text post from 1 hour ago

i always forget my grandma used to be a clown so it caught me the fuck off guard when she saw this

image

and no hesitation saying “oh it’s that creepy clown- oh he’s drinking that’s against clown code”

1. ARE YOU NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN YOUR GRANDMA’S PAST CLOWN CAREER?
2. WHAT’S CLOWN CODE??????????????

I call a lot of y'all clowns but it turns out that’s too good for you since even they live by a code.


text post from 9 hours ago

also with all due respect the main reason the left loses so much is that y’all refuse to compromise on the language and messaging you use to speak to voters. i swear if you rebranded “defund the police” as “invest in community safety from the ground up” most white suburban moderates would be like “that sounds great” and i know that because that’s how i’ve literally reframed it to white suburban moderates who think “defund the police” means we’re going to live in a scary lawless mad max world

like maybe it comes across as mealy-mouthed and corny to people steeped in online cynicism but just to be clear, this is the country that wouldn’t eat french fries after 9/11 so we renamed them “freedom fries” and everyone was suddenly cool again. americans are not, by and large, super sophisticated about this stuff

okay, so, as a followup…. basically, i joined this “christians against trump” fb group for a work research project in 2017 and just ended up never leaving, bc it turned out to be such a great experiment in just… observing and listening and talking to people and figuring out the language that works! so like, as a basic glossary for talking to the well-meaning anti-trump moderate dems in your life about progressive policies:

  • instead of “defund the police,” say “invest in community safety” and emphasize things like participatory budgeting giving you power over where YOUR taxes go and reallocating funds to after-school programs, social services, and food pantries
  • instead of “abolish ice,” say “immigration reform” and “create a new agency for immigration and citizenship services” 
  • instead of “medicare for all,” say “universal health care” or even just really harp on making healthcare affordable and accessible to everyone
  • instead of “the green new deal” (which was a great piece of messaging in the first place before it became inextricably tied up with aoc’s theatrics), talk about what an effective piece of climate legislation will create, not what it will destroy. when you say “ban fracking” or “ban fossil fuels” or “reduce methane emissions in agriculture” people go “YOU WON’T TAKE MY JOB OR MY FARTING COWS.” climate is really an area where being able to reframe it through the language of capitalism helps. say “let’s give tax breaks to farmers, especially small family farms who are already being squeezed out by the big guys, so they can invest in the future of their business” and other noise-shaped air stuff like that. instead of “ban fracking” talk about the jobs that renewable energy will create in communities that have been left behind by our reliance on foreign oil. i mean, fuck, the phrase “climate change” can be a real problem when you’re talking to the whole country because of how effective the “climate and weather are the same things” and “climate change is a hoax” disinfo campaigns have been over the past 20 years or so - but when you talk about “conserving our natural resources” and all that teddy roosevelt, ranger rick shit, it just comes across different. 
  • instead of “abortion rights”…. listen, you know i hate equivocating about abortion but at the end of the day, when you’re talking to people who are probably anti-abortion for religious reasons but will still vote democrat because they’re not a single-issue anti-abortion voter, don’t say “abortion (on demand without apology etc),” say “the constitutional right to privacy” or “the right to make personal medical decisions without the government intervening.” fearmonger about attacks on abortion the way sarah palin fearmongered about how obamacare would lead to “death panels” deciding whether your grandma would live or die! and if you’re talking to someone who just doesn’t feel that strongly about abortion because yada yada roe is settled who cares, talk about how “empowering women to decide when they start a family fuels economic growth and leads to more wanted children growing up in stable, happy two-parent homes” and so on. 
  • inversely, instead of “abolish the death penalty,” talk about “saving the lives of the innocent” and “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” if you’re talking to a christian and honestly just look at the libertarian arguments against the death penalty and ape some of those - cost to the taxpayer, high wrongful conviction rates as a reflection of government incompetence. honestly, the libertarian right is frequently aligned with the left on criminal justice issues and i know we all love to dunk on libertarians but the language they use is pretty appealing to moderates who might be coming from a more conservative background or region where it’s just normal
  • instead of “democratic socialism,” just talk about, like, values - ending poverty and hunger, living wages and better educational opportunities, creating jobs and protecting ordinary working people and families and putting money back in their pockets and creating a stable economy. people really do vote based on kitchen table issues and you can really make a moral appeal on the rest.
  • instead of “tax the rich,” say “cut taxes.” period. never talk about raising taxes. not on the rich, not on the middle class, not for any reason whatsoever, even if you’re saying “if we raise taxes on billionaires we can give everyone a pony.” i don’t care how much you want to tax billionaires, don’t fucking bring it up. i hate bezos as much as everyone but we live in america, where everyone is simply a temporarily embarrassed billionaire and convinced that taxing the ultra-rich will somehow hurt them too. don’t expect middle-of-the-road normies to get on board with the “i’ll pay more taxes if it means other people have health care” thing you see from avowed liberals and lefties, because they will not, i’m sorry. frankly *****i***** have no interest in paying more taxes because nyc already taxes you out the nose regardless of where you are on the socioeconomic scale and if someone suggested i should pay more, even if it meant paying less on private services in the long run, i would simply be like, “nope!” so like, yeah, obviously the goal is to eliminate corporate tax loopholes and tax the ultra-rich at a higher rate while cutting tax burdens on everyone else, but what you want to say is stuff like “small business owners shouldn’t pay more in taxes than the companies like apple and amazon that are already squeezing them out” and “we’ll cut taxes and frivolous government spending,” period, no embellishment. “making american companies pay american taxes” is a succinct catchphrase i like to use. 
  • instead of “defund/spend less on the military,” say “why is the government spending so much on building outdated outdated tanks and submarines from 50 years ago and so little on services for veterans? we need to revitalize our military spending so that we can spend less on safer, more modern equipment, preserve those manufacturing jobs, and make sure that veterans get the health care and job opportunities they deserve.” get it? like, republicans have been selling the “cut waste, cut taxes, cut spending” line for decades because it sounds good and people really respond to it. unfortunately, one of the many cursed legacies of ronald reagan is that most people still think that balancing a government budget is like balancing a checkbook, and obviously that’s not true but it lends a lot of familiar comparisons and metaphors, so like… use them.
  • don’t equivocate on “black lives matter” - it’s too important and too urgent - instead, give the non-activist liberals you already know the accessible language they can use to help normalize the phrase “black lives matter” in their own lives and encourage them to do so. they won’t convert the full-on blue lives matter cult members and other assorted balls-to-the-wall racists, but there are people in the middle who just need to hear a targeted explanation of why that isn’t a combative or controversial statement, and that totally depends on the individual… there’s the very basic 101-logicky “if saying ‘save the whales’ doesn’t mean you think dolphins can kick rocks, or if saying ‘spinach is a vegetable’ doesn’t mean that you think lettuce isn’t, why does ‘black lives matter’ imply that other lives don’t?” and i saw someone in the christians against trump group cite a brene brown quote they said (“In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery.”) that made it click for them and they like to use to make it click for others, and there’s also this example that i think is probably pretty resonant for christians:
image

the point is, as with all the rest of this, that there are a lot of people out there who are alienated by the language (because there has been a billion-dollar media propaganda machine working overtime to make the language as alienating as possible) but not by the content of the argument. the right is SO good at messaging to its base by speaking their language, dog whistles and all. but because the democratic party is a coalition of moderates and liberals and leftists, you really have to be strategic about your messaging in a way that the right doesn’t. frankly, that’s why joe biden won - he made those same broad appeals to morality and civility and unity and prosperity that people want to hear. 

i realize that everyone feels that if you have the moral high ground, you shouldn’t have to put in work to persuade people because they should automatically grasp that you’re right, but like i said above, this is america, and it doesn’t work like that. we need to talk to people, not in buzzwords or in highly stigmatized language that risks turning them off immediately, but in language that already means something to them. if you want to persuade people you have to actually make things sound appealing to them, whether that means evoking warm and fuzzy mental images or appealing to their principles and moral convictions and religious beliefs or just doing your best to sound like the adults in the room. you gotta do this stuff to build a majority instead of just a plurality within this party, because that’s just what we need to win.

If you want to see this side of the argument in action: witness Dan Price on Fox News reframing Universal Basic Income as “taking money out of the government and putting it in the hands of everyday Americans,” which is just. *chef’s kiss* Speaking as someone raised by and around conservatives, they will eat that shit UP.

I think a big moral in all of this is that you can’t expect the VAST majority of Americans to be educated or knowledgeable about these kinds of issues. I don’t even mean that as a dig, just a reality. Most people, living their lives, working their jobs, do NOT use the internet for activism. They don’t read about these issues in detail. They don’t really understand WHAT those little phrases mean or WHY they should want them.

Which means IF you want to be an activist and you if you want to get those people on board- you gotta get on their level and EXPLAIN it to them without the slogans.

Which is work, and you are not obligated to spend your time doing it, or doing it all the time, or doing it with radicalized Trumpers who aren’t here in good faith; but it is THE work, ya know?

See also: Republicans have mastered this in the opposite direction. They take something Democrats or liberals want, reduce it to a Scary Soundbite, and done, now people hate it.

See: critical race theory

Critical race theory is actually a law school level class about how legal systems can disadvantage people of color in the United States. It’s been around for forty years.

Republicans have conflated it with “indoctrinating children to think being white is bad and hating America.” Moral panic ensues.

The Affordable Care Act becomes “Government takeover of Healthcare.” Etc etc etc

People need to be meet where they’re at with accessible language that understands the audience or else you’ll lose them

My mother is in favor of “universal healthcare” but against “socialized medicine.” The language used for these things really matters

You can do this but disregard any and all advice to soften any blows. People can tell when you’re bullshitting them. You have to say what you really fucking think in plainass language, which is, by the way, how AOC (who is right) got popular to begin with. Defund the Police was originally Abolish the Police, and that’s what we should’ve stuck with. The reason the Right is “winning” (which they’re not, they’re just loud and have a lot of money and guns) is because they take a hardline stance and force the other side to compromise. You see this now with the semi-regular threat to blow up the global economy if the president won’t give them exactly what they want.

text post from 3 days ago
image
image

Tim Seeley went out of his way to queer code a character that DC will never allow to be canonically queer (thanks, seduction of the innocent!) and for this I respect him.


text post from 5 days ago

It's my opinion that there's something Queer about writing outside your gender expression. You're engaging in an exercise, however imperfect, of empathy for a sexual and social experience outside the one you inhabit day to day. Joss says he wants to both sleep with and be Buffy, and a trans person: Yeah, it be like that sometimes. When I couldn't be out 24/7 that described all my characters. It doesn't have to be that extreme, but it's still Queer to me.


text post from 1 week ago

Never gets old seeing posts that so earnestly and genuinely explain something that is 100% obvious to anybody who doesn't spend their life hopelessly online

"You have to bring your own moral framework to adult stories"

"There's more to media than shipping"

"We NEED to get comfortable with disliking people without pretending they've done anything wrong"

"Sometimes people on the internet LIE so always check donation posts!!"

"Do NOT cosign a loan for someone on tumblr"

image

image

"It's very important you know the difference between a homeless person and someone making 20 different accounts to farm money from gullible tumblr users whose only exposure to homeless people is awkwardly avoiding eye-contact with them outside the supermarket"

image

text post from 1 week ago

I'm really glad I included the different degrees of certainty because there's something really interesting going on with the results which has remained pretty steady since I posted this, though there's obviously not enough votes to draw any sweeping conclusions yet