Category Archives: Youth

Generational Time Zones

You’ll notice, readers, that this post was published exactly at 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. This is partly because I want to avoid Evan’s routine beatings as punishment for tardiness, and mostly because you, as an overwhelmingly Western audience, expect everything to be exactly on time.

Now if you were all mostly from Bolivia, or Syria, or Morocco, or Thailand, chances are that you wouldn’t care so much. After all, 9:00 in the morning is really more of an approximation than anything else, right?

Taken from a rather insightful infographic on the differences between Eastern and Western cultures.

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I Kissed Kissing Goodbye [And Present Thoughts on the Matter]

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. There’s, uh, hugging, obviously, and holding hands . . . there’s hanging out and talking of course . . . I can, uh, tell you that I love you, that seems pretty straightforward . . . write you some poetry, maybe? I feel like that’s probably a pretty good list already.

Oh, uh, kissing? Well, uh . . .

Maybe back when I was 15-years-old or so I decided, purely on a whim, to not kiss until I knew I was going to marry the person I was locking lips with, while I was casually talking on the phone with my then-girlfriend. A decision that could, in all likelihood, lead to something more or less like this:

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Why I Do Need Feminism

This was originally going to be another of “Gordon’s Happy Monday Posts”. I’m serious, folks, I had every intention of changing things up from my typical doom-and-gloom tone and write about some lighthearted stuff for once. That’s what I had prepared for today. Wouldn’t ya know it, but I just happened to come across something so supremely stupid that I felt compelled to switch out our happy, uplifting topic with another message from the trenches.

What was that thing that robbed you all of sunshine and butterflies and stuff? It was a series of pictures on imgur of young women holding up signs explaining why they “didn’t need feminism” [sourced from the Who Needs Feminism? tumblr -Ed.]. I scrolled down, hoping at first they’d just be sarcastic comments, and once it became clear that wasn’t happening, that they’d really just be criticisms of the most off-the-wall elements of the movement (as Kat mentioned in her post this past Saturday).

They were not.

So let me take this time to go through ’em, picture by picture, and explain just how wrong they are. Continue reading

My Little Pony Hates Men!”: A Short Look at Gender, Representation, and Cartoons

I’ve never seen an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I hear good things, though, and understand if people do like it [and they do] because Lauren Faust is the mind behind the show, and she was largely responsible for The Powerpuff Girls which I still think is one of the best things Cartoon Network has ever done. But again, I’ve never seen any MLP.

Anyway, bronies, right? My favourite go-to source for words you won’t find in Webster’s, Urban Dictionary defines the term as:

“A name typically given to the male viewers/fans (whether they are straight, gay, bisexual, etc.) of the My Little Pony show or franchise. They typically do not give in to the hype that males aren’t allowed to enjoy things that may be intended for females.”

Which, given that very broad description, sounds fine. A person viewing something that is ostensibly for male viewers only, something like . . . I don’t know . . . Lego Ninjago, is not something I think anyone would have a problem with. Anyway. just keep this reasonably sizable fanbase in mind as we move forward-

My Little Pony: Misandry is Magic

That’s the title of a post on tumblr a friend of mine linked me to two days ago. Two short bits of context, misandry is the flipside of misogyny, being the hatred of men instead, and this was originally posted by someone who went by nomisandryplease. I say “went by” because heading over to his site reveals what is seen below and absolutely nothing more:

nomisandryplease
To get to what exactly this guy was bullied for, and I actually don’t doubt that he was, to some extent, the main point to his post was that MLP is a show that, while enjoyable, ultimately treats males very poorly.  Continue reading

Arizona’s Attack on Mexican-American Studies

It occurs to me that it’s been too long since we actually had an actual “report” here, rather than rabid opinion piece. To that end, we’re going to be examining the state of Arizona’s recent assault on its Mexican-American ethnic studies programs. This story isn’t the freshest (or a full-on report; baby steps, people), but with relatively new developments, and how little attention the story was given in general, it’s worth reviewing.

In spring of 2010, Arizona decided to ban ethnic studies classes in its public schools for grades K-12 (HB [House Bill] 2281). Of course, by “ethnic studies”, the state of Arizona meant “Mexican-American/Chicano” studies, and as Tuscon school board member Michael Hicks clarified:

“Honestly, this law won’t be applied to any other of our [ethnic studies] courses. It was strictly written for one course, which is the Mexican-American studies program.”

-Interview with The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal, 04/02/12 Continue reading

Culture War Correspondence: Online Dating Sites

EVAN: I think it’s pretty fair to say that you all like being online. I mean, if you didn’t then how did you ever find yourselves in a place where you typed the words “dr.lizard vs killer croc” into Google and found our blog? Really, the internet has everything we could ever want or need save for physical sustenance, but what about . . . love?

Today Kat and I will be discussing what the deal is with what the cool kids are calling “online dating” and that the uncool kids are calling . . . well, frankly I don’t know.

KAT: I’m pretty sure they also call it online dating.

EVAN: I’m not sure how you could possibly know that, but I’m going to give you the benefit of a doubt and assume that an uncool kid told you.

KAT: Yeah… exactly. Continue reading