you know what’s wild is that all these crazy standards we hold ourselves to are things that we don’t even value in another person? like i’ve never been like “wow I love that this friend of mine is too proud to ask for help and never complains about their feelings” or “my favorite quality about this friend is that they get straight A’s and never get overwhelmed and has never told me about a problem” or “i love that this friend has never been wrong about anything or slipped up and said something embarrassing once in their life” and yet here we are, pushing ourselves past our limits for and beating ourselves up over slipups of things that our friends probably wouldn’t even rank in the top 50 reasons they like us
im always thinking about that post where someones grandma said “some people have never cleaned a bathroom and it shows” bc it does show
"I remember when we used to be able to agree to disagree and didn't cut off friends and family over politics"
Okay. Let entertain this idea.
Lets act like its 'just politics' and not a difference in morals, empathy, and character. Let's pretend this isn't a matter of human rights and safety but a matter of opinion.
Theoretically speaking, lets say we 'embraced each other'
Are you going to pay for my medications if Trump cuts Medicaid?
Are you going to pay for my Dr's appointments? My specialist appointments?
If they cut the program for the home healthcare job I have are you going to pay my bills? My rent?
If this country becomes unsafe for me and my wife because we can't be married, live together, safely hold hands in public without fear of being attacked, spied on, or killed are you going to pay for us to flee the country? Are you going to pay for my pets to be safely quarantined until they can be brought over?
Or, forget the money, will you accept and admit when he is wrong?
When he says things that are blatant lies and riddled with bias? When he and those he puts in power hurt people, hurt our county, send us to war with our allies and unite us with our enemies. Will you speak out? Will you openly criticize him? Or will you stay silent because you either agree, don't care, or fall into a political sunk cost fallacy where you feel like you have to continue to support him because you've staked so much on it?
Or are you going to claim to love and care about and support me while you continue to vote against my life and watch me drown while all you offer are... thoughts and prayers?
"In recent years, there has been a rush on the internet to supply image descriptions and to call out those who don’t. This may be an example of community accountability at work, but it’s striking to observe that those doing the most fierce calling out or correcting are sighted people. Such efforts are largely self-defeating. I cannot count the times I’ve stopped reading a video transcript because it started with a dense word picture. Even if a description is short and well done, I often wish there were no description at all. Get to the point, already! How ironic that striving after access can actually create a barrier. When I pointed this out during one of my seminars, a participant made us all laugh by doing a parody: “Mary is wearing a green, blue, and red striped shirt; every fourth stripe also has a purple dot the size of a pea in it, and there are forty-seven stripes—”
“You’re killing me,” I said. “I can’t take any more of that!”
Now serious, she said it was clear to her that none of that stuff about Mary’s clothes mattered, at least if her clothes weren’t the point. What mattered most about the image was that Mary was holding her diploma and smiling. “But,” she wondered, “do I say, Mary has a huge smile on her face as she shows her diploma or Mary has an exuberant smile or showing her teeth in a smile and her eyes are crinkled at the edges?”
It’s simple. Mary has a huge smile on her face is the best one. It’s the don’t-second-guess-yourself option."
--Against Access, by John Lee Clark, a DeafBlind educator
idk if this is a contreversial take or not but i think that the ideal internet experience is being able to remove specific things (triggers, nsfw, gore) if you truly dont want to see them but overall being also shown things you aren’t interested in. i think one of my fave things about tumblr is seeing like 50% of my dash be about fandoms im not in, bands i dont like and quotes from books i dont want to read rather than this endless feedback loop of tiktok showing me ‘exactly what i want to see’ in a trap to keep me online as long as possible and blind to communities outside of my own. i want a mix of curating my own experience and a healthy dose of content i don’t already know i want to see, yknow?