Potato Dumpling

it really is sad that algorithmic feeds have broken peoples' brains so badly. people really do come here and go "wait, i have to CHOOSE who i follow to get posts on my dashboard???" because a social media site working the way they were always supposed to work is so alien now. people will assume the site is a ghost town because they don't follow enough active users. there has to be a constant stream of New Content every time you refresh, regardless of whether or not said Content is any good

you can never just get caught up on your feed and put the phone down, because that's not what tiktok and insta and twitter and facebook have conditioned users to expect. putting the phone down means you're not looking at more ads and generating revenue for the site. when you venture off of the following feed twitter's algorithm is very transparently designed to show you bait tweets and other things that will make you angry, because getting people to argue is one of the easiest ways to drive engagement. it's no wonder threads just launched with no following feed whatsoever, just an infinite stream of algorithmic slop. these sites don't want you to curate your own experience because then you might develop a healthier relationship with them. that's not what they want. they want addiction

This is true I think, everyone just has very normal and even-minded thoughts and opinions about masculine sexuality

By the way, this post has been reported as missing a community label by several people and still isn't marked mature. So it's not even that the original post got reported and this one didn't.

Tumblr's official stance is that trans women are considered explicit content.

me standing over a dead body with a bloody knife in my hand: look i know this looks very…uh…(absently snaps fingers three times) oh what’s the word….(”bad?”) no, not bad…i mean, yes bad, obviously, but…uh…it’s like “convicting” but it’s not? you know? well anyway..ugh this is gonna be bothering me all day until i think of it..

(3 seconds after getting thrown into the brig) INCRIMINATING

I think somewhere people got confused and now think that "privileged" equals "oppressor" and "having privilege" equals "has the power to oppress".

It doesn't.

Would love to hear more about this, because I understand the first part, that privileged doesn’t automatically equal oppressor, but I don’t think I know enough to understand how having privilege doesn’t equal having the power to oppress.

Having privilege does not automatically grant you power.

I have working legs. This does not mean I am systemically oppressing people who need mobility aids, and it doesn't mean I have the power to do it, either. If I got elected to government and passed legislation that removed elevators and ramps on the basis of "Well I don't need them", then I'd be systemically oppressing people based on walking privilege.

It's exactly what I was saying on the other post; existing doesn't mean oppression.

You do not have mobility problems with your legs at the time of this posting. I do, but I can still walk with relatively little assistance as long as my pain is low and the terrain is not actively working against me. That doesn't mean the stairs in your house or apartment are oppressing me, or that your ability to climb them with no negative effects is oppressing me. You have the privilege of not needing to worry if you can actually make that climb and thus more avenues are open to you- you don't have to worry about the expense of buying a house with no stairs, you don't secondguess if you can actually take the flight, entire venues and employment/schooling oppurtunies and city streets and businesses aren't completely inaccessible to you because they exist on the third floor with no fucking elevator, you don't suffer sleepless at night when you were forced to take stairs you shouldn't have climbed. But unless *you*, specifically YOU, designed these stairways in these places with no other way to access the upper floors... it's not like you not needing to worry about that is directly oppressing me.

You CAN contribute to it- "why should stairs need to be accessible" "who even needs ramps and elevators" "I mean if you can walk you should be able to take a couple steps" "why do I need to make room for you on the elevator or wait for you to catch up" and my favorite "wow the world's youngest senior citizen" usually said when walking with my cane. But until that line is crossed, you existing as someone who can walk without pain unassisted is not directly oppressing me.

And that's the thing. Actions are oppression. Existing as someone with privilege does not mean you automatically oppress people.

"Having privilege" is morally neutral. Society is what bestows you privilege. That is completely out of your control.

"Oppression" is morally repugnant. Actions that contribute to the harm of others are terrible and bad and you should not do them.

Too many people conflate the two.

the best part about making someone else’s post viral is not having to deal with the notes.

You’re responsible for this heartache, bastard. Are you proud of what you wrought upon me, ya boy?

"how to look androgynous" "nonbinary fashion tips" you are skinny im not listening to you

my tumblr dashboard hasn't gotten the updated UI yet so hearing more and more people I follow gradually post about the nightmare they're currently living just feels like I'm in the first fifteen minutes of a horror series where Troubling News Stories are starting to crop up on the radio and on blurry background TV sets

i genuinely dont care if the creation of all media comes to a screeching halt btw i will very gladly live with no new movies no new tv shows no new anything for years if that's what it takes for the people who create them to be treated like human beings. i hope every other facet of the entertainment industry goes on strike too and i hope all the ones that havent unionised yet will. i want media creation to become completely impossible and i want the people who could make it possible again to hold out until they get every single thing they want. btw

"writers deserve attention more than actors" literally only 2% of actors can pay the bills with acting. For every megastar on screen there are a dozen other people in the shot who are SAG. Acting gets so glamorized but there are SO MANY people in SAG who NEED residuals to live on. Background Party Girl #4 needs her check too!!!! There are people who play recurring characters on syndicated shows who cant afford health insurance!!! Ke Huy Quan gave an oscar winning performance and LOST HIS HEALTH INSURANCE the next year.

@wingstobetorn

seeing people be like ‘I know it’s going to be hard to support the sag strike because movies and shows will stop coming out but-’ is so fucking funny like can I introduce you to a beautiful concept called the million billion movies and shows that already exist that you couldn’t even get through in a lifetime if you wanted. welcome to heaven <3

I remember in my Arabic class we were going over the alphabet and the teacher was like there’s no ‘P’ etc and this white girl was like wait what but my names Paige and my teacher was like lol then we’d pronounce it as beige and she was so offended I’m crying thinking about it

One of my mom’s friends, Hugh, went to France and they had a lot of trouble pronouncing his name because the entire thing was silent.

salut je m'appelle [REDACTED]

lol when I lived in France my host family had a friend names Hugh. We saw him and his family a lot.

They pronounced it “oog” and I didn’t know until the day before I left France that his name was Hugh. I just thought he had some weird caveman nickname 😭

that is hands down the funniest addition to this post

At first Netflix said, come write for us. We’ll save your cancelled shows and write about whatever niche story you want. Our algorithm says people will watch it!

Then a few years later they said, regardless of our promises or contract obligations we are cancelling shows after two seasons without telling anyone. Turns out no matter how loved a show is, we get less subscriptions after the second season.

How many subscriptions did we bring you? Netflix won’t say.

So writers started writing two season shows. Just give us two seasons, Netflix. Like you promised.

Then Netflix said, oops sorry! Turns out your show didn’t premiere at #1 and the views in the first day weren’t what we wanted so we’re cancelling your second season.

What were the numbers? How many people watched our show? Netflix doesn’t say.

Then, they did something extra special. They started taking shows and splitting their first season into two halves. Inside Job was not two seasons. It was one season split in half.

Oops! Sorry! The second half of your first season didn’t do as well as the first half, so now your show is cancelled!

Why? How many people? How much money? These companies are making cash hand over fist and they refuse to tell people the truth: people loved your show. Loved it. But some corpo exec wanted an infinite money making machine. Do you know how long shows are in production for before you watch them? Years. Like, 5+, even 10+ years. And Netflix gives it less than a week before they decide whether you’re getting cancelled.

Support #WGA Support #SAGAFTRA

Does anyone remember what happened to Radio Shack?

They started out selling niche electronics supplies. Capacitors and transformers and shit. This was never the most popular thing, but they had an audience, one that they had a real lock on. No one else was doing that, so all the electronics geeks had to go to them, back in the days before online ordering. They branched out into other electronics too, but kept doing the electronic components.

Eventually they realize that they are making more money selling cell phones and remote control cars than they were with those electronic components. After all, everyone needs a cellphone and some electronic toys, but how many people need a multimeter and some resistors?

So they pivoted, and started only selling that stuff. All cellphones, all remote control cars, stop wasting store space on this niche shit.

And then Walmart and Target and Circuit City and Best Buy ate their lunch. Those companies were already running big stores that sold cellphones and remote control cars, and they had more leverage to get lower prices and selling more stuff meant they had more reasons to go in there, and they couldn't compete. Without the niche electronics stuff that had been their core brand, there was no reason to go to their stores. Everything they sold, you could get elsewhere, and almost always for cheaper, and probably you could buy 5 other things you needed while you were there, stuff Radio Shack didn't sell.

And Radio Shack is gone now. They had a small but loyal customer base that they were never going to lose, but they decided to switch to a bigger but more fickle customer base, one that would go somewhere else for convenience or a bargain. Rather than stick with what they were great at (and only they could do), they switched to something they were only okay at... putting them in a bigger pond with a lot of bigger fish who promptly out-competed them.

If Radio Shack had stayed with their core audience, who knows what would have happened? Maybe they wouldn't have made a billion dollars, but maybe they would still be around, still serving that community, still getting by. They may have had a small audience, but they had basically no competition for that audience. But yeah, we only know for sure what would happen if they decided to attempt to go more mainstream: They fail and die. We know for sure because that's what they did.

I don't know why I keep thinking about the story of what happened to Radio Shack. It just keeps feeling relevant for some reason.