don’t have time to do a whole month of the challenge, but i can justify a single fucked up deertober illustration cause im gonna use this for an assignment
the more i talk w/ leftist friends the more i start to realize that they think culture is only defined by food or “traditional” (i.e. “ethnic”) garb and nothing else
mentioned how white americans do in fact have a common culture and they genuinely thought i was joking. culture isnt something only granted to the Cool People of Color. just feels like among progressive groups there’s this dichotomy created in which only the virtuous oppressed minorities have culture and anyone who is privileged some sort of void cultureless being
As someone with a background in anthropology, culture is everything and everywhere. It’s so all-encompassing it’s hard to even wrap your head around. Everything you do, say, think, eat, wear is wrapped up in culture. Even being deliberately counter-cultural, by consciously defying the expectations of your culture, is still an engagement with culture (often by adopting a sub-culture).
Sure, it’s the “simple”, “surface-level” things that people tend to think of, like
In your culture, how many meals a day are you generally expected to eat, and when are you expected to eat them?
In your culture, which clothes are considered “formal”, and when would you wear such clothes?
But it’s also so much more:
If you were dating someone, at what point in the relationship would you be expected to introduce them to your parents? That’s culture!
How much respect is given to artists? Are people like poets or musicians revered as an integral part of society, or is the predominant attitude “get a real job”? That’s culture!
How much value is given to education? What’s considered more socially embarrassing - academic failure, or academic achievement? What’s the intellectual landscape? Do people tend to respect experts, or denigrate them as “elitists”? That’s culture!
Which things are generally considered to be “high culture” or “low culture”? Which kinds of media and art are considered “for the masses” versus “for the elites”? That’s culture!
How are politicians treated? Do people tend to respect them as their “betters”, their “leaders”? Or are they assumed to be lying, conniving, corrupt, the worst of society? What kind of thing would end a politician’s career? That’s culture!
What’s considered more egregious behaviour - bothering other people, or asking someone to stop bothering other people? That’s culture!
If you were attending a job interview, how would you want to come across? How would you be expected to dress and behave? Would it be better to come across as very bold and confident, or humble and subservient? That’s culture!
If you found yourself in a tricky situation - say, broken down at the side of the road - would you confidently expect strangers to come and help you? Or would it seem really weird for some random person to come and involve themselves in your situation? That’s culture!
How are you expected to communicate? Is it seen as rude to be very blunt and straightforward, or is it considered rude to beat around the bush and make allusions and try to soften what you’re saying rather than quickly getting to the point? That’s culture!
I could go on (boy could I go on). This is so not meant to be all-inclusive; this is just a tiny sample of the things that make up “culture”.
To put it bluntly, a lot of the time the word “culture” seems to be used to mean, essentially, “the things that make people of colour different from white people”. Oh, this guy eats this different kind of food; that’s culture. This lady wears these clothes to a wedding; that’s culture. But we white people, we don’t have “culture”; we just do what’s normal. But it’s all culture! Everything! All of it! And culture isn’t just the result of where in the world you come from - class, occupation, rural/urban location, minority status, political affiliation, all these things and more can result in cultural differences even within a small area. Multiple cultures often co-exist, blend, overlap, and borrow from one another within the same place, which is especially noticeable in places with legacies of migration. People bring different cultures from around the world, and these interact with the dominant culture in all sorts of interesting ways. But a culture being dominant doesn’t mean that it ceases to be a culture.
Claiming that certain groups of people (generally, whoever is the dominant majority group in a particular context) “don’t have culture” is just as dumb as when people claim they “don’t have an accent” simply because their accent is the most common one where they live. There is no “default”, every deviation from which is “a culture” or “an accent”. Everyone has an accent. Every community, everywhere, has culture(s). If you aren’t aware of your culture, or don’t think you have an accent, you’re probably just so used to being considered “default” and “normal” that it doesn’t occur to you that no such thing actually exists.
One of the things about writing that feels the silliest is when there’s a detail in the scene that the character doesn’t think is important but you know the reader will know it’s important because otherwise it wouldn’t be there, so you’re just sort of making eye contact with the reader over the character’s head and whispering “don’t tell them”
Dick as Batman is so funny to me because yes, he can emulate the Bat better than anybody, right down the dramatic working of the cape and his eerie mimic of the Bat’s voice, but he’s still Dick, he’s still that very first Robin who is as quick with his words as he is with his movements.
A goon attempting to surrender after hitting Robin so hard he has a concussion: Wait! Wait! I’ll tell you everything, just don’t-
Dick, dangling the rogue over the edge of a roof: I already fucking know everything, dipshit
Goon: How? How could you-?
Dick: the fucking bats told me
This exchange begins a rumour that the bats of Gotham do indeed report to Batman, because, remember the Bat once vanished in a cloud of pissed off bats in the middle of the fucking day. When Bruce finally gets back, he’s so confused when he overhears a mother threatening her kid that the bats will tell Batman he’s misbehaving. Dick probably as a lot more to answer for.
So much of the history of physics is just “it turns out the underlying rules are pretty simple, it’s just that we happen to live in an environment composed entirely of complicated special cases”
Objects in motion don’t stop moving unless stopped by a force (we are surrounded by Gas That Stops You at all times, and our gravitational field pulls us down to a surface with friction)
Heat capacity and phases of matter are normally pretty simple (the most common fluid on our planet has Weird heat capacity and Weird phases)
The Dementia Don acting like he’s invented words that’ve existed for at least a century is never not gonna be funny for two reasons. One, Rich People having zero concepts of the real world. The man has never once in his life purchased groceries from any kind of store, and he’s a goddamn New Yorker. There’s some kinda mom and pop stop and shop on every corner, or damn near to it. Sometimes they’re called bodegas, sometimes it’s some other name, but it’s got a little bit of everything.
Two, the fucking obvious dementia. I genuinely think he’s not even aware of what year it is anymore, let alone what words even exist in his native language. Couple that with the probable stroke… quite frankly he’s lucky he’s walking around at all, talking out his ass. My grandmother had a stroke, and she was already having some kind of memory issues (I don’t know the exact diagnosis, what I do know is that my mom had to tell the doctor she was driving with a different state’s rules of the road, which when you’ve lived in your new state for several years and have a plate and licsence from said state, is Not Good. Imagine driving like its New Jersey in Arizona. Very Bad.), and I don’t really remember her being as talkative after the stroke as she was before. And from what I know of strokes, that’s tied to heart issues. Which we know the man has… so now I just sit back and wonder what day it will be that JD Vance gets the reins because the Con just cannot function at all in public. My great aunt definetly was fine one day, never the same the next and once she slid I never heard her really talk like she used to.
Doodle’s, Mixie’s and mine. I think each in its own way is expressing about the same thing. A response to life as it is now. Doodle wasn’t feeling well so she carved a freaking perfect upside down jack-o-lantern… and went and took a nap. Mixie’s is cute but dead inside. And mine was meant to be a shark but just looks like an alien screaming in horror or preparing to feed, iono which.
Lit by glow sticks. 10/10 recommend.
I particularly like Doodle’s upside down one! I’m surprised I haven’t seen that done, before!
I did not know one could simply just… do an upside down Jack O Lantern face that easily
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