roadsidewildflower

something i have to remind myself is that the average person kinda sucks and most people often have bad takes, and that's true for small minority groups. and obvi, the smaller the group, the smaller the sample size ppl meet. gender is also like a weird thing, since it's intertwined with physical and social difference, and we're living in a moment where i think both corporate and political interests are vested in amplifying what differences there are for their own gain. and, i think a lot of ppl early on in transition just don't understand how to navigates themselves and the world, but idk

so, just to help you diversify the pool of women you know that are trans--i've got winter leg hair, and a whole lot of angst about how profoundly diluted a lot of feminist discourse is in america right now, even in academic circles lol

JD once said Trump is America's Hitler; I always assumed he had changed his mind, but maybe he still believes it and the only difference is that JD now considers Hitler to be a model to follow.

me spending my precious, wild life stoking dated, astroturfed meme wars in a small, insular space to no real point (surely this strawscold will unite the left) while much of the western working class continues to support an ascendant, fascist order across the globe while passively consuming propaganda thru their algorithmic addiction

Someone mentioned that leather is obvi very hot in full sun, but one other small detail missing from this discussion is that it being so hot becomes a bigger problem when you're wearing shorts, skirts, etc. that expose skin on your thighs where they make contact with seat. Obvi, with current fashion standards this effects women way more then men, and has always struck me as one of those invisible, little ways that the world is designed by default by/for men (like with seat belt safety, high stools for presenters, etc.)

idk helen lewis is such an uninteresting writer

I feel like there's a disconnect between "crime" and building communities of mutual aid, respect, and love. Also there's an irony in focusing on the qualitative nature of property values in this kind of space? Regardless, the vast majority "crime" doesn't really help anyone--stealing someone's bike for resale is shitty, shoplifting from a local store is shitty (and tbh even the big ones bc then they pull out of the neighborhood, leaving us w/o a pharmacy), and tagging stuff up is a shitty exercise in ego-boosting. IDk, I think people have a right to feel safe in their communities no matter the affordability of housing

This is what you get when you put someone in charge who was raised and educated inside India. This is not India and we dont want it to become like India.

I think we can acknowledge this man's poor behavior and systemic misogyny in India without painting over a billion people as unqualified to lead or as dangerous to our country's cultural character. I have several of friends raised and educated in India, now living in the US, who are quite feminist--almost certainly more so than the average American citizen, especially given near half of Americans will vote for a sexual predator for the third presidential election in a row.

consume. you will be happy. just consume more. you need these things. consume. fuck the environment. consume. you will not be good enough without our product. consume. wrap yourself in the narratives we create about who you are by buying or not buying our product, subsume your understand of the world under the one we give you, prostrate yourself upon the altar of pseudo corporate idolatry, consume. consume consume consume.

the wonderfully bizarre amount of detail (like the reporters on camera right outside the site) is what makes it so good to me

What I’ve gathered from this thread is that it’s been spun into more rich racist bullshit.

i do think this is a mischaracterization that some people are pushing because it's easy, though fundamentally untrue. imo, most of the people who originally cultivated and belonged to the idea were women (a lot of them queer) who were looking for way to find authenticity in a very artificial and consumerist world. it was people thrifting and gardening and baking, etc. i'm thinking back to tumblr like ten years ago when it was actually relevant and that's what i can remember of it at least, that and a whole bunch of moodboards with pretty art and landscapes lol

but obviously, any time there's money to be made, monied interests are going to come along and try to co-opt something. it's why any hobby space is now filled with people posting about all the crap they buy for their hobby, instead of actually doing it. anyway, like i wrote in a much longer comment (which tbh feels like a futile use of time, as i forgot how fruitless arguing an idea on the internet actually is/feels), i don't think it's worthy of disdain, etc.

“wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all raised our children on books instead of screens and let them play outside in the fields with other kids and walked to the local market and farmed our own food"

yes. as an educator, let me repeat--yes. these are good things that are children would benefit from. doing the weird, rhetorical strategy of implying these ideas (or the people advocating for them) slide seamlessly into racism is just...weird. like, you can dislike cottagecore while also accepting that it wasn't..."cryptofacist propaganda"

a few years back when i was more online, i was in a few cottagecore kind of spaces. they tended to be dominated by queer women and there was nothing particularly conservative or propagandistic about it. to me at least, it seemed to come organically from women who wanted to uplift things that were seen as outdated or stiffing or gender-stereotyped (threadwork, baking, gardening, etc.) as solutions to artificial and consumerist life. why buy fast fashion when you could thrift, mend, or make? why buy processed food from megacorps when you could grow your own ingredients and make food yourself? etc. and yeah, a lot of them were taking inspiration from the old american transcendentalists and brittish romantics, which you could say are colonialist, etc., but nothing is without fault and generally there are a lot of beautiful ideas from that era that can be taken into and discussed in the modern day, as we navigate tensions between technology and pastoralism (the machine in the garden, by leo marx, is an interesting bit of lit crit on this if you're into that kind of thing). i'd say too that a lot of them were community minded, either through advocacy groups, spirituality (witches and theists alike), community gardens, etc.

maybe the vibes have shifted in the years since, as i feel like the "tradwife" has become a thing on tiktok. but like...the people i know irl who are cottagecorey aren't on tiktok? they're reading and spending time outside and crafting things. so if you're getting the "cryptofacist propaganda" angle from that kind of thing, then I think we're talking about two discreet movements that just have some aesthetic overlap. influencers are never gonna be authentic representations of any kind of group, but most of the cottagecore people i've known irl haven't been rich in the slightest, they've actually mostly been retail workers or biology or lit grad students lol.

but ultimately...it would be wonderful if we were raising our kids on books instead of screens. anyone working in education can tell you that. and yeah, playing outside is good, actually. having a garden is also awesome, and being able to walk to the local market is doubly so. and the awesome part is, all those things can be done in the city, or the suburbs, or in rural america. they can be done in diverse communities built on compassion.

anyway, there are a lot of good things to be drawn from that whole subculture, imo

average man in the suburban midwest tbh, just add some wraparound sunglasses and poorly maintained facial hair and you've got a portrait in 4k

realized I only had ~100 days left to post this now that he dropped out of the race lol

God, me

Are you there, God? It's me, [redacted].

yeah, we get it, you make your own coffee in the morning smh

huh. how mundane. not the prophecy that google translate augured smh

an intelligent, nuanced take in a shitpost space that recognizes the importance of touching grass and loving your neighbor and building structures of mutual aid? I didn't think I'd live to see the day 😍

"cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return"