Yeah. It’s a thing but I’m not sure how much it really helps. I’ll do it because if it makes people feel better, it’s easy, but I honestly think folks is fine. The person I do this for specificly is cis, has cis kids, has a cis husband, is a member of a community that is largely not only cis, but white and female. To me it comes across as preformitve. But it makes dealing with her, and a few others, easier. If there were a real movement to adopt folx, I’m in but like I say, it seems like our effort could be better spent elsewhere.
This is the case. Check out the old Re:Search zines/books. Each is about some wired niche thing and has a bunch of contributions from different people. Folx have always been into strange things, and folx have always found kindred spirits, the internet makes it easier to find, abd troll, them.
Yeah. It’s funny, my cousin is a few years younger than me but has no memory of the world pre-net. I told him the story of how we used to have to do things and it blew his mind.
Ex. Cowboy Bebop. Me and a buddy heard a thing on Terry Gross about the soundtrack one day driving home from work. They played a few seconds of Tank! Man, we were hooked instantly. So we changed directions and went to, where? Where do you go? Blockbuster? FYE? Game store? Comicbook store! They’ll have it! So we went to every comic shop in the area (we knew them all because we would get MtG cards every payday). A couple had a DVD or two. How many episodes were there? How many seasons? How long would our search take? It was a treasure hunt. Calling game stores, calling small video stores. Finding one DVD at a time but not in order. It was like that for everything. And honestly, I think it gave things a greater value.
I love being able to answer almost any question instantly. When I’m listening to an audiobook, if there’s a word I’m not sure of, I can pause, get a definition, and go back to my book without even looking at my screen or touching my phone. But there’s deff a sense of flippancy to everything now that wasn’t there before. Bad or good, I don’t know, it is what it is. But I do miss the hunt for new stuff.
What’s crazy is that a lot of niche hobby/lifestyle people found eachother anyway pre-internet. Shopping cart drag races, downhill shovel events, a lot of counter culture movements, early body modification, all manner of shit. People get into some seriously wierd/niche/one-off stuff and given a little time, they’ll find someone else that’s into the same thing. It’s like electrons in a post big-bang universe, they sort of attract each other. The internet has made it way easier for people to find their tribes, but they used to find them anyway.
I bet she wrote really shitty poetry in middle school about the darkness under the bed being defeted by the light from under her door and being really adamant that everyone would love it if they’d just read it.
All the quotes make these chucklefucks sound like 4th graders. "And the he did this and then he said this and then he said that and then I seen him do that and then he done this… "