The Toxic Waste Dump

[Kaizen]

My personal experience is with tumblr, but it applies to all social media-- there are the posts with awesome information and/or activism, and then there is the nonsense, and the junk. Unfortunately, the junk is often just as elegantly and concisely worded as the good stuff, causing it to get shared around as much or even more, causing me to cringe.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, there is really no way you can publicly respond to everyone who shared or reblogged a post. So sometimes, all you can do for the sake of your patience and sanity is dump the garbage somewhere safe.

[Kaizen]

My garbage of the day came in a post of responses to a visual joke about "loose" vaginas. Most of these were awesome, accurate, and called out the falseness and slut-shaming implications of the joke. Yay, excellent! But then there were the remarks (some of them in the same responses as the awesome and accurate information ) saying basically, "And if you think her vagina is loose maybe you just have a small penis! Haha!"

[tadpole86]

I see a lot of women-shaming done on social media and the Internet; saying that women who sleep around are trash; whereas men who have a lot of partners are seen as heroes, people to be emulated.

Actually, one image I saw just recently that disturbed me way more than I thought could ever happen was a little comic strip someone had shared on Facebook. The first block was a little girl raising her hand and cursing (not an overly bad word, but still swearing at a young age). Her mother was all, "Aww, that's adorable!" Next, the little girl was shown shaking her posterior to a radio; and the mother's saying, "Aw, look at her pop that booty!" Then, the third image was probably what disturbed me the most: the mother is holding up a pair of short shorts to the probably-12 year-old or more daughter, saying, "The boys will love you in this!" And then, the next photo, the girl is pregnant, and the mother is on her knees, crying, saying, "Where did I go wrong?"

I found so many things wrong with this comic strip. And I didn't find it comic. First off, a girl wearing short shorts does not automatically predispose her to getting pregnant. The gist of it, I guess, was the girl's "negative upbringing," but still, girls with "positive or negative" role models can often go either way. And her being pregnant isn't the end of the world, and I just... I found this comic strip disgusting. I actually want to burn it. Too bad it was on my phone screen and not in the newspaper...

[Keda]

Ack; I have some friends on facebook who like to post that kind of sanctimonious crap, it drives me nuts. And I can't just wade in and point out they're just as bad as the hypothetical people they're bitching out, 'cause that'll just make them more inclined to put other people down so they feel big.

I follow a blog called not always romantic, which posts quotes from people's relationships... most of them are pretty dull, but there are enough funny ones that I haven't unfollowed them yet. A while ago, though, there was one posted in which a guy told his partner that he thought it was important that they both maintain good social lives outside the relationship, so that if anything happened to one of them the other would have a good support network.

And the punchline was just... that. That the guy thought this was a good idea. His partner - the author of the quote - was so offended that if she died, he would want to actually be able to cope with his grief and not just self-destruct; and it was written like it was *so obvious* that this was completely unromantic and horrible and callous. As if making a massive display of pain and grief, to the point of not taking any care of yourself whatsoever, is a better way to show your love and care for your partner, than taking considered, practical steps to make sure that if one of you dies, the other one is taken care of... I guess I just don't get it, and the way the thing was written made it seem like this was a common attitude towards relationships, which would just be so very argh.

[Kaizen]

Totally meant to post about that one. Except I think it was during the site change. But yeah, ugh. (And totally not a thing I would have expected from that family of sites, which so often features stories about acceptance, or outrage about non-acceptance, of others' religion or lack thereof/orientation/gender/disability/whatever. I hate it when bad stuff sneaks up on me like that!)
The final ha! of the story was essentially "Now I'm with a guy who would be devastated if I died! This is so much better." I had to stare at it for at least a full minute in disbelief.
If it makes you feel any better, that post has far below the average number of likes on that site.

[Stephanie]

Okay, so I have to say my big new thing is women slamming on men on the name of feminism on FB. Feminism isn't about breaking apart men and those that ID as men but empowering women and those that ID as women. It gives a bad name to what it should be.

[Kaizen]

Oh, and the other thing that annoyed me on notalwaysromantic (as I was reminded by the new, similar story I just read) was the one where a woman basically congratulates a guy on his penis size. I have honestly not seen half as much judgment or discussion of breast size in my life as I have of penis size. If I was a person who had one I think I would be terrified to let anyone see it (assuming Alternate!Me hadn't read the Scarleteen article on the topic of course!) because I would be terrified it was too small.

[Kaizen]

Urgh, just saw a bit of a reality show where people were mocking the idea of sex where you could see each other (during the day, with the lights on...). "Who wants to see cellulite! Or tummy rolls! Or... a penis!" *cue hysterical laughter*
It was bad enough that they're evidently married to people they evidently don't trust to like their bodies. But then when they got to... mocking a part of someone's body that a) there is literally nothing they can do about, and b) an integral part of the act they are talking about. "Sure, I'll play the piano with you, babe, just don't make me look at your hands! Who wants to look at those?"