#this post is about capitalism

[zackbuildit]

A slime girl's cellulite feels like orbeez I think. The same applies to slime boys, or slime enbies.

[castielsprostate]

i hate you "influencers", i hate you tiktok, i hate you "content creators", i hate you "unalive" and "s€x" and "dr/ügs", i hate you instagram, i hate you consumerism, i hate you family friendly, i hate you puritans, i hate you facebook, i hate you family vloggers, i hate you violating other people's privacy, i hate you modern day social media

[bathroom-sand]

paramount and spyglass are trying so hard right now to save face because jenna ortega rightfully left the scream franchise after they fired melissa for supprting palestine. nobody is dumb enough to believe the excuse that it’s a scheduling conflict hours after rumors she was trying to get out of her contract cause she was pissed. i’m very thankful that jenna is risking her career and using her position to do the right thing. she’s been outspoken about palestine for years now. i hope this begins a trend of zionist losing money for their support and complacency with an active genocide

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[noellevanious]

People that say "oh water foesnt have a taste!! any water is good" are fools that unknowingly prove they just cant Taste Good water. A good filtered water is the most refreshing thing on earth. Fill a water bottle with water from one of those sip fountains and take a drink and experience Bad Water. There is Good And Bad Water take my fucking word for it and appreciate that you didnt have circumstanves where you didnt have clean water to drink

[fiercynn]

disturbed by the number of times i've seen the idea that calling gaza an open-air prison is not okay because "that implies that gazans have done something wrong", the subtext being unlike those criminals who deserve to be in prison. i'm sorry but we HAVE to understand criminalization and incarceration as an intrinsic part of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, because settler states make laws that actively are designed to suppress indigenous and racialized resistance, and then enforce those laws in even more racist and discriminatory ways so that who is considered "criminal" is indelibly tied up with who is considered a "threat" to the settler state. that's how law, policing, and incarceration function worlwide, and how they have always functioned in israel as part of the zionist project.

talking about prison abolition in this context is not a distraction from what's happening to palestinians; it's a key tool of israel's apartheid and genocide. why do you think a major hamas demand has been for israel to release the palestinians in israeli prisons? why do you think israel nearly doubled the number of palestinians incarcerated in their prison in just the first two weeks after october 7? why do they systematically racially profile palestinians (particularly afro-palestinians, since anti-blackness is baked into israel's carceral system as well, like it is in much of the world) and arrest and charge 20% of palestinians, an astonishingly high rate that goes up even higher to 40% for palestinian men? why are there two different systems of law for palestinians and israelis, where palestinians are charged and tried under military law, leading to a conviction rate of almost 100%? why do they torture children and incarcerate them for up to 20 years just for throwing rocks? why can palestinians be imprisoned by israel without even being charged or tried? why do they keep the bodies of palestinians who have died in prison (often due to torture, execution, or medical neglect) for the rest of their sentences instead of returning them to their families?

this is not to say that no palestinians imprisoned by israel have ever done harm. but incarceration worldwide has never been about accountability for those who have done harm, nor about real justice for those have experienced harm, nor about deterring future harm. incarceration is about controlling, suppressing, and exterminating oppressed people. sometimes people from privileged classes get caught up in carceral systems as well, but it is a side effect, because the settler colonialist state will happily sacrifice some of its settlers for its larger goal.

so yes, gaza is an open-air prison. that doesn't means gazans deserve to be there. it means that no one deserves to be in prison, because prisons themselves are inherently oppressive.

[onawhimsicot]

i know not many people would want to read a 10,000 word article about the minecraft end poem and how the author, Julian Gough, was never fairly compensated for his work and has made it public domain.

But it's a very well-written and heartfelt read, and he makes it very clear that none of this is a cash-grab and despite the fact that he is essentially a starving artist in this capitalist society, he only mentions his financial struggles despite Minecraft's huge huge success at the bottom of this article and not in the tweets so as to not dilute his message.

Anyway, I just think it'd be cool if those who are able to could support him in some way whether it be subscribing to his substack or donating to his paypal (that's linked in the article, you can ctrl + F to find it easier), that's all.

[housewifebuck]

911 + memes 17/?

[bl0rbohandbag]

Malleus on his way to tell his grandmother the next queen of Briar Valley is going to be a magicless human from another world that just showed up at NRC one day and if he doesn't marry them there will be NO EGG and the Draconia bloodline ends with him

[foreveretherealseviltwin]

Stobin Appreciation Week 2023 by @dailystobin!!!

Day 4 : songs/lyrics/poems 🤍

spongebob // The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket // A little life, Hanya Yanagihara // Ribs, Lorde // Normal People, Sally Rooney // Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel // Stuck with me, The Neighborhood // Just Kids, Patti Smith // (pic) Troy and Abed (quo.) Winnie the Pooh by @/catbandits // Ryan O’Connell // Written on the body, Jeanette Winterson // Trista Mateer // Smoke Signals, Phoebe Bridgers // Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides, Anne Carson

[uncanny-tranny]

The bourgeois or "exploiting class" doesn't inherently include the person who gets their nails done biweekly, or the disabled person who has a carer, or the guy who got a $70 video game for full-price, or the person who relies on medication (yes even the ones you don't think they "need"), or anything else like this. None of these people will, on average, have the ability to exploit workers by means of ownership or whatever.

While you are busy fighting with fellow workers, you are still being exploited by your boss, by capitalism, by (potentially) not having healthcare, by being overworked and underpaid, and so are they.

[lilithism1848]

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[silvermoon424]

The fact that most European companies treat their non-European employees like shit- despite the fact that Western Europeans enjoy the highest level of workers' rights in the world- just because they can get away with it in the United States or whatever is proof why regulations are needed.

European workers are only treated better than their American counterparts because there are laws protecting them, not because European corporations are so much more humanitarian than American companies. Never forget that under capitalism companies will exploit you for all you're worth and all they can legally get away with.

[dragongirltongue]

So many of yall have taken propaganda against anarchists to fucking heart on this website and it shows.

[unexpectedgeese]

Thinkin abt how ORV explores the power of stories as a tool of both the oppressor and the oppressed. Kimcom uses stories to inspire hope and break cycles, whereas the Star stream uses them to shift the narrative and keep the cycle going. KDJ loving a story enough to survive vs. the constellations consuming them as food, uncaring towards the suffering involved. HSY and crew writing a happy ending in the epilogue vs. the Star stream violently course correcting Shin Yoosung (the disaster one) into acting out a tragedy. the 73rd Demon realm dehumanizing people SO MUCH that they didn’t even have names or identities. Olympus creating Heracles AS A STORY WEAPON from old myths to convince incarnations to buy into the system and strive for the top. Gigantomachia in general tbh.