sweetguts:

almost 15 years after its original explosion of popularity, pokemon’s fanbase rejoices over news you can now walk diagonally in the newest game

C’EST IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

bevsi:

sometimes i just

witchsistah:

headmeetsdesk:

sexhaver:

baby boomers out here talking shit like they didn’t elect reagan

Twice. They elected him. TWICE.

And to hear them tell it, ALL of them marched with MLK.

All of this.

youarenotyou:

biyuti:

so i’m seeing that go around. and all the people making points that sometimes these signs are useless because understanding your situation is abusive doesn’t do much if you lack the resources/support/ability to extricate yourself from the situation.

something that always strikes me about it

is that these lists don’t really address the fact that, for some of us, these abusive relationships started with our parents.

who, unfortunately, we were entirely dependent on for many years.

and who socialized us to believe that these kinds of relationships are normal

so once we get out into the world

those bullet points aren’t ‘signs of abuse’ but ‘qualities we are looking for in relationships’

so that maybe you look for someone controlling because that means they love you

that maybe you look for someone who crosses boundaries you didn’t even know you were allowed to have

that maybe you can only trust that person who puts you down all the time because they are the only one being honest with you (all those people who say you are great and deserve better are just fucking liars)

worse too, is that abuse culture is such that we are continuously exposed to media and narratives that actually confirm that abusive relationships are what we should want (twilight, anyone?)

so you make a list: these are the signs of abuse

when really, i’m looking for a partner/friend/lover/etc with those qualities.

how else will i know that i’m loved?

YES.

My emphasis added.

masksarehot:

gaobibaituo:

awesome-everyday:

shorterexcerpts:

thecallus:

theatlantic:

The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?

What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.

Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]

It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?

IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!

Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.

My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.

So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.

Prices of prices went up.

We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.

We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.

Most of us can’t afford to:

1. Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding
2. Buy a house
3. Buy a new car
4. PLAN to have children
5. Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.

Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.

So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young black and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.

anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.

 fuck all these articles written by assholes who actually know nothing about our generation

FUCK THEM

FUCK
THEM

I’m either Gen X or Millennial, depending which dates you use, and so I’m old enough to have been living on my own as a lot of this started spinning out of control. It was like watching a trainwreck. The current state of all of this is ridiculous. I was going to go on a long rant about Boomers refusing to age gracefully, the impact of 9/11, the double-edged sword that is globalization, and our current loan culture and confusion of “needs vs. wants” that has been bred into us by clever marketing, but I’m too angry, and it was getting too long.

So I’ll just say this: the system is seriously out of whack, and we’re in this strange place where we’re both trapped in bubbles and depressions at the same.

I keep waiting for market corrections that just don’t seem to be happening.

And also, I’ll just throw up Crack Shack or Vancouver Mansion for reference. And if you visit it, bear in mind that this is in a city where the AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME is $46K. FORTY-SIX THOUSAND A YEAR. Oh, yeah, the system isn’t broken at all…damn those cheap fucking Millennials & Gen-X-ers!

All of this, and more.

So one thing that this says that I really like and want to point out is:

confusion of “needs vs. wants” that has been bred into us by clever marketing

I think this really needs more attention drawn to it, because, whether the baby boomers want to admit it or not, we can’t just “know better and make better choices”.  Research has shown over and over that those ads have effects on us on deep emotional levels, effects that our cognitive and reasoned resistance has little ability to transcend.  I’d like to think that I’m a pretty reasonable and well-informed person and the simple fact of the matter is that I’ve been sucked in by the marketing many times and I’m 110% aware of it, something which is certainly not universally true.

Frankly, I’m sick of the baby boomers making ANY fucking comments on our generation, especially because they are so ready to make it out like they are their parent’s generation (the so-called “Greatest Generation”), which they decidedly aren’t, as that generation has much more in common with us (or maybe we’re more like the Lost Generation, but still) than their self-entitled BS that has no connection to reality.

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

May 9, 1945 - Victory Day celebrating the Soviet defeat of Hitler-fascism.

angrybisexual:

autiecommie:

genderbitch:

angrybisexual:

• It is cisheteronormative as fuck and pathologizes LGBT people. It makes our acceptance conditional on being unable to avoid being queer. “I tried to be a good boy, I tried soooo hard to be straight, but I just couldn’t help myself and turned out queer. I know I failed at being straight, but please don’t be mean about it”. 
• It puts the burden of proof on us. “Prove you were born that way or no rights for you!” This is not asked of other minorities. No one doubts it’s wrong to persecute a religious minorities, even if they haven’t proven that they were born with a gene that makes them believe that way.
• It gives all the power to the oppressor. Straight (cishet) people get to decide who was born that way and who wasn’t, in a way that reflects preexisting prejudice. “It’s natural for gays to be that way, but bisexuals are just promiscuous”. “Gays and lesbians just are that way, but trans people are just really, really gay and trying to avoid it”. “Trans women have female brains in male bodies, but non-binary people are just making stuff up”. The general formulation would be: “[Group I approve of] were born that way and it’s okay, but [group I dislike or don’t understand] are just [prejudice]”. This benefits the more mainstream elements of the LGBT community (read LGs) and leaves more marginalized elements behind and does not constitute true liberation.
• The accusation of having a choice (i.e choosing the homosexual lifestyle) is just a rationalization for many people. Bigots already made up their minds. And then they just look for any argument that supports their stance. If they actually believed in respecting people that were born that way then there would be no mistreatment of intersex people, who were obviously born intersex. (I’m bringing up intersex people, because discrimination towards them and LGBT people shares many root causes and therefore looking at how they are treated reveals something about the mindset of our common oppressors. I hope this does not come across as me trying to appropriate their struggles or being disrespectful).
• The origin of sexual orientation and gender identity is not yet fully understood by science, research is still active. It could still turn out that we weren’t “born that way” after all.

So what’s the alternative, you ask? Well, we could just insist that a person’s sexuality and gender is personal and, therefore, you should just accept people even if you don’t understand their motivations. Also, on a personal level, we should be able to freely express ourselves as queer if that feels right. The question of our essential self is irrelevant (if such a self exists at all).

Final note. There is consensus among psychologists that forcefully trying to change someone’s sexual orientation doesn’t work. It just doesn’t. We don’t have to be born this way for “conversion therapy” to be abusive.

And has anyone considered that if the born this way argument does bear fruit through science that bigoted fucks will just search for ways to biologically “cure us”.

Anyone? Anyone at all?

Cuz they sure as fuck are already doing it to neurodiverse folks like myself 

All of this.  Also, the otherwise privileged gay rights movement would do well to pay attention to the disability rights movement for, like, half a second.  We were “born this way” or the equivalent, are queer in much higher numbers, and somehow, everyone seems intent on trying to fix both regardless of our protestations.  Moreover, it appeals to this “actually gay/trans*” BS that erases people for whom sexuality and gender are really confusing and can’t for the life of them seem to figure it out.

But that might mean expanding the agenda beyond the scope of rich, white, able, Chelsea-dwelling queers.

Signed,

A Queer Autistic

You bring up some very interesting points. 

Also, who is “queer in much higher numbers”? Disabled people in general or autistic people specifically? Do you have a source for this? I would be really interested.

Autistics specifically and my evidence is pretty anecdotal, but we are a queer berry bush.  And my sense is that this applies across disability a lot.  Also, remember that I count mental health disabilities as disabilities, so the high number of LGBTQ+ folks with anxiety issues and depression and the like would count into a figure like that.