why are straight white guys so obsessed with world war 2
like i’ll talk about my interest in history and i’ll have guys be like “yeah i’m a history buff too i love world war 1 and 2″ like cool i was talking about ancient history. like the conversation was literally about ancient egypt.
my fave thing is replying “oh, cool. i just can’t get into it. i like everyday life and religion and art. personally, i find war boring.” and let me tell you it’s a journey to watch them try and understand that killing thousands of people indiscriminately doesn’t hold my attention.
yup it’s always the “oh you’re just not into history” and the response of “yes i am im just into ancient history” and you’re ready to throw 38 greek myths at them just to shut them up about the kinds of bombers the britsh were using in the second world war
except like. they really dont give a single fuck about wwi/ii. they care about the weapons and machinery. do they care about the events and the people? do they care about why wars were actually important? in my experience, very, very rarely.
I think that gets to heart of it: they’re not history buffs in any real sense. What they are is war fanboys. They collect and curate technical information about wars just like any other fanboy collects and curates technical information about the subject of their fandom. It’s basically not real to them; knowing what exact metal the buttons of SS uniforms were made of is of no greater significance to them than knowing the exact height of the captain’s chair on the starship Enterprise – it’s just another shiny technical fact for their collection.
As somebody who is actually very interested in the social history surrounding both WWI and WWII, but couldn’t give two shits about uniform buttons and bomber construction, this is pretty accurate. These guys will say they’re interested in history but know practically nothing about how WWI altered the course of psychology and perceptions of PTSD/mental health, or about how African American civil rights activists spearheaded the Double V Campaign to combat fascism and bigotry both abroad and on the home front, calling out how non-Black Americans were supposedly standing for freedom and liberty whilst still imposing segregation back in the United States, etc.
The social history of wars in the 20th century is fascinating, but that’s not what these guys care about. As @prokopetz says, they’re not interested in history, they’re military fanboys.
i am sitting on the couch, i hear tapping on the door behind me, i turn around and see this
what do i do
he is here….
i still lose it every time i see this post because someone let a fucking goose into their house just because tumblr said to and if that doesn’t perfectly define all of our experiences on this shitty excuse for a website i dont know what does
This is a fundraiser for myself, Kit Mead, and Sabrina @strangerdarkerbetter. I designed the text and shirt concept, and it features Sabrina’s Autisticat!
Me, Kit: I’m an Autistic, genderqueer and chronically ill disability rights activist with mental health disabilities. I have been involved in numerous disability organizations and projects since 2013. Recently, my financial situation has taken a downturn due to chronic and mental health issues affecting work hours, and DC area rent. I found a cheaper place, but in the meantime, this fundraiser!
Sabrina is an Autistic/neurodivergent, genderqueer, chronically ill blogger. They blog about “neurodivergence and chronic illness interspersed with feminism and fandoms.” In 2017, they came up with a design for “Autisticat,” a black cat with a neurodiversity symbol bow/collar, as a mascot for the autistic community. Sabrina’s also hit some rough times.
It’s $20.35 on Bonfire(sorry for the price, but I think the graphic of Autisticat made the cost of production go up). We have to sell 11 shirts for them to ship, but our first goal is 24 shirts. Please spread the word that cats are Autisticats with this shirt!
[Image description for shirts: Text reads “I am an autistic person. My cat is an AUTISTICAT.” Between the text “My cat is an…” and “AUTISTICAT” is an image of a small black cat with a rainbow neurodiversity infinity symbol for a collar.]
You know what’s really fucked up, think about how many poor people with eating disorders or problems with food
How many poor mothers skip meals to feed their children
How many poor children only eat one mea a day (like free lunch at school)
How many poor teens and young adults just don’t make enough to eat and start internalizing that they’re unworthy of food
How many poor people do you know who can’t afford healthier food
How many poor people don’t have enough time/money/gas/ability to cook fresh meal
How many poor people do you see starving on their breaks their lunches just to save food
Capitalism creates these problems and i have never seen a post on here talking about how we struggle with eating disorders and food insecurity under capitalism.
Yeah p much.
The two biggest factors contributing to my eating disorder were an incredibly low self esteem and the fact that I was broke as hell. Not eating for days on end became a habit, and then, when I could afford to eat, I’d binge my sorry heart out.
It calmed down for a bit when I had a few months of financial stability, I still binged but it wasn’t nearly as bad. But when I became broke again? Lo and behold, the disordered eating returns in full force. It’s getting a bit better now that I’m not homeless anymore but yeah, the money guilt is still pretty strong whenever I eat and it’ll probably be that way for a good long while.
My eating disorder was also very closely connected to my bad financial situation. Constantly feeling out of control about my financial situation meant that I tried to re-establish my sense of control by spending less and less on food. Counting cents in the exact same way that I was counting calories.
“So I ate 700 calories and spend 2.15 today? I bet I can push that to 500 calories and 1.80 tomorrow.”
And the re-enforcement from society was also double. I was being praised for being skinny AND praised for being so disciplined about money. I thought I was doing good because I was starving myself.
I wish I’d realized that my desire to have
perfect control over my weight and my desire to have perfect control
over my money were the same thing.
That society pushing me to be skinny and making me attach my selfworth to my weight was the same thing as society pushing me to be the most financially responsible person ever because if I was in debt I was a bad person, right? That I was counting calories and
counting cents to the point of self destruction and those two impulses
were the same thing. And I deserved help for both.
None of the high school videos about eating disorders warned me about this.
I did recover from my eating disorder without recovering from my compulsive non-spending-money, and ended up eating mostly bad food but enough calories.So it’s not like it was a 2 headed monster that I had to slay
together. But recovering from both would have helped. Every time I was
short on money, relapsing by cutting spending on food was tempting.
By now I know that a lot of other people have these same experiences or very similar ones, like compulsively spending too much money on high-calorie food to suppress financial anxiety and weight anxiety and then feeling shitty about themselves and comulsively spending again. Or cycles of binge-starve-binge-starve combining with ‘buy fancy stuff’-’don’t call the plumber it costs money’-’buy fancy stuff’-’don’t pay my health care bills’-’buy fancy stuff’.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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