We’re through the looking glass, people!
At least according to one ever-so-slightly paranoid Reddit MGTOW, posting in the MGTOW 2.0 subreddit (a supposedly smarter spinoff from the original r/MGTOW), who is convinced that the COVID pandemic is turning men worldwide into pathetic, woman-worshipping simps.
“Is it just me,” asks Alpha9302, “or does the ‘pandemic’ massively increased [sic] the simping done by men globally?”
Consider his, er, evidence.
I got a feeling that simping is starting to be a new standard of interactions between men and women, especially online. And in combination with the rise of onlyfans accounts, continued isolation and a lack of human contact, I fear for a change in society where the genuine attention and contributions from men will no longer have any value and women on a large scale will use men like toys in a toy store and dispose of us when we are no longer needed and go to the next one. Instead of appreciating us for who we are and what we can give and show their respect. Like now it feels like massive hypergamy. This is just how I felt online before I deleted several social media apps recently.
And he thinks the Chinese have their fingerprints all over this pandemic, which is also (in his view) totally fake. Responding to a commenter who took issue with him using the word “pandemic” at all, Alpha9302 declared,
The only reason that I used the word ‘pandemic’ instead of something like ‘plandemic’ is because I was afraid Reddit would flag it as inappropriate or because it may have attracted some negative attention in this group. I actually don’t believe in the common narrative that the mainstream media is trying to make us believe. Its utter nonsense. Its very clear that China uses COVID-19 as a tool to gain more control over the west with the goal to become the most powerful country in the world in terms of resources and economically. Many parties are involved.
Onlyfans, hypergamy, the Chinese government — this conspiracy theory has it all.
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Totally O/T; but I now some people here like corvids; and this just popped up.
(That’s Tippi Hedron with, I think, the screenplay for The Birds; which is pretty cool.)
@ lollypop
I don’t know if this is of any interest to you?
@Elaine
I’ll admit then I find survival quite intimidating too and IDK if I can deal with both that and gender issues at the same time. I find it vaguely interesting and something necessary considering my situation.
The housing cooperative I’m thinking of moving to may grant me opportunities to learn new stuff so I’m less concerned in the long term about filling up my spare time (or will be, I hope) but right now, before that can even take place, which is taking forever, I’m mainly concerned about not having much things to do to enjoy my spare time on.
@Surplus
The anti-Semitism will creep in eventually because they assume all the “forced diversity” and sexual liberalism is a Jewish plot to destroy the white race.
@Alan, Bookworm
Oh wow, I haven’t thought of Herriot in ages. Loved those books when I was a kid.
Seconding Dalilama and Bookworm! And Alan, too!
Herriot books were some of my faves as a kidlet. And yes, paws can make typing a challenge.
Alan, this:
made my day! It’s nice to know my childhood dreams are based at least somewhat on reality. ?
@ Lollypop, is there a local pottery studio that would be willing to fire your work for you? Or is it more that due to covid that option is not open?
@ bookworm in hijab
I think I’ve mentioned before here about when I flew back to Yorkshire for a friend’s birthday party. In the pub I mentioned to a guy that I really liked his steampunk outfit and he replied “What’s steampunk?” He just worked in the local engineering place.
As for Herriot, thanks to those blooming animal rights fanatics, you can’t even stick your hand up a cow’s backside any more.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/aug/25/fake-moos-why-artificial-cow-bottoms-are-essential-to-the-new-all-creatures-great-and-small
Speaking of books, children’s author Beverly Cleary has died at age 104:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2021/03/26/beverly-cleary-beloved-childrens-book-author-ramona-quimby-dies-104/2057067002/
Been ages since I’ve read her stuff, but I recall liking them when I did.
Oh, they are. There’s a few places even now where life’s pretty much like that still. 🙂
@Redsilk Phoenix, Intergalactic Vixen, Jet Pack Meani:
Beverly Clearly! That’s a name I haven’t heard in more than 40 years. I enjoyed her books, too, tho I can’t remember much about them, other than being able to relate to them. They were somewhat dated, even when I read them as a child during the 1970s.
Every so often, I do reread certain favorite childhood books, among them ‘Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH’ and ‘The Wolves of Willowbhy Chase’.
I’m glad to say that Tippi Hedren is still alive, despite that bird trying to give her lung cancer (really playing the long game there). I had such a crush on her when I was a kid.
There’s a children’s book about the National Institute of Mental Health having a rodent infestation?!
@Surplus to Requirements: In case you’re not joking, the book involves rats which were experimented on (at NIMH) to try to increase their intelligence. It worked, and they escaped as a result. That’s the backstory, not the plot. I wouldn’t recommend it for younger kids, though.
@Surplus to Requirements:. Yup?. When I reread the book as an adult, I found it amusing to be rooting for rodents.
The book has some amusing lines in it, like “It was a good life, there in the sewers” and about the saying ‘rat race’ – “No, this was a People Race, and no rat would be foolish enough to engage in it.”
I was probably about 10 years old, when I read it for the first time, like about a zillion other kids.
Does anyone know if it became popular, outside of the US?
I never heard of the book, but the animated film was shown on Finnish TV when I was about 10. I thought it was somewhat scary and confusing.
@Lumipuna: When the animated movie came out, I took some little kids I was babysitting to see it. They were frightened by some scenes…they didn’t like the close-ups of the owl’s eyes, for example.
It wasn’t a very good movie. I’ve heard that it was one of the last animated films made in the ‘old’ way, meaning the pre-cyber way.
@Dormousing_it,
Folks might know it better as the Don Bluth movie The Secret of NIMH, which was based (loosely) on that book.
A quick Google search tells me that author Robert C O’Brien’s daughter, Jane Leslie Conly, wrote two sequels to Mrs. Brisby, Racso and the Rats of NIMH, and R-T, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH. How good those books are, I have no clue, since I have yet to see them anyplace, let alone read them. (I have no reason to haunt the kids book sections anymore, for better or worse.)
@Redsilkphoenix:. Those books O’Brien’s daughter wrote aren’t very good. Yes, I’ve read them, as a fully formed adult?.
@Dormousing_it,
Would child-dormouse have enjoyed them, though? 😛
That’s a problem I’ve noticed with adults (re)reading kids books, unfortunately. What made perfect sense in those books when read by a kid, are oftentimes found to have waaay too many plotholes when read by an adult. 🙁
There’s an older children’s book series (the the Cat Club/Jenny Linksy series by Esther Averill, if anyone’s curious) that I finally remembered enough of to track it down, but I’m half scared to reread them again because I don’t want to spoil my past enjoyment of them, given they originally ran from 1944-72 and likely contain elements that adult me would be cringeworthy. Then again, maybe adult me will find them just as fun as small me did so many years ago. I’ll likely decide once I see how much is left of my stimulus check after I fix my car and pay off a bill or two.
@ Redsilkphoenix,
One book that has withstood the test of time, as far as I’m concerned, is The Neverending Story. I read it first when I was about 7 or 8 (I saw the movie first which is how I learned it was a book), but I still love it as an adult. Watership Down, ditto, though I’m not sure I’d classify that one as a kid’s book really.
@Bookworm in hijab,
I’m more familiar with The Neverending Story through the write ups Starlog Magazine (anyone remember them?) did on the movie. If it made its way to a theater near where I lived, I wouldn’t have been able to go to it, because my parents didn’t see the point of paying to see things on the big screen when anything up there would eventually be shown on broadcast TV anyway for free. Why waste money, ya know?
As for Watership Down, maybe if the kids in question were teens in the 12+ age range. Some of the themes and story beats are a little too dark for anyone younger than that, in my opinion. Though I have seen a certain subset of adult readers who can’t enjoy that book without turning it into a political allegory about the Cold War, and seeing nothing else worthwhile to read into it. It’s like they’re so embarrassed to be enjoying a fantasy book starring some rabbits that they have to inject heavyhanded political allegory into it before they can say they like it. Or something like that, anyway.
I run into the “loved it as a kid, but it did not hold up” problem a lot. It is very strange to find that two things that I loved equally as a child vary greatly in quality when viewed as an adult.
@ Redsilkphoenix,
Whaaaaaaat??? Wow, I literally never saw that! I just love it because it’s basically a Rabbits’ Lord of the Rings. All the awesome legends, etc.
Now I’m going to go read it again to see if I can spot anything that makes me think it’s Cold War allegory.
@Redsilkjetphoenix:
As for Watership Down, maybe if the kids in question were teens in the 12+ age range. Some of the themes and story beats are a little too dark for anyone younger than that, in my opinion.
One of the unhappy truths of life is that things too dark for children go right ahead and happen to children anyway, and they ought to have the opportunity to learn about the scary possibilities of existence in an age-appropriate context and at a suitable remove.
Though I have seen a certain subset of adult readers who can’t enjoy that book without turning it into a political allegory about the Cold War, and seeing nothing else worthwhile to read into it. It’s like they’re so embarrassed to be enjoying a fantasy book starring some rabbits that they have to inject heavyhanded political allegory into it before they can say they like it. Or something like that, anyway.
And then refine out a significant element of the fantasy while they’re at it—which was one of the things that honked me off about the Netflix adaptation: we were always coming in right at either the beginning (and then the main story would interrupt) or the end of an Ela-hrairah myth. It’s as if there were some weird censorial taboo against portraying rabbit mythology—or some aversion to allowing it to detract from their zoom-and-pan action movie (the shape that epic screen fantasy is required to take these days.)
And the whole “Dignity and Animality” soapbox derails the lapocentric perspective of the novel: Humans Are Bastards is still human exceptionalism (and implicitly lumps rabbits in common cause with cats and dogs and owls and Frith knows what.) To Adams rabbits, we’re simply the most powerful and unfathomable of the Thousand.
@Bookworm in hijab:
Whaaaaaaat??? Wow, I literally never saw that! I just love it because it’s basically a Rabbits’ Lord of the Rings. All the awesome legends, etc.
Then you’ll want to read the novel—which your nom de net suggests won’t be a terribly odious undertaking. The 1978 animated feature is a truer adaptation than the current Netflix series.