Latest Posts by mattlindel - Page 4
I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like “whatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with you” so he just raises him as normal, doesn’t even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the king’s murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I'mma put him out of his misery.
my night manager (who is a gay man) and i sometimes sit down and exchange stories and tidbits about our sexuality and our experiences in the queer cultural enclave. and tonight he and i were talking about the AIDS epidemic. he’s about 50 years old. talking to him about it really hit me hard. like, at one point i commented, “yeah, i’ve heard that every gay person who lived through the epidemic knew at least 2 or 3 people who died,” and he was like “2 or 3? if you went to any bar in manhattan from 1980 to 1990, you knew at least two or three dozen. and if you worked at gay men’s health crisis, you knew hundreds.” and he just listed off so many of his friends who died from it, people who he knew personally and for years. and he even said he has no idea how he made it out alive.
it was really interesting because he said before the aids epidemic, being gay was almost cool. like, it was really becoming accepted. but aids forced everyone back in the closet. it destroyed friendships, relationships, so many cultural centers closed down over it. it basically obliterated all of the progress that queer people had made in the past 50 years.
and like, it’s weird to me, and what i brought to the conversation (i really couldn’t say much though, i was speechless mostly) was like, it’s so weird to me that there’s no continuity in our history? like, aids literally destroyed an entire generation of queer people and our culture. and when you think about it, we are really the first generation of queer people after the aids epidemic. but like, when does anyone our age (16-28 i guess?) ever really talk about aids in terms of the history of queer people? like it’s almost totally forgotten. but it was so huge. imagine that. like, dozens of your friends just dropping dead around you, and you had no idea why, no idea how, and no idea if you would be the next person to die. and it wasn’t a quick death. you would waste away for months and become emaciated and then, eventually, die. and i know it’s kinda sophomoric to suggest this, but like, imagine that happening today with blogs and the internet? like people would just disappear off your tumblr, facebook, instagram, etc. and eventually you’d find out from someone “oh yeah, they and four of their friends died from aids.”
so idk. it was really moving to hear it from someone who experienced it firsthand. and that’s the outrageous thing - every queer person you meet over the age of, what, 40? has a story to tell about aids. every time you see a queer person over the age of 40, you know they had friends who died of aids. so idk, i feel like we as the first generation of queer people coming out of the epidemic really have a responsibility to do justice to the history of aids, and we haven’t been doing a very good job of it.
Look, I dont know a lot about saints and Catholicism, but I know St. Agatha is always depicted with her breasts on a plate, and that’s sure something
buying peaches is so stressful because you have to consume them so quickly…it’s like the moment the cashier types in that number the alpha peach turns to its brothers in the bags and says “alright listen up boys, it’s time to remember your training. i want to see immense bruising by sundown. i want to see you near inedible by sunrise. remember it is better to die a free man than to be eaten.” you gotta wolf down all of your peaches at the check out counter while the trader joe’s employees eagerly look at the Peach Consumption Countdown Clock and cheer you on. these peaches have sensors on them that can tell when they come into contact with human hands so they can begin their self-destruct sequence like you’re in a spy movie and the peach just relayed a message to you about the whereabouts of jimmy hoffa’s decayed remains
Iconic.
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
I feel like fandom generations are both very specific and easily conflated. Like,, you either live through so many they blur together into one hellish mess or you join in on one generation and remain blissfully unaware of the previous ones
A dating service where matching is based on people’s search history exists. You’re a serial killer. You go on a date with a writer.
ok but what if like. werewolves transform under the full moon but theres just this one and by day hes a big tough guy and then when he transforms hes a tiny dog. just fucking. just fucking turns into the tiniest, fluffiest dog
imagine that howling at the moon
like a year ago I saw a trailer for Some Fucking Romcom where I thought for the first thirty seconds the plot was “bride asks her gay brother and his boyfriend to get heterosexual dates for her wedding”
turns out the plot actually was “bride asks her two Commitmentphobic ™ brothers to get dates for her wedding” which, lame
I like my idea, where two gay dudes and two lesbians have to pretend to be straight for an entire weekend
“I can definitely pretend to be straight,” Lesbian One says, “I successfully pretended to be a straight man for twenty years.”
“No,” her girlfriend Lesbian Two says, “no you definitely didn’t.”
Lesbian Two, who is butch, discovers an eyelash curler. “What is this, a torture device?”
Gay Guy One hooks up with the DJ, the wedding planner, three caterers and the best man. Shenanigans happen as he narrowly avoids getting caught by the bride.
Gay Guy Two, of course, finds himself falling hopelessly in love with the groom.
At the climax of the movie Gay Guy One falls out of the closet where he’s making out with his latest conquest, the florist. The bride screams, eyeliner smearing from tears, about how he’s RUINING HER WEDDING and she didn’t choose to have a brother who was QUEER and why didn’t he ever think about HER and why couldn’t he just pretend to be NORMAL for her SPECIAL DAY–
the groom is like “honey, I’m bi”
the bride says “no, you’re not! you’re marrying me! you’re straight now!”
and then the wedding is called off and Gay Guy Two and the groom live happily ever after. the after-credits scene is Lesbian Two suspiciously poking her eyelids with an eyelash curler
hey so protip if you have abusive parents and need to get around the house as quietly as possible, stay close to furniture and other heavy stuff because the floor is settled there and it’s less likely to creak
“Anna for you to sit here & call Trump a racist is outrageous"
“well lemme do it again and lemme do it in two languages”
SHE ENDED HIM 💀💀
I want to be the first person on the moon to shoot a sniper rifle at earth and hit a wasp nest. my whole life so far is leading up to that moment
Me, in tears, halfway through writing a 300 word essay: I can’t do this anymore
Person on A03 who’s writing for fun:
Pros of writing gay relationships:
- gay
Cons of writing gay relationships:
- they both have THE SAME FCKIN PRONOUNS SO I CONSTANTLY HAVE TO NAME BOTH CHARACTERS BECAUSE OTHERWISE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL WHO’S DOING WHAT OR WHO’S SPEAKING WHO WILL SAVE ME FROM THIS HELL
little things i’ve learned:
one: pay attention to the music you’re relating to. sometimes it’s a clear indicator that something is wrong. other times, it’s an indicator that something is very, very right. when the latter happens, pay extra close attention.
two: true control is subtle, not obsessive. you may not even know that you have it when you do. people who are in control do not question it. they just are.
three: never pass up the opportunity to stick the tips of your fingers out the window of a moving car. feel the wind carry you to the sound of your favorite songs. this is a reminder that you’re alive.
four: thoughts don’t have to mean anything. you can just let them be there.
five: notice when you’re struggling and allow yourself some leeway when you do. however, learn the difference between giving yourself leeway and enabling your struggle.
six: you cannot build self-love from a foundation of self-hatred. first, work toward self-acceptance. love will follow.
seven: do not love others simply because they love you back. do not expend your love on people who won’t love you back.
eight: don’t forget to stop and look around. take a moment a day to stop doing and just be. the mindfulness hype isn’t overrated. there’s a reason for it.
nine: setting limits and saying no will not end any relationship worth keeping.
ten: friendships built on moments of competitive misery are not healthy. if you find that you’re having the urge to constantly showcase your misery around someone, take that as a red flag. sadness is not a competition you want to win.
eleven: recovery is not about being happy. some days you will feel bored and flat. but these days are still better than those you built around destroying yourself. these days are still victories. recovery is about being alive.
twelve: when you’ve built an identity around being sad, the concept of happiness may scare you. giving that sadness up will strip you of most everything and leave you feeling empty. embrace this emptiness and fill it up with exploration. you’ll find that it’s worth it.
thirteen: you will not come out of your coldest days the same as you were going into them. this is not a bad thing. someday, you’ll be warm enough to feel the sun on your face again.
these are some old glassdoor reviews about tumblr from a long while ago. these problems were lonnnnnnnnnng coming.
on monday’s staff announcement
[disclaimer: i no longer work at tumblr. the views expressed here are mine and don’t represent oath or tumblr.]
i love tumblr. i love seeing the endless creativity from this community and the sense of belonging that i and others like me find here every single day. i’ve been a tumblr user since high school, and i feel like i grew up on this website based on how much it helped me learn and develop my understanding of the world, society, and myself. it’s part of the reason i moved across the country to new york to work there in 2016.
as someone who loves this place so much and contributed to its development over the last 2 years, monday’s announcement by leadership to remove adult content from the site was deeply disappointing to me. it’s also part of why i left the company in september.
first, i want to establish that explicit content involving children, as well as the people who share and consume it, have absolutely no place on tumblr, anywhere else on the internet, or anywhere else in general. apple’s policies on the app store and other content are absolutely puritanical in many other senses, but i believe in this specific context their actions were fully justifiable.
as a platform that prides itself on freedom of expression (this is one of tumblr’s core mission statement values), the move to censor such a large swath of legal and consensual adult content from it is a direct contradiction. the ability to share, explore and connect across the full spectrum of human expression is a core part of what made tumblr into the unique and nuanced website that it is today. it’s also something that david karp fought strongly to preserve.
this change will, without a doubt, also remove a critical platform from countless sex workers who already increasingly struggle to find a safe and secure way to make a living, connect with others, and simply be seen as human beings online. in the wake of SESTA/FOSTA and the subsequent closure of sites like backpage, tumblr has become a place that many sex workers rely on, and removing their presence on tumblr will likely have a highly negative impact on their livelihoods and wellbeing.
removing adult content from tumblr will also remove a safe space that so many LGBT users (including myself) call home. our community is fundamentally based on interactions that span the SFW/NSFW spectrum as an extension of self-discovery and identity (also core tumblr mission statement values), and in many cases for resources that LGBT folks don’t receive IRL, such as LGBT-specific augmentations of sexual health education. tumblr was many of these things for me. growing up in a small town without access to many LGBT peers my age, tumblr was a place i could go to find my community when it sometimes felt like i didn’t have one in the real world. it was a support network when i needed it, and the place where i met some of my best friends that i still remain in touch with today. removing adult content will remove this sense of community and will remove what so many rely on as a safe space for self-discovery and exploration.
to be clear, i understand the reality that it’s difficult to monetize on a network that contains such a mixed range of content, and how cutthroat this can be in the social media space. i still fully believe, though, that there are better, more balanced solutions to this problem that respect the needs of the community while also providing a stable source of revenue to build and grow the platform with.
additional hiring investment in human moderators to aid existing policy enforcement, for example, would be a great start. while they’re very promising, i believe the software tools and algorithms the industry uses to enforce policies like these instead of humans just aren’t ready yet. i’ve seen it in the countless false positives that have already been flagged here under this change, and i’ve seen it in the waves of spambots that wash over this and other similar sites on a regular basis. to be clear, others in this space also grapple with the same issues just as much – tools like machine learning are still new and rapidly developing. however, their relatively higher usage of human moderators as counterbalance is apparent in the relative lack of these problems that end up reaching users. a renewed investment in human moderation, along with anti-spam experts and the other human beings needed to fix these issues, in addition to addressing the growing epidemic of harassment seen across this and other networks, would be a more sensible alternative to relying so heavily on software to enforce such a far-reaching policy.
i love tumblr, and i love my staff family that i had the privilege to work with and get to know over the last 2 years. the people i worked with at tumblr continue to be some of the most passionate and empathetic human beings i know. the things i’ve written here aren’t intended to be an attack on them; i’m writing this because i love tumblr so much, and because i truly care about what happens to it in the future. tumblr played a fundamental part in shaping who i am today, as an LGBT individual, and as a citizen of the internet and the world. it’s important to me that those today who are finding themselves in the same place i was so many years ago when i found this community are able to make a home here the same way that i made mine.
-hunter
p.s. – in the wake of this announcement, please consider donating to the EFF, who work to defend privacy and free expression across the internet, and also to SWOP, who work to defend the rights of, and end stigma and violence against, sex workers. both of these causes will help those who find themselves displaced by this change.
All I know is my dash is 90% more nudity than ever before, now.
Gay culture is wishing you could go all the way back and be yourself from the beginning
im very grateful for the lessons in photography i was taught in stop motion class because just now they made it possible to photograph the stars with my phone in spite of the camera usually not detecting the light of stars because theyre so dim,,,, enjoy these shiny motherfuckers
fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxury…..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. I’m not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we can’t make our own damn food bc it’s a special expensive thing that’s exclusive to wealthy retirees but it’s stupid as hell and it makes me angry
Gods die when people stop believing in them. You are a god, and your last follower is dying. Your days are numbered.
Well out of the blue I just remembered today the time I accidentally joined the cast of a production of The Princess Bride….in the middle of the production.
When somebody says that “a man likes to feel like a man,” all I hear is “A man likes to feel superior to you and it’s your job to make him believe it.”
