Disqus - Latest Comments for girlboymusic

Re: The Cure for Bedbugs: Back to Bedbugs

girlboymusic — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:16:04 -0000

I guess I'm not following. It's ostensibly a post about why you left Tumblr, but the things you complain about in the first two-thirds (liking without conversation, the way people talk about privilege, the bad faith of calling everything trollgaze) are not why you left Tumblr? Why bring them up, then? I mean, I interpreted that from your post because that was most of your post -- and I don't really understand how it connects to the text you pulled out as what I should have interpreted.

Re: The Cure for Bedbugs: Back to Bedbugs

girlboymusic — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:35:58 -0000

Tumblr Privilege Call-Out Culture would probably say you only feel like you're being shut out because as a white, straight, etc. dude you're not used to not being the authority. I don't know if that's true -- it's up to you to spend some time examining your reaction and figuring out whether that's the case. But my interpretation of both those "but you're not a girl, so..." situations wasn't that they were shutting you out of the conversation altogether, as if there were no way you could participate in it, but that they were pointing out that you could only participate in it in a limited way. (Although, in the case of "all 4 u," why would it be a problem if she were shutting you out of the conversation altogether? In that case, she was making the first post, she was starting the conversation, so she could set whatever parameters for it that she wanted.) They didn't say, "You're not allowed to talk about this anymore," they said "Your understanding of this is limited and will always be limited."

(What I don't like about "but you're not a [whatever] so..." is the
assumption that often accompanies it on the part of the person saying
it, that because the person saying it is a [whatever], they can make
universal statements about what it's like to be a [whatever]. I mean, I
remember my response to the "but you're not a girl, so..." you're
talking about was, "Fuck off, I'm a girl and I'm nothing like what
you're describing." The [whatever]'s understanding is also always
limited, just in a different way, and that should also be acknowledged.)

And I guess I don't really understand what you're saying in this post if
you're saying exchanges like those aren't at least a part of why you
took your ball and went home -- no, you didn't ditch Tumblr specifically
because your feelings were hurt as a straight person, but you ditched
it because there were a lot of "but you're not a [whatever], so..."
conversations, right? And because your interpretation of those
conversations is that they shut out people who are not a [whatever]
altogether? In which case, (a) it might be helpful to dig into those
conversations to determine whether that's really what's going on, and
why you might feel as if that's really what's going on, and (b) I don't
understand why you would leave Tumblr. Those kinds of conversations are
going to happen everywhere -- by leaving Tumblr, you're just creating a
bubble for yourself where you have more control over the conversations,
and you don't have to participate in or be exposed to them if you don't
want to, which is kind of a douche move!

Re: The Cure for Bedbugs: Back to Bedbugs

girlboymusic — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:40:59 -0000

I mean, I agree that the way we ("we") talk about privilege and power is problematic, and that those terms too often stand in for actual explanations of ideas, but:

"I got tired of the self-righteous contempt for strawmen -- it started to
anger me when I heard "straight people" being talked about with the same
flippancy and disrespect that seemed to be the motivation for talking in more positive and complicated ways about specific non-straight people and experiences in the first place. "

Ehhh. You know the posts people are always reblogging about how, if you're a white person and you get mad about the way people use the phrase "white people," most of the time (a) the problem is probably you and your whiteness, so you need to think real hard about whether you have a right to be offended, and (b) nobody here gives a shit, nor are they obligated to give a shit, about your feelings as a white person, so go find another conversation? This is how I feel about straight people being angry about the use of "straight people."

Re: http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/post/10135573327

girlboymusic — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:42:34 -0000

nickname: girlboymusic
profile link: http://www.beso.com/my/prof...
want: the MARC by Marc Jacobs Rounded Crossbody Bag (in black)

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/3137869437

girlboymusic — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:52:22 -0000

http://girlboymusic.tumblr....

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/3137869437

girlboymusic — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:51:43 -0000

I was the one who posted a bunch of notes I made on my Blackberry immediately after watching it; was more a list of complaints than a critique, wasn't really scathing, so I don't think I'm the one you're thinking of.

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/3137869437

girlboymusic — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:40:34 -0000

The Kids Are All Right = no.

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/3137869437

girlboymusic — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:40:24 -0000

I hated that movie so much, it caused a duplicate comment!

Re: http://tjmahr.com/post/2344580473

girlboymusic — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:32:56 -0000

Well, because there's a difference between an identity culture based on the idea that your disability or illness or whatever does not make you less deserving of respect or love, and an identity culture based on the idea that you should hate yourself and do physically and emotionally harmful to change yourself, because you are not deserving of respect or love as you are. There are eating disorder communities that are the former, but thinspo is not one of them -- it doesn't exist to bolster individuals, it exists to bolster a disease.

Re: http://girlboymusic.tumblr.com/post/1455018959

girlboymusic — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:11:21 -0000

Ah. I cut the accompanying text when I reblogged, because I didn't think my response would flow as well with it, but my take from that was that he was encouraging everyone to write more:

"Good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

But I will just float this gentle reminder that every month is a novel writing month. Tell your stories."

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/1416979325

girlboymusic — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:55:22 -0000

Not for a few hundred years, they haven't, but yes, it was an actual part of wedding ceremonies at one point in history.

Re: 286 / YFF Conference: Day 1 – Torrid Cocktail Event

girlboymusic — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:10:57 -0000

Ooh, who made your dress?

Re: http://betelnut.tumblr.com/post/890557056

girlboymusic — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 22:57:20 -0000

Well, now I need to visit Belgium.

They sell sandwiches similar to the mitrailette (often with even more ingredients crammed into them) out of roadside trucks at my university. They're called "fat sandwiches," and I'm sort of sad to find out we didn't invent them.

Re: http://nounandverb.tumblr.com/post/608639668

girlboymusic — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:03:42 -0000

Hippie.

Re: http://girlboymusic.tumblr.com/post/608292961

girlboymusic — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:08:41 -0000

What the fuck Johnjay and Rich?

It was the Fleetwood Mac that redeemed me, wasn't it?

Re: http://aceterrier.tumblr.com/post/540979850

girlboymusic — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:12:55 -0000

I would be with you except I think that they literally meant Ke$ha looks like Taylor Swift + garbage. Not "garbage" as in "people I believe to be of a lower class and lesser morals and intelligence than myself, and therefore feel free to deem inferior" or "garbage" as in "things I think are worthless," but "garbage" as in refuse. Discarded stuff. Empty soda cans and torn socks you can't find the mate for and whatever. Which is a totally apt way of describing Ke$ha, given that she walks around with mystery bits of metal in her hair and dresses herself in scraps of cloth she picked out of a charity clothing drop-off bin. Literally! Not "literally" as in "seriously," but "literally" as in literally, she does that.

Re: anger management

girlboymusic — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:07:13 -0000

I can't imagine looking at Kogan's current crop of pop friendly babes and thinking "I want to *be* her." Too thin, too pretty, too perfect, too conforming in their look and their behaviour. While I looked at PJ Harvey with her greasy hair and Courtney with her rolled out of bed makeup and Kristin Hersh with her manic eyes and combat boots and thought "I could BE you. I could *WANT* to be you." There was an identification with their imperfections and humanity that I have never felt with these perfect popstars.

But PJ and Courtney and Kristin represent an ideal just as much as Kelly and Ashlee and Demi do: white, able to wear tube tops because they have perky medium-to-small breasts, thin enough that their greasy hair and rolled-out-of-bed makeup would be viewed as cool and transgressive rather than evidence that fat people are lazy, disgusting slobs. I never got into the '90s alt-girls partially because, as a fat girl, I looked at them and thought, "I could NEVER be you. I don't have the luxury." To me, they're no less perfect and no more human than your "perfect popstars."

On the other hand, when I listen to Kelly Clarkson and Lily Allen and Ashlee Simpson -- women who sing about being faced with seemingly impossible ideals and not having the freedom to act out, positions I can identify with -- those are women that make me think, "I want to be you. I AM you."

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/472851223

girlboymusic — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:37:30 -0000

I don't think I'll have time to respond to this today, but if I don't post something tomorrow about how the "13 Ways" / "Liz Lemonning" stuff (unfeministly!) equates "ugly" with "lacking confidence and social skills," "not giving a shit about arbitrary things like fashion and money in order to get an arbitrary group of people to approve of you," and "not dressing like a sexually available lady all the time," throw something at me.

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/459530026

girlboymusic — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:29:07 -0000

WHAT!? Weren't you alive during the '70s?

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/450045889

girlboymusic — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:50:14 -0000

I did! Rolling Teenpop 2007, at the very least.

They do pronounce it correctly multiple times a week, but only because Ryan Seacrest figured out that Fox was wrong in telling people to pronounce it "dee-oh-GAHR-dee."

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/425634225

girlboymusic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:24:02 -0000

HA! As we were discussing Ke$ha yesterday, I was thinking about how much she reminded me of the "rapper" from that faux-edgy LA hipster girl group Kay Hanley tried to make happen a while back. Which turned out to be Fan_3.

Re: Oh, I see, the survey is just terrible.

girlboymusic — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:06:19 -0000

I haven't yet pinned down all the reasons this argument doesn't work for me, but to start: why the assumption that young people are less likely than old people to contact non-elected officials? I mean, I may, as a woman in my 20s, be able to avoid stuff like zoning, property taxes, public school boards, etc. -- but I'm also more likely than a woman in her 40s to be uninsured (and therefore dependent on government-run clinics for health care), receive unemployment benefits (which requires regular contact with my state's department of labor), rent rather than own my residence (so I may be in touch with the city's housing department), and have never voted before (making me more likely to contact my county's board of elections). Plus I have to renew my driver's license, pay my parking tickets, and file my taxes, the same as anyone else.

Re: http://girlboymusic.tumblr.com/post/409684228

girlboymusic — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:10:23 -0000

The question was "In the past 12 months, have you contacted a government official, or not? This contact could have been in person, by phone, by letter, by sending an email, or posting a message on their website or social networking page." It's generally only elected officials with constituents to represent who have Facebook pages, emails at which the public can contact them (or "contact them," or contact "them," really), and the like, so I think they're talking about senators, governors, council members, etc.

And even if those officials are being swamped by old people calling about their taxes, I don't think that's a generational thing -- there's no age limit on being ignorant about the way the government works -- whereas MoveOn.org and "netroots" and all the social networking power and hope that Barack Obama's campaign was supposedly harnessing is, according to everything I've read before this survey, supposed to be a defining characteristic of the millenials. So either the survey has some reason to believe that milenials are no more likely than members of previous generations to use social networking (which seems unlikely, since answering "yes" to the social networking question increases your millenial score) or the survey has some reason to believe that millenials are more apathetic about politics than members of previous generations (which fucks up basically every analysis I've heard of the Obama campaign's success, and also makes me wonder who exactly is signing all those MoveOn.org petitions).

Re: Oh, I see, the survey is just terrible.

girlboymusic — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:57:27 -0000

Re: contacting an elected official: I think that is supposed to be the message, but doesn't that fly in the face of all the election talk about how Barack Obama was the millenials' candidate, because (a) we are the generation of "netroots" campaigning, and (b) we're less apathetic and more invested in the concept of "change for the better" than our Gen X counterparts?

Re: television: I wouldn't have counted anything I watched on the web as watching "television programming," even if it had originally been broadcast on television. But then, I'm on the cusp of Gen X and Millenial, and hip to the discussions about how the Internet is drawing audiences away from more traditional media, so I immediately assumed that was what the question was getting at -- would people well within the Millenial generation make the same assumption? Do they count Hulu as "television programming"? What about illegal downloading? And actually, if I weren't answering a survey question and therefore being nitpicky about working, would I? Most of the television shows I watch, I watch on the Internet or as DVD releases, yet I still think of them as television shows. And some of them aren't even actually available on TV for me -- there's no way to watch QI, for instance, on an actual television in the United States, but I still call it a television show.

Re: http://cureforbedbugs.tumblr.com/post/387218150

girlboymusic — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:18:18 -0000

But the piano is what I mean. It's easier to hear in her live performances, but there's something about the rhythms of the keys and the vocals that make me think, "This is Scott Joplin song."

I do think she's capable of nuance (the reason I finally gave in to her was because I heard a remix of "Paparazzi" that made it easier to hear the vulnerability in "I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me") but I was thinking the other day that she's not capable of, like, personhood. There's nothing about her voice that I recognize from song to song, not in a "she's a vocal chameleon who can sing anything!" way, because her voice sounds the same every time -- like you said, a big unsubtle brassiness -- but in a "the experience of listening to Lady GaGa is no different from the experience of listening to a computer-generated singer" way. I think if you had played me "Just Dance," "Poker Face," "Paparazzi," "Bad Romance," and "Telephone" back to back before I knew anything about her, I probably would have only had a 50/50 chance of recognizing that they were all by the same artist.