate 3 and people harassing the voice actors - especially Neil Nowbon - I cannot help but think about parasocial relationships and how they happen.

I was always super anxious about this. Like, literally. Even as a little kid, before I ever knew this word, I was super anxious about not wanting to fall into this. I did not really understand the dangers of it, but I knew that this kinda feeling was going to be somehow dangerous for me.

And yeah, unpopular opinion, but I think parasocial relationships with real people (opposed to fictional characters - because yeah, you and me, we both have parasocial relationships with our favorite blorbos that never can be anything but parasocial given that the blorbos are not real and can hence never know you) can be actually dangerous to people. Because they are going to mess with your head. And if you are in a bad headspace to begin with, that can be dangerous.

Because what happens if you go fullon parasocial relationship with a person is that you kinda think of them as a friend. While they of course do not know that you exist. Yet, there are moments when they act accordingly (like you do not exist) that are going to be hurtful to you for one reason or another. And depending on your emotional control this might lead you to act demanding - because you feel like you are owed that attention.

I really think that right now there is a big issue going on with how a lot of us are lonely in real life. Modern society for so many reasons fosters loneliness, because we are lacking Third Spaces, aka community spaces, where we can go and meet people. Where we can hang out with other real people from our actual real world surrounding. Like, some people have real world friends - but a lot of people have not.

I think that hit espcially hard for the people who started university or another new phase in life just as COVID and the lockdowns hit. Because not only did they not get third spaces to meet people - but often then lacked the second places (work, university) too, while just having moved out of a family home and suddenly being all alone.

So a lot of our social interactions moved online. I mean, I will not exclude myself from this either. Most of my friends I know from online spaces. As someone who has been bullied for most of his school life, this always has been true. But of course the big difference is, that those people know I exist - and in a lot of cases I might have even met them in real life, or might even spend the holidays with them and their family.

But social media had already blurred the lines a lot before. By making celebrities very accessible to the average media consumer. You could suddenly just interact with them (or let's face it, their social media team) fairly easy on twitter or facebook. And maybe they (or their social media team) would even answer you.

The thing of course is that most celebrities (even those celebs who are more like youtube or twitch famous) have a very curated online appearance. Like, all of their posts basically are PR approved. Or at least they put some effort into deciding what someone else gets to see of their lives. Technically they are just playing a character. Because... Well, they do want to have a life outside of their celeb status.

And, you know. There were always groopies, who would build those parasocial relationships with their favorite stars and starlets. But I think internet and social media has intensified this. And the pandemic did, too.

But folks really need to understand that celebrities and creators are not their trained monkey to reply to any interaction that folks want from them in a specific way that is expected. They are people, who have their own lives. Who often enough have families and partners and all of that. And their fans do not have a right to be somehow part of that.

This is also why I have never and will never condone real person fiction of living people (and those who still have people living that have known them). Because no matter whether it is fiction or whether what you write about them is more like a role of the public facing persona they inhabit... It is just crossing a line for me to publish scenarios (especially sexual or very violent and traumatic scenarios) involving real people, who might in one way or another find out about this. And be it just because some asshole talkshow host thinks it would be funny to make the celebs read those fanfics live on air in front of an audience.

Most of all: Celebrities and creators are people first and foremost. And if you would not think something appropriate to do to a person you know in real life then, no, it also is not appropriate to do to a celeb.

If you want to keep yourself from falling into the parasocial relationship trap, I have one tip for you, that works rather well for me: Speak of them with their last name or their full name, whenever you do. It does not matter that they might use only their first name or some nickname for online accounts. If you know their full name, use it. It helps your mind put some distance between you and them. To remind you that yeah, in fact, you do not know that person and they ae not your friend. They are if anything just someone you look up to a lot.

[willowreader]

This article needs no explanation.

[sighphi]

COVID lockdowns were a giant experiment. It was a failure. Here, a key lesson of the pandemic, excerpted from ‘The Big Fail,’ by Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean.

[godisarepublican]

"Covid19 Deaths" weren't from Covid19!

[lefemmerougewriter]

She had to tell the truth. "I guess so. The number of cases have been rising…it's not that many yet. I mandated a lockdown and that everyone wear cloth masks to protect themselves. It has made people very angry at me. Even Varian refused to leave."

Rapunzel explains the rising number of COVID-19, I mean Corona-Ailment, cases across Corona in a scene from my most recent fic "The Corona Blues: Cass the Space Pirate, Her Blue-Eyed Pirate Girlfriend, and Raps' Momentous Choice".

[garthnadermemestash]

Stay 6 feet away from me anyways

[christiansimbarashe]

now now, don't be revisionist about history, we were all there

[mercoglianotrueblog]

The "degrowth" for neo-communists

#BBC: can #degrowth save us? also #YouTube, #Amazon

#intellectuals connected with #communism or destruction of #capitalism

pandemic #lockdowns, #WHO,#climate, mainstream #media, #education system

anti-#Western guilt-inducing #psychosis

an hidden #agenda

[anbaricband]

Anbaric - New song out May 2025 - Sweet Freedom