there's our catastrophe

re: neo-pagans whining about the avengers

buttsetcetera:

CAN I JUST SAY that as an authentic norwegian not only do i not care about comic book characters based on the ~gods of my ancestors~, but that if there is one thing regarding norse mythology that’s likely to get me to raise a bit of an eyebrow and put on my true norwegian grumpyface, it’s fucking american neo-pagans who ~practice asatru~ and bang on and on about the norse gods like it’s not just fucking embarrassing for them to claim some kind of connection with a religion that’s been dead for nearly a thousand years.

i mean listen, i won’t pretend these people don’t exist in scandinavia, because they do, and trust me, i am embarrassed, it is embarrassing, but jesus christ, can you people just not? 

because all i see whenever people who are not scandinavian - that is, from actual scandinavia as opposed to ~scandinavian-americans~ - get super into some aspect or other of their ~scandinavian heritage~ - and especially åsatru - is a bunch of creepy white people revelling in their particular brand of super extreme whiteness because they’re convinced it makes them super special. and it creeps me the fuck out. stop trying to base your identity on your own misunderstood ideas about your ~viking heritage~! it’s embarrassing! no one cares! go away!

and i mean, it really doesn’t help that white supremacists are all over åsatru like a goddamn rash, and while i’m sure it sucks to have your particular kind of neo-paganism be so strongly associated with neo nazis when you’re not a neo nazi or white supremacist yourself, i would be a lot more sympathetic towards the plight of misunderstood åsatru neo-pagans if their very existence didn’t creep me out as much as it does. 

IN SUMMARY i literally cannot believe that there are apparently people on tumblr crying cultural appropriation and misrepresentation of their religion because of the goddamn avengers, and also åsatru is a ludicrous excuse for a religion and if you consider yourself to be of this faith then you probably suck. 

I have thought long and hard about this issue and have come to the conclusion that white people who are super into their scandinavian heritage are, on average, about two drinks away from outright neo-nazism

I can’t decide if “Hunger Games Ryan Gosling” is just another ridiculous crossover for the media oversaturated or the most genius metacommentary on memes ever

so: nerds and how I hate them (or at least hate Nerd Culture) and why. I hate recounting specific events in my personal life, but I hate being pass-ag and vague worse, and the thing I hate the most is not blurting out what I’m thinking to the entire internet, so let’s roll out some necessary context. 

you know Teen Movie Script 3B where the teen girl realises the cool people are dickheads, stops trying to fit in with them, and accepts her true home with the geeks and her new geek boyfriend who’s loved her all along?  ditching the plastics for the mathletes and then HAPPINESS, ACCEPTANCE. 

can we make the opposite movie?  because my high school life got so much better when I got frozen out by my douchey misogynist male nerdy friends (after I started dating someone in their social network and standing up for “vacuous sluts”, i.e. became impossible to parse as an honorary dude) and began prioritising my (already present) friendships with a bunch of popular, pretty, fashionable girls, most of whom went on to go to some form of art school and become well connected in various hip social networks.  these friendships were really supportive and good for me in a time when I was pretty fucked up (not because of social drama but for other reasons).  the interesting thing is that these girls were whip-smart as well as anything else, and also hung out with nerds to start off with in our early teens, but got sick of being constantly harassed and objectified and patronised by nerd boys.  later, when I was eighteen and nineteen, they came with me to feminist events that I wanted to go to and told me they were proud of me when I started organising that shit and supported me in a million other ways, instead of, say, challenging me to give valid, current, and rigorously documented examples of “real” sexism.  I still see these women sometimes.  some I’m still friends with and some I’ve grown apart from, but they’re all awesome. 

girls can be awful to each other but I eventually made peace with almost all the girls in my year, even girls who were very different to me.  and I didn’t consider myself a feminist per se, it wasn’t some kind of big project, it just happened.  this thing that all girls are always involved in complex psychological status anxiety warfare with one another and boys are bewildered on the sidelines is arrant nonsense.

if you were to say “ourcatastrophe is it possible you only felt comfortable in this social circle because you were at that time thin, fashionable, and basically conventionally attractive?” I would have to concede that I don’t know but I’d add that there was more body diversity and general acceptance of difference than you might think.  but if you were to say “ourcatastrophe you are conflating issues, it’s not that you ditched the nerds, it’s that you started learning to prioritise friendships with women” then I would respond: you miss the point, which is that nerd culture is bro-centric as hell, and even if this was not your personal experience you have to admit it is certainly not inherently pro-lady.

what I’m trying to say here is that I am an inherently nerdy (i.e. obsessive, withdrawn, arrogant, science-fiction-loving) girl who found liberation not through embracing that but through expanding my interests and being amenable to changing myself and learning to respect people with different priorities and lifestyles and personal style.  to not condemn cool things as vacuous or not my concern but to withhold judgement and give it a go.   I think that’s actually, fortunately, a very common experience, just one that’s rarely represented well.  I didn’t lose any part of myself through relaxing my intellectual superiority complex and rigidly puritanical sense of authenticity and I doubt that anyone ever will. 

PSA about my most favoritest death hill

galesofnovember:

To create (or reblog) a piece of media attacking a teenage girl artist, accusing her of being vapid and shallow, when her crime is that she created a piece of media attacking another teenage girl for being vapid and shallow is so meta I could just die.  What it is not is thoughtful pop culture analysis. 

edited to include kitten

bam

related: can’t find the relevant posts but saltmarshhag and I think maybe partysoft have also made the point that a lot of criticisms of internalised misogyny rely on the same tired “I’m not like other girls who hate on other girls” brain-breaking circular misogynist critique of internalised misogyny.  it’s just like, girls and women with internalised misogyny issues might in certain contexts be your antagonist, but they’re not your enemy, and there’s not enough recognition of that. 

likeability

leonineantiheroine:

So I know it’s only a TV show and am not using this example of popular culture to like make a connection between it and real life but apparently the next Australian episode of New Girl with the ‘adorkable’ Zooey Deschanel as Jess is significant because Jess finds out someone doesn’t like her. WHY IS THIS ACTUALLY A PROBLEM AND A POINT OF CONFLICT IN A TV SHOW? LIKE SERIOUSLY ARE THERE ACTUALLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHOM EVERYONE LIKES*? WHY DON’T WE REALISE THAT WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIPS TO EACH OTHER AND IT MIGHT NOT BE ABOUT LIKEABILITY PER SE? ISN’T IT FUNNY HOW WOMEN HAVE TO BE MORE LIKEABLE BUT THE MOST LIKEABLE PERSON (IN AUSTRALIA) IS A BIG MOUTH, STRAIGHT WHITE MALE WHO CRACKS JOKES AND IS REALLY LAIDBACK DUDE AND WHO IS NOT FAT (MAYBE)?

*Yes I know there are a few of these but I make it a point not to like them and people who think this is an admirable quality—I don’t like them either.

I find this post highly likeable