local Twitter user comes to “terrifying” realization that someone’s physical appearance does not always indicate their political beliefs
politics as aesthetic is a reliably fascist-enabling mindset. That may seem like a crazy take and obviously nobody’s brainwashed for having a style or recognizing others with that style. but listen.
there is a reason why the right wing targets ‘diversity’ beyond just obvious racism, sexism, bigotry, control issues: the need to know someone else’s 'place’ ON-SIGHT is CRITICAL to a strict hierarchical society. This is also why they get mad at poor people having nice things, or art from marginalized minorities becoming influential.
The cruise control of seeing only people who look like you and act like you is critical to conservative’s emotional goals. At the extreme, a conservative ideal doesn’t even have to navigate other real people at all: just archetypes. Which is pretty handy if it’s agonizing to contact your real living conditions with your whole authentic self.
Conservative political movements are style over substance: the feelings they solicit from their base are promoted as more important than the actual decision-making that will occur at right-wing hands. Again, a handy tactic when the choices you want to make are abhorrent for everyone but the aristocracy.
Punk and metal scenes– genres that are famous for anti-authoritarianism– have to be active in barring fascists from participation. They can’t cruise control based on how people fit 'the style.’ Meanwhile, the signals that fascists use to identify one another often are aesthetic-based because to state their political beliefs out-loud is (or has been…) punishable.
The warm and fuzzy feelings of safety you get when everyone looks like you are very easily exploitable. I know that we live in an age where everything functions like an advertisement and aesthetics rule all, but by law of demographic sizes alone more queer people and queer allies are going to look like a random middle aged dude than you think. Especially as people born after the AIDS genocide actually make it that far.
Image description: A screenshot of a tweet with the poster’s username and profile picture covered up. The tweet reads: “Massachusetts is terrifying bc one of these guys is protesting a drag event & the other one is supporting his trans kid and there’s literally no way to tell which is which.” Attached to the tweet are two screenshots of news broadcasts, which are both from interviews of two different middle-aged white men. End image description.
this makes me! so happy! fanfic isn’t something embarrassing! it’s this awesome world of new endings, AUs, character dives, “what ifs?” and even more!
This but also, cheesy stories for teens have a right to exist, kids having fun is lovely, adults writing silly mediocre stories in good fun is lovely. Just because a fic isn’t Nobel prize worthy doesn’t mean the art was a waste
As a European, I knew Americans have been asking for walkable cities but i had no idea it was literally this hostile
WHERE DO YOU WALK YOUR DOGS!?!
lol yeah
Its to the point where most Americans can’t conceive of a walkable community because everywhere is like this and several generations have now grown up in a world like this. There’s hardly anyone that can conceive of a world that isn’t like this. Most people either cave in and get a car or end up isolated. I live in a city that’s mostly walkable by North American standards and I still end up walking in the dirt on the edge of a stroad a lot of the time.
My bf makes these really neat handmade leather journals and just started a shop and like
Look how cool these are!
and when I say handmade I mean that he cuts the covers out of wood, sews the pages together, glues the leather, and does all the stamps and decorations and everything
he even marbles his own paper for the endpapers and matches the top and bottom stitching to the colors
Anyway you should check him out because he’s a cool guy doing cool things and it would be awesome if he could do this full-time!!
My name is Zaren (or Elizabeth, as some people know me). 21, student at UCD's Digital Animation Center, may or may not be a bunch of puppies stacked in a trenchcoat pretending to be an adult [He/they pls]
