I want to preface this by saying this is not victim blaming. This not calling people online lazy or grifting or whatever.
But an underlooked proponent on why some people are nearing homeless and crowdfunding heavily rn is bc society has failed you by making it as inconvenient as possible to learn about social systems and programs that already exist to help your situation as well as not having enough programs and aid.
Lemme give some examples. I have been unemployed for 10 months. My mom told me about a paying job training program a month ago after I already decided to mive in with her to find work, because nothing was coming up in my own city. My best friend didn’t know about affordable housing assistance in my state until she talked to my dad about it on a chance encounter. Some people on here have to see posts about much cheaper alternatives to their current prescriptions or medical plans because its not in the interest of their doctors paychecks to tell them about it. I would have waited to get vaccinated and not have crowdfunded for Uber money if I had known they were going to give free vaccine rides the next month. But I wouldn’t have really known this until I opened the app once that program started, because it is in their interest to keep taking my money until its their desired time for me to reap their “generous” services.
What I’m trying to say is that this is an under discussed aspect of how capitalism fails people. When you are forced to make your life and work and finances so singular and self interested, you are cut off from community and equivalent social services to proper government assistance. You literally don’t know that there is help somewhere out there for you unless you’re told.
If there's one thing that warms my heart a bit, it's how much players have always loved Endermen.
I've been playing minecraft since before wolves were added. I remember Endermen coming out, and just how much me and my siblings loved them. We were hardly alone. They're one of the most popular mobs in the game.
Because here's the thing about Endermen, they were the very first mob added to minecraft that felt ALIVE. They came before villagers, back when piglins were pigmen and only existed in zombie form, back before there was anything even remotely human that you could vibe with. Even after Villagers, even after Piglins, there's still something special to Endermen that captures players' hearts.
I think it comes down to the fact that Endermen are functionally useless to the player if you don't murder them. They can't trade or barter with you. They have no dungeons or fortresses for you to take from. They can even be quite annoying depending on what blocks you make builds out of. Endermen have little regard for the concept of personal property.
But, despite all of that, an Enderman isn't hostile to you by default. You never have to fight them. All they ask is that you look away. As long as you do that, then they're more than content to exist in your presence. Going about their day, doing their own thing, picking up blocks and moving them around.
And people love them. They love these alien creatures who have nothing to offer but their existence. I know so many players who go out of their way to not bother Endermen when they encounter one. Players who find one and keep it in a boat just to have some company. Endermen are adored by players just for being there.
Why? Because we were alone. We were alone in a world, and then we weren't. Endermen are strange and useless and dangerous but they are alive. They made us less alone. They were willing to exist with us peacefully when nothing else was. And that was more than enough to prove their value. They were friends to us, because they were there.
Even after we got villagers, even after we got piglins, maybe even after we found other players and servers and worlds upon worlds of other people, we never forgot our first friends. The ones who we didn't understand, who would attack us for a glance, but who were there when nobody else was. They were there, they existed, and we didn't need anything else to love them.