can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

Jew here with a friendly reminder that:

Criticizing Isreal ≠ antisemetic

Supporting Palestine ≠ antisemitic

Believing in the Free Palestine cause ≠ antisemitic

BUT ALSO

A random ass Jew just living their life oceans away has nothing to do with the Isreal-Palestine conflict

Palestinian Jews exist

Jews that support Palestine exist (I am one of them)

Calling out ACTUAL antisemitism ≠ supporting Isreal

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

nothing makes me go "ooooh we are NOT the same" quite like reading some post about how people talk with their parents about their interests. what do you mean you told your father about stevebucky. what do you mean he asked further questions

had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing

tw: Examples of reblog bait/people trying to guilt others into reblogging stuff. I am not actually saying the things below, they're just examples that I have seen.

I fucking hate when people say stuff like this. Especially when it's on a generally good post with valuable information. On the one hand I want to share that information because it could genuinely help someone; on the other, I don't want to spread this type of guilt-tripping and shaming and potentially trigger someone else like me. It's a lose-lose situation. No matter what I do, I am going to feel guilty. No matter what I do, I will feel like a terrible person. It sucks and I just wish people would stop doing this. I know it's shocking, but it is actually possible to make an important and useful post without guilting everyone that sees it into sharing.

"bluntly honest" autism but in the sense that i absolutely cannot refrain from complimenting strangers if i like their earrings or their shirt or i think they have a friendly-sounding laugh or i think their art is beautiful or i think the fic they wrote portrays the characters so well. "bluntly honest" doesn't have to mean "mean". i love to tell people things that are kind and also true.

i hate you "influencers", i hate you tiktok, i hate you "content creators", i hate you "unalive" and "s€x" and "dr/ügs", i hate you instagram, i hate you consumerism, i hate you family friendly, i hate you puritans, i hate you facebook, i hate you family vloggers, i hate you violating other people's privacy, i hate you modern day social media

workarounds to having a vampire as your partner in crime

// Hazbin Hotel spoilers I guess

Whoever's running the HH Twitter account deserves a fucking raise oh my lord

alright look, i just wanna know who is the writer that came up with the dumbass idea of replacing the line “Ever since I lost my son, I think of you as my own” with “Lu Ten would have been proud to have you as his father” in this scene for the Netflix live action series???

the companion will go oh god doctor who is that?? and the doctor will get all serious and somber and say listen. he's the most evil creature in the universe. he's the worst enemy i've ever faced. he's horrible and unpredictable and you can never ever let your guard down. and then the villain will walk into the room like this

In front of the Journalists' Syndicate, Cairo, Egypt, on 15th January 2024.

The crowd chants:

مصر مشاركة في الحصار معبر بيننا و بين اهالينا الصهيوني متحكم فينا طول ما الدم العربي رخيص يسقط يسقط اي رئيس عملوها احفاد مانديلا و احنا فخوف و فعار و مزلة عايزين المعبر مفتوح

Translation:

Egypt participates in this siege! A crossing between us and our people! Controlled by Zionists! As long as Arab blood is seen as cheap, Any and every president must fall! Mandela's grandchildren have done it, While we are seized by fear, shame, and humiliation! We demand Rafah Crossing open!

you'll make it back.

Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?

You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?