If Sh*t Hits the Fan, I Hope the Eggs Were Worth It

So uh, something pretty big is happening later today.

Full disclosure: I am not very happy about this turn of events. I don’t think our Orange Overlord is fit to be president, and I don’t feel safe as a queer woman in a country that voted for him. He’s um, not been great for us, generally speaking. So I won’t lie and say I’m not a little scared for my future and my loved ones. Should I be afraid? I don’t know. I’d like to think this administration will be too stupid to do any lasting damage, but considering the everything, we seem like we’re on a collision course straight to Germany circa the 1930s.

So I’ve been mentally preparing for whatever comes next. I don’t want to believe any amount of Americans would be okay with sending entire people groups to interment camps, but it wouldn’t be the first time, and judging by some of the comments I’ve seen on the internet, there definitely exist folks who’d want us imprisoned or worse.

I’ve written before about the alarming lack of empathy, and I think it’s at play here. Americans are so obsessed with themselves, I think we sometimes forget our humanity. We don’t think about how words affect people, or how our votes are going to affect people — let’s be real, we don’t think about other people at all. We don’t give a fuck about homeless vets or folks with cancer who need a goddamn GoFundMe to afford treatment to live. We happily threw the trans community and immigrants under the bus in the name of cheaper eggs, and that’s fucking heartbreaking.

I don’t think Trump is the problem, but I think he’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. We’ve proven to the nation that kindness doesn’t get you ahead — being manipulative and cunning does. How else would you explain the TikTok fiasco? He set a fire, then acted like a hero for putting it out. And people were stupid enough to fall for it. Now, he’s set himself up as “the champion of free speech” to the younger generation for defending a platform he wanted gone in the first place.

If shit really does hit the fan and we witness the death of democracy, I honestly don’t know what resistance will look like. I hope we are strong, and I hope we have enough brute force if push comes to shove and the other side chooses violence. But more importantly, I hope we keep our sense of altruism and kindness. I think that will be what get us through these dark years ahead. At the risk of sounding like a total hippie, we need more music, more art, more peace, more love.

Another Woodstock would be cool too (just maybe *not* the one they had in the 90s).

I’m disappointed in our country, but I’m hopeful things will turn around eventually. I truly do believe most people are good, if a little ignorant at times. I don’t want to believe half the nation knowingly sold us out for eggs. I don’t want to believe half the nation wants me dead for liking girls. I want to believe we’re better than that. But if shit gets dark, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

Technology Marches On: A Musician’s Perspective on AI

This is going to be a controversial post. So hold onto your butts, dear readers.

A few nights ago, Reddit’s r/chapppellroan community was abuzz, and not in a good way. The red-haired pop songstress invited controversy when she asked her fans to create unhinged AI images of her and her cousin.

Also embracing the millennial finger mustache, which I thought we collectively decided to forget about.

The overwhelming response from her fandom was, well, scathing. A lot of fans were disappointed, to say the least.

And they have reason to be. Artificial intelligence is an ethical landmine. I’m not even talking the environmental impact — remember, training a single bot can produce as much CO2 as five cars do in their lifetime. It already has the potential to put visual artists out of work, and honestly, music isn’t far behind. There are already fully AI songs charting. Being wife to a visual artist and a musician myself, you’d think I’d be as strongly against AI technology as Chappell’s fans. And for a long time, you would have been right.

But I’m not anymore. In fact, I think it can be useful — used correctly.

A good musician friend of mine introduced me to a certain software that utilizes AI to create full, complex songs out of, well, whatever you give it. I was hesitant at first, but one night, I was sitting at work bored to death. On a whim, I decided to flesh out some long-abandoned lyrics I’d written and toyed with the software a little. And I was shocked at how well the software could bring my visions to life. It hit me that I could use this technology to break through writer’s block. After all, according to the software’s terms of service, everything you beep-boop is yours to do whatever you want with. I could flesh out entire demos using AI!

And I can repeatedly listen to my own music *like never before!*

Let me be clear — I don’t support simply releasing what the software spits out. I think it’s disingenuous to put something out into the world and claim it’s yours when all you did was punch a few buttons. But I don’t see an issue with using it to glean ideas and visualize what you actually want to create. It’s the same concept for visual artists. Use AI to generate some poses or brainstorm ideas, but at the end of the day, your art is what you create yourself with your chosen medium.

I know it’s really easy for bad actors to use AI for insidious purposes, and I can’t argue that. Sure, making cute realistic neon owl families with AI is innocent enough, but what about Joe Biden and Donald Trump swordfighting with their penises? We have the technology to make a very convincing image of that…atrocity, and publishing it to social media has the potential to damage real people. For that reason, I think there needs to be significantly more legislation surrounding AI (or people are going to develop some really wild ideas about American politics).

Like people believing this man can *actually* shred.

Still, I don’t think AI is an entirely bad thing. It’s a tool like anything else, and every time a new creative tool comes out, people will declare it the enemy of true art. Painter J. M. W. Turner once said “This is the end of Art. I am glad I have had my day.” This quote was spoken in 1839 and is referring to the daguerreotype. But we still have painters to this day. And now that the technology exists, you can’t put the genie back in the lamp. Like it or not, AI will be a huge part of our future. As the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights succinctly put it:

AI has the potential to help our communities, but if [people] aren’t equipped to successfully enter the future of work, they will not reap the benefits.

In other words, now that it exists, it’s a necessary evil, and folks will have to learn how to interact with it one way or another, lest risk being left behind.

I’m not a believer in black and white thinking. I think there are way too many gray areas in our everyday life, and I think the use of AI is one such gray area. There are many ways to use it ethically, and there are just as many ways to misuse it for sinister purposes. At the end of the day, I don’t think Chappell should be cancelled for wanting to experiment with it.

Let’s be real though, is Chappell even *cancelable?*

Use it or don’t, just be excellent to each other. And for the love of God, do not generate that penis-swordfighting image.

(And if you do, please do not show me, thanks.)

Empathy is Dead

So uh, about that election.

As you could probably infer by the fact that I am a queer woman, I am not thrilled with the results. I feel betrayed by everyone who voted for the Orange Menace, and even more betrayed by the leftists who “protest voted” against Kamala for her stance on Israel. As if Trump isn’t going to level Palestine the first chance he gets. Now, we’re stuck with the consequences. The Supreme Court will be stacked with conservative judges for decades to come, and if Roe v. Wade being overturned is any indication, they’re coming for gay marriage next. It was cool having a wife while it lasted, I guess. Not to mention the fact that I’m probably only going to be able to conceive with my girlfriend, who is trans and saved some of her baby-making material, via IVF. If these clowns come for reproductive rights, I’ll probably never get to be a mom. Which is fucking heartbreaking and I might never get over it.

Those are not the things that scare me most about this election cycle. I think there’s something far more sinister going on.

We have an empathy problem.

I wrote a while back about how humanity is dead, and empathy is close behind. I’ve lost so much faith in humanity beings these past few days. People really don’t care about others. I see so much pain and heartache amongst those who will be most affected by the new regime, and these fucking insensitive maggots are gloating in their faces over it. It’s sick. Literally, I posted about my frustration with the results and the overwhelming response I received on social media was “suck it up, homo.”

And charming replies like this one from the aptly named johnpoophead.

I don’t think we’ll ever be okay again. I’ve lost so much hope. And people left and right are trying to gaslight me into thinking things will be fine, that Trump is the “most pro-LGBTQ president ever” and none of the terrible things I fear happening will come to fruition. I hope they’re right, for my sake. I’d rather hear “I told you so” than “get in the gas chambers.”

The results of this election have proven to society that bullying pays, that people who do things like, well, everything listed here, are acceptable leaders. And if Trump were to drop dead of natural causes tomorrow, none of this would disappear. The hate and ignorance are too strong now. I’ve even heard reports from folks in other countries saying their politics are turning far-right as well. Even if I could flee the country, where could I go? Nowhere is safe anymore.

My heart hurts. I didn’t want to believe people could be this terrible, but here we are. I’ll never trust anyone again, not when there’s a chance they could have voted against my right to have a family of my own. I want to believe humanity is good and that most folks are decent, but then…

It’s going to be a long four years.

Don’t Shame Me For Not Having Kids (When the Reason I Don’t is You)

If there’s one thing JD Vance is known for, it’s having sex with a couch. If there’s a second thing JD Vance is known for, it’s his “childless cat lady” quote. You know, the one where he said this:

“It’s just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

Despite being, among other things, now incorrect (shout out Mayor Pete, who has two children), the quote incited fury from many, including followers of the #1 childless cat lady in the world, Taylor Swift.

I have to admit I felt quite a few emotions at this remark before settling on “wow, what a weird fuckin’ take.” I was angered at first — I don’t want to be defined by my ability to birth children. Women have fought for centuries to be more than incubators for men to use. I’m not going to take Mr. Couch trying to turn back the clocks on feminism laying down. Then, a kind of sadness. I really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things if I never reproduce. I’ll die and be forgotten, and then my existential OCD took over and that’s never a good time for anyone. But then I really thought about it. I do want kids, but I can’t have them. And a lot of my generation feels the same way. And why, you ask?

Because parenthood is a damn near impossible dream as a millennial.

Think about the costs of diapers alone. The vast majority of millennials are living paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford that kind of luxury. Add on things like an extra mouth to feed and clothing and medical bills for even bringing the kid into the world and over 18 years you will have spent $375,000. And trust me, millennials aren’t shirking parenthood because they’re child-hating monsters. Many of us want families, but literally can’t afford it. A survey found that only 25 percent of us want kids, and the biggest reason why a lot of us don’t is because it is too damn expensive.

What Couch Man doesn’t realize is that parenthood isn’t in the cards for a lot of us because of people like him in power. Think of which side is fighting to take away school lunches and rallies against universal health care, which would greatly alleviate the cost of having a child. And Democrats aren’t innocent either, having done little to alleviate things like inflation. Keep in mind, the minimum wage you’d now need to survive (at least where I live) is $19.17, and the Michigan minimum wage is $10.33. Where is Gretchen Whitmer when we need her?

I desperately want children. As I write this, a couple of kids are playing on the beach, innocent and carefree. I hope someday I get to have a few of my own to lovingly raise and teach everything I know to. But the main roadblock to that dream is the fact that I’m barely getting by with my three jobs. Don’t shame me for not having children when that privilege was taken away from me — and from so many of my peers.

Addicted to Outrage: A Rant About Journalism and Social Media (That Needs to Be Said)

Fun fact: I was a journalism major. I have the degree, actually! Did I ever do anything with it? Not particularly, save for a few human interest pieces for local papers. It was a largely useless degree, a $60000 piece of paper. But I know way more than anyone needs to about the news and how it works. And sometimes, just for funsies, I put my journalist hat back on and study the field again. You know, for the lulz.

Which led me to a book on political journalism by notable reporter and former Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi called Hate, Inc.

It goes in depth about the way modern journalism has devolved back into the party press era in recent years, with news outlets turning into cheerleading platforms for their preferred political party. And no small part of this “cheerleading” involves turning Americans against each other, right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal/leftist, red vs. blue. We don’t have a common enemy anymore — the enemy is our Trump-supporting neighbor or the left-leaning lesbians down the street, depending on which news site you’ve sold your soul to.

There is a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with politics.

It’s all sweet, sweet cash.

You see, according to Taibbi, news outlets sell a product. Why else would Fox and MSNBC run commercials? We’re being sold at the expense of peace of mind, constantly being told that the “other side” is out to get us. Outrage is addictive, and it’s good for business. If the news can find a boogieman for us to hate, we’ll be invested, more so than if the news ran stories on all the good stuff happening in the world. Hate is simply more profitable.

Taibbi didn’t go very far into social media, but that’s a factor in this too. Look at statuses like this:

No sane person would write this incoherent dribble. But it presses the right buttons. People who are scared of immigration are going to read this and type “amen” or “nailed it,” and people who support awful things (like other people coming to the US for a better life) will rage-share it. I know, I’m guilty of this too. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on. We are all guilty. And the person who articulated this nonsense will go on to get views and engagement, which, in the social media world, is king. Who cares if any of it actually makes sense?

We need to be more vigilant about what we share and who we share from, because we’re becoming addicted to hate. You experience a little adrenaline rush every time someone says something that pisses you off, and just like watching a scary movie, you get that thrill. Then, you start to feel self-righteous. “I’m better than these people, because these people believe this.” This line of thinking gives you the worst kind of power trip.

Friends, remember that your fellow Americans are just people. Yes, even the ones you disagree with. If we’re going to have a peaceful transition of power this election season, we’re going to need to relearn that as a society. Trans people are not the enemy. Childless cat ladies are not the enemy. Hell, Trumpers aren’t the enemy. The enemy is our hatred, and if we let it fester, we’re in for a terrible time. Just shut off the news and Facebook. You’ll be a better person for it.

The Shot Heard Around the World

I’m sure everyone and their cat knows the news by now.

The most iconic thing to happen to an ear since Mike Tyson.

I’m not a fan of Trump, and at the rate he’s going, I’ll likely never be. He’s done far too much to further marginalize people like me and my friends. He literally made hate great again, after so much progress had been made for women, LBGTQ folks, and people of color. He and his followers have literally tried taking us back to the 1950s in terms of rights and freedoms. I wish nothing but the worst for him in all aspects of life for what he’s done to this country and society as a whole.

That being said, I don’t want him to die.

I consider myself something of a pacifist. I’m not an advocate of violence except in cases of self-defense. Violence only begets more violence, and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of with this recent attempt on Trump’s life. Conservatives are already blaming the left for this attack (despite the shooter being a registered Republican), and they did not need more reasons to dehumanize us. They’ve already been pushing the “groomer” rhetoric in relation to queer folks because framing us as pedos would allow them to hurt us with no remorse. People are more inclined to hurt others when they view them as subhuman, and framing the left as these wildly violent lunatics would put an enormous target on all of our backs.

I tend to think about the saying “live by the sword, die by the sword” in this situation. Trump has been promoting violent rhetoric, so it’s only karmic that political violence is directed toward him. At the same time, I don’t think we should be trying to kill him. We need to show that we’re bigger than that, that we are the party of love and peace. What’s important right now is winning votes while we still have a vote. If we fumble this, we might not have that option soon.

Don’t get me wrong — I will not cry when Trump ultimately kicks the bucket, and I’m not above pissing on his grave when he does. But trying to take his life will not do us any favors. His ideas have grown beyond him like a deadly mold.

I’m not going to lie; I’m terrified for November. I’ve never been so uncertain of my future. I don’t even know if I’ll ever get to have a family. This shooting made already shaky ground even more unstable. The fact that Trump survived allows people to lionize him, and I suspect his followers will become further emboldened. Will my future children even know a free America, or will we fall to fascism? Everything feels so up in the air, and I want to believe we’ll vote this evil out of office for good, but I have a bad feeling things are going to get worse.

American Culture is For Everybody (Not Just the Straights!)

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a hillbilly. My family migrated from the hollers of Kentucky to work in the factories in Michigan, and they brought with them a culture I still really love. I grew up with Sunday family dinners complete with food cooked in literal tubs of lard. (I know because my grandma would keep her empty lard tubs in the garage when I was growing up.) My uncle was a racecar driver, and I have fond memories of going to the local speedway to watch him along with the bus races every September. Trust me, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen ten school buses going full speed in a figure 8. I listened to exclusively country music until I was about seven and discovered Bon Jovi. I remember going muddin’ with my neighbor and fishin’ with my dad as a kid. My wife’s from the bougie suburbs north of Detroit, so when I tell her about these things, she looks at me like I’m speaking Greek. But that culture was a huge part of my childhood.

Fish love me, women fear me, or something like that.

As I write this, I’m getting ready to take aforementioned wife to a racetrack for the first time in her life. It’s for the Fourth of July; they’re going to be lighting off fireworks at the end of the night. It should be a fun night, and I’m excited to show her part of what made my childhood special. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’ll be surrounded by MAGA hats and people who would want us dead if they knew we were together. It’s an unfair assumption to make, especially since racecar driving has been historically very “woke” and NASCAR is actually a pretty vocal ally to this day. Still, I’m not oblivious. I know the kinds of people these events attract, and…

They look like me. They look like my family.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being forced to choose between the culture I grew up in and living as a queer woman. I’m sure I’m not the first person to feel this way, but it’s jarring for sure, especially when you’ve been in straight-passing relationships for most of your life. Suddenly, your very existence is political, and it’s weird and uncomfortable. People who don’t care about you are making laws about you and you have to actually start caring about who gets voted into office. I’m very blessed that my family tends to lean progressive politically, but I still feel like I can’t engage in parts of my family’s culture without feeling “othered.”

I wish we could enjoy these little pieces of American culture without that weird feeling. After all, we’re all Americans, even the people the right-wing media say are not. Remember all the “This is my pride flag!” posts last month flaunting the American flag, as if the two can’t co-exist?

Shared by a “friend” of mine. Need I say more?

Hillbilly culture, and American culture as a whole, shouldn’t be restricted to only straight, cisgender folks. This land is my land, too, and we’re just as American as the flag-flaunting MAGA hat-wearers. (I’d argue we’re more American, as we didn’t try to, ya know, overthrow the government.) Don’t let stupid memes and conservative media convince you otherwise. My culture is mine. My heritage is mine. My country is mine. And I’m done letting people take that from me.

My Strange Addiction: Watching People Suck

Oh hey, a prompt.

How do you waste the most time every day?

I have a confession: I’m fascinated by the worst people. It’s probably detrimental to my mental health, but I often find myself looking in the comments section of absolute cesspools on the internet for hours on end.

In my more naive years, I’d often debate people like this. I’d craft some well-written argument about how yes, trans folks are valid, gay folks should have a right to be with who they please, and black folks should, ya know, exist. This is usually followed by guys with profile pictures that look like a frostbitten toe laugh reacting the post to hell. I’ve since stopped because it’s no use arguing with people who look like this:

Apologies to this man for using him as an example but like, do better bro.

I consider it a matter of knowing my enemy. I want to know what these asshats’ talking points are so I can watch for signs of that shit in everyday conversation. The second someone brings up TERF rhetoric or starts talking about how we need a “straight white pride” month, I know to run in the opposite direction as fast as humanly possible. But also, it’s just kind of fascinating to me. Like, what leads a person to that level of hate? What makes one devolve into posting bullshit like this?

Ahh yes, the worst thing a woman can be, the mother to a biracial child.

It costs zero dollars to not suck. Imagine if people just minded their own business and didn’t brigade random people’s posts because they shared a picture of a queer person having fun? The other day, I had to put one of my own posts on private because it kept getting shared to hate groups. Like, why though? What are people getting out of this? I wasn’t even that mad — haters make me famous and all that — but the notifications were annoying as hell, and I was tired of seeing Greg’s thumb-looking ass popping up on my feed every few minutes.

I guess to me, it’s a reminder of what I fight for everyday. I use my platform on here to humanize the queer experience. I realize a lot of these folks have probably never met someone who isn’t exactly like them. I was similar when I first went off to university. I repeated the whole “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” BS because my high school friends would say it — God knows I’d never admit to being bisexual in front of them. But a funny thing happened when I moved to my college town. I met other queer folks and even came to terms with my own queerness, and I changed. But these people have never left their hometowns. They’re in a white, cishet circle-jerk forever, and it’s actually pretty sad. There’s a lot of beauty in human diversity and the way we connect with one another. We’re just people, and we want to live and love too.

Imagine seeing something this precious and being like “wow, I hope they all die.”

I should probably cut back on my “patrolling” these ugly spaces though. Even reporting doesn’t do any good — the comments never get taken down (thanks, Zucc!). Maybe I should look more toward the beautiful things in life and focus my energies there instead. Even the Bible says so:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

-Philippians 4:8

Hmm, maybe the Good Book is onto something.

Oh, the Humanity! (Or Why Our Society Needs to Break Up With Toxic Individualism)

We have a humanity crisis.

Not a humanitarian crisis, although there are plenty of those happening in the world too.

You see, maybe I’m friends with the wrong people on Facebook, but it seems like almost daily I’m inundated with memes like this one:

Or this one:

None of those good enough for ya? How about one that’s both transphobic and threatens physical violence?

Double the assholery, double the fun, or whatever that gum commercial said.

The funny thing is, most of the people who share these memes will turn around and share DO YOU LOVE JESUS?! TYPE AMEN! types of posts in practically the same click. It would almost be funny if these same people didn’t have so much power. But as we learned with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, these folks can and will take away fundamental freedoms from us. Freedoms. You know, the very thing the right loves to brag about preserving.

I don’t know at what point in history “helping others” and “being a decent fucking human” became a partisan issue, but for some reason, it is. And I blame toxic individualism.

A certain amount of individualism isn’t bad. It’s what enables us to stand out and create new things. Nothing great would be accomplished without someone pushing against the grain. It’s when individualism evolves into “I got mine, so screw you” that it becomes toxic.

It’s why people turn against each other so easily these days. Remember when people didn’t give a shit about being transgender? No one was boycotting Pokémon back in the 90s for having Meowth be voiced by a trans woman. But somehow trans people having more rights takes away rights from cisgender people, and right wing pundits utilized that fearmongering to make trans folks public enemy number one. All because people are afraid of losing their rights to a group that is honestly much worse off than them.

Why are we as a people so dead-set on fucking over other folks? Why do we as a society pit groups of people against each other?

Ayn Rand may be the culprit:

“It’s the same string of arrogant assumptions that spawned the master race theories of Herr Hitler: ego deification, social Darwinism, arbitrary stratification of human types,” this article ponders. “Adapted for capitalism, it becomes the divine right to plunder, a license for those who own nearly everything to take the rest, because they wish to, because they can. Because the weak don’t matter. Let the big dogs feed.”

“Success coaches” like Andrew Tate espouse the same kind of individualistic BS — life’s about making your own money, popping out your own babies, and bowing to that primal urge to get yours before someone else takes it from you. But is that a way to truly be human?

Anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said the earliest sign of human civilization was a healed bone. In the animal kingdom, should a creature break a bone, that would almost certainly spell death for the poor thing. A stronger animal will easily overpower it and claim it as a snack. But someone protected and cared for another person long enough for their injury to heal. The thing that makes us different from animals is our ability to care for one another for unselfish reasons. This is our humanity. This is the very thing these “survival of the fittest” types want to erase.

Call me a bleeding heart librul, but I’d rather pay a little extra in taxes so some kid can get a free lunch or someone’s grandpa can get the cancer treatment he needs. I can learn a few Spanish phrases to make immigrants’ lives a little easier. I’d make small sacrifices like getting used to a friend’s new name or pronouns if it means welcoming in marginalized folks. It honestly isn’t that much of a sacrifice — we honor newlywed women’s name change requests all the time. American right wing politics make no logical sense to me. At some point, it just seems like people are going out of their way to be dicks to folks they don’t even know.

I’m not saying voting blue will change everything overnight. Everyone knows even left-leaning politicians are bought off by companies and individuals with less than wholesome intentions. A revolution isn’t going to magically happen anytime soon. But maybe we can start by not actively being jerks to other people. Maybe we can start by embracing our humanity.

A concept, am I right?

The World is a Scary Place and I’m Kind of Over It

When I was a much younger Jessa, I thought I had a future in journalism. I envisioned myself curled up on a leather sofa in my high-rise apartment in NYC typing up a rough draft for a juicy exposé. It wasn’t exactly my dream life, but it seemed more attainable than, say, going on a world tour as a Taylor Swift-level rock star, and just as cushy. And I was good at journalism. I remember joining the university newspaper on a whim and absolutely wowing the editors with my writing skills. It seemed perfect.

But despite earning my journalism degree, I never pursued news writing any further. Because frankly, it’s depressing as hell.

And I’ve heard Hell is pretty depressing.

I don’t like to read the news. I keep up on it, sure, but I don’t enjoy it. I feel like these days, it’s all bad news, and lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the weight of it all. So many awful things are happening and I feel powerless to change it.

Literally last night, my wife watched this video on how the right is boycotting damn near anything and everything remotely queer. Imagine someone hating you so much, they protest your very existence. And the sad thing is, it’s working. As the YouTuber in the video mentioned, Bud Light’s stock fell drastically after partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. There are enough people out there who hate me and my loved ones to cripple an entire corporation. It’s scary.

And this shit happening in the Middle East is upsetting as hell. The whole Israel vs. Palestine thing? I don’t even know what side I’m on anymore because the more I research it, the more I’m not sure there even are good guys, save for the innocent civilians caught in the crosshairs. Like, I support Jewish folks having a safe place to live away from oppression, especially after everything they’ve been through throughout history, but does it have to be like, right the fuck there? Where people were already living? It’s a messed up situation all around, and I wish there was an easy answer.

And then there’s the mundane dystopian shit happening here in the US. There’s a whole fucking subreddit dedicated to inspiring stories of medical debt and the perils of capitalism. A teenager sacrificed her college fund to avoid homelessness. People have to ration their fucking medications. There are plenty more stories out there of horrible situations rebranded as inspiring that highlight just how messed up our society has become. Like, I’d call our healthcare system a joke, but it stopped being funny a long time ago. It’s damn near predatory. I shouldn’t be one happy accident away from ending up on the streets. No one should. And yet…

I hate it here. “Here,” as in Earth. “Here,” as in “being a part of humanity.” I want to believe people are generally good, but the greed and the prejudice and the violence is leading me to feel otherwise. I’d like to believe it’s not human beings, but power that’s the problem. None of these atrocities would happen if not for the people in power. Everyday folks like you and me, we’re not the problem, but we still sit idly by and let these people do rotten, despicable things to us and our fellow man. And it’s fucked up because what can you do? I feel helpless.

I guess that’s part of the reason I write this blog, to feel some semblance of control in this bleak world. I hope my words reach people. I want us to fight for peace, for housing and food and healthcare for all, for a better future for us human creatures. We’re all in this together, and I hate seeing how divided and polarized we’ve become. I feel weary, but I have hope that things will get better in my lifetime.

Maybe I’m too optimistic for my own good.