#we signed a bang average player for so much fucking money

[theangryjuveblog]

this says it all tbh.

[cult-of-artemis-and-athena]

What the fuck is "femininity", anyway? Pt. 2

I was watching a video a few months ago about Evangelical Christians complaining about what they perceived as androgyny - women wearing pants and not having long hair, men not going fishing or wearing beards - and then said something to the effect of "These people are straying from God's design!"

I suppose the Bible does have some parts that can be construed as saying that women should have long hair, men should have short hair, and they should both look different and do different things. However, wearing certain clothes or hairstyles, or doing the majority of tasks don't have a biological component. If men were naturally, biologically, by-God supposed to have short hair, it should grow to be an inch long and stop, right? I've seen some Christians rebut the "only men can wear pants" argument on the basis that the stereotypical Christian man wouldn't like, nor properly fit into a pair of women's pants. I would take that a step further, because I think it's hilarious, and say that if women wearing pants were a 100%, by-God biological impossibility, they would have one leg, or be like nagas or mermaids and it would be physically impossible to make pants for them.

Another example: musical instruments are assigned gender stereotypes for some fucking reason. A friend from middle school said she wanted to play the trumpet, but was given a clarinet because it was a "feminine" instrument. Conversely, I've seen boys who started school band on a flute or clarinet either switch instruments, or quit band altogether. Perhaps small hands make it easier to play the piccolo, and it's less annoying for a strong person to carry around a tuba, upright bass, or bari sax, but there's no reason for the player's genitals to enter the equation. During the 18th century, the acceptability of an instrument for women was based on whether the player had to spread their legs to play it. Pianos, violins/violas, and flutes were allowed, but a cello was indecent. I'm not sure, then, how harps became stereotyped as "feminine instruments" when they're both gigantic and require the player to straddle them...but here I am trying to make sense of nonsense again...

Finally - and this is the big one - there is the downright schizophrenic relationship some male communities have with female attractiveness and things women do, or have done to them, to change how they look in pictures and videos.

I feel I must preface the rest of this point with something: "men" and "women" are not hive minds, and it's important to not strawman half the population based on a conglomeration of the worst representatives you have experienced. If you go outside, in real life, and think about the couples you see, it becomes very obvious that the majority of men you will see are attracted to women who aren't skinny blondes with big boobs/asses and the majority of women you see are attracted to men who aren't 6-/7-figure earners. People who seem to express that they are totally alone and perpetually shit-on by a world of "Chads" and "Staceys" feels like the same type of mindset school kids have, where they obsess over not being included by the popular kids while they're befriended and included just fine by kids they actually have more in common with. It's not a healthy mindset to have, but excusable in school kids because kids are immature by nature and they mostly grow out of it; however, to be an adult and still think like this is a good sign to get help.

I'm talking primarily about the incel community and perhaps some of the groups that this mentality spills into.

A post was going around several years ago and I think the photos were taken from a clickbait which was taken from a makeup artist's portfolio. The MUA might actually have been Goar Avetisyan (https://www.goaronline.com/courses) but the before and after pictures resembled the ones on the link above -- one with absolutely no makeup or hair styling, and then the other with full glam, special occasion makeup and styled hair, a wig, extensions, etc. The way it was presented was "LOOK! HERE'S PROOF W*MEN AREN'T ACTUALLY HOT! WAKE UP SHEEPLE! THEY'RE LYING TO YOU! ILLUMINATI EXPOSED!!!!"

I can see why they're mad, because the dishonesty surrounding makeup, but especially photoshop, plastic surgery, posing, and airbrushing can get toxic. I'm old enough to remember the old-fashioned mindset where women were supposed to hide their "beauty secrets". Don't apply makeup in public, keep your roots touched up so nobody knows they're dyed, and if you have any treatments or surgery always deny having them. Wear your makeup to bed, then wake up early and fix it before your guy sees you.

I couldn't imagine how awful I would feel if I had Instagram or TikTok when I was growing up. I had enough moments of feeling frustrated because I didn't naturally look how other people looked, and I didn't realize that people in TV and movies were wearing makeup, that magazine ads were photoshopped, etc. Just being an extremely average-looking human being with no concept of basic grooming, comparing myself to other kids at school was hard enough without the rapist-run media adding another layer of bullshit.

When I realized the layers of lies, it was like...how long have I been wasting my time and money on this totally made-up problem? How much did I actually improve my life and happiness chasing it? Or, did it actually make me more miserable? How much could I have accomplished if I put the same amount of angst into a different pursuit -- instead of fixing my face, I could have been fixing my art...When it comes to pursuing an unattainable ideal, there is no end to the horror.

So, I suppose, when a group of men (...boys, whatever) realize that "hot women" are a spook, and the the ethereal creature they've been told by society to put on a pedestal is actually not far removed from them, and it shits and farts, it seems very reasonable to feel angry and like you've been taken for a ride by "the system". It can be easy to blame women for this, and hate them. And it's probably easy to get stuck here.

Instead of being perpetually angry, they have to mourn the death of this ethereal spook-woman, and move on with an acceptance of reality as it is. Women, too, have to kill and mourn the spook-woman as part of self-acceptance.

One positive evolution of the makeup fandom is that while the makeup has gotten more intense and elaborate, makeup tutorials have demystified makeup. When tutorials started to become popular, there was a lot of "Excuse my eye-circles, excuse my pimple, excuse my skin, excuse my hair, excuse my lighting, excuse my room, excuse my, excuse my, excuse, excuse, excexcexcexCEXEXEXEXEXEX- *boom*" and thankfully someone eventually came along ($10 says it was a drag queen) and said, "SHUT THE FUCK UP, NOBODY CARES," and eventually the makeup fandom became okay with letting a bare face be a bare face. You wear the makeup, you don't wear the makeup. It doesn't matter. It's just a hobby.

To refer back to my original point, the confusion of makeup (something culturally feminine) with biological femininity has really fucked up both men and women. Everyone is better off extracting the two from one another, and it seems like many people are in the process of doing that. It helps women hate themselves less, and it helps men humanize women and have better relationships.

However, the image of the spook-woman, "10/10 model" is so ingrained in some parts of the culture, as the apex of the vertex of femininity, that despite complaints about how makeup is a lie, discarding that in favor of just a healthy, bare-faced woman feels like embracing post-modernity and a slippery slope to embracing ugliness as beauty. I think the lack of exaggerated femininity that spook-woman makeup provides feels threatening because the woman's face looks more masculine in a purely relative sense. The exaggerated femininity of the spook-woman, as it is for the Evangelical Christians who follow strict gender roles, provides additional separation between the sexes which serves to reassure men who are A) preoccupied with their level of masculinity and B) hyper-aware of their standing toward the bottom of this hierarchy of masculinity. I think the entire hierarchy benefits from them being placated by more separation from women, because if the bottom whatever percent of men are too dissatisfied with their standing, they may start punching upwards or wanting to attack the hierarchy itself. The men at the top don't want that because of the benefits they receive for being at the top.

MGTOW and the incel movement really kicked off after Gamergate, and intensified with subsequent "waves" of feminism. The discontent men direct their frustration at women, but they also direct their frustration at the men not troubled by what women do. There's suddenly a lot of interest in whether you're an alpha, a beta, a gamma, omega, a sigma, a ligma male, etc. and which one is the better type of male to be. There's a lot of hatred for "Chads" and I see a lot of jealousy directed toward men who are married and have families, usually in the form of "She's just gonna divorce you, take half your shit, and then manipulate your kids to hate you. You'll see...you'll realize you should have spent your whole life banging whores."

This all seems like the result of the ol' spending money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like. This is undoubtedly the idealist in me, men and women would be better off to cut each other some slack. We could see one another as fellow tragic, flawed individuals instead of fleshlights and ATMs, escape the Matrix and spit in the faces of our rapist, media elite overlords.

[ccwastaken]

Howdy hi this story is set before Scarlett and the shakers got uh. Popular. There's some swearing in here. Oh and. Janana is referred to as Janet because Janana is a nickname in my hcs that she hasn't been given yet.

×××××××××

Janet set down her pen and sighed. She glanced at her watch. Three twenty seven pm. Hm. She had an appointment in three minutes, didn't she? She reached for her journal and flicked it open. Looking over the appointments for the day, she found she was correct. Some amateur band "Rudy and the Shakers". She frowned at the name. She hated appointments like these. They were almost always wannabe rockstars, entitled rich kids or teens that barely knew how to play a guitar. She sighed. No- no she wouldn't be negative about this one. Every band deserved a chance at fame. That was why she worked in A&R.

But she would admit the job got...tiring. She sometimes wished she didn't have to stay in this office all day, doing paperwork- she wished to have a band of her own to manage, to help and popularise- that was what she'd always wanted. But...she was starting to doubt it would happen...

The phone on Janet's desk buzzed. "Miss Patel, there's a group here to see you." The secretary's voice came. She snapped out of her thoughts and sat up.

"Send them in." She replied, her voice back to formal business. She straightened the papers on her desk, pulled her chair closer to her desk and watched the brown wooden door across the room from her. There was a knock. She looked down at her paperwork and held her pen in her hand. "Come in."

Janet looked up at them as they entered. There were four of them. All fairly young, probably fresh out of highschool. The first was a guy with a navy mohawk, sunglasses, and a pierced ears. He wore a ripped navy jacket, grey shirt, and ripped black jeans. The second was a tan woman with long red hair. She wore a similar outfit, white ripped jacket and jeans and a red shirt. Both of them wore matching combat boots, red and navy respectively. The third was another guy. His spiky hair was clearly bleached blonde. He seemed pretty average compared to the other two. He wore a denim jacket, a striped shirt and jeans. He looked like a normal guy who'd work at a burger joint or something. The last was a ginger girl with blonde bangs. She looked both younger than the others and like a typical ska fan. White button-up shirt, black tie and hairband and blue jeans. A pair of drumsticks stuck out of her belt.

Oh great, punk rockers, a ska fan and a possible stoner. She sat up. "So you guys are..."

"Rudy and the shakers!" The sunglasses guy interrupted. Just by his voice Janet could tell this guy had an ego.

"Uh-huh. I take it you're Rudy?" She asked. He nodded.

"Yep! I'm frontman, secondary singer and bass player." He gestured to the blonde man, who had tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. "That's Marty, he's our guitarist," Marty looked from a sign on the wall to Janet. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and waved a bit in greeting. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Rudy. "That's Clover, our drummer." he gestured to the ska girl. She grinned and waved.

"Yo." She chirped

"And this fine lady is Scarlett, our primary singer." He grinned at the girl and grabbed her hand, kissing it. Janet cringed internally. Eugh. These two were big on PDA, weren't they? She folded her arms on the desk.

"Alright, well," she gestured to the couch in the centre of the room. "Did you bring something to show me?" She asked as they sat down.

"Uh- yeah." The blonde man, Marty, fumbled with his jacket pocket and pulled out a CD case. He moved over to the desk and held it out. He sat down again after she took it. Janet stood up and looked at the cover as she walked over to the CD player in the corner of the room. There was paper taped to it. In the most punk rock font she'd ever seen was written "Rudy and the Shakers: album 1"

She put it into the player. "It's only a demo album," Marty said. "it's uh- all kinda experimental and-"

"It's our best work." Rudy interrupted, shooting Marty a look. The blonde fidgeted and looked at Janet.

"Just- we've never recorded music before so-"

Not saying anything, she hit play and moved back to her chair. She picked up her pen and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper.

The CD contained ten songs. She sat through every single one, taking notes, listening to the occasional interruption from the band members. As the last few drum beats of the final song faded into silence Janet looked up at the four of them. They all looked anxious, scared of her response.

"Well," she began. "You're definitely not experienced." She looked at Marty.

"But it's good, right?" Rudy asked. His confidence seemed to have died down a bit. Not much but- enough for there to be a slight nervous tone in his voice.

"Weeeell..." Janet tilted her head and looked at her notes. "You're interesting to say the least. I like the style of music, and you certainly have potential..." She frowned for a few seconds. "Your lyrics are unique and attention grabbing. Your song titles too. What I think you all lack is cooperation and experience."

"Cooperation?" Scarlett asked. She seemed to be the one that spoke the least. Even Clover, who was extremely nervous, spoke more often than her. Scarlett did seem anxious yes, but also...prepared. like she was taking this as serious as a job interview.

"Yes. You guys combine punk and ska and it's a great combination but you need to balance it, you need to refine that style." Janet explained. Scarlett nodded in understanding, seemingly thinking over everything. "And some songs are clearly Rudy songs or Scarlett songs- Marty and Clover don't really get that treatment. There's one or two that are distinctly one of them and a couple others where they're sort of crushed together."

"They're siblings." Rudy replied defensively.

"I just think you don't like sharing the spotlight, Rudy." She narrowed her eyes at him. Rudy seemed to stiffen in surprise for a moment. "You guys need a balance. Your songs should sound like all four of you working together. Occasionally you should make one for a certain member."

"Yeah! Yeah I was thinking that because- well we all like different types of music so-" Marty smiled at her a bit. Rudy shot him a look and folded his arms. Janet quietly wished rockers were less entitled.

"So?" Scarlett asked. Janet looked from the anxious band members to her own notes. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

These guys showed promise. More than the other amateur bands she'd met. She looked up at them. These kids...they looked so full of hope as they stared at her in anxious anticipation. She looked down at her notes then quickly back.

"...I'll cut you all a deal." She said. All of them snapped to attention. "I can give you all a year to improve and create an album-"

"What?!" Rudy interrupted. Now it was Marty's turn to shoot Rudy a look.

"Underneath mine and other professional's mentorship," she continued "You'll be given professional grade equipment and lessons. You'll have a team and a professional recording booth to use at your disposal. I'll be there too, obviously." Janet looked at them, arms folded again. "So?"

"We don't-"

Scarlett slapped a hand over Rudy's mouth. "We'll do it." She said quickly. "Thank you so much I-I promise this won't be something you'll regret."

Janet nodded and looked at the other two. Clover and Marty both grinned at her. Clover looked almost ready to cry. Janet scooted her chair back and looked through her drawers. This one year record deal was a standard offer for new bands. It established a business relationship, let the band produce work, and then, if they succeeded, gain a record deal. She pulled out four contracts and stood up.

Walking over, she handed a contract to each band member. "Now, I want all of you to read this over before handing it back in. You can mail it in within the next two weeks, just address it to me." She looked at the four of them as they read. "If the album you guys produce isn't satisfactory, you will have to pay back the costs of your use of equipment. Recording sessions are limited, use of our instruments is not."

"F-Forty thousand dollars...?" Marty asked. He suddenly looked pale. Janet winced.

"It is a lot, but we give you six months to pay it. Start saving throughout the year."

"Uh- excuse me," Clover asked. "It says here you need to be eighteen to sign this. I'm seventeen."

"You'll need parent's permission then." She replied. "Is that all your questions?"

"Yeah why are you such a-" Scarlett slapped her hand over Rudy's mouth again.

"Yes, we're done." Scarlett said. "Thank you miss- we'll make this worth your time, I promise."

"I hope so." Janet moved to her seat and sat down again. "I'll see you guys soon, I hope." She said with a small smile. The shakers grinned at her, except for Rudy who scowled, and left. Janet looked from her paperwork to the door. She- she just signed a band on. She'd be managing them soon if everything worked out. She leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling.

"What the fuck, Scarlett?" Rudy snapped as they stepped outside. His girlfriend looked at him.

"What? We got a contract, Rudy, didn't you want that?"

"Yeah but not one with a bitch of a manager and a bigass price tag! How're we gonna pay this shit back?! We'll have to sell our instruments or some shit-!" He gestured at Marty. "We'll have to sell his fucking kidneys or something!"

"This could be our big break!" The blonde retorted.

"I'm not listening to that bitch, Scarlett. This is a shitty deal and you know it!" Rudy hissed.

"Well you're gonna have to, aight? We got no other choices." She snapped. She looked over at Marty and Clover. "You two got any complaints?" She asked, a bit more earnest than she'd been with Rudy.

"Well- I'm worried about the money thing- I could get a job! Maybe a fast food place or somethin' but-" Marty wrung his hands together nervously as he spoke. "Clover?" He asked, looking at his little sister.

"Wh-what if our parents don't let me do this? Would you guys kick me outta the band?" She asked nervously. She looked scared, and Scarlett felt a pang of sadness. She walked over to the two siblings.

"Hey, we wouldn't do that," she gripped each of them by a shoulder. "The shakers aren't the shakers without drums and ska." She smiled at the two of them. "We'll work it out, okay?"

"Okay," Clover smiled a tiny bit. "Thanks Scarlett- you always know what to say..."

The redhead smiled. "Psh- nah, I've just been around Rudy too long," she looked over her shoulder at Rudy. "Ain't that right babe?" She asked with a grin. Rudy huffed and trudged away from them.

"Where are you going?" Marty called.

"The van! I'm getting food and I'm not waiting on you dicks!" Rudy called back. The three other shakers laughed and followed after him.