#which to be fair we never had a vacuum and mom banned us from the real one after i murdered a grand total of 3

[timeisacephalopod]

I don't know why my mom thought I was any kind of straight as a kid my favorite Scooby Doo character was Velma.

[long-after-love]

Some personal ramblings on love/marriage

(This is actually a non-Beatles post, even though I relate this story to Lennon/McCartney, which is funny)

The other day, I learned something about my cousin. Thanks to anonymity I can tell everything here.

Let's just call him Steve and his wife Anna. An admirable, hard-working, very likable man. His wife is a beautiful and sweet lady whom I also have massive respect for. They have two beautiful children, one boy and one girl. The boy inherits his dad's quick wit and his mom's fair complexion. The girl had her father's intense eyes and her mom's gentle charm. I have never known any family that looks so pretty and wholesome, they are the sort that you see in commercials – a bit too perfect to be true. 

Steve is never really close to me, but we are on great terms when we meet. Anna likes me as well. They used to invite me to join them on family trip when I was younger. I looked after the boy and the girl, so that they could have some private couple moments. Steve was openly sweet to his wife, and Anna held his hand all the time. The kids would run around me, laughing out loud at nothing as kids would. I felt like I was watching a movie.

And just recently, everybody in my extended family was shocked to find out that Steve had an illegitimate child that he has supported in secret for more than ten years now. His mistress could not compare with Anna in any way, and the most absurd thing was he wasn't even in love with her. Now everybody are asking, "Why, Steve? Why?" and I could imagine that even Steve was unable to explain it. 

Last week, I called my sister in Australia to ask about her current situation amidst Covid-19 and of course we talked about Steve's little scandal. Here I have to provide some background about her, and my family background. She is a single mom, and she is closer to Steve than anyone in my extended family. When she divorced her husband, my parents were so against it because they thought that she was selfish and the child needed a mom and a dad. My parents were old-fashioned that way – I think they were not wrong from where they stood, back when they had my sister and me. I never thought of my parents as a very loving couple. They rarely fought, but they had zero romantic vibe. I always had the impression that they stayed married because of me and my sister, not because they were in love.

I’ve realized that my mother and my father never ever taught me about sex, and as long as I could remember they’ve never shared the same bed. They did not even have a wedding photo. I guess it was because they were very poor and could not afford to take a photo of that day, but they didn’t even have couple photo either. They had to be with someone else in any photo al all: with me and my sister, or relatives, or in a group photo of friends and acquaintances. My father is a stern, quiet man and my mother is a nurturing, traditional woman. I could understand their love and their bond, but I can’t feel it. Their love was mutually built on their devotion to their kids, aka my sister and me, so to me it was a culmination of shared responsibility, understanding, appreciation, respect and most important, mutual sacrifice. I never saw any true moment of romance between them, I have never, ever seen my parents kissing ever. 

Love and sex in my household was a taboo subject – when I was younger my parents did not want me to have a boyfriend, and then when I got older they wanted me to get married and have kids as soon as possible. 

It sounds a bit ridiculous but I discovered love through The Beatles, and their songs were, in a way, painted my outlook for love. Of course, after all these years consuming other kinds of art I’ve established for myself a far more detailed concept of love, but it is The Beatles that gave me the rough idea. Some might say they were just four young lads singing pop songs about love just like every other pop song out there – I agree with them, at the time they did, and I am sure they didn’t think much about what they were writing – they only wanted to sound good and sell a few records after all. However, I don’t think they were fully aware of their extraordinary talent and their unprecedented influence at the time – such are the stuff that only those with the gift of hindsight like us can see. The Beatles would never know that decades later their songs still changed the life of a little girl in Vietnam for good. Loving The Beatles set me apart not just from my peers then when I was 12, and in a way, I alienated myself from my surrounding because of that. I started drifting away from my parents’ influence consciously (but of course on an unconscious level they still have their influence on me), and became an aberration – not just within the household, but also later on at school or in the workplace, however, I don’t consider being different means I am special, useful, or deserve anything better. Being different is just being different.

Back to the topic of my parents, perhaps my sister felt the same way as I do – we were living in a household where any discussion of love and sex was shadow banned after all. The nearest ideal we can look up to, was Steve’s family. They were the pinnacle of success and domestic bliss. However, before this scandal happened only my sister knew that everything was far from perfect – I happened to realize that she become Anna’s close friend after her divorce. And of course, she wasn’t so surprised about Steve’s illegitimate child at all. 

Through my sister I’ve learned about Steve and Anna’s story. 

Steve and Anna were classmates, and they had been dating for more than 7 years before the marriage. It was 7 years of an on-off relationship. I don’t know anything about Anna, but Steve, at one point, fell in love with another girl (let’s call her Sarah) and even proposed to her. Sarah’s parents did not approve their relationship because they much preferred Anna, and Steve’s parents were against the idea of having Sarah as daughter-in-law as well. Now I need to tell you that I’m from an Asian country where a woman doesn’t simply get married to her husband, she marries the family of her husband as well, so many women have to live with parent-in-laws. Steve’s and Sarah’s families are way too different and they could not stand each other. Due to fierce objections from both sides, they had to break up.

Sarah was still madly in love with Steve then, that even before the wedding she came to meet Anna, and asked her to let him go. My sister told me:

“Steve said that Sarah still saw him one week before the wedding. She told Anna that Steve loved her, and he nodded. It was the worst experience in his life -  having to confront these two women about his feelings. About four or three days later, Anna called Sarah’s parents, begged them to intervene. Sarah’s father had a terrifying meeting with Steve’s family, demanded Steve to break up with Sarah for good and never see her again, because he was supposed to marry Anna and Sarah, of course, would ultimately have to marry someone else as well. After getting married to Anna, Steve had fell into depression in 3 months. He could not sleep, he got up at 3 am just to sit on the roof and smoke or take a walk outside until he had to leave home for work. Finally he got himself together, because he could not just throw his life away – he was the only son of the family and his parents had so much hope in him (once again, where I live, parents valued their sons more than daughters, and women are but a lost cause – it’s an East Asian thing especially for countries being heavily influenced by Confucian’ philosophy). He put on a façade for nearly twenty years. It’s not that he didn’t love Anna – he loves Anna because she is the mother of his kids, he admires her effort and patience, her decision to stick with him despite all the things he did behind her back. He owes her a happy family. He acts out that kind of love publicly and proudly because that is what his conscience forced him to do. On the other hand there is always a vacuum inside him, he longs for the kind of love he had with Sarah and found the ghosts of it in his affairs. The illegitimate child was his accident, he have been quietly supporting the mom and the kid – however due to Covid-19 he cannot make as much money as he could and the financial support was dwindling. The woman was furious, so she decided to expose him. However, Anna still forgave her husband, as she did many times before in silence.” 

I asked my sister if she knew what Sarah was doing now. She said she didn’t know, but according to Steve, Sarah also got married about one month after his wedding. Perhaps that deepened his depression back then, he was shocked that she could find someone so quickly – however, that was the way it should be. He deleted her number, never contacted her again. He said he wouldn’t want the present to mess with the image of Sarah in his mind, and probably Sarah had done the same thing.

Now I’ve come to a point in my life, where I believe that anything can happen. I’m not too surprised that some weird shit happened, I’m just surprised that it happened under my nose. Even in my own relationship with my partner, sometimes I don’t understand what was going on without asking for other people’s different accounts on our relationship. There are so many things we could not tell each other, but from the outside, people could feel it. Then again there are things we want people to see, however true the opposite of them are. We did not lie when we were showing how in love we were, but we were not entirely genuine either.

It is never black and white. But of course, it is also never the perfect balance of black and white or an unanimous grey.

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

I'll never forget what my girlfriend said to me when she and I were talking about LGBTQ+ representation in the media: "I'd never thought beforehand that my mom would have a problem with me coming out. It wasn't until I read and watched those stories that I started to wonder if maybe, like all those parents, she would kick me out, too."

This is just one of many problems with LGBTQ+ representation in the media. It's getting better, and I can't argue with that. But it's still not where it needs to be. And people are finally speaking out about that, which makes me both excited and nervous. Excited because maybe, just maybe, it means that people are taking notice of the problem. And nervous because I'm worried it's just a passing phase, and it won't sustain the momentum it's picked up.

Bury Your Gays is a trope that exists across all media. It basically means that LGBTQ+ characters have a tendency to die rather than lead happy lives. In addition to Bury Your Gays, LGBTQ+ characters are often: relegated to the background, fetishized, stereotyped or tokenized, kicked out, abused, beaten and bullied extensively. Queer characters, especially before the 2000s, were likely to be trauma survivors, and to have their trauma closely linked to their queer identity. Their family members shunned them, so they developed mental illnesses and wound up homeless and alone. They committed suicide. They ran away from home.

Why does this matter? I think my girlfriend's quote just about sums it up. These representations affect real people. They are the only thing we have to cling to when we're trying to compare our lives to someone else's. In many situations, such as when a queer person lives in a very small or isolated area, they may not know any other out LGBTQ+ people. The media may be their only solution when it comes to looking for advice and someone to relate to.

While I was in the process of coming out, I didn't know very many real-life out LGBTQ+ people. I had two places to turn for support and resources: my online community, and queer media. I read Autostraddle and AfterEllen. I watched LOGO TV. I devoured books with queer characters, like Annie On My Mind.

There were good times, here and there. The L Word, as a show mainly about queer characters, had its fair share of representation, so not everyone led miserable, depressed lives. The problem was that I was coming out as a teen, and The L Word is about adult women, and really aimed at adult women. There weren't very many TV shows featuring queer teens when I was coming out. I watched South of Nowhere and Degrassi, and I learned how damn hard it is to be gay. How your family kicks you out, sends you to ex-gay therapy and bans you from seeing your significant other. How being LGBTQ+ will tear your entire world apart.

That's why it's so important that mainstream media is covering this issue. We, the LGBTQ+ community, have been outraged for years. Autostraddle, AfterEllen, queer blogs, and other LGBTQ+ publications have taken issue with our media representation for years. And that is important. There's no doubt in mind that actual queer people should be the ones taking the most offense with a lack of representation or with problematic tropes, and that we should be at the forefront and our voices should be heard. But I also think we need allies in this fight. We need non-queer people to be angry, too. We need mainstream publications to cover this. To showcase the issue to a broader audience, to an audience that has never thought about this problem before. That's why the recent coverage byEntertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair and Variety is so crucial.

I feel the tides beginning to change when it comes to diversity in media. Social media and the Internet is a huge part of that. Just look at the #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #OscarsSoWhite campaigns as an example. #WeNeedDiverseBooks grew so much as a hashtag campaign that it demanded a nonprofit be founded. Several studies in the publishing industry have been released. Just last week, in my graduate course on Principles of Management in Publishing, we spent roughly thirty minutes discussing how the industry can change. #OscarsSoWhite sparked boycotts and encouraged The Academy to institute real change in adding diverse members to their board.

This is the kind of momentum I want to see, and I don't want it to stop. I hate being angry. It's tiring, honestly, and sometimes I just want to consume media in a vacuum. I don't want to think about how Pretty Little Liars has de-gayed Emily Fields, or about Lexa's death on The 100. But sometimes I have to get angry, because those strong emotions incite reactions. People respond to anger about a lack of representation in the media, just as they respond positively to fantastic representations. I remember how the Internet exploded when Clarke and Lexa got together, how absolutely overjoyed so many fans were. This past week, too, I've seen a similar reaction about the relationship between Alec and Magnus on Freeform's Shadowhunters. Fans are excited to see characters like this; they're hungry for it.

The most important thing we can do to institute change is to not be content. We need to keep showcasing those strong emotions. We need to show how thrilled we are, as consumers, when diverse characters are represented, when diverse actors are used to play them, when diverse writers and producers are at the helm of a project. We need to show how angry we are when the reverse happens, and like with the #OscarsSoWhite and #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaigns, we need to continually demand better. As part of a business, the media wants fans to be happy, so they continue consuming. We need to prove that if there are more diverse representations, and if those representations aren't pandering or based on stereotypes or problematic tropes, we'll use our spending power to support it. And if there aren't, then we won't.

It's long been a stereotype in the media industry that readers won't pay for diversity. That's why things like #WheresRey happen, and why books about characters of color or disabled characters aren't marketed the same way other books are. But we can break that stereotype if we go about instituting change at every level.

If you're a maker—a current or aspiring journalist, novelist, filmmaker, television producer, or beyond—you can be a part of this change. Take a hard look at the diversity represented in the stories you tell, in your portrayals of events, in the worlds you create. Take the time to ask yourself if you're including a fair representation, or if you're tokenizing: if you've got just one queer character, or just one character of color, or just one character who uses a wheelchair, and if they tend to fit stereotypes or be relegated to the background. Take the time to ask people of the communities you're representing to act as beta consumers of your work, so they can point out potentially problematic tropes you may have missed, and so they can offer advice and insight into a world you may not be personally familiar with.

If you have the power, allow diverse makers to create. Hire journalists of color at your news organization. Include books by disabled writers, about disabled characters, at your children's book publisher. Hire a transgender film producer, and produce more films about transgender characters or real people. Publish that personal essay by an intersex writer. Look for mentally ill actors for your documentaries, even if the film isn't centered on mental illness. If you aren't in a position to hire these people directly, support their work when it is out there. Do everything you can to show the industry that this isn't a trend, and it isn't going away.

As consumers, we're responsible for showing that we do care about representations, and not just the ones that personally affect us. I'm queer and disabled, so it's clear why I care about those experiences being shown. But I'm also able-bodied, white, from a first-world country, college educated, and not a religious or ethnic minority. I cannot ignore the lack of representation for communities I'm not directly a part of. None of us can. This is all of our fight, and it's time we stand together.

[violetsystems]

#personal

The highlight of my week was Shake Shack on my lunch break at work.  It was the first time I’ve had it and I keep calling in Steak and Shack mentally.  I pass by it every day in the morning for coffee in the West Loop.  It passed through my feed due to some flaky algorithms and I was hungry.  Thirsty too I guess but I didn’t get a shake.  My order came up and New Order’s “Power Corruption and Lies” came on the radio as I picked it up.  I took a picture of it on Instagram and ate fries at my desk.  I treat my social media like a journal or diary.  I don’t really pay much attention to other people’s social media at all.  I don’t know if it’s all that healthy when it’s out of context.  I’m a victim of people not understanding the context of what I post.  You can be stressed out or under duress and fill in the blanks on anything.  I’m a huge believer in privacy for somebody who writes so transparently on the internet.  I live in America and I’ve often been ashamed at what people pass off as freedom.  People don’t mind their own business.  People make it a business not to mind their own business.  I was reading an article about the whistleblower for Cambridge Analytica.  The company’s business model prior to changing their name was Psychological Warfare.  Steve Bannon was on the board or something.  It seems like the only money these days for bloated old white people is hate clicks.  People trying to create drama in a vacuum.  That vacuum being people’s privacy.  It’s insidious to think about but it’s a natural exploit of human nature.  We’re all afraid of something and can be socially engineered to respond to it.  For the record I’m not afraid at all.  And sometimes when things slip through the cracks of my quantum window I make decisions.  I go get a hamburger and fries on my lunch break.  I actually take a lunch for once.  I buy a pair of shoes and wear them for a week.  All this seems like a revolution to the bourgeoisie and passers by.  I’m just trying to feed myself.  Since I’ve quit the gym I probably exercise more.  I’ve gotten more efficient at the science behind it.  That’s athleticism I guess.  I quit the gym because people kept following me there and harassing me.  I quit taking certain streets these days often for the same reason.  It’s gotten impossible to avoid.  Sometimes the claustrophobia is pleasant.  I’ve seen a lot of Girls Who Code people on the streets lately since I went to the Google conference.  Always women of color banded together like the real superheroes they are.  Sometimes in pink hijabs.  There’s a lot of hidden symbolism in plain sight in Chicago these days.  There’s also a lot of abuses of power which come as no surprise.  The trick is knowing where you fit into all of it.  And assuming your place in anything is rude.  It happens to me all the time.  People stepping over boundaries and me having to reevaluate my feelings towards it.  That’s how you provoke real culture.  And also how fake culture ends up in the mulch.

My mom called while I was playing magic to tell me Tuesday was a good day to mow.  It takes a good hour and a half on public transportation to get out there.  The entire time I spend is in public getting there.  Public in America is a very strange and magical space to navigate.  I’m not exactly hard to spot from far away as low key as I try to play things.  People in the suburbs have probably seen me more than most the last year.  People in the city are too stuck up or self absorbed to care.  When they do it’s usually wrapped up in some scheme or plan where I’m a utility.  They spend years watching you and talking behind your back.  Then finally when you are worth something to them collectively they try to prod you into a box.  A magic money making box where everybody is happy, productive and useful.  Sometimes I’m just trying to get a hamburger with fries.  Nobody asks who gave me that idea and that’s nobody’s business.  I’ve blocked people on Instagram for following me around.  Like point blank had to do that Friday.  When I go to New York by myself it’s much the same thing it’s true.  I do take pictures and check into places.  And sometimes people find them interesting and appreciate my interest.  But there’s a very huge boundary there in the fact that I can only afford to travel there every two months for maybe three days.  I live here.  The public space in Chicago has always had this oppressive atmosphere to it.  It’s opening up these days.  Especially in terms of diversity and inclusivity.  But you’ve got to tell it to leave you alone almost constantly.  And you have to figure out a way to set up your own boundaries here regardless if it’s fair or not.  People are very nice in the Midwest.  There’s this culture of kindness that isn’t always very genuine.  It clashes with real Chicago sometimes.  The kind of Chicago that knows better.  Street wise Chicago still is very nice and kind.  New York has the New York minute.  Chicago moves far slower.  Somebody takes a moment of your time and they try to turn it into a lifetime.  People fall out of your life but still feel connected through your ghostly presence on social media.  And they think they know all about you.  Whether or not this is the price of fame or being famous doesn’t really matter.  Chicago is famous for the saying “you ain’t shit.”  It’s a hater town to it’s very core.  Sometimes that’s fun to punk.  I don’t work for a psychological warfare firm.  I work at an art school.  I’m not trying to be an Instagram star or a reality show contestant.  I’m trying to start a life for myself nobody wants me to have.  One where I am free to love who I want and others are free to do the same.  Free to grab a hamburger and make a joke about it without having to explain myself.  Free to fly to Shanghai by myself and do the same thing.  And for the most part I am.  It just requires the responsibility to keep it to myself.  No matter how public facing I become.

One of the people I used to be in a music crew with and helped out tremendously is in New York this weekend playing a show.  Two years ago I started going to New York with that safety net in tow.  I could book a show with friends and play my music.  These days nobody knows who I am or will give me the chance.  The chance was never there.  At least not in music.  Years later New York is inescapable for me at this point.  I don’t need a reason.  I don’t need a show.  I just need to go.  I don’t need support.  I don’t need a chaperone.  I don’t need permission.  And nobody has ever given me a break.  It’s always shadowy bullshit guiding you through the fog.  And if you can’t trust people to remember what you’ve done years later what’s the point.  If people really ask me point blank why I go to New York I’m ambiguous at best.  Yeah I have friends out there.  But it’s more than that.  I’ve grown to be a part of two cities.  A bridge to a lot things on a strange rhizome that nobody wants to acknowledge specifically.  But in the margins and fog is where every single bit of the magic happens.  And you have to dive straight into the center in such an eloquent way off the diving board.  I’ve knocked my head more than I care to admit.  But then again I’ve been writing about it here week after week to people who listen.  Sometimes it’s a deeper love letter.  It’s always a deeper love letter this I cannot lie about.  But that’s between me and another person.  It’s true I’ve waded through a maelstrom of bullshit.  It’s nothing new to me at this point.  When I catch people on their borderline machiavellian tendencies I have to act like I’m not surprised.  When I see people’s schemes and plans in motion like a cartoon villain I just walk away.  Wander back to a safe, predictable space where I can rest.  People are chasing after money constantly.  People belittle my success and potential often.  I’m not rich enough.  I’ve let too much of my life pass me by.  Buried by other people’s fear of me moving on without their approval.  Yet people need me every waking second of the day like I’m a superhero.  Sometimes it’s rewarding.  Particularly when it comes to providing a safe space for people to think without being judged or manipulated.  That’s freedom to me in America.  How we can type out on the internet what we feel and flick off police helicopters for being so nosy.  How I can wear some shoes banned in China every day to work this week and nobody really knows the difference.  How I really enjoyed that hamburger.  Nobody needs to know why specifically.  Other than I’m a growing healthy boy who is also very thirsty for the record.  Maybe I’ll get a milk shake next time and drink it up.  Maybe I’ll be hunted by the paparazzi afterwards.  They don’t want to fuck with these healthy bones.  Maybe I’m saving these strong bones and teeth for the haters.  Maybe I don’t care much about them at all.  I’m all smiles on the inside.  Nobody needs to know why.  Crinkle cut fries do help on occasion.  <3 Tim