Welcome to my Current Thoughts, Where Some Things are Made Up and the Points Matter a Lot to Me

Things that are made up:

1. Language
2. Gender and gendered preconceptions
3. Money
4. idk, Trump, probably

Things that are not made up:

1. Science
2. Mental illness
3. Global warming and climate change
4. My hatred for selfish politicians and corporations

On things that are made up 

(1) It should be obvious that language is made up, given that it is constantly changing, and there are thousands of languages still spoken on this Earth. In fact, children constantly make up their own language between their siblings. Some people still try to impose strict rules on their language, however, potentially out of a fear of change. My suggestion is to just chillax and be fascinated by its evolution. As long as the idea is communicated accurately, then the language has done its job.

(2) So sex is a real thing, though it exists in a way that you probably don't fully realize (that is, it's not as binary as you think). Gender, however, is another thing made up--much the same way language is made up. The fact that other cultures have words and terms and concepts for some genders that you don't should clue you in to the fact that gender is a culture construct. The example that comes to mind is the concept of Two Spirit (I am no authority, so I'll just let you Google that). This doesn't mean that gender identity is made up--a person's identity is real and should be respected. It just means that you should stop policing how other people feel about themselves.

(3) Money exists because we all agreed that it's worth something. In reality, the little paper dollar isn't worth anything, but the government and societal structure in place make the numbers printed on it mean something. Hell, most of our money isn't even in a tangible form right now, but are just little numbers on a screen. Money is yet another societal construct. It ain't real.

(4) Ha ha, funny joke!

On things that are not made up

(1) If you don't believe in science, I don't know what to tell you. This isn't to say you should blindly accept everything the newspaper or a blog post tells you about the sciences--you need to understand what a reputable source is and how to recognize it, not to mention that our understanding of science changes every day. Scientists are human, so sometimes they make mistakes, and sometimes they discover something that changes what we previously found and assumed.

(2) Mental illness's existence is indisputable by science. Depression alone affects more than 6.7% of Americans each year. And yet there are still people who think you just need to struggle through it and "get up anyway." Just remember, if you wouldn't say it to someone suffering from the flu or from cancer, don't say it to someone suffering from a mental illness.

(3) Global warming is also indisputable by science. We need to be doing more to lower our impact on the environment and to promote healing the mess we've made. Seasons are changing, weather is changing, Earth is changing. And we're directly responsible. We have been for years. Those sciences studying the real science? They've been telling us this for decades.

When I burst into tears in front of my parents because I couldn't stop thinking about how much damage we were doing to the Earth, and how the human race was killing themselves and all the other species on this planet, and how I might live to see the decline of nature and there was nothing I (but a single powerless person) could do, my father asked me what I would do about it. And then he told me that those changes would have to make economic sense in order to be implemented.

One thing that makes economic sense includes growing hemp, so then we stop growing so much cotton and stop the mass deforestation in order to make clothes and paper. Hemp can make both those things and has a much shorter maturation period than trees. Like, measurable in days and months. We used to make paper out of animal skin--it's time to change how we make it again.

Another thing that could make sense if we just provided a little incentive is to move further and more quickly away from using oil and coal. No matter how massive the source, it's finite, and its refuse taints our skies and earth and water. There will always be sun and wind, and we can probably make something better out of plants if we just focused. It's only makes economic sense to keep using oil and coal because that's what we're used to. But that's also why we have a government. So that we can implement necessary changes and provide artificial incentive so that the economic sense shifts to a greener source.

(4) But most of all, money is fucking fake, and politicians and corporations need to get off their selfish asses and think about how their actions affect the environment. It is irresponsible and misguided to put the onus of climate change on the common people. Sure, the people should recycle, conserve energy, carpool or take public transportation when possible, and cut back on meat consumption.

But it is nothing to the scale of what corporations are capable of. The corporations are stagnating us and doing us and the Earth harm. And you know what? I think they fear change, much like the people who try to enforce rules on language. They're set in their ways, sitting on their money. They don't want to lose their jobs or their companies. Sure, that's understandable. But when that translates into lobbying against hemp, green energy sources and other solutions, or when it translates to flat out denying climate change or diminishing its seriousness, that's when selfishness needs to be put aside. Time to get a new job.

So if any politicians or corporate leaders happen to read my blog post, get off your butts. Global warming isn't going to hinge on whether or not little Timmy recycles his milk carton at lunch. It hinges on you pulling your heads out of your asses and changing how you operate. Think about your impact. And if you're not one of those people mentioned, then at least donate to green charities. The onus shouldn't be on you, but it still helps.

The green we live on is more important than the green in our pockets.

On "Talented" as a Compliment

Here is a picture I drew very recently, on 8/29/2017. (Okay, technically it was 8/30 because I finished the picture at 1:00 AM, but let's not talk about those particular semantics.)

Pretty nice, right? You might call me talented. You might mean that as praise.

Now here's a picture I drew when I was much, much younger. I'm talking middle school. I'm talking around 7th grade, when I first got into Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. I'm talking my talented little adolescent hands picking up a pencil about ten to twelve years ago.

Personally, I'm fond of the screaming girl in the corner.

But does that look like talent to you? Probably not. You'd probably smile and tell me I did a good job. If you yourself were more artistically inclined, you might give me a tip or two, pack me a lunch and a How to Draw book and send me on my way.

I am no stranger to art. Mom signed me up for a bunch of traditional art classes in my youth, where I drew a lot of pastel animals and landscapes, as well as a couple non-pastel animals. When I started getting into anime and cartoons, one of my teachers gave me one of those How to Draw Anime books. You know the kind. One of the early ones by American artists that people all make fun of nowadays for being bad art because they were some of the first of their kind in the American markets. But it started me on my way.

This is not "talent." None of it is. One could argue that having "an eye for it" is talent, but I can tell you with confidence that my 7th grade eye thought that pencil drawing was absolutely good. Maybe someone else has a good eye for color, for arrangement, for whatever you think goes into art. I'm about to blow your mind, though. None of that matters.

The eye can be trained. Even someone with a knack for proportion can't pick up the pencil and draw like Da Vinci without tutelage or hard work. Art is a skill. Whatever your art is--drawing, painting, sculpting, dancing, writing, poetry, music, cake decorating--all of that is skill. Skills are learned, and skills are hard work. To boil it down to talent is to boil down years of dedication to learning a craft into an innate ability. It's like saying a wizard popped out of a womb casting magic missile into the darkness. It's like saying Robin Hood was born with a bow in his hand splitting arrows down the middle. It's like saying George R. R. Martin never wrote a ton of shitty short stories in college before writing A Song of Ice and Fire (more commonly known now as Game of Thrones)

Worst of all, calling it talent implies that if you're not automatically good at it, you never will be. So you get people who are 18, 23, 42 years old and always admired art, always said "All I can draw is a stick figure!" They really believe that they will never be able to make art. This is inherently and 100% not true. No one got to their skill level without dedication and hard work and a little support from family and friends and teachers. Granted, if you start later, you'll probably have to unlearn more things than someone who had started earlier. But it's never too late to train a skill.

After all, as YouTuber and artist Arin Hanson once said, [foul language warning] "You think I came out of the pussy drawing Mozart?"

3/10 eliminate "talented" from your praise vocabulary

Top 5 Misunderstood Songs/Lyrics

As a consumer of all sorts of media, I consume a lot of media. Like any normal person, I like to listen to music, and once you listen to a song enough times, you eventually start paying attention to its lyrics.

Before we get started, though, I'd like to give a big shout out to one of my besties, Liz. She recently restarted her own blog, and if you like my humor, then there is a good chance you'll like her. So check her out!

And with that promo out of the way, let's get started!

5. "Closer" by the Chainsmokers ft. Halsey

So baby pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover
That I know you can't afford
Bite that tattoo on your shoulder
Pull the sheets right off the corner
Of the mattress that you stole
From your roommate back in Boulder
We ain't ever getting older

Sounds pretty romantic, right? Wrong. The entire song is about "rekindling" a "lost romance," but the singers in the song are refusing to acknowledge why they ended their past relationship in the first place. They're trading learning from their mistakes for a hot fling in the back of his shitty car. This was a relationship that ended for a reason--one that we're not privy to, because the narrators "forget."

The line "We ain't ever getting older" at first sounds like the immortality of love, the feeling of indestructibility when young and reckless. But I think it actually refers to the phrase getting "older and wiser." Since they cannot learn from their mistakes, they're not getting "older."

The relationship in "Closer" is that relationship your two friends has when they date on and off constantly, sometimes for years. They'll break up in fantastic ways, then later they'll be back together. Rinse, repeat.

4/10 good but not good enough to be overplayed so much

4. "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M.

There's nothing here to really explain away. No one really knows what's going on in this song. I do know that the series of "L.B." names dropped in one verse came from a dream the lead singer had about being surrounded by celebrities sharing initials. But that's hardly a misunderstood lyric. I just wanted to share it.

Pair it with the Barenaked Ladies' "Odds Are" for an exceptional combination of flavors about smiling in the face of a changing world.

8/10 A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies

3. "Go Buffalo" by Like Swimming

Just go ahead and listen to the whole song. I'll wait.

Look up the lyrics if you didn't catch them the first time.

I had downloaded this song for free from Amazon Prime when Amazon Prime still allowed weekly downloads of free songs. I listened to it for probably months, not paying close attention to the lyrics and instead being swept up by its poppy rhythm. It was "Semi-Charmed Life" all over again when I decided to actually listen to the lyrics.

This is the kind of song that you share with your two friends as you carpool from Ohio to Florida, in between all the cow-spotting and horse-spotting and cow-shaped-bush-spotting. And maybe, just maybe, it's the kind of song that the three of you love so much that you play it several times and call yourselves the Buffalo Herd, much to the confusion of the other friends you meet up with in Florida.

Is the song about coaxing a scaredy cat to just confess infatuation to a subject, perhaps even gearing up for a first kiss? Or is it about something more... sinister? The world may never know. It remains, however, a total bop.

10/10 what an oddly specific story

2. "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Don't go 'round tonight

It's bound to take your life

There's a bad moon on the rise

This song is a lie? It sounds like it's telling you there's a bathroom on the right. There is no bathroom on the right. There is only moon.

0/10 therrrrre's a bathroom on the right~

1. The entire Of Monsters and Men discography

I never have any idea what they're saying. It's very poetic, though. So you can interpret it how you like, or just find peace in not understanding.

10/10 cover your crystal eyes

What's RTX? Why Does the Rooster Have Teeth?

This summer, I took three vacation days to travel to Austin, Texas. I flew in alone on July 6th, 2017 and flew home the following Monday on July 10th. To get there and back, I drove from my apartment in Wisconsin, spent the night at my parents' house in a Chicago suburb, taxied to Midway airport, flew to Texas, took a Lyft to the hotel, then reversed all that to get back to Wisconsin.

Did I mention I traveled alone? My poor mother--her only daughter, aged 23, went all the way across the latitudinal distance of America to attend the Rooster Teeth Expo alone.

But here's the thing: I didn't feel like I was traveling alone. Not really. When I was in Austin, I never felt lonely, never felt disconnected from the people I was with and around. And, in the airport waiting for my return flight, I hung out with half a dozen other young people who had also traveled more-or-less alone to the same thing. New friends, I call them.

Friends make waiting at the airport fun!

I was careful, of course. I kept an eye on my wallet. I sent texts and picture updates to my parents throughout the weekend, sent continuous snapchats to my friends, and occasionally posted on Facebook. I wasn't stupid (well, beyond deciding to travel alone in the first place). And if you're considering going to RTX for the first time, I definitely recommend finding at least one other travel partner. This was my second visit, and so I knew what to expect.

To explain all these feelings, and why I felt comfortable traveling to the Rooster Teeth Expo (RTX) alone, I need to provide context. Context I couldn't figure out how to give my awesome and very anxious mother at the time. (Sorry Mom)

First, Rooster Teeth (RT, for short. Not to be confused with "retweet" or news journal "Russia Today."). Rooster Teeth is an online video production company. No, it doesn't make porn. It's hard to describe what RT does, because they do so much. They've got people making live action web shows like Day 5 and Ten Little Roosters, they've got people making animated series like Red vs Blue and RWBY, they've got people making video game Let's Plays for YouTube, they've got people making an improv game show, they've got podcasts, game and entertainment news... Odds are, there's something there anyone could be interested in (which is coincidentally also my stance on anime).

So fans come from all over the world to attend this RTX. Many of them have far worse, more difficult, and/or more expensive journeys than I had to make. Most come with a friend or two, but many, like me this year, attend alone and meet up with someone who agreed to share a hotel room. Some even travel to Austin with family, and attend the expo itself alone while their family hangs out in the city. In fact, a couple friends I made there over the course of my two visits were in that last situation, to my understanding. Of course, some fans live in Austin, too, and I honestly envy them.

What is it about this convention that draws people? What about it makes people comfortable to travel there without hometown friends? I have a wealth of experience attending anime conventions, and let me tell you, RTX is way different than your average con. I've attended ACen many a times, and that's the biggest anime con in the midwest. I attended Ohayocon in Columbus, OH every year of my college experience. I've attended a couple other conventions as well, including Anime Midwest and Youmacon. I am fortunate to have never attended an anime convention alone. Sure, you're all there because you love anime. But which anime do you love? Do you listen to jpop or kpop? Do you play these video games? Which anime are you a fan of? There's thousands of shows. You might all be fans, but you're all fans of different things.

At RTX, you're all there because you love Rooster Teeth and its community (and maybe, just maybe, you can get that sweet, sweet selfie with certain RT employees). That's right, you're not just a fan--you're a part of a community. And it really does feel like a community. It's friendly, it's helpful and welcoming. Every convention might secretly be Line Con with hours and hours of queued lingering fun, but oftentimes the lines at RTX are prime new-friends-zones. I felt just fine going to RTX alone because I knew, even if I didn't hang out with my hotel roommate the entire time, I would find a conversational partner anywhere I looked. I knew that would happen. I don't expect that to happen at your average anime convention.

 

 Speaking of selfies...

This is a community made up of inside jokes, a love for the crazy and hilarious RT employees, and a sheer joy of sharing this love with other community members. A community of people who want to do good and help out and welcome in (There's even a section of the community devoted to volunteering with other RT community members!). I call it a fandom sometimes, but honestly I have never felt quite the same connection to any other fandom. Not even for Homestuck or Harry Potter, who both have enormous fandoms that I've experienced first hand. No where else have I found conversations so easy to start among fellow fans of a piece of media. The RT community gets together. It's not hard to find your little corner of the world there.

Sure, not everyone in this community is a good person. I briefly joked with a random guy while walking back to my hotel, and maybe an hour later my roommate informed me that he was totally racist and hated Mexicans, as per a conversation she had in a shared elevator. I've definitely seen and interacted with some highly bitter and toxic community members online. Not everyone in your neighborhood is going to share your worldview, and not everyone in your neighborhood is going to be someone you want to associate with. It's what happens when hundreds of people gather in one spot, regardless of the reason they're there.

And there are a lot. (photo credit)

It doesn't hurt that Austin as a whole is a youthful, liberal place with a slogan of "Keep Austin Weird." The hundred or so Guardians helping run the event, too, add to the safety of RTX. You could toss a stone and there would be someone to help you if you need it. Of course, the furthest I strayed from the convention center and surrounding hotels was to the nearby bridge on Sunday to watch the bats fly out in swarms at dusk. My point mentioning this is that the RT people and its helpers try very hard to make it so that attendees feel safe and welcome. There will always be danger in traveling alone, of course, and many risk factors that any traveler needs to take into account. But I was prepared, and so was the community.

To the bats!

I traveled to RTX alone. I walked into the airport on that Thursday morning and immediately ran into two young men wearing RT t-shirts. I met up with my hotel roommate at the Austin airport for the first time, after spending the previous few months emailing and texting back and forth. That evening, we got chicken dinner at a nearby eatery with two people we met while picking up our badges. On Friday we hung out in line with a few Canadians, as well as a young man who ended up joining us for the rest of that day and also on Sunday. On Sunday, while waiting in line for an autograph from two RT employees I adore, I met people who knew my fan art and introduced me to a discord server full of chatty, friendly RT fans. At the Austin airport on Monday, I sat in a circle with half a dozen people from that same discord server for hours as we all waited for our flights (delayed or otherwise).

I traveled to RTX alone. But I did not attend alone.

(I'm the third from the left on the third row in the purple shirt! Photo credit to Edgar)

10/10 would attend again.