#And in conclusion I fucking hate identities and discourse and shit like that and idk whether to change my social media pronouns to

[centrally-unplanned]

I saw this slightly-old post making the rounds recently by former alt-right memelord Walt Bismark, on how the alt-right "won" in the late 2010's - positing that as the cause of why it generally vanished. I agree overall with the vanishing part, its not gone-gone ofc but it waned as a cohesive movement. But I saw a lot of people (and generally not alt-right figures) agreeing with its conclusion and I am a bit more skeptical of those.

Its largely a personal essay so I wont address most of it, but it has a summary of five main points that outline essentially "the agenda of the Alt Right at the beginning" to evaluate success upon. Bismark thinks they won on all five, but overall I think this is playing a trick of inventing an enemy to claim you defeated. Anyway, the points:

1: Shift the “Overton Window” of acceptable public discourse to make it politically viable to openly discuss the interests of white people in mainstream politics, in the same way black people or Jewish people discuss their collective interests. 

This one I will grant a partial victory - there was a legitimate intensification of "white as identity" in politics, a making explicit what was implicit in the 2010's. Now ofc I consider this to be a classic horseshoe moment; the hard left at the time was also extremely interested in abandoning race neutrality and valorizing racial identity as an organizing principle, and did it in a very ham-fisted way that the right capitalized on, so it was an easy battle to win - but that is what it is, ofc the wider environment defined the goals & strategy. I mention it however because I do think this is only partial, and the gap between implicit and explicit isn't that relevant. He mentions as an example of this success:

Affirmative action was of course squashed by SCOTUS and the necessary legal infrastructure is being deployed to burn it down. Mainstream conservatives are mobilizing a lot of resources and energy to this end.

But conservatives have been fighting affirmative action for 20+ years, easily. Here is a 1999 article on precisely such a campaign, I literally just googled "conservatives affirmative action [year]" and I get results each time, 2003 had big cases (the Bollinger cases) on AA, etc. I remember "affirmative action bake sale" memes from like 2006 at my uni! What changed between Bollinger and 2023's Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is that conservatives had just had enough time to stack courts, and wait for Supreme Court justices to die. That just...takes time to do! The strategy hadn't changed between 2003 and 2023. And meanwhile, did they win? They won that court case, sure. What do you...think the ethic makeup of the next Harvard class is gonna be? Wanna take some bets?

His other listed victories are things like:

"Vivek defended the Great Replacement Theory on national television and remained a major Trump surrogate. The SPLC would have marginalized him for that 10 years ago. Today because of polarization and MAGA closing ranks they can’t do shit."

And like, the Southern Poverty Law Center would have successfully marginalized a Republican politician in idk 2003 are you completely high right now? Strom Fucking Thurmond was an active Senator in 2003! This is the repeated tactic here, the imagined enemies - there was never a time where liberal institutions could consistently force conservative politicians to kowtow, so you can't claim it as a change.

This is why I mention the social justice horseshoe, because he has this point here:

These days you can complain about quotas etc. being unfair to you as a white man and it’s not inflammatory or low status among centrists and conservatives. Even non-woke liberals won’t really hate you for it, just quietly think you’re a bit of a chud. This was not the case in 2015. 

And this is partially correct, I agree there was some norm shift. But that is because in ~2010 there really weren't any quotas against white men, it wasn't a thing almost anywhere outside of university applications, so the complaint would make no sense. What happened was that starting in ~2012 a huge left cultural movement started that just openly supported active discrimination against whites, Asians and men. They were a small minority of course, and never had much power, but they got enough power in certain institutions like non-profits and universities that there was a string of just very obvious cases of clear racial discrimination against in particular whites & asians (both men and women, white women often got it very bad in this wave). And the large majority of people just saw that and went "uh yeah racism is still bad?" and so now you can say that because its actually relevant to say. From that lens, is this a successful cultural victory on the part of the alt-right? In some sense sure, but really its more a cultural failure of the hard left. The status quo just kept on chugging along.

Ugh that point went long, the others repeat so we will go through them quicker.

2: Elevate identity issues like anti-immigration and the promotion of traditional gender norms to the center of Republican politics. 

A fake enemy here - anti-immigration was already a huge issue for Republicans in the 2000's. It had a huge wave under Obama actually, it goes in cycles like that. And it responds to material conditions; it's a big issue again right now because the immigration numbers spiked massively under Biden, its just way worse of a problem now (primarily due to the booming economy of course). Again a partial victory for the first part, I agree its more salient due to Trump platforming it, but I'm skeptical that it is a big shift - people are memory-holing the Tea Party movement really badly here for example.

And the second point is just obviously false, Republicans always cared about that, and they care about it less now, giving up the ghost on gay marriage for example. The Alt-Right coincided with a decline of the influence of the Religious Right, and it shows on this issue, 0 points.

3: Make it socially acceptable to discuss HBD and the resulting moral implications for leveling mechanisms like affirmative action. 

Peak "log off" moment, it was always acceptable to discuss this outside of liberal/professional circles and there it still isn't acceptable to discuss it. Charles Murray wrote the Bell Curve in 1994 and his been an American Enterprise Institute Scholar for this entire span of time. This is confusing churn for change - the mid-2010's had a bunch of big, mainly online fights about HBD, and then everyone just sort of moved on with the status quo pretty much unchanged. Nothing like education policy, even in Republican circles, has shifted over this.

4: Convince conservatives to stop ceding moral authority to liberals and allowing them to determine who on the Right is verboten or beyond the pale. Make it unacceptable among conservatives to “punch Right” or purge people for wrongthink. 

Sigh, again when have Republicans ever ceded moral authority to liberals? Harvard University could not condemn Newt Gingrich in ~2009 and make him change his mind about anything. And "Republicans don't self-criticize while Liberals eat themselves alive" has been a complaint for literally decades, you would hear that as far back as say Clinton and things like the 1999 WTO protests. Its both true and exaggerated - the Tea Party primaried Republican candidates for wrongthink in 2010, and Trump did the same thing! With disastrous results for the Republicans in 2022. I really, really don't think you can look at Trump's Republican party and say they solved the Wrongthink problem.

5: Expose and dismantle the hypocritical attitude that allows neocons to militantly support Israeli ethnonationalism while brutally repressing any white identity politics domestically.

This one is just a lolwut moment, "brutally repressing any white identity politics domestically", like what does that even mean? Name the concrete policy proposals George Bush implemented in 2007 than Donald Trump didn't in 2018 around this topic. Again a fake enemy, they were never repressed by the right, and ofc are still hated by liberal institutions like universities.

Moving on from any specific point, I think its very telling that very little about free trade vs protectionism or isolationism/support of autocracy abroad enters this list. Because beyond immigration those are the big shifts the Trump movement (which is the mechanism the alt-right has to claim for making its impact) has ushered into the party. They didn't change its stance on sexual politics or "race & IQ" or anything, those haven't changed, but meanwhile the party has completely flipped on things like tariffs or opposition to Russian military expansion. But of course those don't align neatly at all with the issues the Alt-Right fought about in 2015.

The reality the Alt-Right can't escape is that they used Trump as their mechanism for change, and Trump never really cared about any of their goals beyond immigration. He used them and then pursued either bog-standard Republican policy or his own mercurial, autocratic whims, eventually channeling all of this energy into election denialism. I really don't think if you pulled aside frikkin Ryan Faulk in 2014, asked him to put down his graphs about Raven's Progressive Matrices of black Caribbean students, and said "Hey 10 years from now all of this energy is being channeled into pretending that a failed real estate mogul didn't lose the 2020 presidential election", that he would look at that outcome and think Mission Accomplished.

I don't want to fully oversell, there are for example wins Bismark doesn't mention (School choice comes to mind, the biggest conservative win of the past decade besides the protectionist swing). The Alt Right was an influential movement, it earned its place in history. But I do not think it is an example of being a "victim of its own success". I think instead it should be understood as part of the "radical froth" of the 2010's, that bubbled over and then evaporated like its more intense leftwing peers did. It made some mark and then got left in the dust.

Net ranking of the 5 points: 0.5 for Point 1, 0.25 for Point 2, 0 for the rest, 1.25/5.

#Sociological History of the 2010's #Alt-right discourse

[oohlook-thevoid]

Gender is fucking confusing like no thank you bro, I think having an identity is a scam.

#this is specifically coz like ever since I found out that gender was like a thing you feel and not something you're lumped with and deal #I've been very confused and I didn't get it really (in regards to myself) so I just kept putting a pin in the gender convo I was having wit #myself because like every gender feels just as okay to me like I am very eh about all of them y'know like they'd all do I don't think I'd #mind being perceived as any of them and anyway I ended up working through my feelings re sexuality and realising I like girls and the #lesbian label stuck with me as my identity because that's one label that definitely fits right with me!!! Lesbian makes me feel good!! #but it made my gender even more difficult/confusing because this was when there was a lot of discourse over if lesbians who don't use #she/her are valid and like I didn't want to not be a lesbian because that's what feels right it's just I'm no more connected to she/her tha #I am to they/them or he/him and like thinking of myself either way makes me feel quite comfy - like I feel better being all than just one #But like the he/him lesbian discourse went on and so whilst I finally got comfy being like okay I'm they/she I don't feel like I can say I #also don't mind if people were to refer to me as he - like one time at the bus stop and old man mistook me for a guy and it was cool #and like I prefer terms like dude or bro > girl tbh (but if I date someone I'd still consider myself to be their girlfriend) #And in conclusion I fucking hate identities and discourse and shit like that and idk whether to change my social media pronouns to #she/they/he or not.... :/

[littlebabycrybtch]

ngl what the fuck does ‘lgbt+ resources’ even mean in these exclusionary arguments anymore like,,, medications/hormone therapy??? surgery?? help with money or housing or smth? hormones and surgery cost money. thousands of dollars usually. and not bc theyre ~scarce~, you know damn well its bc the american health system is corrupt. people are only gonna spend that kind of money on things they consider a priority in their life, which means its not by definition a ‘wasted’ resource as its being used for what its intended to. and idk about yall but ive Never come across money/housing help for lgbt+ people in my area. ive had to go to food pantries and applied for housing assistance bc of poverty, never rly had the luck of finding a place that would help me back when i identified as bi and ftm, and still cant as a pan ace nb, so idk how you think all the ~trender mogai teens~ are capable of this. 

or perhaps do yall mean resources for more urgent things, like legal assistance with discrimination/hate crimes or housing for young people trying to get away from abusive/unaccepting households??? bc idk how to tell you this but if someone is experiencing that for their identity they,,, absolutely unconditionally deserve access to the resource. plain ol cishets flat out arent being attacked or kicked out for being lgbt+, so if someone claims thats happening to them, you need to draw the obvious fucking conclusion that their identity isnt being treated as cishet. i mean ffs come on with the way privileged alt-right bigots react to ‘’’’snowflake(TM)’’’ identities anyone with half a brain and critical thinking skills should recognize how completely plausible it is becoming in modern society for someone to get harassed for idk wearing pan pride flag stuff in public, or get assaulted for saying theyre nonbinary and asking someone to use they/them pronouns, or get kicked out for saying theyre aroace and dont want a partner/kids. i get it its so fun nee hawhaw crinGe(TM) and yall love that ‘doubt’ reaction image but like for gods sake why would ppl lie about this shit for years straight,, just to get some Minuscule amount of very specific situation resources like,,, nah these things are just happening more and more as identity erasure turns to visibility and no debate if you can even pretend for a second that you believe these ppl when they talk about injustices and are like “yeah i still wouldnt care if i believed them though, to prove my point” thats a deeper problem than discourse 

#tldr there arent as many lgbt+ resources as yall are making it seem imo and the ones that do exist... #are pretty hard to share or be beneficial with ppl that wouldnt need them #stop fuckign saying lgbt+ identities you dont like are 'taking the resources' u sound like an old ass man

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

dan made me do it

(lol jk, but like i have Feelings(tm) about my sexuality and everything & figure this is the best time and place to do it...)

So I figured out I was bisexual a little over 5 years ago, after discovering it was a legitimate thing I could call myself whilst being on tumblr (2014 was a big time for lgbt discourse, especially in terms of the various terms and labels, most of which I hadn’t been familiar with...)... but tbh, I’d been trying to come to terms with who I was in terms of my sexuality for a long time

I grew up in a religious house (my parents were jehovah’s witnesses), but I never really remember anything vaguely homophobic being thrown around? And even if it did exist, I wouldn’t have been aware of it since I never had any question or doubt in my mind about the fact I was attracted to boys (I’d had a rly intense crush on this one boy for about 5 years through primary and secondary school... I still sometimes see his pics on facebook & u know what? I still would lol anyway...) my early days in school were mostly taken up by trying to get friends not be a total recluse (I’ve always had trouble making friends and connecting to people it’s no biggie it’ ss fineee........ ok carry on>>)

So going into secondary school I never felt that I was anything other than straight? But one thing I vividly remember was the way people in my year treated girls that were suspected to be gay... in short? they were seen as ‘dirty’... it was something perverted, and highly sexualised... (as in: being a lesbian meant masturbating a lot... (i mean: this says something about wider misogyny & demonising of female pleasure but like.. another time, another time) & also making out loads with other girls)...  like no one ever came up and said ‘being gay is wrong’, but whenever rumours spread about a girl being suspected as gay and they didn’t deny them, people would suddenly start whispering about them... & it’s super strange to me that this was the same culture that if two female friends were really close and got labelled as gay, but came out and were like ‘oh no we’re straight ha ha we just kiss at parties and touch each others boobs’ or whatever, people would be completely ok with it?

So I never really gave myself the opportunity to go into this... I was never comfortable enough to be super ‘close’ to any of my female friends (intimacy issues: we don’t have to to get into all THAT right now though lol ahahaha....ha...) & I knew I wasn’t so called ‘skanky’ like all the girls who were labelled as being actually gay...

& this was all happening as I found myself actually being interested in looking at girls... (like what can I say? boobs are friggin nice to look at lol...) But i always saw it as innocent intrigue, since I was only 11/12 at the time so hadn’t grown into my own at the time... and the fact I felt more comfortable being touched by or talking to or like literally doing anything with girls? it’s just cos boys are gross there’s no other reason behind it!!.... right?

I think a big thing is that a lot of girls are so open with each other... like they’ll compliment each other’s boobs or asses, or comment on how pretty they are or their makeup skills or whatever.. you’ll be hard pressed to find a girl that goes all ‘no homo’ on her friend except.... I feel like that was me lol? I remember getting compliments from other girls about my appearance (didn’t happen often though pffft) or anything really and feeling all mushy inside, and giving the compliments back felt like a big deal to me? idk I suppose all the warning signs were there that hidden under layers of introverted awkwardness was a lil bi demon just waiting to come out lol!

So yadyyada, 2014 happens and I finally realise I’m bi... I just remember reading something on here about bisexuality and being like ‘oh damn yeh... dat me??’... like it felt amazing to be able to finally accept that I actually like girls too?? & one of the first people I told was this guy I became friends with when I first went to college... & he told me he was also bi and I remember thinking ‘wow!!!!! so it’s actually real?! it’s not just something you see on tumblr from random strangers, it’s an actual thing people I know irl experience wowwowowow’... I also came out to another online friend who I was close to, and it felt really amazing... but I could never translate that into actually coming out in real life (not to mention life was kinda shit at this time and I had like 0 friends but hEY, that’s not for now kiddos lol)...

So yeh, I’ve never actually come out to anyone... not properly anyway... I’ve always been very open about my sexuality online, but in real life I’ve never really discussed it with ... anyone? & it’s not because I’m ashamed in anyway, and it’s not even as if I’m that scared I just... I’ve never felt the need to? But after seeing Dan’s video, plus it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, this is something I really wanna do... see; I was so ready to live life just being ‘straight until I maybe get a girlfriend one day’, so ready to only tell people if they ask me but I just realised... isn’t that partly living a lie? who I’m with doesn’t change my sexuality, so why is it something I’m seemingly so scared of declaring to the world??

I vividly have this memory, before I realised I was bi, and I have no idea of why or when or any of the details, but me and my mum were watching something, and bisexuality was mentioned, and either my mum agreed with, or she said something along the lines of ‘bisexuals are more likely to cheat’, and that’s really stuck with me.... it’s something that’s always nagging in the back of my mind, and it... really fucking hurts lol... I know for a fact my mum will love my regardless of who I end up sleeping with or whatever, she may be pretty conservative in her mindset of things but she’s always willing to be open minded which I really love about her... but knowing this inbuilt stereotype of bisexuality is something she both acknowledges and somewhat agrees with is really... sad...

I’m 21 years old, I’ve been in one relationship in my life which only last a few months and involved no kissing and only occasional hand holding because I was too terrified to do any more (again: subject for aNOTHER day lol), and I know for a goddamn FACT that my sexuality would never make me more likely to be unfaithful to someone I claim to love...I really hate that this is associated with the label, but it’s something I know that I am...  why on earth would I change that or try to be something else when I know that /this/ is me!

I think one of the biggest things putting me off ‘coming out’ is having to explain yourself... like dan howell made a 45 minute long video discussing his own sexuality and experiences cos he knew people wouldn’t just accept it if he just tweeted ‘yo dawgs imma queer lol #swag’ one day, and it feels kinda annoying that queer people/lgbtq+ people feel like we can’t just...... be ourselves without having to justify or explain it?! (even me making this post is solidifying that factor lol... it’s a mess lol)... like I just wanna live my life being bi, is that so much to ask for lol?

I am so so SO grateful we have so much more bi, and lgbtq+ in general, representation in media these days.... it’s goddamn beautiful to see our stories, and the stories of our community being told and cherished by millions, and that’s really gotta be something to rejoice in this pride month!!!

(side note: dan also talks about gender identity & I have literally never related to anything more lol... like 90% of the time I don’t feel like what people classify as ‘womanly’ things... but also I am a woman? idk man lol just call me a formless blob or whatever it was he said lol as a baby no one really knew if I was a girl or boy since my mum mainly dressed me in yellow & I had like 2 strands of hairs on my head lol... damn I miss those days lol)

In conclusion (or tl;dr as I’ve seen the Cool people write on their long posts (yes I had to google what it meant shhhh)):

Hi, my name is Xanthe, my username is ‘dangerliesbeforeyou’ here on tumblr because I made it 7 years ago and I wanted to use a cool sounding harry potter quote so I could come across as sophisticated but also nerdy, I’m a 21 year old female (mostly?) and I am a proud Bisexual...

I’m also single and very ready to mingle if anyone is interested ;;;;;;;;;)

(that’s only half a joke lol... plz romance me I’m v lonely)

#personal #lgbtq #pride month #idk what to tag lol #thank u for giving me the confidence to do this daniel lol... #maybe i'll b able to come out to my family who knowsss

[royalrastafariannaynays]

i’m a dirty rotten ace inclusionist, and here’s why

so against my better judgement and some advice from friends, ive decided to make a post about ace discourse

because it just kinda... hurts to see shit about it every day. and i feel like a broken record saying that, but it hurts. 

if youre reading this, and youre an exclusionist, please read the entire thing and don’t come storming into my inbox to tell me hurtful shit because odds are, ive seen it already and im sure im not gonna cover everything, just some of the stuff ive seen today

So, me. ill tell my story even tho no one asked for it, because unfortunately on this website people demand proof of person in order to give someone validity or some shit. im asexual. and i stick to that, because i don’t really experience attraction or arousal at all. that changes sometimes, but rarely. im genitals-repulsed as well. but i am still intimate with my partner sometimes, and sometimes i force the candle to light, because idk i get bored. 

but when i figured out i was ace, i was texting my best friend. and he suggested it, and immediately i felt broken and wrong thinking about the fact that i could be ace. I had to be convinced that it was okay. that’s something that non-ace people dont seem to get. not feeling sexual, or sexual about other, real people, can make you feel broken. it makes me feel like shit, and i have some dysfunction with partners as well. i have trauma in my past, but im convinced that doesn’t have too much to do with it. And maybe it’s a temporary thing, and ill change in the future. But that doesn’t change the fact that it makes me feel like less of a human being when i think about it. and i have no doubt that the idea has crossed other ace peoples’ minds before. “am i broken?” i ask my girlfriend that question so much. because my body doesnt do this thing that both science and the modern media and society tell me that it should do, and should do very easily. my FAMILY tells me its weird and ill be fine. my FRIENDS don’t get it. my mother thinks it’s horseshit. and there’s another thing.

i kinda feel like, if someone is gonna go excluding ace people and shoving them out, will i be shoved out for being closeted, or straight-passing when im not with my girlfriend, as well? it’s a legitimate fear and it feels really bad. and then, can you imagine how it feels having a portion of my identity actively shat on by this website? every fucking day of this month? the pride month?

another thing that non-ace people dont seem to understand or consider, either, is the dysphoria that ace people experience. ace people frequently hate their bodies, feel like they don’t belong in them, or feel separated from normalcy by what they are. 

it’s not a “whose suffering is worse” game, though we can still understand that people face greater harm and trials in their life by being different parts of lgbt, and allow people who suffer less, like say people who are closeted, bi or pan people who are “straight passing” dating the opposite gender, etc, to be a part of it. in my experience, lgbt+ is about acceptance and love, and ill stick to that. yes it’s possible to recognize that say, a trans woman would suffer more than a cishet ace. but that doesnt mean that one should be less allowed to be a part than another.

“ace people aren’t oppressed” well no maybe not to the degree that the typical lgbt person is, but around the world people are forced into obligatory sexual situations they may or may not want, and if they refuse or cannot perform, they can be labeled as broken, thrown out of their home, or r*ped. there is social pressure from the intensely sexual modern media; there is social pressure from society and family; there is social pressure from significant others and partners to perform, and then, especially for women, there is pressure to accept things, and there is pressure to perform sexually in order to have a happy life; IE: having children, families, satisfied partners, and so on. no, these aren’t as significant outwardly as “getting stabbed to death for existing” ((which yeah, does happen, but is an extreme example that someone i know loves to use to win arguments by playing the manipulative “of course this means you care less about the human lives of gay men than the thing you’re arguing for” card. im not saying that situations are equal here, jesus, im saying that oppression exists in many forms)). and, for a society where sex is a function that bodies easily perform, it seems easy enough to go along with things. But for some people, bodies either do not or will not perform. or there is repulsion, or other things and i lost my train of thought. got distracted, my apologies

ace people might be cishet, yeah, but that doesnt mean they belong any less in my opinion. no, i dont think they should be able to call themself qu**r, thats stupid. they aren’t allowed to reclaim any slurs that dont belong to them. that’s also really fucking stupid. and im sorry, but no decent person will try to do that. and why not let them come to the club, okay? they still face problems. like i say maybe fifty billion times in this post, yes, they don’t face the same problems, but they still have them. 

“start your own community” where? how? if you can give me a legitimate answer on this without frothing at the mouth, please do. But i have no idea how ace people are going to go into starting a community without being ridiculed, shoved aside and stuff. i have no idea how they are all going to bond and meet over a lot of different pipelines of communication, like the ones in communities they are already a part of. shoving people out, putting a stake in the middle of the cracks in the floor, it does nothing to strengthen our community. 

“well this person treated me badly” yes and that exists everywhere on this hellsite. I’ve seen a lot of shit, im sure you have too/

the split attraction model, in my opinion, is useful. but mainly for ace people, or aro people, to make describing themself easier in a shorthand. that’s what the model is best for. and if you come into my inbox and say stuff about how “someone forced the split attraction model on me” that was an individual person and does not lend to the usefulness of the model. and then if you come into my inbox with something about “the split attraction model harms people who arent ace and lets people deny their sexuality”. it is a tool. no one forced you to use it. im certainly not saying everyone should use it. in fact, maybe a lot of the people who do use it, should not. but i like the split attraction model, especially for myself. because i can easily identify and people know what im talking about. that simple. 

okay, that’s all i wanted to say. i wish i had a concrete conclusion but i am just. really tired. i need to unfollow some people. i just wanted to get it off my chest, and say my peace in a place i can find it. again, sorry for my mobile people

#sorry to people on mobile #long post #hopefully this wont pop up on mobile #:l #ace discourse #minor tmi putting that tag to be safe