just to be clear, I’m staying here as long as this site functions. I have 0 intentions of deleting this blog, I will go down with this ship if only to see exactly how bad it gets
i dont really… WANT… to leave tumblr. ive been here since 2011
no other platform has the right format for me to just randomly barf actual thoughts, joaks, and genuine creative content all in the same breath. i dont know how to compartmentalize
back when I first started doing photography I had the difficult task of asking all my subjects for their permission to use their image in a photograph. it wasn’t until I finally read the law books that I realized you don’t have to ask permission to take pictures of birds. birds don’t have the same legal rights as humans apparently. outrageous but true
There’s this girl at my school and she’s really nice and I remember sometime last year at one point she would carry a clicker around and click it everytime she had a happy thought/something good happened/she laughed etc. It was always kind of cute how you’d just hear the little click every once in a while throughout class it always made me smile knowing that it was bc something made her feel happy idk
she was training herself to be happy oh my god
does it work???? Imagine feeling yourself slipping into depression and you just click a few times and your brain says “wait, this is the sound of happiness I have to release serotonin”
She fucking Pavlov’d herself, the absolute madwoman
This reminds me of a party I went to last year. I was standing with some friends, chatting, and someone said something that indirectly implied that sexism exists. Some trivial recounting of the basic facts of daily life for most women. Something so mild, so uncontroversial, so mundane that I don’t even remember what it was.
Suddenly, this man standing on the outskirts of our conversational circle piped up with “actually, I think men are more discriminated against than women these days.”
All conversation died.
I turned to look at him and he had this smug, insufferable grin on his face, relishing this moment, expecting us to waste our time and energy refuting this ridiculous thing he had just said.
The Devil’s Advocate was among us.
And, in my mind, I saw the next 15+ minutes playing out. The parade of facts and statistics in a vain attempt to defend ourselves, our gender, and to prove that misogyny is real. The glib, snide denials from some shithead who is getting off on our pain and frustration. The Gish Gallop of bullshit that would take a whole evening to properly dismantle. It was depressing and overwhelming. I hated it. I had to kill it before it began.
So I looked him dead in the eye and I said “OK,“ shrugged, and just walked away.
Nothing I have ever said to another human being has ever been so crushing. As I walked away, I watched the smug grin vanish and confusion and anxiety set in. The rest of the group turned their backs to him and carried on as if he had never spoken - as if he was invisible. He was still staring at me when I walked over to another friend and told her what he had said. I pointed him out for her and made direct eye contact with him while we both laughed.
tl;dr: Don’t feed the troll. Let it perish, cold and hungry, in the wasteland of your indifference. It is weak and you are strong. Live your best life.
