umbraja

[umbraja]

All that is good but in this case you could also just say “I really love this animal” and most people won’t even notice you didn’t answer the question they asked because you gave them the information they actually wanted to know instead - which is why did you get the tattoo.

I learned this trick after going down a deeply autistic obsession rabbit hole of “why do people get mad when I give them the information they asked for?”

Turns out allistic people speak in an arcane code of implied meaning that can only really be guessed at but at least you can turn that against them and use it to dodge questions you don’t want to answer by trying to give them what they really want instead.

There is a delightful animal which I love ever so much HOWEVER it is also a zodiac astrological animal and more importantly it is MY astrological animal which I CANNOT STAND because I want more than anything to get a tattoo of this animal and I know, I know, I am certain, one hundred and ten percent that someone will inevitably see it and say, "Oh, nice tattoo, is it your zodiac sign?" And I will have to be like (😡) "yes"

[umbraja]

huh. so i just found out "Torment Nexus" was invented for that one specific meme. i genuinely thought it was from an Orson Scott Welles novel. my ignorance is an unending source of surprise and delight

[umbraja]

The beautiful thing about dnd (TTRPGs in general) is that YOU decide if your specific version of it follows the old school Tolkien style of black and white ‘morality’ or if you’re going to be more realistic about ethics and cultural diversity.

It can be nice to have clear cut heroes and villains you don’t have to think too deeply about. It can even be fun to murder-hobo your way through a power fantasy. But you can also not kill things.

I am currently playing in a game where the PCs can best be described as Diplomacy Hobos.

We have done the following:

Convinced the kobold pack in our first dungeon that we are better leaders than the gnolls they were serving, thus recruiting 13 kobolds to our camp

Convinced the leader of said gnolls that he was really quite bad at banditry and would live a much longer and happier life if he joined us in rebuilding the town he’d been preying upon. The alternative of course was death but we’d already let him go with a firm warning once and he just tried to steal our wagon for the mercy.

Managed to keep the townsfolk from pitchforking our new ‘monster’ employees and at least tolerate their presence while they worked off their crimes in ‘community service’

Convinced the spy hired to track us by the rival lord that he would be much better off joining us than pissing us off and we could actually protect his family from the extortionate threats his lord had been using to control him.

Turned the mercenaries that rival lord hired to kill us against their lord and recruited them to guard our town.

Liberated that lord’s slaves and founded a commune where all members are given food, living space, access to community resources, education, healthcare, and civil rights in exchange for whatever labor they can provide to help the community.

Helped the gnoll discover a love for farming and accepted the kobolds into the commune with the same benefits as the other members.

Made a trade alliance with the sentient queen of the giant beehive we stumbled across on the way to our second dungeon, trading raw honey in exchange for sugar confections

Made another trade alliance with the necromancer that had taken up residence in the mines we were sent to ‘clear out’ and gained a source of cheap labor via zombies

Made a political alliance with the green dragon that considers our region part of their ‘territory’ by rescuing her baby from a giant spiderweb and not killing him on sight for being green (or a brat)

Made another political alliance with the manticore family that also claims part of our region as their hunting ground, trading monthly tributes of deer for an agreement not to hunt along the roads.

Attempted to convince a vampire princess that she really didn’t need to enthrall people just to live her life but were rudely interrupted by vampire hunters who we managed to chase into the forest and dissuade from pursuing the princess (mostly by being assholes). But unfortunately by the time we got back from humiliating the hunters, the princess was killed by the assassin her father sent after her and we failed to convince that one to join our side. We did try though.

Convinced the national folk hero (high level NPC) that it would be so much fun to break into our rival lord’s very fancy exotic animal zoo and steal - I mean liberate the T-Rex

Negotiated the peaceful surrender of the bandits that had taken over our necromancer’s family estate and recruited them to maintain the estate as a way station in our expanding trade network in exchange for access to food, healthcare, and civil rights.

Negotiated the (mostly) peaceful liberation of our town from a brief occupation by our rival lord’s personal cult and recruited most of the tradespeople that had been extorted to support the occupation.

I’m probably forgetting some other diplomatic solutions to problems most would solve through violence but those are the highlights so far.

Also, this party is in no way lawful good. We are very solidly chaotic neutral. Morals are not really the driving force in this situation - at least not traditional morality.

What does guide this party is a strong belief that “there are no evil people, just people that assholes call evil so they have an excuse to kill them”

Also spite. There is a lot of spite.

Putting all tabletop players into a college level ethics class and forcing them to turn in a paper on moral philosophy before buying a new book

[umbraja]

“It's not safe to be a woman who needs to shave her face in a DV shelter.”

Let’s not forget how expecting trans men to closet themselves to get support also hurts cis women who do not fit western beauty standards.

Regardless of how you feel about trans people the cold hard fact is that not all bodies fit nicely into the gender binary. There are cis women who have never taken a drop of T but still have to shave their face to pass for female. There are cis women assigned female at birth and have never identified as anything else despite having broad shoulders, deep voices, square jaws, small breasts, big feet, and every other misogynistic stereotype of how to spot a trans person. Just like there are cis men with high voices and narrow shoulders who want nothing more than to be recognized as men.

Anti-trans ideology is just as harmful to these cis people. And there is no way to definitively tell them apart that would not still hurt the cis person. Especially in cases of DV.

People escaping violence don’t always get to take their birth certificate with them. Sometimes they don’t get to take their drivers license - which they may not even have if their abuser kept them isolated. They may not be able to escape with a dress and only have male clothes to wear. They may have trauma associated with feminine clothing and need to wear male clothing to feel safe. This is common in SA victims. They may not have access to makeup or they could just be allergic to it - yes you can be allergic to makeup. They may not have had a chance to shave or maybe even have a skin condition that makes shaving unhealthy. Their hair may be cut short, possibly done by their abuser to dehumanize them. It does happen.

Give the unrealistic expectations of western beauty standards and horrifying statistics of SA (20-28% of women in the US) vs the percentage of the population that identifies as trans (< 1% in the US), it is much more likely that the woman you’re side eyeing at the DV shelter thinking they are trans is actually just a cis woman having a Very Bad Time.

The last thing she needs is for some asshole to invalidate her already broken confidence by reinforcing the misogynistic bull shit her abuser used to keep her from seeking help. Because, yes, being asked if you’re trans IS a trauma trigger thank you very much.

So what do you really care about?

Helping abused women escape their abusers. Or forcing vulnerable people into conformity.

Because if you really care about helping women then you have to be flexible about what that word means. Maybe even help some men along the way.

And yes, I do understand that some traumatized women don’t want to be in the same shelter as men. That’s not really a sustainable solution though. It puts an undue burden on the shelter to keep them away from all men and does a major disservice to the community by severely neglecting the men who also need help. Because men can be victims of DV too (13-20% in the US). Barring all men from shelters doesn’t really help women in the long run either. It enables, and in some cases actively encourages, women to avoid reintegration with mixed society which can lead to internalized misandry. Yeah. That IS a thing.

Also, those exact women are not going to be fooled by making the trans man put on a dress.

—

Note: given statistics are a rough range pulled from multiple sources in a quick google search. They fluctuate from year to year and source to source but are generally around those numbers in most sources.

"But its easier for trans men to closet themselves and if they get found out there isn't as much risk"

can you talk to trans men please

[umbraja]

Awesome sources on facial recognition but they don’t need that to keep track of shoplifters.

I used to work in a university that had a Criminal Justice program and they had a speaker come in from Target’s Loss Prevention Program. They straight up said “We don’t prosecute until the theft adds up to a felony charge. It’s cumulative so we track each instance and then once it crosses that line then we charge. It can be spread over multiple stores and multiple years so long as it is within the statute of limitations. And here is how we do it” then they went on to explain the many ways they track shoplifters and most of it is just regular cameras paired with inventory tracking and actual people who walk around the store when they notice someone walk in that is on their list of suspects or otherwise suspicious. Target was one of that Criminal Justice program’s big donors. They participated in the internship program and funded CJ scholarships.

DO NOT SHOPLIFT FROM TARGET!

A few years ago, after I heard that speaker’s presentation, I served on a jury in one of the cases where Target was charging a shoplifter so I got to see everything that guy talked about in action. It was all true. They had video. They had inventory counts taken immediately after the suspect passed through the store and reconciled with the latest scheduled counts to show every item which disappeared. They had witnesses from the security personnel that followed the suspect around the stores. They had multiple instances of shoplifting that added up to a felony charge.

DO NOT SHOPLIFT FROM TARGET.

If you are dead set on doing it then wear a face mask and only take from a store once and only stores at least a county away from where you live and never breathe a word on social media about doing it because they track your social media once you get identified as a suspect which wearing a mask will automatically put you up for suspicion. Also be sure to walk there from at least a few blocks away because there are cameras in the parking lot that can identify you from your car. And be sure to actually buy something before you leave because not buying anything will also flag you for suspicion.

I know corporations are the real thieves but they have the Law on their side and they Will use it against you.

Whenever I see a post talking about how it's okay to steal from huge corporations, when they have shit like self checkout, I always want to jump up and say they have cameras and are collecting your information and you need to be so careful because yeah like they're inflating the prices and running monopolies and price fixing with competitors but everybody is caring about shoplifters more and that's really fucked up, but you also need to consider that Target might be keeping track of every time you don't scan something or intentionally scan it wrong, and just waiting for it to add up to a felony.

Which feels entirely beside the point and almost inappropriate to bring up when the point is that the customer is already a victim of theft, but I feel like there are people encouraging others to do stuff that can absolutely end up with them in jail without mentioning at all that it's a risk.

[umbraja]

Both of those examples are actually old exercises intended to teach you to think critically about the problem in front of you. Not to read the instructions closely and follow them blindly or to immediately turn to others for help. But to really look at what is being asked, what you know to be true outside the situation, what is required of the task, what resources you have available, and to come up with a creative solution. They’re common in “think outside the box” type lessons.

Someone using them to teach wrote instruction following or even reliance on team work isn’t teaching the lesson correctly. Because the lesson they are actually designed for is to question not just authority but everything.

The way the lessons are presented even requires us to question our own instincts. Having the kids all raise hands instead of writing down the answer or having just one give their guess puts peer pressure on everyone to take a side. Even if they know the answer a lot of kids would raise their hand just to fit in or because they doubted themselves when the rest of the class raised their hands. Splitting the puzzle group into two teams takes away the choice of sides but still invokes the instinct of tribalism. Learning to recognize and fight against that instinct is a very important lesson and big part of critical thinking. That instinct has been proven to make most people say a 4 inch line is shorter than a 3 inch line just because everyone else in the room tells them it is.

I can’t say what lessons the people in your examples were really trying to teach but they did a bad job if “don’t get got” wasn’t an intentional part of it. Cuz critical thinking is exactly the skill that protects you from con artists and other liars.

You should always assume there is a third option when presented with only two. It doesn’t matter if it’s your teacher, your preacher, a politician, or your mother. Hell even friends shouldn’t limit you to just the options they present.

You should never let yourself be trapped in any tribe, artificial or not. Reaching outside the group, even across the aisle, should always be an option.

The real tragedy of this post is not that you got tricked into doubting authority. It’s that critical thinking is so discouraged in our culture that you feel like those examples were trying to teach you something other than what they were actually designed for.

To be fair though you might be right. Your teacher and the corporate consultant may not have meant to teach you to think for yourself. That would be bad for those in power after all.

when i was in second grade my teacher asked the class, “what weighs more - a thousand pounds of rocks or a thousand pound of feathers?”

he asked everyone who thought that a thousand pounds of rocks to raise their hands

then he asked everyone who thought that a thousand pounds of feathers raised more to raise their hands

there was this kid, kyle, who didn’t raise his hand for either. i remember looking at kyle in confusion, because he always participated during math, and the teacher asked him, “why didn’t you raise your hand?” 

and he answered, “neither is heavier. they weigh they same - they’re both a thousand pounds.” 

kyle was a smart kid

the teacher goes “exactly! the rest of you weren’t actively thinking about the question.” 

when i was in the second year of my first adult job after college, we did a series team building exercise with my whole department and they were conducted by this outside consultant that did this for a living. 

she put us into two groups and gave each group a different colored bag of puzzle pieces and put us on opposite sides of the room and started the timer. we were racing to complete the puzzle first, but we realized we were missing several pieces and had pieces we couldn’t make fit. the other group realized the same and it turns out we had to swap pieces to complete our puzzles, or work together, as she put it. 

“i never told you that you couldn’t work together,” she said smugly. “you decided that because you were in different groups, that meant you were competing.” 

and i was seven years old again, being tricked 

i understand what these people were trying to do. but. 

my teacher asks me a question giving me two options. why would i assume there’s a third? shouldn’t i trust my teacher if he tells me that there are two options, that one of them is correct? in any other situation, going “neither” to a question would be considered backtalk, and get you in trouble

we did not naturally come from two different groups and refuse to work together - we were put there, artificially, and then given a task that we had no reason to believe we needed to do together. and then when we saw there was a need, we did! what was proven here, exactly?

if you set someone up to fail, and then they do, considering that failure a commentary on the human condition is just self serving

these instances teach important lessons, but not necessarily the ones i think they wanted to

question authority

make sure you’re not being set up for failure by people who have a vested interest in that failure 

“active reading” and “working together” are fine enough lessons, i guess, but the most important one is this:

don’t get got

[umbraja]

My father would actually say out loud and directly to my brother and I that he “had children for the slave labor” and it was not a joke. He was also fond of saying “it’s good to be the king” and that “this family is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship” so he was very much on a power trip when we were younger.

As we all got older he started pushing us to have kids with fun little warnings like “who will take care of you when you’re old?” and “you’ll regret it when it’s too late.” But I don’t think fear is a good reason for having children either.

Now that he’s old, he simply cannot fathom why I won’t hardly talk to him let alone take care of him. Though it shouldn’t be a mystery. He hates his own mother for her tyranny over him.

It’s a vicious cycle.

So if you have children for the power of owning a person then don’t be surprised when they leave you once they figure out that’s not what family really is.

feels like some people become parents because they've been taught that is the natural progression of how adults gain power (i.e. the power their parents held over them in their childhood). and now they need to be at the top of that power structure, to finally be okay.

which is very, very sad. and also, crucially, not a healthy reason to become a parent.

[umbraja]

As a person who is straight up allergic to the preservatives in most makeup I truly loathe but am not at all surprised by this post.

I have been turned down for jobs because I medically can not wear makeup.

I have been reprimanded at the jobs I do get hired on for ‘looking unprofessional’ because no makeup.

I have been disrespected and not allowed into meetings because no makeup.

But the most darkly hilarious part of all this is that I have good skin and healthy hair so people sometimes ask me for advice about it but I can’t honestly tell them how I do it because the answer is considered ‘gross’ by the beauty industry since it doesn’t include stripping away my body’s natural defenses with literal degreasers then replacing that perfectly ph balanced ecosystem with 22 unnatural chemicals that would clog my pores and need to be deep cleaned every day or risk causing infections.

I know the beauty industry has always been predatory and at least now it’s illegal to put lead or radium in products. But this modern iteration is no less worrisome because it’s not just rich people buying into it anymore. It’s not even just women now!

Over the last few decades it’s become increasingly more expected that young girls and even men are spending exorbitant amounts of money and time on ‘beauty regimens’ that are becoming the ‘minimum’ standard of basic hygiene.

Not only is that a dangerously classist/racist way to exclude poor/minority people from participating in society (which should be all you need to stop supporting it) but most of these beauty products are actually bad for you.

Most ‘beauty regimens’ actively destroy your body’s natural balance of oils, bacteria, and enzymes to make you physically dependent on more products that manage the harm being done by the first ones. It’s why you ‘need’ 22 different products.

I don’t care if rich people get addicted to the latest snake oil skin cream. I don’t even care if non-rich people choose to use makeup because they like doing it. But when complex ‘beauty regimens’ become the minimum requirement for everyone I have to call bullshit.

just once I want to see a good post critiquing makeup culture that doesn’t turn out to be made by some janky radfem blog

[umbraja]

Possibly the worst thing about depression is how self perpetuating it is. Pretty much everything people commonly say can help you out of depression is directly impaired by being depressed.

Exercise - too tired

Sleep better - weirdly too tired to sleep?

Eat right - sugar and carbs are my only joy.

Eat sugar and carbs - too tired to go to the store after I ate everything I had, also weight gain is a vicious cycle

Take a bath/shower - too tired and the bathroom is gross, also out of clean towels, and soap, and I don’t want to look at myself naked

Clean your space - too tired for that sisyphean task I don’t even know where to start

Go outside - weather is weather and I’m too tired to enjoy the exposure

Get vitamin D - the sun hurts and so does going to the store for vitamins

Take depression meds - I can’t even go to the store for sugar you think my ass is going to a pharmacy? And that’s after the whole torture of going to a doctor to get the prescription. I’m not even gonna remember to take them if you gave me some.

Hang out with friends - too tired long enough that now they don’t invite me to things and I’m not sure if they just gave up trying or actually don’t want me around

Talk to your friends about your depression - yeah, let’s have a super serious and vulnerable conversation with people that get awkward even making small talk with me. I’d like to at least keep the idea of having friends a little longer before pushing this set away like I did the last ones.

Get better friends - I thought I had but that took a lot of time and effort and now it’s awkward again and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t have the resources to invest in another person that will ultimately just leave me like all the others!

Reconnect with family - oh yes. The people who make me feel like shit to be around. The ones that would condemn me to hell if I had the guts to tell them who I really am. The people who won’t listen even when I tell them non-blasphemous things about myself. I should really spend the time and effort I don’t even have on them. That’s super healthy.

Get into a new fandom - not worth the effort when it’s 90% likely to be toxic by the time I get really into it. 80% chance the author will die, it will get canceled before finishing, or the end will be a nonsense betrayal if I start before it’s done.

Get a new hobby - just another temporary distraction from the existential crisis of modern living that does nothing but waste what little time I have in this dumpster fire of a life.

Get off social media - but outrage is the only emotion I have left and doomscrolling passes the time without me having to think about my own personal problems

Try Meditation - you want me to be alone with my thoughts? You really think that’s a good idea?

Throw yourself into your work - clearly you have a much better job than I do. I’m already giving The Man more than I’ve got and he’s paying me for less than half of it. Why run myself ragged for them when it just sets an expectation they can abuse my coworkers with?

Get a better job - you think I have marketable skills? My current job is terrible and I’m struggling just to keep up with it. Who would even hire me? At least I know what I’m doing here.

Work on the underlying issues that cause your depression - you think I haven’t tried that!?

Go to therapy - I’m not made of money!

Go to Church - did you miss that part about going to hell?

Go to a non-Christian place of worship - I don’t think you understand how rural ‘Murica works.

Move to a less hostile environment - we have already established that I am not made of money.

Admit that your responses to all of these suggestions are tainted by the cynically pessimistic paranoia that depression blinds you with to keep you depressed - yeah. I know. Doesn’t make me wrong about it though.

Take a leap of faith and just try some - been there, done that, doesn’t work

Now you’re just being stubborn - it’s safer than taking a risk and failing yet again.

You really think that’s safer? - I’m not sure I could take another loss right now.

You’ll not get better if you don’t try - Can’t lose if I don’t play.

You want to be stuck like this forever? - At least I know what to expect.

Is that really you or the depression talking? - is there a difference?

[umbraja]

This is actually more real than you might think.

As a child I was called a witch more than once just because I pointed out something that the adults hadn’t noticed - like how Mr B was gonna marry Mrs C, never mind they were both married to someone else. I got blamed for their marriages falling apart. Cuz the affair wasn’t obvious to anyone else till I had ‘cursed’ them.

It didn’t help that I also had a ‘way’ with animals that at the time was considered ‘unnatural’ cuz I just paid attention to their body language and respected their boundaries before the dog/cat/horse whisperer made it trendy. So when I warned people to leave that cat alone or that dog was gonna bite them and they ignored me then got attacked it was all my fault for making the animal do it.

I wasn’t in league with the devil. I was just observant, had unusually good sight and hearing as well as above average pattern recognition and a habit of quietly being in unexpected places where people didn’t notice me. I just heard and saw things then put the pieces together. Apparently that’s witchcraft.

Top it off with the social skills of a raccoon and it’s really surprising it took night terrors for my mother to take me to the faith healer for an exorcism.

Took another thirty years to figure out it was just autism.

 I wonder how much of the whole idea of curses and evil prophesies has been rooted on observant people drawing the correct conclusions and warning people, and people with no self-awareness only hearing the part that doesn’t involve them changing their behaviour.

Like imagine living in the stone age and you’re 60 years old. And there’s someone in the clan who has always been entitled, childish and unsympathetic towards others, and now that they have kids, they’re not teaching them to be any better. So you, who’s been there to see three or four generations of people raise children and notice cause and effect, go tell them that their kids destroying other peoples’ shit isn’t fucking cute, and always justifying their bad behaviour and siding with them, right or wrong, isn’t just harmful to everyone else (as the parent clearly doesn't give a shit about them) but to the parent and kids too.

 But with selective hearing conveniently blocking out the “hey, this specific action you consistently choose to do is not good”-part, the only part they hear is “one day your children will be grown, and they will turn against each other and they will turn against you. They will tear each other apart and hate you in your old age, and bring suffering and ruin to everywhere they go.”

 And the young parent is like “lmao you’re just bitter that you’re old, that’s never going to happen”, ignores it for like 20 years, and when the kids are grown and everything happens exactly the way this old crone fucking told them, they suddenly remember that and think “oh no, I have never done anything wrong in my life, how could that jealous old witch curse me with such a terrible and unavoidable fate :(“

[umbraja]

Tell me it’s Ok

I know I should be stronger. I know I should have faith. I know I should trust you. I know I should be Ok.

But you’ve gone away.

I don’t know how to say it. But I need to know It’s not my fault. I’m not the one you’re running from. We really will keep in touch.

I know I should think more of you. I know I should trust you still care. I know it has nothing to do with me. But it’s harder when you’re not here. 

I don’t know how to say it. But I’ve watched you pull away. I showed you that my soul is hurting. All you talked about was your game.

I know I should be stronger. I know I should have faith. I know I should trust you. But I’m afraid.

You’re not the first to leave me. You’re not the first to fade. I thought that you’d be different. But am I the one to blame?

I know I’m not much fun right now. I know I’m a fucking mess. I know I’m not OK. I need help.

But you’ve gone away.

[umbraja]

Best - Cat that you were 80% sure was some sort of demon

Bonus points if there is no other supernatural element to the story.

Supporting characters in ascending order of how funny it is to imply they might secretly be God:

Kindly old man

Grumpy librarian

Manic pixie dream girl

Nondescript service worker

Unhinged conspiracy theorist

Long-suffering bureaucrat

Precocious child

Dog

[umbraja]

I would be OK with the new terms if they were actually slang but that’s not what it is.

It’s Newspeak. It’s censorship. It’s thought control.

It is literally Orwellian the way corporations are restricting our vocabulary.

Go read 1984 and tell me we shouldn’t be worried about that.

“you don’t like the proliferation of terms like Unalive outside of TikTok because you realize that you’re aging out of youth culture and it makes you uncomfortable!”

no I don’t like it because there’s something INCREDIBLY dystopian about being forced to soften terms for basic parts of the human experience like death and sex (and even more so terms for oppressed minorities- call me a “le-dollar sign-bian” and I will bite you) purely because advertisers and corporations demand it

[umbraja]

CUT THE SHIT.

[umbraja]

Let’s also not forget that there are tall, hairy, and fat cis women too and they should be respected and accepted the way they are without having to “do anything” to hide their natural features.

Trans hate hurts more than just trans people.

It hurts EVERYONE. It forces trans people to live in fear and/or as someone they are not. It exacerbates the already horrible treatment that cis people (men as well as women) get when they don’t naturally fit the Western beauty standard. And it turns what could otherwise have been decent people into pearl clutching monsters fueled by their hatred for anything different from them.

That last one is more than just sympathy for the devil. By dividing us along arbitrary lines poisoned with religiosity and fear mongering which normalizes fascist ideology, trans hate (just the latest front in the Culture Wars) distracts from the bigger issues that we should actually be afraid of.

A hell of a lot more children are being hurt by divisiveness, poverty, and climate change than they ever were by anything to do with trans people in all of history. Even if you count all the trans kids that have been hurt just for being trans that still doesn’t hold a candle to the damages of poverty alone and climate change is going to make poverty so much worse while divisiveness keeps us from doing anything about it.

For trans activism to move forward you have GOT to learn to accept that not everybody who uses She/Her pronouns is going to be some short, white, skinny, passing person.

You’ve got to accept that there are tall, hairy, and fat trans women who “havent done anything” and still deserve to be fucking gendered correctly.

I’m sorry you had to hear this from me, but not everybody is going to appeal to your UwU soft trans catgirl sensibilities.

[umbraja]

Fantastic art

[umbraja]

To be part of the solution before I indulge in the problem, here’s a link to the original video that shows how to do the original style of bullet journaling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm15cmYU0IM

And here’s a link to ADHD specific tips for bullet journaling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkZEEQG6IVE

Now on to the Discourse~

@fakecrfan

While I do very much agree that the real estate version of gentrification is by far worse, that doesn’t change the fact that 1) gentrification is not limited to your narrow definition, 2) your assertion that the poster was making a petty grievance is ableist and completely misses the point of the post.

First, let me say that I don’t think anyone who makes pretty journals is bad. You’re not. It’s fine. Pretty journals don’t hurt people. I think people who put down people with messy journals (or older definitions for social justice terms) are bad. So just don’t do that.

Now let’s deal with the semantic issue. You have defined gentrification in very specific terms, similar to what British sociologist Ruth Glass used when she coined the sociological term of gentrification in the 1960s. That is, however, not the only meaning of the word. Gentrify and its grammatical variations has been used since the 1800’s to describe persons and things that have been refined to appeal to a higher social class. This is actually the root of the sociological term. While I will admit that the older versions of the word have somewhat fallen out of use, the Oxford Dictionary still has two definitions for gentrification. The first is the real estate version you are using but the second is the older, generalized version which includes manners, way of life, and activities. Interestingly both are just “improving” the thing for “a higher social class” and neither includes the specific “makes the thing inaccessible to the original owners” clause which is somewhat problematic but that’s the dictionary definition of the word.

If you’re going to argue that Words Mean Things then you need to know what they actually mean and be aware that Words Can Mean More Than One Thing. The non-specific definition is older and just as valid as the one you use. By that non-specific definition, the post you are referencing is 100% correct. Bullet Journaling has been gentrified. The original activity has been “improved” to better appeal to the “higher social class” of the majority of consumers. Even if you throw in the inaccessibility clause it’s still accurate. The changes that were made to the activity have made it inaccessible to the original owners. That’s the whole point the post was trying to make.

Again, I want to reiterate that yes, the real estate version of gentrification is the worst kind but that doesn’t make all other forms of it petty. If someone is being negatively impacted by something then that’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if it’s not life threatening. Harm is being done. 

Which leads us away from semantics into what most troubles me about your and OP’s take on this issue. You have both repeatedly claimed that this post is a petty complaint about people making things “pretty” when they were originally intended to be simple. To use your own words the point “isn’t that it puts up something pretty and nice looking – and if you think that’s the problem, you’ve grossly misunderstood it. It isn’t about a nebulous psychological effect. It’s about actual material disempowerment. It isn’t about things not looking “cool” or “authentic” anymore. It’s about lack of physical access to spaces and necessities.” You really did a good job of explaining that. It’s exactly what I, and the post in question, am talking about. 

We aren’t complaining that “now rich people are doing it so it’s different and not as cool” or even that people are “doodling pretty things in their bullet journals or making overly complex spreads.” That is not the point. That is an incredibly shallow and ableist reading of both the original post and the question asking how it’s not gentrification. Both those posts explicitly state that the problem is bullet journaling has been made inaccessible to the disabled population it was originally intended to serve. 

You and OP have both chosen to push your semantic argument about the definition of gentrification rather than consider the actual point that harm is being done to disabled people. OP didn’t even seem to realize that was an issue and you just dismissed it out of hand simply saying it’s not true. But you’re wrong. You’re looking at this from a privileged point of view. You already know what bullet journaling is. You already know that it was originally designed to be a disability tool. You already know where and how to find the resources you need to use it in the original manner. You have at least that privilege. I can’t speak to whether or not you are disabled but you are at least educated on this matter. 

Now go read the comments on the original post. See how many disabled people were surprised to learn that bullet journaling was supposed to be for them. See how many say they had tried it before but were chased off by the gentrified version. See how many were so very thankful to be given the original resource. That was “actual material disempowerment” and those are people that were denied “access to spaces and necessities” due to the gentrification of that disability tool. 

Before we get into another semantic argument, let me explain the relevant symptoms of ADHD in relation to the Bullet Journal issue.

Necessities: not every ADHD person needs a bullet journal to function, it doesn’t even work for some, but for those who do it is very much a necessity. They cannot manage their symptoms without it. By symptoms I mean the disabled functions the Bullet Journal system is designed specifically to address: disorganization, problems prioritizing, poor planning and time management, problems focusing on, following through, and completing tasks. To qualify for an ADHD diagnosis these must be significantly impaired, not just things you’re bad at. It’s the difference between someone who isn’t good at running and someone who needs crutches just to walk around. A Bullet Journal is the ADHD equivalent of crutches. If you don’t consider crutches to be a necessity then well. . . you’re ableist.

Inaccessible: real estate is a physical thing, a place one can be physically barred from but knowledge is not. That doesn’t mean it can’t be made inaccessible. Disability law uses the term “undue burden” to determine when accessibility has been denied. If it requires the disabled person to go through unreasonable stress or effort to do a thing then that thing is inaccessible. With symptoms like excessive restlessness, low frustration tolerance, and trouble coping with stress, research can be a lot of effort for most ADHD people. They often struggle to read anything longer than a twitter post, get overwhelmed by excessive information, and are generally not prone to dig beyond the surface of a topic unless it just so happens to become a special interest. Some comments have mentioned it’s just a Google search but an ADHD person would have to know it’s a disability aid to want to do the search and even then the original video is unfortunately not at all marketed as a disability aid. In fact the marketing is terribly off putting from a disability perspective so if you didn’t already know it was a disability aid you would be hard pressed to find out. A casual search into bullet journaling brings up an overwhelming nightmare of complicated, expensive, upper-class hobbyist resources. No mention of it being a disability aid. It was the communities, those spaces that have been gentrified, that first presented it as such. With those overrun, the very knowledge that it could be useful is inaccessible to the ADHD population.

Spaces: not every ADHD person needs a community to support good habits but it sure does help most of them. With all the associated executive functioning issues, it can be very difficult for ADHD people to stick with anything let alone something as complicated as even the original form of Bullet Journaling. Just keeping a calendar is hard for a lot of ADHD folks so they can really struggle in spaces where they’re expected to plan and organize daily. Having a community to support and encourage them to keep going can be the difference between success and failure. In the beginning these spaces were largely ADHD folk sharing tips on how to make bullet journaling easier but over time others came in and began to focus more on making it pretty. For some the aesthetic element can actually help, if that makes it fun for them to do it can keep even an ADHD person motivated. But for others it’s an undue burden. Many bullet journaling spaces these days actively ridicule messy journals and drown out if not actually shut down people who advocate for the original function, thus driving out the ADHD population that just can’t keep up with the aesthetic movement.

Disempowerment: while you are correct in saying that “no one’s pristine flowers in their leather journal or calligraphy youtube videos are physically stopping you” from using a bullet journal as a disability aid, you are wrong to assume it’s accessible. You don’t seem to define that word the same way it’s used in the disability community so I’ll reiterate: it’s not about the flowers, leather journals, or calligraphy. It’s not about the money or the physical materials at all. It’s about the undue burden of information gathering and often hostile communities that makes bullet journaling inaccessible to many ADHD people. I’ve already addressed both of those in the the previous points but how is that disempowerment? Well. Think of all those that could be helped by this tool if only they knew it existed. As already mentioned, see the comments on the original post for how many didn’t know it was a disability aid. To be honest, I didn’t know until I saw that post. That’s why I reblogged it, to spread the word that it could be used as a disability aid. But the gentrification has disempowered us to the point that we can’t even complain about the subversion of the disability function without someone crashing in to derail our valid critique with accusations of un-wokeness.

Material: this one is a little more abstract but just because something isn’t physical or immediate doesn’t mean it’s not important. In taking away the crutches and communities that used to exist in bullet journaling, the ADHD population has suffered a loss of potential functioning. I will fully admit that is not as big a harm as the direct loss of a home but it is important to understand that this loss of functioning can lead to the loss of a home, and a job, and relationships, and physical health, and mental health, and honestly life. 

I’ll admit that’s a pretty dramatic escalation over just a journal but we’re not talking about a journal. We’re talking about a disability aid. We’re talking about a person’s executive functioning. Their ability to remember to take their pills on time. Their ability to keep track of responsibilities and commitments. Tasks they really could lose their job for not doing. Bills they really could lose their car or house for not paying. And who knows. Maybe they take more than just ADHD pills. Maybe they have a heart condition or need insulin. 

As I’ve already said, the real estate version of gentrification is objectively worse. But it’s not an excuse to belittle other people’s problems. Disability issues are frequently brushed aside with the same sort of attitude that’s weaponized against the poor. Just do the thing. Just do what normal people find trivial. Just stop messing up. Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and stop complaining. Why are you upset that we made your thing better? You’re just ungrateful. You’re just lazy. You’re just stupid. You just want a free handout. 

It’s not an unconnected issue. All forms of gentrification are the same problem and can affect more than just the poor. Look at the sidewalks in a gentrified neighborhood. Not all of them but many of the ones in my area are insane squiggles that weave and dodge around trees or other obstacles. They’re designed to discourage skateboarding. They’re also a nightmare if your mobility is disabled. Sidewalks are supposed to be for wheelchairs and other such mobility aids. But those with wealth and power have decided that everything belongs to them and they can change anything however they like with zero thought to the consequences that will never touch them. 

Denying that something is yet another, however less severe, example of a bigger problem only serves to make that problem seem smaller than it actually is. Take even your definition of gentrification. It’s really just another example of the colonization that drove indigenous populations off their native lands. It’s all powerful people taking things from those who can’t stop them. While it can be useful to make distinctions in the exact properties of the problems it’s also important to be able to draw comparisons between them. It allows us to better understand the issues and talk about them using the shorthand established for a related problem. It helps us realize the intersectionality (and I am using that correctly) of an issue and can bring people together who didn’t know they shared trauma. My Cherokee grandmother doesn’t care about inner city neighborhoods but her heart aches for displaced peoples, whether they be poor kids pushed out of their home to build a Starbucks or disabled people pushed out of their support groups because of hobbyists.

Getting lost in semantic arguments over what is and is not -insert social justice term- and accusing those who see it through a wider lens of being “offensively off base” and not able to “tell a serious social problem from a petty grievance” doesn’t solve the problem. If anything it discourages people from talking about social issues and distracts from possible solutions as it drives a wedge between people who may have been able to work together for a positive change. That is only good for the people in power who don’t want us to make them change.

Now then, debate club taught me more than just to define my terms. We were also encouraged to offer solutions to problems. So maybe if you didn’t complain that Words Mean Things about gentrification and turned that thought instead to bullet journaling you might realize it could be useful for the hobbyist version to maybe come up with a different name or better yet just be supportive of the disability aid function in community spaces so not to drive away disabled populations. This really is one of those rare problems that actually can be solved with awareness so instead of accusing those who reblog a post about it of being offensive you might just reblog that post yourself. Or at least not discourage others from doing it.

i really feel like Words Mean Things needs to be reiterated sometimes (re: a popular post calling people making pretty bullet journaling spreads ‘gentrification’ because the original bullet journaling system was designed to be simple and minimalistic). that’s not what that word means. that’s not remotely an apt comparison. we can use different words for different things, sometimes