ifaunic

[ifaunic]

United States

Northeast

Fries

Chips

Biscuit

Cookie

Soda

Candy

Cigarettes

Beanie

Cotton candy

i'm conducting an experiment. everyone who's from an english speaking country state your country, regional area and what you call the following images. i need to see something

[ifaunic]

I don’t care if you think bears are scary. The logical option for who you’d rather be alone in the woods with is the bear.

If it’s brown, lay down.

If it’s black, fight back.

If it’s a man, you better hope that he doesn’t get too excited and thinks you’re a deer, because it doesn’t take intent nor purpose for a man to kill someone in the woods.

Always wear orange. Stay safe.

#bear #man vs bear #nature

[ifaunic]

Me: I can’t believe that owl came down from a tree and looked me in the eyes. What a spiritual and beautiful experience.

The barred owl that was looking at me: Lol I mogged the fuck out of that human

#owl #barred owl

[ifaunic]

Accessing YouTube. About to watch my irredimible medias

Care to explain why you have mutuals who like irredeemable media (Hazbin Hotel, Harry Potter, Attack on Titan, Captive Prince, etc.)? If they're not your mutuals, you're at the very least in the same circles as them. Maybe do some self reflection about what sorts of people you choose to associate with...

what

[ifaunic]

Matthew: “You can’t say you want me to die in a car hammer explosion, that’s a ‘death threat’ and it hurts my feelings!”

Me and my coworkers on a regular basis: “If that lady walks into this store five minutes before closing I am going to maul her to death like a deranged chimpanzee.”

I think if photograph Matthew listened to what me and my coworkers said about customers who walked into our store he would simply pass away

#retail

[ifaunic]

I think if photograph Matthew listened to what me and my coworkers said about customers who walked into our store he would simply pass away

#photomatt #tumblr staff #🚗🔨⚒️💥

[ifaunic]

Car-Hammer: In Defence of a Death Threat

Hey everyone, I fell down a rabbithole after the banning of predstrogen and I had a humor class I needed to do a presentation for a humor class. it's an analysis of the ban and the reactions to it. I figured I should post it because it really opened my eyes to the humor here on tumblr and how it was weaponized. Also I spent hella time on it. Its below the cut since it's long:

1. Thesis

In this presentation, I am going to analyze the ban of a popular Tumblr user, Predstrogen. Through this analysis, I’ll be able to shed light on the style of humor that is unique to the website, the way that style of humor keeps communities on Tumblr safe, and the way that Tumblr’s CEO tried and failed to silence that humor by villainizing it.

That was a mouthful; now let me explain.

2. Predstrogren

Predstrogen is the username of a blogger by the name of Rita.

A few weeks ago, she posted a transition timeline, a style of post coined by trans people to show their gender transformation progress.

The post was marked as explicit, and Rita was banned.

The misidentification of posts by trans people as sexual content is actually a common occurrence on social media sites (Haimson 5-6),

but it is especially bad on Tumblr, which is ironic considering that it has actively branded itself as the queerest place on the internet. (tumblr dot com the website and app [tumblr]).

3. Matt Mullenweg

Predstrogen was a very popular blog, and this blatant example of discrimination made people frustrated. One user even reached out to the CEO of Tumblr, Matt Mullenweg, to ask him about the ban.

He made a lot of different points in his response, but most importantly in our case, he claimed that the reason Progesterone was banned was because she made threats against Tumblr staff.

Tumblr users were not happy with this response, and one of them asked for an example of a threat. Mullenweg obliged, and posted this:

4. The Threat

This did not satisfy the Tumblr audience. Mullenweg was mocked into oblivion.

But,

He is correct. This is technically a death threat. So why didn’t Tumblr users see it that way?

5. Transgender People and Humor on Tumblr

In Kahente gah-han-de Horn-Miller’s essay “IO STER IS” (yo-ster-is), she discusses the ways that First Peoples use humor.

Obviously, there is a wide gap between the plight of First Peoples and the plight of trans Tumblr users, but many of her points ring true in both cases.

Horn-Miller states that, due to the difference in world views between people groups in First Peoples humor, “What may appear to be funny to some may not be funny at all to others.” (Horn-Miller 22) This is also true for Tumblr’s trans community. The brand of humor in Rita’s “threat” is obvious to anyone who is engaged with the community, but may be incomprehensible to an “untrained eye.”

Horn-Miller also states that the humor of First Peoples is pointed, aiming to “critique, to probe the limits of [their] values and to suggest new possibilities.” (Horn-Miller 40)

This is exactly what Rita was trying to do with her “death threat.” In fact, Rita made a comment underneath the original post clarifying this:

The lack of punctuation is another Tumblr tone indication that this is a sarcastic comment. With this, Rita is clarifying that her joke was a sort of litmus test, a critique of Tumblr’s moderation standards. She was trying to see how long it would take for Tumblr to crack down on her for a joke, as the website was actively dragging its feet moderating real bad actor elements like TERFs. This brings me to my second point…

6. Keep Yourself Safe

Tumblr’s weak moderation policy has hurt trans people, but it has also bolstered anti-trans sentiment. A large community of TERF’s [Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists] thrive on the site without much moderation to keep them away. (Felts 57-58, Hairedtin 68) This has obviously generated backlash.

Take this post, which went viral shortly after Rita’s ban, for example.

This post may look simplistic, even crass, on the surface, but dismissing it as such would do it a disservice.

In her essay, “Teasing, Teaching, Tolerating”, Kristina Fagan, like Horn-Miller, examines humor in the First Peoples communities. Once again, these are vastly different communities, but certain concepts carry over. Fagan claims that the humor that First Peoples cultivate usually has multiple lessons embedded within it. It is rare, she claims, that their humor simply “demonstrates unsuitable behavior.” Instead, it explores “troublesome or contradictory areas of life.” (Fagan 31)

By examining this post through a similar lens, we can see that the humor is not simply demonstrating the unsuitable behavior of telling someone to end their life, but is instead exploring the contradictions inherent to our transphobic world.

Why is it okay for transphobes to tell trans people to kill themselves by denying their identity or their access to medical care or access to their communities [lesson 1], but it isn’t okay to tell transphobes to do the same thing [lesson 2]?

7. Keep Yourself Safe - 2

These aren’t the only lessons, though.

Let’s examine a comment made on this post by another user.

In chapter 8 of his book Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humor, Michael Billig comments on the paradoxical quality of humor as both social and anti-social. Humor can bring people together, and also maintain social order via exclusion. (Billig 22)

The transgender community understands the context of this joke, and thus finds it funny. Moreover, they can find community within this joke, knowing that everyone who finds it funny knows these same truths. The “cishet” elements, not understanding this truth, take issue with this post. Thus, they are effectively marked and driven away by what appears to them as “blatant terrorism.” In this way, the insular community can keep itself safe from outside elements that would threaten them while also outwardly mocking those elements, a defence that is necessitated by the lack of competent moderation.

8. Poor Little Mullenweg

In an attempt to portray himself as a victim, Mullenweg villainized Rita by posting her joke and deliberately misinterpreting it.

In this way, he engaged in unlaughter, a term coined by Billig in his essay. Unlaughter, Billig says, can be “itself a rhetorical presence, speaking volumes of criticism,” effectively silencing laughter. (Billig 16)

Unfortunately, this silencing attempt failed.

Billig explains, “Just as joke-tellers cannot guarantee themselves a reaction of laughter… unlaughter, cannot guarantee to silence the laughter of others… Unlaughter is a favourite target for the laughter of ridicule.” (Billig 17)

In this case, the unlaughter failed because of the context surrounding Mullenweg.

9. Poor Little Mullenweg - 2

In her essay “Comedian Mike Ward v. The Quebec Human Rights Commission”, Christelle Pare examines a defamation case against comedian Mike Ward, brought on by his jokes about a young disabled boy, Jeremy Gabriel. In Ward’s set, he goes as far as joking about drowning Gabriel.

Pare argues Ward’s case, claiming that his jokes were permissible in the context of his “dark humor standup” and that he never intended to harm Gabriel. (Pare, 122)

Rita’s defenders are engaging in a similar argument, claiming that her joke was permissible in the context of “Tumblr” humor (which I have just defined) and that she obviously had no intention to harm Mullenweg.

More importantly, the context that surrounds Rita’s joke is not one of discrimination. Mullenweg is not a disabled child; he is the millionaire CEO of Tumblr. He is not a sympathetic victim.

10. Poor Little Mullenweg - 3

Still, Mullenweg does not falter. Billig claims that “ridicule can be more hurtful than hatred.” (Billeg 19)

Mullenweg, unable to handle his ridicule, is racing towards hatred. In an attempt to weasel out from under the laughter of the Tumblr community, he has refused to engage in the criticism levied against him.

Instead, he is doubling down. So far, he’s made multiple posts smearing Rita, posted her private usernames in an attempt to shame her, and mocked other users for supporting her.

11. What Now?

Interestingly enough, a group of trans Tumblr staff made a post condemning the actions of their boss and CEO, calling them “unwarranted and harmful.” They also plainly state that the car-hammer post quote “does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence.” They are in on the joke. They understand what the transgender community has gone through. They end by stating their commitment to preventing harassment and encouraging trans expression on the site. (Staff)

Predstrogen’s ban was unwarranted and harmful, yes, but it was really just a small symptom of a larger system that classifies all forms of trans expression as sexual. By deliberately misinterpreting the humor that transgender communities on Tumblr cultivate and use to keep themselves safe, Mullenweg villainized a trans woman and was made a laughingstock.

By turning himself into a figure of ridicule, Tumblr users who were otherwise unsympathetic to Rita’s cause were galvanized. This is a bitter-sweet point for Rita, who spoke about her experience on another social media site. (clownkiwi) She’s glad that light is being shed on this situation, but is disgruntled that focus is squarely on Mullenweg and not the bigger issue of trans censorship on Tumblr and the internet at large. If people really cared about the censorship that trans women go through on social media sites, she claims, they would have spoken up sooner.

Even after all this, it’s still not about trans women. It’s about the cis guy in power.

[ifaunic]

Ok everyone go look at elf yuri

elf yuri except one of them is high fantasy and the other is one of santa's

[ifaunic]

I don’t smoke weed but if I had a wish I would wish that every weed I had the chance to smoke but didn’t would go to a Texan in need

I do hold scorn for people in weed states I do. I really do. The way your stupid 21 year old ass can go to the weed store and buy weed. The way your stupid 21 year old ass can buy weed online not a care in the world. And you have so much to choose from. You have so much fucking gorrila cumshot big fat load of cum horse cock mega 1 billion tch % to choose from and they all got different names and when our good texan plugs come home from colorado they bring that poison with them. They bring that poison home to us. And the people of texas, we're smoking that poison. Were smoking that filthy filthy colorado 10000 thc shit, and were dying. Were dying out here. The soil down here is lerfect for weed. If we could have weed we could create, beautiful poison. Way more toxic than colorodo. Way more toxic than california. We can make weed so insane, bitched from colorado will come down here, to smoke OUR poison. And WE could name it shit like Ram Ranch. We could name it shit like Horse Erection. We could name it shit like, I dont know, Forget The Alamo. YOU, worthless idiots up north, can smoke our latino magic. You dont got tejanos. You dont got our technology. You don't got what it takes. You dont know what its like. Theyre not legalizing weed down here cause they hate us. You know they do. You know for a fact they do. So yeah. Just think before you spark up with that shit you got down the street trouble free. Do so in my name. In our name. Keep the less fortunate in mind. I HOPE THE CIELING FAN FALLS ON YOU

[ifaunic]

“We can’t let you look at accurate mental health resources made by other depressed person but we can subject you to whatever the fuck this is!”

Social media sites will do ANYTHING, including subjecting their users to unethical mental health practices, to avoid letting people use tags like #depression to spread awareness.

@staff

#mental health awareness #mental health #mental illness #actually mentally ill #depression #tumblr staff

[ifaunic]

Social media sites will do ANYTHING, including subjecting their users to unethical mental health practices, to avoid letting people use tags like #depression to spread awareness.

@staff

#depression #anxiety #kokobot #mental health #mental illness #mental health awareness

[ifaunic]

“Healing will sometimes be the worst part of your life” yeah girl but I didn’t expect the process to start during my cashier shift wtf

#so close to crying

[ifaunic]

The number of friends I've had in straight relationships where the guy outright refused to touch her if she didn't shave her pubes. Fellas this is beyond embarrassing it is outright misogyny and abusive coercion over someone else's body. Get the fuck over yourselves and embrace bush or perish.

#I love hair so much actually #doesn’t matter where it is on the body #I love it all #and also I’ve learned #that pubic hair aids in sexual pleasure and stimulation #so if dudes don’t like bush #they’re basically denying their partners pleasure #not cool man #and when I shave mine #because unfortunately I get in situations where I must do that sometimes #it itches so bad #ouchie #I wish bush was accepted #so I could just let her free tbh

[ifaunic]

💯🙏💛🟨👍

#🦴🪷🎀🔥😭

[ifaunic]

Sealpoints are so loveydovey. My favorite cat.

I've always heard you shouldn't make eye contact with animals, and that cats will like the person that ignores them, but that does not apply to Brioche.

[ifaunic]

C(h)all(enge) your local representatives (to a fist fight)

#‘kill them with kindness’ #no #rabies #maine #palestine #support palestine #end apartheid

[ifaunic]

They found him. Dead. Suicide.

I am angry. Death is a privilege for this monster. He doesn’t deserve a grave. He doesn’t deserve closure. He doesn’t deserve a funeral.

I want everyone to be very careful with the words they use to describe my state and the situation that is occurring at the moment.

Maine is a rural state, and people are used to driving long distances to see people and even just to go to work. Cities that are about an hour from Lewiston are cancelling events and classes because an hour drive isn’t that long for a Mainer.

This also isn’t a teenager with little to no gun experience getting his hands on a weapon of war. Robert Card is trained former military, highly dangerous, and knows how to aim a gun, shoot properly, reload quickly, change weapons, and unjam a weapon.

There is a large immigrant and refugee population in Lewiston. You will see people mentioning that this could be the fault of “gangs.” It is not. Robert Card is a racist, transphobic, white man who shot at children and families during a bowling league competition. Lewiston’s immigrant and refugee population had absolutely nothing to do with this attack.

Follow news sources, not social media.

And for the love of god, it’s LEWIS-TIN. NOT LEWISTOWN.

#lewiston #lewiston mass shooting #lewiston maine #maine news #maine