I watched a tiktok by a school teacher who hasn't assigned any homework in 12 years a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it because she made some great points. I'll link it here but it's in German.

I'll go ahead and summarize the arguments she made as to why she thinks homework sucks:

And also a very important point that many people in the comments made based on their experiences as both students & parents of students:

🚨⚠️🛑 before you add that comment, ask yourself: is what I’m mad about actually IN this post or am I simply looking to be mad on the internet…?

Ok I'm back on this topic again.

One of the things that pisses me off about people pretending I've said things in a post I didn't is that I'm exceedingly careful about what I write. Part of why I LOVE written communication is because I CAN BE careful, planned, and slooooow down.

[My irl verbal communication can tend to be more of an impulsive shit show. AuDHD dichotomy here.]

So when I'm in my "carefully worded post wheelhouse" and someone says "you lumped all boomers in together" when I didn't [and in reality I was merely describing my own personal, first hand and peer group observed truths] it really raises my hackles.

I think that people who do this are used to communicating with others who talk in mind games, riddles, and secret coded subtext. My autistic ass is not that way. And I really hate to be treated in a manner not relevant to my actual behavior.

I choose words carefully and while your interpretation of them may vary and normal miscommunications can emerge, I just really really cannot stand the EXTRA annoying ness of being told I said things I didn't.

Communicating is always a minefield on its own. Don't plant more mines for no reason, ya know? I'll be held to account for what I DO SAY. I can't suffer fools who make up things I didn't.

anyone who uses the r slur at this point needs to just be recognized as a hateful bigot and we cant be quiet about it anymore. genuinely. get mad at people for this. point it out and be annoying about it. no you cant reclaim it you just want an excuse to be bigoted

90% of age gaps don’t matter when you’re a grown adult as long as you don’t have a repeated pattern of dating people barely legal. I would date someone 30 years older than me if I liked them who gaf

This entire conversation is somehow 90% people infantilizing themselves and 10% actually people talking about the issue of men who never grow out of dating 18/19 year olds. No it is not a big deal when a 25 year old dates a 35 year old please get a grip

Honestly if you’re in your mid twenties infantilizing yourself on this level maybe you shouldn’t be dating anyone

Chimes with a thought I've had for a while, actually; sleep deprivation might mean I explain this badly, but:

What a red flag actually means: something here is an indicator of a potential problem (but might be fine with a reasonable explanation)

What people have now decided it means: abuse

I've lost count of the number of times I've now had to read variants of "My partner takes all my money and gives me back an allowance because he says it's a man's job to control finances, but he's racking up gambling debts" being met with "Wow this man is a walking red flag" no Becky that is abuse. That is not an indicator. He is an abuser. Call the police. We have lost the concept of a proxy: a thing that indicates a more important thing. And it's relevant to this conversation because I'm actually going to go out on a limb here:

With the obvious exception of paedophilia, age gaps themselves aren't a problem at all - they are a proxy for the actual harmful phenomenon. Hea me out, let me explain

The reason we don't like age gaps is because of the implied power dynamic. If one partner, usually male, is older than other - particularly if the other is still quite young - the risk is that what we're seeing is a worldly wise predator who is exploiting the lack of life experience of a young beautiful woman by mentally abusing her until she's no longer young and pretty enough to satisfy, at which point he'll move on to the next. There have been enough examples of this in human history. It's unfortunately not an uncommon pattern. Genders can also be diverse in this scenario

We can't necessarily see that dynamic from the outside. But we CAN see an inherent element of it: the ages of the people involved. So age becomes a proxy for the abuse. And, hey, it's often correct.

But here's the thing: the ages themselves are not causing harm.

The power dynamic is. The abuse is.

Plenty of age gap relationships are loving, healthy and steadfast. Two people met and genuinely fell in love regardless of the outer packaging, and have a relationship with all the highs and lows and challenges and rewards as any more traditional pairing. This happens all the time

Is the age gap a red flag? Sure! It indicates a potential issue.

Is it inherently abusive? Absolutely fucking not.

OP is right - we need to stop focusing just on the numbers and twisting the facts to fit by infantilising the younger partners, and start focusing on the actual harms. The DiCaprio Pattern of only dating under 24s repeatedly is itself a proxy, too, actually - but a much stronger one than the simple presence of an age gap.

(Even so, in DiCaprio's case, until any of his former partners come forward and describe him as abusive, actually, even that is up in the air - my personal interpretation, given how strong a pattern it is, is that he's a loser who views women as trophies (consciously or not). If any have come forward and I don't know about it, of course, fair enough. But those women were adults capable of making their own decisions, even if they might later come to regret it. And regretting poor decisions is part of life! That's how it goes, particularly with relationships. As long as they weren't abused, there's no biggie. And just as he was looking for young-and-beautiful, there's no way they weren't, on some level, looking for rich-and-famous; it goes both ways.)

Also, another element of this: I think a lot of modern extreme puritan discourse on this is actually ironically down to the age of those taking part. Up until your late 20s, ten years is actually a huge span of time to you, because in your own life you were in a completely different developmental phase ten years ago (teenager), and a completely different phase again ten years before that (child). That skews your sense of what a ten-year gap means. Whereas once you're in your 30s and beyond, ten years is like. Yeah I was an adult ten years ago, and I still am now. That's two adults. Who cares.

(Anyway I am hoping and praying I explained that well enough, and also that Tumblr's famous reading comprehension skills are solid enough to follow)

reading an article about the guy who owns the Knicks and Madison Square Garden and they used facial recognition to track every move of a trans Knicks fan to try to make sure she didn't end up on game broadcasts and eventually just banned her from the arena.

unpaywalled version here

Article. Article every time. Not gonna waste time arguing. 🙂

Fun fact, it's not a pure generational divide any longer, it's much more personal preference. Of which mine, personally, is reading. BY FAR.

At a nonprofit fundraising conference I was at recently, one of the speakers said that Gen X (born 1965-80 ish) are the fastest growing users of short form video, and most likely to be persuaded to donate via short form video.

In terms of platform use, Gen Z dominates in raw numbers [followed closely by Millennials] due to their inherent comfort w/ the platforms and where their peers congregate online...

But a lot of the "growing" segment of video viewers are Boomers and Gen X. Video is becoming more and more ubiquitous.

And, hey, fwiw all of that makes me really sad because...again...I hate videos

the masses only care about the girls starving themselves when its not something they can ignore anymore; ariana grande used to be "just naturally petite" - only now once they can see her skeleton does anyone feel the need to express their concern. and, of course, the fattest of us will starve ourselves constantly, months at a time, for years of our lives, and the only thing we ever get out of it is a congratulations. starvation is ugly, but thinness is chic - i mean, ariana grande wasn't even actually fat before! her mind is sick so she just thinks she's fat. she's starving herself wrongly. thin people are not supposed to starve. only fat people!

our suffering is simply our rightful punishment for the crime of being fat

Followers, Following, Posts, Likes, and Drafts...oh my

In my continued goal of mining as much data as I can, consensually, from my fellow tumblr users for my own human-data-nerd-euphoria, this time I'm curious which of these represents the BIGGEST NUMBER for you: followers, following, posts, likes, or drafts! Self define whatever is the "main" blog for you (just please don't combine numbers across multiple blogs.)

As always, please feel free to boosty boost this outside my lil follower space.

New today in "social etiquette violations I didn't consider possible": Taking five in a public washroom when some motherfucker walked in with their phone in hand watching videos on full volume. Proceeded to do their thing while still watching the video. I went "Bruh," to no response. They then completed their mission and left. Video still going. And only briefly rinsed one hand. No soap

Ewwwww.

Nothing will top the 2 women at my former workplace (shared building, not coworkers) where they took full phone calls ON SPEAKER PHONE from the stalls.

Like REALLY??? You think I want your mom hearing my piss stream???

For all my fellow oversharers out there.

As a chronic people-pleaser, this is my advice for success.

Offer as little as possible. Be terse. Get rid of all those exclamation marks and tidbits about why you want to take a sick day. State your needs clearly and concisely without reason. Start saying “No, I’m unable.” more often. Say Thank You only when the other party deserves it.

I agree with this as a big time over talker who often regrets it. I have verbal impulsivity issues and my 1st knee-jerk response is usually fawning (apologizing, explaining)

If you relate to that I have a couple of things you can try…

1. Just try to create a moment of time between what is said and before you reply. Just take a deep breath or tap your palm or take a sip of water for a second, anything to allow you a moment to not just knee jerk reply, so you can make a poised response. Create space to allow your brain to respond not react. 

Silence is not bad, but a lot of people are uncomfortable with it so if you allow there to be some, sometimes the other person will talk first.

2. Forgive yourself for the times when you impulsively do apologize or fawn or w/e. We all slip up. It’s ok, next! 

The "elder millennial" "xennial" age group had such an interesting relationship to tech growing up. We just kept rolling w/ the changes that have been nonstop, but our earliest days were pre digitial.

Like I remember when the only way friends could contact me was the old shared house phone...probably the last generation in mainstream US life to say that. I remember the internet arriving and being INFINITELY more competent at using it than adults and fucking around on AIM and chat rooms. I remember pagers and adults having them but wasn't old enough for one until they were already obsolete.

I was taught how to formally handwrite a letter and address the envelope. Followed by mandatory keyboard typing classes and "computers" starting as a "specials" in elementary school.

The first cases of cyberbullying started in my generation. Adults had no idea how to address it.

We were at the front end of cell phones and texting becoming the norm, by my late in my HS/early college times. I remember owning totally separate pieces of tech for digital photography, playing music, watching video, playing video games, GPS/navigation, scientific calculator, an alarm clock, flashlight, etc. many replaced by smartphones. And I remember being an early smartphone adopter in my late 20s.

I remember the screeching hell of dial up and how fucking pumped we were when much better DSL/cable internet started. I remember sometimes having to print out papers for college to some professors and hand them in person and for others, having to submit them by email or online uploads instead. In my early career, I remember having to fax paperwork as much as I emailed it.

My home has physical media in VHS, DVD, and Blue ray formats. I remember when VHS was officially phased out as the standard format.

I had more cellphones with gimmicks across the years than I could count. The old Nokia brick. The tiny phone SNL mocked. The sidekick full keyboard that flipped out. The Blackberry that was my first time getting email on the go. The original Droid. Early iphones.

I'm Mark Zuckerberg's age...aka of the generation of women he was ranking hotness of in this pre-Facebook days and the target group he rolled out The Facebook for...I was on it when you had to be at an invited college.

Idk why I'm writing this. it's just interesting to me. I think part of why my generation is so adaptable to new tech is that we've always had to be...unlike my niece who is starting high school and has literally ONLY ever known tech on a phone or tablet. But also unlike my 87 aunt who didn't interact with tech much until she was in her 40s and older.

Hmm a few people in the notes seem to think that I have said something about AI or stereotypes about boomers in this post and I’m very confused bc……?

🚨⚠️🛑 before you add that comment, ask yourself: is what I’m mad about actually IN this post or am I simply looking to be mad on the internet…?