A Story In Two Parts

A story in two parts

imo funny 9/11 jokes are the ones that rip apart/mock…

the transparency and hypocrisy of the US government and military and its allies

the way brands have continually tried to profit using 9/11, sometimes resulting in INSANE commercials, products, and memorabilia (Hooter’s 9/11 pin, i will never not think about you)

empty headed nationalistic americans who wear flag bandanas and insist it’s the Worst Thing to Ever Happen even though their own government has done literal genocide and terrorism multiple times

stupid conspiracy theorist shit (see: guy i knew in college who said the planes were edited in to hide the fact the buildings exploded because of secret gov science experiments??)

the REALLY weird fanart people have made for it, especially way after the fact, like with my little pony characters and shit

9/11 jokes that are actually really gross and shitty imo

mock the people who died in what was a legit fucking harrowing attack, as well as 9/11 survivors, victims’ families, locals who suffered health issues due to proximity, and the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians killed, tortured, traumatized, and displaced in the ensuing wars.

trivialize or erase the fact we used a tragedy to invade and brutalize multiple countries while broadening the US surveillance state, destabilizing an entire region, opening fucking Guantanamo Bay, devastating multiple economies, and exponentially worsening already rampant racism and islamophobia at home and abroad.

the racist and islamophobic ones. do i even need to say this one?

mock people for being justifiably traumatized by the attacks or even just acknowledging that hey, that was a sincere tragedy. people died.

ive carved protective runes into my email address. to defend against enemy emails

Is2g if I see one more validation post I will go feral

"Reminder that if you are disabled you are valid!" No shit, Sherlock. In other news, water is wet.

I don't need your permission to have a positive, meaningful, and fulfilling existence. Neither do people of other minority populations.

All you're doing is calling attention to our broader depersonalization in the most annoying, least helpful way possible. You're not negating it, you're emphasizing it with your conceit that you can chip away at oppression with the power of positive thinking, and the blind assumption that we are so surrounded by terrible people that we would even go looking for validation from you, let alone need it.

When you are of a marginalized population, validity does not count for shit. Least of all the validity bestowed by an invariably inexperienced, middle-class "ally" in a positivity post on tumblr. You deigning to ~*~validate~*~ me does not build wheelchair ramps to my favorite stores. Your uwu validation does not keep the city from saving the most accessible parking spots at the grocery store for able people doing online pickup who don't even get out of their cars.

STOP. Just stop. If you want to help us, find an organization and donate. Actually learn about us and speak up for us in real life instead of bopping us on the head with your online wand as the self-appointed Validation Fairy, secure in the anonymity of the internet and the knowledge that it requires no actual risk (or effort) on your part.

his ass is not getting out of apocrypha

I wonder when politically inclined people are going to move past revenge-based-moralism towards a more direct and actionable mode of politics. This site leans heavily moralistic so I’m not surprised it’s “Bad Person is Bad and deserves Bad because their a Bad person”. ””bad “” and “”good”” are subjective terms and also ones I try to avoid as it sounds more like a Christian school teacher lecturing their grade 1 class than people actually engaged in political goals.

It never hurts to be specific; ‘i aim to do this because this is the desired outcome’, ‘i support this action because the consequence is materially beneficial for xyz and necessary for zyx‘ instead of Bad meanie did something bad so I will do bad to them to rid the world of this Impure Evil energy and increase my moral status.’ It’s the difference between unproductive never ending circular revenge vs actual desired outcomes.

the term “vice signaling“ has come up. It is basically the opposite of virtue signaling. so instead of saying something with the intent of looking like a virtuous person, you say something with the intent of performing rebelliousness and subversion with out any of the risks involved in actually behaving that way.

think of the people who would say “retweet to assasinate trump”. the intention is to look edgy while actually doing nothing. There is no intent of action here, as op is probably sitting at home on a laptop not plotting an actual scheme. you can communicate not only that you are moral and virtuous, but also countercultural; that you are brave enough to stand up to Power and Authority, ‘the man’ if you will. this goes without saying, but there are those who will use this to rack up likes and retweets from others who want to perform subversion.

There is the argument that vice signalling helps to discourage Good people from doing Bad things, but most people are motivated by their material predisposition and to a lesser extent, ideological beliefs (formed in tandem with their reality), not because of an attempted edgy tweet. it’s actually not as actionable and effective as some claim. it’s akin to the “”raising awareness“” of social activism, at best, a disengenous, self aggrandizing performance of ’rebelliousness‘, at worst.