Trying to be better. Looking at how to pick apart kyriarchy. Intersectionality = win. Same handle on the Bird Hellsite (old Hellsite posts at @archivingally.bsky.social). He/him/his.
Do not overlook the fact that some stuff is still expensive but worse now. If you don't know if the expensive thing will be any good you are going to buy the cheap thing.
Max Dubler 🏳️🌈I think my most genuinely unpopular take is that a widely held and genuine consumer preference for cheaper, lower-quality goods, not private equity, is driving the decline in quality of consumer goods like clothing and housewares.
TV was better in that brief period when you could ditch cable and stream a variety of platforms with no ads for less than the cost of cable. It lasted, what, five years?
BrendelIt’s hard to explain but tv was better when you couldn’t watch the show you wanted whenever you wanted to watch it and most of the shows were worse and the TVs were worse and the entire experience was worse, that’s when it was better
It's not a coincidence that everyone still whining, in the year of our lord 2026, about covid lockdowns are all people who should be forcibly locked in their homes with all the doors and windows bolted shut from the outside while the rest of us just quietly forget that they ever existed at all
Games are better? Listen, we used to have to ship gold masters that went to physical media- no day one patches. Tech is getting worse and you are told it is better
Less jack ports. Cables that must be "official'. Warranties that are in months, not years. EULAs that change constantly, regardless of if you want the terms of your contract changed. Technology these days is poisoned, and badly designed and disposable and you MUST not forget this.
...is technically more sophisticated. But faster charging battery technology is useless if you cannot replace said battery, and the device has, essentiallt, a kill switch when they want to sell you a new one.
I never wanted to be a "in my day things were better" old lady... but I need to categorically state that technology actually WAS better. You are currently in the peak of designed obsolence, enshittification, personal intrusion and forced acceptance by lack of choice. Sure, the underlying tech...
The Covid lockdowns revealed so much. Punjabis could see the Himalayas. Angelinos could have clear skies. Beijing residents could breathe. An SF study showed birds changing tune. The white crowned sparrow doubled its songs' reach & sang at a lower pitch (had been higher to beat traffic noise).
And the fact that so many jobs is disabled folk had been told were impossible to do remotely were suddenly up and running remotely within a few weeks.
I think it also revealed just how quickly a bunch of otherwise very hard problems can be to solve with global collective action. The fuckin Ganga was running clear water for the only time in my lifetime because for 2 weeks nobody threw garbage in it. The canals in Venice had fish.
Dave AndressCovid lockdowns demonstrated, in a deeply imperfect way, the possibility of large-scale social solidarity for a higher cause. That is a prime reason why so many powerful people want us to run screaming away from them into the comforting arms of selfish individualist competition.
It's hard to articulate the change in the trans community over the last few years. Before it was like "Man, this is hard, there's so much ignorance out there, but we're making it work, we're making it better, it won't be like this forever. Now it's like "Oh, they want us dead."
It continues to fuck me up that we stay thinking about 9/11 but want to memory hole Covid so bad we're destroying the entire concept of public health in the US.
I find myself watching the same 4 things because I have access to too much. It's overwhelming. The ability to watch whatever I want whenever is a technological marvel, indeed, and it would blow 10 year old me's mind but that shit was a monkeys paw
BrendelIt’s hard to explain but tv was better when you couldn’t watch the show you wanted whenever you wanted to watch it and most of the shows were worse and the TVs were worse and the entire experience was worse, that’s when it was better
My pet theory is that part of the resistance to giving up Harry Potter is it’s the last true monoculture.
Owl's Eyes TyMonoculture sucked but also monoculture was a shared language.
Also I'm not sure if I were a Republican firebrand I would be going with the new catchphrase "Little girls belong!" in 2026.
I hate how I get mildly jumpscare by people born in 1988 who incorporate the year they were born into their email. JaneDoe88@email.com really hits different these days
chat they made something in real life that i swear to god would be a shitpost i could have come up with almost a decade ago and i need people to mail me packs immediately as little gifts. do you know how badly i need 1993 Daphne on a trading card with her lil choker and flower skirt
The polarization isn't coming from social media. The polarization is coming from the fact that half of the politicians and 36% of the voters openly support ethnic cleansing policies, and 64% of the voters do not support ethnic cleansing. Normal people don't want to be civil with ethnic cleansers.
the only thing to be said about covid lockdowns is that it revealed the startling number of people who feel entitled to the benefits of a social contract that they also do not feel bound by