#70 - Well, twitter certainly didn't take all that long to implode

Wowee, what a week.

I know every month feels like it’s flying by, but this month is like zip zappin’ right past me and I have tickets to a thing so it feels like that definitely shouldn’t be happening—plus there’s the whole major holiday at the end of the month (remember when everyone’s favorite holiday was suddenly thanksgiving? but because of the ~times we live in, everyone also had to indicate that they were NOT celebrating what the holiday is literally centered around celebrating, but instead they were celebrating the food. which, just as a reminder, is available for anyone to make any day of the year! you don’t have to wait for a weird pilgrimaversary of genocide to combine tubers and marshmallows! stuffing is delicious, even in September! anyway now that Thin Is [back] In, i have a feeling everyone’s gonna go back to really leaning into halloween. when the economic bust becomes a boom again, christmas will make its comeback via luxury hauls—now in micro form on tiktok!) so it really feels like this month of all months, we coulda used a slowdown.

But alas! Twitter is hurtling itself into the sun, moving like a tremendous machine toward the finish line of its demise. Turns out, one lonely man with a lot of money really can ruin the fun for everyone. Everyone who hasn’t been grossly/unceremoniously fired has quit, so now he’s extorting work visas in order to force some of the previously fired people to come back. The grossest! (Sidenote: I was talking with a friend about previous jobs/abusive bosses in new york recently, I’m worried about the “My Life As A ___” type tiktoks doing a lot of work in normalizing exploitative —> abusive work environments. It’s not normal to work 12-hour days just because your boss buys you dinner! Especially the girlies who are moving to new york to work for influencers like—something to look out for in terms of “how bad is this office environment?” if the office is entirely staffed by young women in their early 20s and my bet is the company has some weird ethics—and if none of them are downright illegal they’re probably massively exploitative. They’re hoping no one has enough work/office experience to call out the abuse. Also likely that these offices look sleek and have “fun” policies that actually just trap everyone into staying later/competing for time in videos because having comments written about them is now some form of job security!) And hey, it’s actually probably good that we lose a social media site to the big recycling bin in the sky, it’s good to prove things are, in fact, not too big to fail. (Even if Twitter wasn’t actually all that big and it probably was one of the more useful ones.)

Look, I’m all for the internet getting a little more niche and a little less normie, but I am worried that discord and reddit getting even bigger will just push people into hyperspecific interests and the experience of the internet will (as I guess it always kind of has) come down to how well the mods are doing at keeping everyone corralled.

Mods are make-or-break in terms of returnability to a website (just look at how much reddit cleaned up its act in the last few years) and it’s a thankless, unpaid job that’s staffed completely by volunteers with hopefully good critical thinking skills and the ability to communicate the reasoning behind their decisions. You know, people with a lot of Hall Monitor energy and nowhere else to exercise it. Also who want to do this for no money in exchange for a lot of emotional distress!! But what is the online experience if not passionate people putting in a lot of effort for no feasible payment? (Shoutout to all the fic writers, moderators, gif makers, archivists, translators, organizers, spreadsheet makers, stats nerds, code makers, HTML customizers, theme template people, you get it!!)

This was a big week for people being wrong online though. Lotsa pundits are really bad at their job and keep saying “the polls are unpredictable” before using them as their only source to predict election outcomes,  and look, I’m not saying that most of them don’t see women as people but I really think that’s one of the major oversights. Plus the fact that for like three election cycles it’s become extremely clear that a lot of folks simply don’t pick up the phone for unknown numbers anymore because no one regulated the scammy spammy calls so now pollsters are only getting answers from people who still have landlines and maybe that’s why they’re so surprised young people are finally turning out to vote. But like, this generation grew up under constant threat of gun violence, they’ve been radicalized far more and for much longer than traditional media cares to acknowledge. Anyway, pundits who are wrong should have to declare just how wrong they were on this election every single time they attempt to offer insights on the next one.

I’m really glad people showed up and showed out in the midterms—it’s now up to the democrats to prove to us that they’re going to do something. I feel like it’s been far too comfortable for a lot of them because when the choice is between them or a fascist, they’ve really got me over the barrel. It’s like I’m on fire and they keep telling me to vote for them so they can put the fire out, only to get elected and then “forget” to follow through because they have no way to guarantee I’ll vote for them again otherwise. And I know this system is rigged this way on purpose, and I know that traditionally third parties only serve as spoilers to the democrats, but we have to, we simply have to, have more options. They have to be competitive again—and not just for donations. (I think honestly, we’re going to get there through the split in the Republican party because Trump is finally considered somewhat toxic to the party (ayyy took ‘em long enough) and will now face off against Florida’s governor who has all of the terrible policies of Trump but none of the biggest bully in elementary school charisma and those two going head to head will be a glorious battle of losers. Whoever doesn’t win the primary absolutely has a big enough ego to go independent though so I might get my wish in a monkey’s paw format but, you know what, I’ll take it!)

And Democrats have to stop re-running/elevating people who consistently lose elections. I like Beto but the answer to him losing the senate race and then the governor’s race is not to…get really hyped about him running for president. He did that last time and truly cost himself his political future because of a bad editorial choice by Vanity Fair. Yowza! That’s rough, buddy. Become a gun control advocate and try again later!! And YES I know a lot of that came down to voter suppression—including new fun flavors like having spouses share booths while voting, completely ignoring the fundamentals of why we have private voting in the first place! There is absolutely domestic abuse that occurs due to spousal pressure to vote a certain way. (There’s actually training that door-to-door canvassers go through because in some places its really really common for husbands to answer the door unaware they’re living with a registered democrat and then the canvassers have to navigate that moment to keep everyone safe. Fun! So fun. We hate women so much. It’s really incredible.)

I’m heartened by this turnout because if we can get people to care about midterms, we can get them to care about anything. And if we vote in overwhelming numbers, we can get a third party going pretty quickly. For everyone who seems to ~love the Founding Fathers sooo much and you know who really hated two-party politics? George Washington! It’s literally what his whole deal was when he left the presidency after two terms. He just established that via tradition btw, we didn’t codify it until FDR ran and won four times in a row, it’s the 22nd amendment, those things we used to pass because the constitution was meant to be a living document and that’s why they included 10 amendments at kickoff in order to cement that idea into american’s heads and guess what—it worked! Almost all of our famous and most fought-for rights aren’t in the actual document but wowee zowie is that first amendment chock full of ‘em! But then we started ascribing weird celebrity status to them/the constitution as-is because Scalia and his ilk wanted to make the founders appear infallible so the court could pretend that knowing “what the founders wanted” aka “writing little fanfics about what the founding fathers must have been thinking” is in any way a legitimate form of interpretation. Anyway, the reason we remember Washington is the same reason we still remember Cincinnatus, they were men in power with incredible access to more, and they chose to walk away from it. It’s still so stunning to us that we still name a whole buncha shit after those two dudes.

(Anyway, please vote in the Democratic primaries this next time so we can show a vested interest in not relying on using the incumbent to win because as much as I think Joe is…fine, his hesitancy to “make waves” is reeeeally pissing me off, he has no urgency, fire the fed chair Joe I don’t care that you think a lot of turnover looks bad it’s fine you didn’t hire him the last guy did and he’s driving us into a recession because he doesn’t want to talk about or cap corporate greed AND countries in dire financial straits are easier to convince that authoritarianism is any type of viable solution!!!) (Also catch me screaming in agony about how useless Iowa caucuses are just a few months from now!)

Anyway, the only takeaway I think Dems should cling to from the midterms is to run really big & tall people. Fetterman’s spokesperson joked about it, but I’m not joking one little bit. I predicted Nayte was going to win Michelle’s season of The Bachelorette on night one for the sole reason that he is 6’8”. And I was right then and I’m right now!!

Has it really only been 11 days since the start of this month?

Jeepers.

It’s been a funky one. Not just with the election—I feel like everyone I’ve talked to has been feeling more sensitive/delicate these days. Maybe it’s the state of the world, or the question of how much power we actually have to do good/change things, or maybe it’s because it was 80degrees in New York two days ago and our bodies are screaming “Uhhhh it’s not supposed to be like this!!!” as the urge to light candles fights its way into seasonal relevance, attempting to move against nature.

The eclipse happened, the sunsets have been spectacular, I’m attempting to be more productive through using a modified Pomodoro technique because timers help me gamify my life and I’m playing far fewer video games these days in my attempts to feel like my accomplishments are things I can hold onto and have proof of outside of the console.

Which has included my very first attempt at this whole “write a book in a month” thing for a ~fun challenge. It’s not that fun so far but I’m really really trying to let myself have fun with it and not pre-judge. I don’t write fiction so I don’t know why I have many/any expectations of myself in terms of quality. No one else is even slated to read this thing, I am my only audience! And yet the pre-judgment has been really hard to get over. But! I’ve realized I can do it in really small chunks. Original Pomodoro is 25 minutes at a time, I do this for 10. I take breaks and I’m not letting myself write and edit in the same sitting. It turns out, I can push away the self-sabotage for ten minutes at a time.

I had some flair ups around “you should be able to do this without timers, you call yourself a writer” negative self-talk, but uh, I’m getting over those through the simple trick of: realizing it’s entirely unhelpful to talk to myself that way! The whole point is a fun writing exercise to get out this plot that’s been floating around in the back of my brain. It’s not to write a bestseller! I’m doing this just for me so like, whose voice am I even projecting these negative thoughts through?? But instead of punishing myself for having the negative thought, I’m trying to reward myself for continuing to do the task anyway. It’s like interval training for creative work and breaking the habit of judging myself into oblivion!

Anyway, here’s the website I’m using for timers, it’s really customizable for both the streaks and short/long breaks!

I think I’ve been…annoyed by the thought there’s still more to do, more to heal, more to learn. It’s just a blip of bitterness and I know I’ll move through it, but holy shit it’s tough to have weeks where I don’t like myself now that I’ve experienced the nirvana of weeks when I do. It’s natural, I’m doing an okay job of not being down on myself for the fact that it’s happening at all, but it’s heartbreaking to know that this was the default for so long. It’s so easy to spiral into negative thought patterns, the trails are well-worn and already weed-whacked, and there’s comfort in knowing my way around. But those woods are dangerous because they get harder to escape from the longer I stay there. The new paths aren’t as walkable, and they take a lot of energy, but the view is better!

(I’m trying to spend more time in silence with myself. The only time I had done it before was while journaling—which is like the most “with myself” I ever am but is an incredibly stimulating activity. Sitting in silence on my couch, not looking at anything and just thinking is a very different feeling, and again it’s something I felt embarrassed about not being “good” at doing when I started it a few weeks ago. I would reach for my phone or want a distraction from doing nothing, from experiencing one second of unstimulated thought. Like, I meditate, but again, there’s a guide and I am doing a thing rather than participating in the (somehow) radical act of being lazy and not doing anything on purpose. It’s been really good! I often want to clean right after, which is weird.) (But I did use the hyper-super-extra-suction mode on my dyson yesterday and it looks like I bought a new carpet in the living room! I love a cordless vacuuming experience more than I can even describe. The freedom!!)

Anyway, we still need to unlock The House from this arbitrary 435 number so they can be actually representative of democracy once again, abolish the Senate because it sucks and it’s stupid and completely undemocratic, blame Corrupty Cuomo for the gerrymandering that befell New York State and just may cost the dems their house majority, and congratulations to Oregon and Massachusets on their lesbian governors I think it’s cool that we did a twofer on that historic moment.

The democrats need a big shakeup in leadership, they need to vote to cap spending on campaigns and overturn Citizens United (they all complain so much about how much time fundraising takes in comparison to the rest of their job so like…do yourselves a favor babes!! You have the literal power here!), and they need to remember that they work for us, and not the other way around.

(Also, when in doubt, they should get a really tall guy who likes unions and abortion rights to run for election!)