I have been watching RuPaul's Drag Race UK since Brent left. I'm finished with season one and partway through season two. I've watched a few episodes each day. Enough that the voices in my head right now all have accents.
I'm not even kidding with that. Because it's the main thing I've been listening to for the past six days and I have no one here that I'm talking to it's filtered in and is now part of me. At least until I finish and move on to something else.
But for now I've got a whole new chorus of voices in my head and they don't sound at all like I'm used to.
Which is fun. And great. And a good reinforcement that staying away from the news and the politics has actually been a really good idea.
I'm still informed and I still have opinions obviously, I mean see the blog from earlier this week, but it's not taking up a lot of space. It's not my main focus. The voices in my head might have accents right now but at least they aren't shouting at each other and calling each other anything worse than "shady bitch." Okay, maybe a little slag and cow as well...but other than that very little name calling.
Things filter in and we don't notice it. Things shift and we don't pay attention.
Brent and I talk about it all the time. Like when did "Death Threat" become the go to response to anything you don't like? Someone told a joke you don't like, send them a death threat. Someone voted in a way you don't agree with. Death threat. Store is out of your favorite ice cream flavor? Death threat.
When everything is responded to in the most extreme ways there is no place to go.
And when everything is responded to in the most extreme ways we stop viewing them as extreme.
We are still normalizing really awful behavior.
Rep. Gosar got censured yesterday for tweeting the animated video of him killing AOC. They stood him up and told him it was wrong and what a naughty boy he was and how he can't sit with them on the committees anymore and he left the chamber and...retweeted the same video. Because nobody cares. Or at least nobody who votes for him and those like him. I do not recommend you making an anime video of you killing a coworker and tweeting it though. Odds are you would get fired, possibly get a restraining order against you as well. But in Congress? Hey, death threats are the totally normal response.
So yeah, staying away from the news is a good idea. Because that shit is bananas.
I've also silenced a few of the people I'm friends with online. That's helped. (and yes I just heard RuPaul's voice mixing "Silence! I've made my decision. Now, Bring Back My Girls!" into "Silenced my girls!" I'm telling you I've watched A LOT of Drag Race this week!) And now I'm trying to decide if I just need to let those silenced voices go. For the most part they are people I enjoy if I can keep them away from anything political. I don't think the silenced voices are bad people, those people were tossed a long time ago, they are just people who I "can't even with this bullshit" most of the time they post politics.
But if I have them silenced then I don't see the things that they post that aren't politics so I'm not sure what to do about that. Because when I do go check on their pages to see what they are up to I just have an overwhelming urge to send a death threat. Kidding. I'm kidding. But I do have to skip over the jaw clenchers to get to the news that is personal stuff. And I'm sure they feel the same way about me. I'm not kidding myself that I'm not just as annoying to them as they are to me.
Brent decided that Facebook was a timewaster and toxic so he just stopped using it. He's like that. Makes a decision and BAM! done. You all know I'm not that way. I've been thinking about leaving Facebook for about as long as I've been on Facebook. So far the good keeps outweighing the bad, but the balance keeps shifting. I can feel that for sure.
When the voices in my head are more fun watching a video on my phone instead of scrolling through my feed maybe it's time to start listening to those cheeky buggers...
Or at least for another season and half of shows until I'm all caught up.
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