It’s harder to come up with nicknames than you would think.
one thing about tumblr users isthat they love to disagree with posts. another thing is that they love to do is disagree with things that were not even in the post as if they were
I mean, my mom just talked to me a lot as a small child about Barbie presenting an unrealistic body image.
The OP does make valid points that it's fucked up that she didn't have access to dolls who looked like her as a kid, but that's not really a Barbie-specific thing as much as it's a "literally all of US society and the toy industry" thing, and Barbie's more of a reflection of that and benchmark of that than the driving force.
The first Black dolls in the Barbie line were "Colored Francie" in 1967 (who collectors usually refer to a "Black Francie"), and Barbie's friend Christie in 1968, but there wasn't an actual black version of Barbie herself until 1980. Also, because it was the 60s, a lot of parents flipped out because Francie was sold as "Barbie's MODern Cousin", and came in white and black versions, but Barbie herself was only sold as a white doll, so CLEARLY that meant Mattel had a nefarious agenda and supported interracial marriage.
I BELIEVE - and it's been about 15 years since I wrote the paper - that the first Latina Barbies were California Dream Teresa in 1988 and Dolls of the World Mexico Barbie in 1989.
There were some not-great, honestly-kind-of-fetishizing Hawaiian Barbies in 1975-ish, as well as *sigh* "Oriental Barbie" in 1981, marking the first Asian Barbie doll.
Barbie and the Rockers also had Black and Asian characters in 1986, and the 90s were a bit better.
At the same time, like. My Little Pony (produced by Hasbro, one of Mattel's biggest competitors) had two fairly racist ponies in the 80s - "Gypsy" in 1984 and "Wigwam" in 1987. So it's clearly not just a problem with Barbie or Mattel.
The toy industry has problems because our society has problems - and even moreso 30-40 years ago.
Barbie also released three new body types - Tall, Petite, and Curvy - in 2016:
Nowadays Barbie looks like this:
I mean, like Barbie, don't like Barbie, see the movie, don't see the movie, do what you want.
But when you're talking about a toy line that's been around for 64 years - Barbie will be a senior citizen next year! There are grandparents alive today who've never lived in a world where Barbie didn't exist - I'm just not really sure how useful it is to be like "Well they were shitty about representation 40 years ago" when the entire toy industry was, too, at that time. And I think it's a little silly to act like Barbie is the CAUSE of this rather than just being a product of the society we live in.
Like, as a Trans dude I have a fair lot of complicated feelings around things like Barbie but I ABSOLUTELY went out and bought this Barbie when she was released because that is trans Barbie and I love her.
Fuck that post going around saying "you can have coffee in your story without justifying it :) you don't need to explain everything :)" I want, no, I DEMAND a fully researched ethnobotanical paper on every single food item in your work, if you don't explain to me where did potatoes come from in your fantasy setting or don't explain how the industry of coffee works over interstellar distances with full detail you are doing things wrong and I personally hate you and I hate your stupid story, fuck you
Why are your stupid little wizards and knights eating potato stew in your dumb European middle ages fantasy world. Where did they get potatoes from. Where is the center of domestication of potatoes, do you have a fantasy Andean civilization? What are the social and economic consequences of having such a calorie rich crop in cold climates. I don't care about "themes" or "enemies to lovers with found family", I didn't ask about that. Where does your idiot space captain gets their shitty coffee from. Is it imported from Earth? Are there coffee growing worlds? Is it an alien species replacement with the same name? What are the social consequences of that? Don't try to change the subject, I'll stop pointing the gun when I want, I'm trying to have a conversation here,
gold in them there tags
If you or a loved one can hear this image, you may be entitled to financial compensation
Something that I think should be an important part of solarpunk aesthetics is screws.
Look at your smartphone. No screws. You've got to have specialized tools to get inside your phone to repair something. There are certain pieces of tech that are glued in place and glue can't be undone without permanently breaking the bond.
But screws!
You can take apart a broken old radio, repair what's broken, and, if you were careful in taking it apart, you can put it back together and have a fully functioning radio and all you need is a common screwdriver!
It's hard to build screws and other mechanical fasteners because it requires more planning than clamps and glues, but isn't that what solarpunk is all about‽ It's about care and sustainability and and a radio or a computer built carefully with repair in mind is a sustainable computer that stays out of landfills and in use.
you have to dig a hole in your living room, for easy access to the labyrinthine cave systems below rich with valuable minerals and skeletons who hate you. minecraft has taught me this much
there has never been a circle of wizards more powerful and influential than the SPICE GIRLS
so i have a cat now
5 years ago today this little angel changed my life for the better
we’ve both come so far
Happy 5 years, Baby Socks
*benoit blanc voice* bah gawd that kitten transed your gendah
Also nothing will ever be funnier than the whole Leverage crew spending the first episode whining about how they work alone and this is a one-time thing ONLY and they DON’T work in a team EVER and then like two days later Nate tries to get rid of them and every single one of them is like “why are you trying to tear this family apart :(”
Hang on the season 2 premiere might have it beat
Nate: Why the fuck are you all in my house?
The entire rest of the crew: Our house :)
This isn’t even an exaggeration, they straight up just break into his house and start remodeling
The Leverage crew: *disperses at the end of The Nigerian Job*
[literally 5 seconds after they all walk offscreen]
Anonymous asked:
oh I didn't realize you used to be a huge piece of shit
now this may surprise some of the audience, but the majority of humans have to survive a phase called "being a teenager" and the results are often catastrophic
Some great advice I got from a therapist when we were discussing guilt over past actions and behaviors (some paraphrased, some written down during session):
“You only ever realize you did something less than ideal once you’ve grown past it. So if you find yourself thinking, ‘Wow, I was a terrible person,’ or ‘Oh man, I did this rude awful thing,’ try reframing it as: ‘Wow, I’ve grown into a much better person now,’ or ‘Oh man, I am a much kinder and more understanding person who knows not do something like that again.’ Nobody starts out perfectly kind and reasonable, and it’s worth recognizing and celebrating when you’ve grown as a human being.”
Please do cite the deep magic to me actually. I may have been there when it was written but I am very forgetful
Jesus, I hadn’t even thought of this, but of course.
daalseth
This is something that historians have been warning about for a couple of decades. How much of our history was not just on Twitter, but on MySpace, on blogs and web sites that came down after a few years, on e-mail, on texts. None of that leaves a record. Once the file is deleted, the server shut down and scrapped, the backup disks decay into being unreadable junk, that history is gone.
Does anyone remember when Obama and Clinton each held town hall campaign events on MySpace? Good luck finding anything about those now other than some news articles that say they happened. How many business zoom calls have formal meeting minutes taken? We are not saving histories. We aren’t even writing letters. I’m as guilty as anyone. My art is online and kept in the cloud. I make my Christmas Card every year, but I haven’t printed and mailed one in over a decade. It’s all sent electronically. Meaning that a generation from now no one will remember.
So the problem is bigger than Twitter. We are now a couple of decades into an age that will not leave any detailed historical record.
That is not good.
macleod
In pseudo and acadamic circles this has routinely been called the ‘digital dark age’, I even wrote on the subject a few years ago but can’t find that article right now. [There is even a Wikipedia article on the concept] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age#:~:text=The%20digital%20dark%20age%20is,technologies%20evolve%20and%20data%20decay).
It’s thought this might just be a black spot of knowledge, there are organizations working to stop this — archival websites primarily, but these are not able to penetrate all these corporate gated gardens, where paywalls, sign up walls, and more block access to. There is an ongoing campaign by megacorps to shutdown as many archival sites as possible.
This coupled with the fallibility of hard drives, CDs (make sure to back them up! They only have a 20-30 year lifetime!), and more and there is a chance that even though there is more information than ever before, more primary and secondary sources than ever, we may become just a strange blank spot in societal and cultural history. Digital decay is a terrifying concept that we are already beginning to live through.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying. It’s a loss of history. And, given how important it has been for activists of all sorts, it will be a loss for the future as well.
English added by me :)
meanwhile, the cat is like “I am living my best life right now, I am coming back as a cat in a Buddhist monastery at least four or five more times”
kate BUSH. not kate SHAVE. something to think about..............
Just remembered how my old boss used to say “allied forces” any time dragon flys showed up when we were out working in mosquito infested swamps
