so Radiohead’s been releasing these little 30 second or so clips of their new album songs with accompanying tiny films by various directors and they’re all amazing obviously but this one
this one is by Richard Ayoade and it’s simply the best thirty second thing I’ve ever seen
Hi, Mike. I think you know why we’ve called you here to this conference room at the Holiday Inn Express. It’s because you have a problem, Mike. Also, they have a really great continental breakfast — scrambled eggs and everything.
No, don’t speak yet; you’ll get your turn after we’ve said our piece. You can either accept the help we’re offering or you can walk away. It’s up to you. But look around, Mike. There are a lot of people here that love you like crazy, and they’re sick and tired of watching you continue down this path of destruction.
You’re a Black man, Mike. I think you know that. And I think it’s time you realize that if you don’t stop being one, it’s going to get you killed.
That’s right. We’re not going to let you live this way anymore. It’s too dangerous. Standing in front of stores while Black, walking in your own neighborhood while Black… Hell, I’ve even seen you drive while Black, which, quite frankly, puts everyone else in the car in danger.
Fine, go ahead, leave if you want. But first, take a good long look in the mirror. It’s 8 AM and you’re already Black. Doesn’t that scare you? It sure scares us. Kathy is gripping her purse so tightly I’m afraid she’ll hurt herself. That’s on you, Mike — that’s on you.
Know this: If you don’t get the help you need, we aren’t going to be seen with you anymore. We’ve had enough. This hurts us just as much (if not more!) as it does you, Mike, but you’re putting us at too much of a risk. I mean, what if we’re hanging out, smoking weed or whatever — while you’re doing absolutely nothing illegal at all — and the police wind up arresting you instead? Or what if we’re walking down the street after pub quiz night and an officer drives up on the curb, wrestles you to the ground, and questions you because you vaguely match the description of a possible suspect for a crime that was committed miles away? You see how traumatizing that would be for us, don’t you, Mike? You see that, right?
Our lives matter, Mike.
Or say you’re pulled over on a routine traffic stop, and you reach for your wallet. Think about the police officer you might make shoot round after round of bullets at you. Do you really want to be responsible for his PTSD?
His life matters, Mike.
It’s clear you’re exhausted by this life you’re leading. I can see it in your face. Exhausted by the constant judgement. The constant fear. The constant persecution. So now — right now, Mike — is when you can make a choice.
A van is waiting outside to take you to the airport.
And we desperately hope you’ll accept this offer of help. Because maybe you don’t think you can kick this thing. Maybe you don’t think you’re worth it. But we think you are! Because all lives matter, Mike. All. Lives. Matter. We have a wonderful treatment center set up for you in South Carolina. It’s called Kristopher Kares Kompletely. They think you can be great again. We think you can be great again.
So what do you say, Mike? Will you get on the plane? Are you ready to have a life that matters?
another dumb headcanon: superman is nice to birds because of course he is, and helps out birds who are in distress. also he can fly around with them. birds see a lot more of superman than they do of most people, basically. the unexpected consequence of this is that the crows of metropolis recognize superman as a friend. sometimes crows just follow him around like a weird flock, or try to give him shiny things. but mostly please just imagine luthor trying to gloat while threatening superman with kryptonite only to have a crow steal it. or just, generally, lex luthor getting attacked by crows. if that does not improve your day i don’t know what to tell you.
“What is that?”
Superman followed the direction of Batman’s gaze. A crow had landed on the rooftop beside them, and dropped a bottlecap near Superman’s feet. “Oh! Hey Francis. Is that for me?”
“Caw,” said Francis.
“Do you have a pet crow?” Batman asked.
“No, I don’t have pets,” Superman said as he bent down to retrieve the bottlecap.
“You named it.”
“Not this specific one,” Superman explained. “I just call all the crows Francis.”
“… why.”
“Caw, caw,” said Francis with a flap of its wings.
“I don’t know. Just calling them ‘crow’ felt rude after a while. I’d name them individually but I can’t actually tell them apart. Except for Old Francis and One-Eyed Francis.” Superman tucked the bottlecap into a small pocket on the back of his pants.
“Why Francis?”
Superman shrugged. “It’s gender neutral. I don’t want to misgender them just because they’re birds.”
“Of course you don’t,” Batman sighed, looking back out at Metropolis.
“Caw,” Francis added.
“Do you keep dog treats in your utility belt?” Superman asked.
“Why would I do that.”
“… in case you meet a dog that needs to know he’s a good boy?” Superman suggested. Batman shook his head, but opened a small pouch on his belt and held out a small treat. “See, it was a yes or no question, I don’t know why everything has to be such a production with you,” Superman said as he took it. He tossed it over by the bird’s feet. “Here you are, Francis. Keep up the good work.”
“Caw, caw,” Francis said. When it realized no more treats were forthcoming, it flew away in a flutter of black wings.
“You’re unbelievable,” Batman said, shaking his head again.
Superman took his eyes off the departing crow to look back at Batman, and frowned. “You know,” he said, “it’s really weird seeing you in costume during the day.”
“Don’t start.”
“It’s like seeing your teacher at the mall.”
“Don’t think I won’t take care of Poison Ivy without your help, if I have to.”
Superman shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
But…what if the crows also recognized him as Clark Kent? This mild-mannered reporter who doesn’t seem to do anything in particular to the crows that would make them like him, but they’re not afraid of him at all, and they keep trying to give HIM things, and Clark being a nice guy, he just. Accepts the bottlecap. Says thank you. Keeps walking. Lois adds another factoid to her “Weird Stuff About Clark Kent” file.
Maybe he tries to convince his coworkers that everyone is friendly with crows in Smallville. That the farmers discovered how smart crows are and decided to make friends with them instead of chasing them off.
Maybe he tries to talk the crows into palling around with him as Superman but going their separate ways as Clark Kent.
Please imagine Superman on top of a building holding Clark Kent’s glasses and trying to explain the concept of a secret identity to a flock of attentive birds.
Goddamned Mezolithic Megafauna’s what that is. Goddamned warranty expired on those things centuries ago, but do they care? Do they go decently extinct, like the ground sloth, gigantopethicus, or wooly rhino? Fuck that, they’re doing downhill runs on your favorite skiing course is what. Because Fuck it, is why.
Now I understand why moose are built the way they are.
It’s so they can gallop untrammelled through six-odd feet of snow.
Jesus Christ I read those mother fuckers could run 55km an hour but seeing it is another thing especially plowing through the snow
All the restrictions placed on welfare benefits make it impossible to escape poverty.
A good cartoon.
- Submitted by Chris
Name one example of a family being lifted out of poverty by welfare, and not by their own efforts.
i got somethin u can lift dickhead
hi: welfare benefits allowed my parents to continue to go to college when I was a baby, my mother to gradate, get a job teaching english, and my family to have stable income that allowed for some kind of upward mobility. food stamps and other social welfare spending specifically helped my family (mine, the one i’m in) escape poverty in my lifetime. welfare benefits helped my family leave poverty. mine. my family.
i have a close family member raised by a single mom who’d had her at age 15-16, so not a very promising start. thanks to being able to afford food and being given decent schooling at a young age thru head start, she’s now a college professor with a masters degree.
Hi gang, me and my Mum were homeless for a bit in London and a government scheme where you could buy a house for half the cost and the government would put up the rest of the deposit and take some of the mortgage let her buy a home where she still lives 12 years later
thats awesome but anecdotes dont outweigh stats
ok shit wad here a bunch of stats that back up all the anecdotes
there’s a difference of course b/n keeping people out of poverty and lifting them out of poverty in terms of economic class advancement, but statistically that doesnt really happen in america anymore anyway so…
And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important. Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life. How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what we go through on a daily basis just trying to live our lives.
So here goes.
I often ride the Metro when I commute from North Hollywood to Long Beach in order to save money. I bring a book, pointedly wear a ring on my ring finger to imply I’m married (I’m not) and keep to myself.
Without fail, I am aggressively approached by men on at least half of these commutes. The most common approach is to walk up to where I am sitting with body language that practically screams LEAVE ME ALONE and sit down next to me or as close to me as possible, when the train is not crowded and there are many empty rows. Sometimes an overly friendly arm is draped over the railing behind me, or they attempt to lean in close to talk to me as if we are old friends. Without fail, the man or boy in question will lean to close and ask me
What are you reading?
Is that a good book?
What’s that book about?
This serves the double purpose of getting my attention and trapping me in a conversation. If I stop reading the book I enjoy to talk to you, random stranger, you hit on me or just stay way too close to me. If I tell you to leave me alone, you get mad at me. Because I somehow, as a woman, owe you conversation.
Tonight when I boarded the train in Long Beach at 10:30pm, it started up right away. I was not on the train more than three minutes before three boys who looked eighteen sat in the row behind me and leaned over the seats into my personal space, close enough to breathe on me. The one with his arm draped over onto the back of my seat asked me–surprise– “what are you reading?” I went through my usual routine. I told them loudly and firmly that I wanted to be left alone to read my book. They got angry. I was told “Why are you going to be like that? I just wanted to talk!” His friends start laughing at me and they don’t move, telling me come on! and why are you gonna be like that? until I tell them to leave me the fuck alone, stand up, and move to the front of the car near the three other people on the train, a couple and a business man in a suit. They spend the next two stops shouting at me from the back of the car, alternating between trying to sound flirtatious and making fun of me, shouting “I bet she’s reading Stephanie Meyer! I bet she’s reading Twilight or some shit! You reading Twilight or some shit?”
They exit the train at the next stop, and I’m relieved. The train is going out of service at the next station, so we all exit to board a new train to Los Angeles. As we board, the business man steps aside to let me go through the door first and asks me if those guys were bothering me. I say yes, that it happens all the time, and he tells he’ll beat them up for me if they come back. He is a nice person who talks to me like I’m a human being instead of a walking pair of tits, and I make a mental note: This is how a real man talks to a woman on a train.
The business man and the couple exit our new Blue Line train an exit or so later, and I think my night is ending on a good note. A seemingly normal man enters the train with his bicycle. At this point I am three rows from the front of the car, another man was sitting near the back of the car, and the rest of the car is empty. Bicycle Man walks halfway down the row, and settles into the seat directly opposite me. Perfect, I think. Twice in one night.
It’s not the first time I’ve been bothered multiple times. As such, I’m still amped from the teenagers on the first train. So when this man leans across the aisle into my personal space and asks me, yes, what are you reading, I assertively but calmly tell him to please leave me alone, I am reading. The man stands up, moving to the front and muttering angrily over his shoulder that it isn’t his fault I’m pretty.
Yes. Exactly that. I am the bad person in this situation because somehow this is all my fault. I started this by being attractive. I am making a mental note to bitch about this to my friends later. I go so far as to write it down so I know I’m remembering it properly.
It is at this exact moment I realize Bicycle Man is not taking it well. The seemingly annoying but normal man a moment before is now talking to himself, becoming agitated. In my years of being bothered by total strangers, I have learned how to hold a book and seem to be reading while taking in everything around me. He is glaring at me, and says out loud in an angry baby talk voice “PLEASELEAVEMEALONEI'MREADING. PLEASE LEAVE ME ALOOOONE.”
Then he’s up out of his seat and things go from bad to worse. He begins pacing back and forth in front of his bike, alternating between screaming something about his mother being dead and calling me a slut, a hoe, a bitch. I am frozen in place. There is one other person in the car, and I’m not sure if trying to change seats will draw more attention to me or less. I trust my instincts and show no fear, doing my best to appear to be calmly reading my book, never once looking up to acknowledge the abuse he’s hurling at me. There are four stops left until we reach the main downtown station where there are lights and security officers. Those four stops are virtually abandoned, and I have no guarantee that leaving to wait for another train won’t motivate him to leave the train as well, leaving us potentially alone at a metro station platform just outside of Compton. I’m frozen in place, trying to plan what I’m going to do if he decides to take all this rage directly to me. I’m ready to kick him, scream, make enough noise that he panics and flees.
At this point he’s punching the walls and doors of the train, screaming at me. He stares me full in the face and screams
SUCK MY DICK, BITCH
YOU BITCH
YOU STUPID BITCH
YOU GODDAMN HO
IF I HAD A GUN I’D SHOOT YOU
I WOULD FUCKING KILL YOU BITCH
This went on for two stops. No one came to see what was happening. The man in the last row was as frozen as I was. I’m not angry he didn’t come to my defense. He was smaller, older, and frailer-looking than I was. Again, I was worried if I got up, I would be turning my back on him to walk down the aisle. In the state he was in, I had no guarantee it wouldn’t get physical, and I had more physical strength with my back to the window and feet in kicking position where I was. If he had chosen to assault me, I would only be making it easier for him by standing up and putting myself directly in his path. On and on, over and over, he screamed at me, screamed at his dead mother, screamed at me again.
The moment we reached the downtown station, I was out the door and down the stairs. I still had to catch a connecting train to North Hollywood, and made sure there was no sign of Bicycle Man before I entered the car. That’s when I finally starting shaking, and almost threw up. By the time I exited the Red Line and reached my car I could barely breathe and my heart was pounding out of my chest. Even now, in my own home, my hands are still shaking and for some reason the stress has made my back muscles feel cold and numb. From all the tension, I can only assume. I can’t eat anything, I still feel like I’m going to vomit, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t cried so much, so hard I still have the headache.
So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share.
I just wanted to read my book.
It’s not my fault I’m pretty.
This shit happens every time I take public transportation and whenever I wait for the bus I hope the people I’m surrounded by or the people that sit next to me aren’t creeps. Old men, young dude bros, trying to make conversation or eye contact. It’s gross af. And not to take away from OP’s post, but street harassment isn’t just about “being pretty”. It’s about power, dominace, entitlement, and misogyny. The phrase “it’s not my fault I’m pretty” is problematic because it implies that people who aren’t seen as “conventionally attractive” should be thankful that they’re being harassed, cause someone found them pretty.
Hi there,
OP here. This post is several years old and I am still overwhelmed with pride at the courage of those sharing their own stories and support, and also sadness at the hate that continues to be leveled at those who oppose street harassment. The fact that this post stays alive is both beautiful for solidarity and sad because it remains an issue that so many are facing.
I do need to point something out, as I do occasionally when people are genuine in their misunderstanding of it…this might be a little wordy, but bear with me:
For some framework, keep in mind that this was written less than 30 minutes after I made it home from said train events. Also keep in mind that at the time I only had fifteen followers on tumblr, all of them my friends, and this post was made simply to share my story with them and not overload facebook. I went to bed shaken but happy to have “written it out” and woke up to my new role as a national news story. I had gone massively viral in under twelve hours. By the time I got home from rehearsal the next night my story had gone GLOBAL. It was terrifying, bewildering, and also meant that I was not able to clarify as much as I would have liked if I had known the scope of attention my attack would receive.
Let’s dive into this:
“It’s not my fault I’m pretty.”
1. These words have been interpreted by hundreds in various ways. Some have openly used them as weapons against me, to discredit me as a shallow privileged white girl who EWWWWW was hit on by someone toootally not hot enough for me.
In one particularly horrific incident, Dennis Romero of LA Weekly posted an op-ed attempting to eviscerate me for this phrase. He used my naively public Facebook photos in a smear piece tailored around my callback of “pretty”. He chose a photo of me that I can only assume looked the least attractive to him to indicate his own ranking of my looks, as well as a photo of myself posing with a group of close male friends. In this photo, we are clowning around. A male friend is comically pretending to gawk at my chest. This photo was used to…what? Indicate my love of attention from the RIGHT kind of men? Imply promiscuity? Another man in that photo is a friend of mine who died tragically soon after. Dennis Romero used a photo of my dead friend to impugn me. That photo has not been removed in spite of multiple pleas by myself to LA Weekly to do so. I have given up on seeing that happen. I look forward to the day I’m given the opportunity to meet Dennis Romero, the human dumpster fire who penned that “opinion”. That’s going to be a very fun day. I’m a much angrier person than I was before all of this started. I won’t deny that.
2. My use of the words “It’s not my fault I’m pretty” are not intended to present myself as better looking than anyone. It is a callback intended to turn my attacker’s excuse against him. To state clearly that his attraction to me was not my responsibility. That his actions were not excused by his desire for a total stranger’s body and attention. I am well aware from many heartbreaking letters and messages that people of all shapes and sizes experience harassment and sexual assault simply for being female. For not submitting to unwanted sexual attention. We are all beautiful. We all deserve better. This is not a “pretty people” problem. This is a human problem. A social disease. A major goddamn issue.
The secondary meaning behind this callback of my attacker’s words is to call out the twisted logic of his lust and need for control by accusing ME of enticing him by existing as I do. If I am considered by those who bother me when I want to be left alone to be attractive, it is not because I have set out a trap to lure men in. I am just being me. And if the kind of people who treat women like objects think I am attractive, the same way someone might think a sandwich looks appetizing or a diamond watch looks valuable, I must point out that those things DO NOT BELONG TO THEM any more than I do.
My intention was to state for the men who think social harassment is okay that if I look like something you want, it’s not my “fault”. If I look like something you want, I do not consent. Bear the responsibility for your behavior like a real man would. Don’t blame scared girls for what you want to do to them.
If I had a time machine, to return to the moment I hit “submit” that night, I would change that last line. I would change it to the words I saw onscreen last year that altered my life forever. That were written by someone who understood what we’re all about, all of us fighting this fight for our sisters. I would change them to this…
JUST FUCKING STOP ALREADY WITH THE PUMPKIN SPICE BULLSHIT
I have a way to make it stop
but you must buy all of those pumpkin spice hot cocoas and mail them to me
do not ask questions for this is the way it has been for generations
the pumpkin season has started.
i grow stronger.
tbh I thought about it for .0027 seconds and I really do feel stronger during pumpkin spice season! when I thought about *how* that strength feels I immediately associated with how it feels when women win/I am overcome with feminist pride and I just realized….
while a dislike of the flavor of pumpkin spice is valid and likely exists, expressing that dislike smashed into the mainstream (almost becoming meme-like) as a reaction to teenage girls fawning over it. it wasn’t “this flavor sucks why do people do this” like with kale. but “UGH, that THING again!” which leads me to believe hating pumpkin spice isn’t about the flavor whatsoever. rather, it’s the fact that this thing is mostly enthusiastically consumed by girls/women. and when stores start stocking up on pumpkin spice-flavored/scented items, it becomes an inescapable reminder of girls/women (specifically) unabashedly enjoying something. even though those same stores stuff themselves with Halloween/thanksgiving things at least a month before pumpkin spice starts to hit the shelves, the groans over seasonal stock is treated with far less aggressive anger and more of a resigned observation: “it’s July 6th and my store is setting up a Halloween display. wtf.”
so my passion for pumpkin spice isn’t for the flavor itself - you can get pumpkin pie seasoning for super cheap any time of year and sprinkle that in your coffee machine’s basket to get a ‘pumpkin spice’ flavored coffee drink any time, but I don’t cuz it’s not that crucial to my existence. instead, my passion for pumpkin spice hinges on the fact that it is a symbol of the undeterred unity of women and girls, specifically, centered around this single, totally harmless thing.
pumpkin spice brings girls together and unites us under this cute pumpkiny umbrella, and that’s why I love it and become stronger when it is in season. the louder you cry about pumpkin spice, the stronger our female unity becomes.
In response to all those articles about talking to women with headphones…
Someone always says it, whenever it comes up: “I guess I’m just not allowed to talk to anyone any more!”
Well. Yes. It is my duty to inform you that we took a vote all us women and determined that you are not allowed to talk to anyone ever again.
This vote is legally binding.
Yes, of course, all women know each other, the way you always suspected. (Incidentally, so do Canadians. I’m just throwing that out there.) We went into the women’s room at the Applebee’s at the corner of 54 and all the others streamed in through the doors into that endless liminal space, a chain of humans stretching backward heavy skulled Neanderthal women laughing with New York socialites, Lucille Ball hand in hand with the Taung child. We sat around in the couches in the women’s room (I know you’ve always been suspicious of those couches) and chatted with each other in the secret female language that you always knew existed. Somebody set up a Playstation– the Empress Wu is ruthless at Mario Kart and Cleopatra never learned to lose and a woman who ruled an empire that fell when the Sea People came and left no trace can use the blue shell like a surgical instrument.
Eventually we took the vote. You had three defenders: your grandmother and your first-grade teacher and an Albanian nun who believes the best of everybody. Your mom abstained. It was duly recorded in the secret notebooks that have been kept under the couch in the Applebee’s since the beginning of recorded time. And then we went back to playing Mario Kart and Hoelun took off her bra and we didn’t think about you again except that I had to carry this message.
So anyway good luck with that it’s just as you always said it was. Hush now, no talking
@betterbemeta are you able to translate this? Is it true horses can see netherbeings?? Will we ever know the extent of their powers???
I think I have reblogged this before but I’ll answer it again bc its a fascinating answer I feel and i was more funny than informational last time.
The truth is that horses see what they think are nether beings, I guess. They have a perfect storm of sensory perception that, useful for prey beings, marks false positives on mortal danger all the time. Which is advantageous to a flight-based prey species: running from danger when you’re super fast is much ‘cheaper’ than fighting, so you waste almost nothing from running from a threat that’s not there. Versus, you blow everything if you don’t see a threat that is there.
Horses also have their eyes positioned on the sides of their heads, which gives them an incredible range of peripheral vision almost around their entire body with only a few blind spots you can sneak up on them in. But this comes at the cost of binocular vision; they can only judge distance for things straight ahead of them. Super useful for preventing predators sneaking up from the sides or behind, but useless for recognizing familiar shapes with the precision we can.
Basically we now have a walking couch with anxiety its going to get attacked at any second, that can see almost everything, but mostly only out of the corner of its eye. It has a few blind spots and anything that suddenly appears out of them is terrifying to it. Combine that with that it actually has far superior low-light vision than us, and that its ears can swivel in any directions like radar dishes, and you’ve basically given a nervous wreck a highly accurate but imprecise danger-dar.
To be concise: all horses, even the most chill horses, on some level believe they are living in a survival horror.
This means that you could approach it in a flapping poncho and if it can’t recognize your shape as human, they mistake you for SATAN… or you could pass this one broken down tractor you’ve passed 100 times on a trail ride, but today is the day it will ATTACK… or your horse could feel a horsefly bite from its blind spot and MAMA, I’VE BEEN HIT!!!… or you could both approach a fallen log in the woods but in the low light your horse is going to see the tree rings as THE EYE OF MORDOR.
However, they actually have kind of a cool compensation for this– they are social animals, and instinctively look towards leadership. In the wild or out at pasture, this is their most willful, pushy, decisive leader horse who decides where to go and where it’s safe. But humans often take this role both as riders and on the ground. They are always watching and feeling for human reactions to things. This is why moving in a calm, decisive way and always giving clear commands is key to working with this kind of animal. Confusing commands, screaming, panic, visible distress, and chaos will signal to a horse that you, brave leader are freaked out… so it should freak out too!
On one hand, you’ll get horses that will decide that they are the leader and you are not, so getting them to listen to you can be tough– requiring patience and skill more than force. On the other hand, a good enough rider and a well-trained horse (or a horse with specialized training) can venture into dangerous situations, loud and scary environments, etc. calmly and confidently.
The joke in OP though is that many horses that are bred to be very fast, like thoroughbreds, are also bred and encouraged to be high-energy and highstrung. Making them more anxious and prone to seeing those ‘demons.’ All horses in a sense are going to be your anxious friend, but racehorses and polo ponies and other sport horses can sometimes be your anxious friend that thinks they live in Silent Hill.
Reblogging some horse knowledge for certain people who write fantasy books but know nothing about horses *cough cough*
highlights: “Basically we now have a walking couch with anxiety its going to get attacked at any second.”
“All horses in a sense are going to be your anxious friend, but racehorses and polo ponies and other sport horses can sometimes be your anxious friend that thinks they live in Silent Hill.”
My horse is afraid of white things, possibly because he got beat up by an ornery grey pony when he was young. Red car, fine. Black car, fine. Silver car, fine. White car?
Also that giant rock at my old riding barn that one of the school horses, Logan, spooked at every single trail ride for the entire four or five years I was there.
don’t blame artists for the huge cultural devaluation of art in general. there are thousands of professionals, internships, corporations that all prey on and profit off of the idea that artists don’t deserve to be paid a fair wage. it’s not a deviantart or freelancer problem, it’s a huge widespread problem that isn’t going to go away by guilting artists into charging a price their small audience won’t pay. i encourage all beginner artists to price their art with the average labor time but as someone who’s actually an artist and has Been There, i know 7 commissioners who severely underpay you is still going to pay more bills than waiting around for the rare person who wants to pay you fairly like that holier-than-thou commissioner. you honestly can’t fault freelancers for undercharging and just hoping for a tip thrown in there
So here’s some holy-shit-don’t-ever-do-this advice for the day.
Now I’ve written a fair bit about why this is a shit-tastic idea but there’s a section that really takes the taco and puts this well into “what the fuck were you thinking?” territory:
This. This right fucking here is one of the things that drives me up the wall when it comes to dating advice for men: the idea that women shit-test guys.
OK, first of all: no. No they don’t. A woman who’s ignoring you waving your hand in front of her face (yes, he tells you to do this) isn’t testing you to see if “you’re strong enough to be her man”, she doesn’t want to fucking talk to you.
Second of all: Yes, I know that there is the odd statistical anomaly out there who actually does shit-test guys. I’ve met one or two. However, there’re two relevant facts in play here. The first is that the odds of your running into a woman who does want you to push past her no is so remote that they don’t make numbers small enough to represent it.
The other is that mind games are bullshit and you shouldn’t be rewarding them with your time and attention. And more to the point: why in pluperfect hell would you want to fuck them?? Trust me: ain’t nobody in the world so good in bed to put up with that level of assholery.
If, in your travels, you come across this fantastical beast (you won’t) and she wants you to try harder after the initial rejection (she doesn’t), then give them a hard pass. You have far better uses for your time up to and including reorganizing your Pokemon by color. If she really wanted you to try harder to impress her, then she can damn well use her words and say so.
The myth of women shit-testing guys is just an excuse for guys to ignore a “no”, “I’m not interested” and “go away”. It’s teaching that a “no” is really a “yes” if you try hard enough and holy shit that’s an insanely bad thing to teach.
So, yeah. Fuck that noise.
Here’s some other great responses to this article:
1961,
Hollywood, California. Following a newspaper casting call, black cats are auditioning for the feline role in Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror (1962). Photos taken by Ralph Crane for Time magazine.
This photoset added at least two years to my life.
