the thing to realize here is that conservatives find the idea of paying workers a livable wage so absurd that they make hyperbolic comparisons like this
because fifteen dollars and hour and a hundred thousand dollars an hour both mean the same thing to them; more than you deserve
^That commentary is very important.
The Olympics have officially become the rest of the world’s passive aggressive attacks towards all of the Anti-LGBTQ policies of Russia.
And Germany’s sass cannot be contained.
When Germans in uniform march into your country as the all-inclusive good guys… you know you done got problems.
Women invented all the core technologies that made civilization possible. This isn’t some feminist myth; it’s what modern anthropologists believe. Women are thought to have invented pottery, basketmaking, weaving, textiles, horticulture, and agriculture. That’s right: without women’s inventions, we wouldn’t be able to carry things or store things or tie things up or go fishing or hunt with nets or haft a blade or wear clothes or grow our food or live in permanent settlements. Suck on that.
Women have continued to be involved in the creation and advancement of civilization throughout history, whether you know it or not. Pick anything—a technology, a science, an art form, a school of thought—and start digging into the background. You’ll find women there, I guarantee, making critical contributions and often inventing the damn shit in the first place.
Women have made those contributions in spite of astonishing hurdles. Hurdles like not being allowed to go to school. Hurdles like not being allowed to work in an office with men, or join a professional society, or walk on the street, or own property. Example: look up Lise Meitner some time. When she was born in 1878 it was illegal in Austria for girls to attend school past the age of 13. Once the laws finally eased up and she could go to university, she wasn’t allowed to study with the men. Then she got a research post but wasn’t allowed to use the lab on account of girl cooties. Her whole life was like this, but she still managed to discover nuclear fucking fission. Then the Nobel committee gave the prize to her junior male colleague and ignored her existence completely.
Men in all patriarchal civilizations, including ours, have worked to downplay or deny women’s creative contributions. That’s because patriarchy is founded on the belief that women are breeding stock and men are the only people who can think. The easiest way for men to erase women’s contributions is to simply ignore that they happened. Because when you ignore something, it gets forgotten. People in the next generation don’t hear about it, and so they grow up thinking that no women have ever done anything. And then when women in their generation do stuff, they think ‘it’s a fluke, never happened before in the history of the world, ignore it.’ And so they ignore it, and it gets forgotten. And on and on and on. The New York Times article is a perfect illustration of this principle in action.
Finally, and this is important: even those women who weren’t inventors and intellectuals, even those women who really did spend all their lives doing stereotypical “women’s work”—they also built this world. The mundane labor of life is what makes everything else possible. Before you can have scientists and engineers and artists, you have to have a whole bunch of people (and it’s usually women) to hold down the basics: to grow and harvest and cook the food, to provide clothes and shelter, to fetch the firewood and the water, to nurture and nurse, to tend and teach. Every single scrap of civilized inventing and dreaming and thinking rides on top of that foundation. Never forget that.
Violet Socks, Patriarchy in Action: The New York Times Rewrites History (via o1sv)
Reblogging again for that paragraph because that is the part we forget the most.
(via girlwiki)
Don’t let misinterpretations of the proposed updates to Tumblr’s Terms of Use keep you from tumblr-ing. (And please check the end of this post re psychfacts’ truthfulness.)
We were away all weekend at a Harry Potter thing at Universal, and came back to an Ask box and email in-box filled with questions about the updates to tumblr’s Terms of Use (and staff post about it), and in a project that reminds us of the times we explained changes to the LiveJournal Terms of Use (sometimes not terrible, sometimes head-deskingly awful, which is why so many aren’t there much anymore), as well as those of Yahool, MySpace and yes, AOL when Usenet became accessible via their proprietary system.
In other words, we’ve been trying to reduce panic (or, alternatively, foster it) for longer than some of you have been alive.
Rather than tackle each Ask and email separately, we’ll go through some of the more significant rumors, and invite any follow-up Asks at any time – but we also note that none of this is legal advice, and the copyright laws of your country will vary at least slightly from those in the US.
Will tumblr now own all the copyright in everything I post or add to a reblogged post?
No. Tumblr has (always? If not always then at least for the last three years) held a license to host, share, distribute and do certain other things with any content you post. Tumblr could not exist if it didn’t hold those licenses. Tumblr exists so people can reblog and share content!
You – yes you – own the copyright to any original work you post on tumblr (photos, poems, songs) also many if not all of the original elements in your fanworks. You own those rights pretty much as soon as you create those works. You hold all the copyright – and Tumblr needs you to license some of those rights to them so they can show your content to the world. They make copies by backing up the site on backup servers; they distribute copies by allowing others to see what you’ve posted, and then others make copies by reblogging what you’ve posted.
If you don’t want people to reblog what you’ve posted, don’t post it on tumblr. If you do want people to reblog what you’ve posted, they need a license to do so. To put it simply, the Tumblr ToU contains those licenses. It contains them now and it will continue to do so.
Why did the Community Guidelines change from “authorized” to “allowed” re posting things copyrighted by other people?
We hope it’s because Tumblr loves fanworks and realizes their importance on the site and to its users.
If something is authorized, then you’ve been given explicit or implicit permission to do it. If something is allowed, then that might be the case – or the law might allow you to do it. In other words, I’m not authorized by JK Rowling or any of her designees to write Harry Potter fanfic; they haven’t given me explicit permission. I am, however, allowed by US copyright law to write Harry Potter fanfic for a number of reasons (transformative works, fair use, laches). Tumblr is now saying that if I am allowed to post something, even if I am not authorized to post it, their Community Guidelines say it’s fine.
SQUEE!
BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS, FYEAHCOPYRIGHT?
This isn’t true, and it isn’t true because they aren’t saying they own your copyright (and as we explain below, little-to-no uncopyrighted work is posted to tumblr). They are not saying they own any of the content you post. They, in fact, explicitly say they do not own any of the content you post.
At line 140 in Section 6 of the ToU, it says this:
Subscribers retain ownership and/or other applicable rights in Subscriber Content.
That means that subscribers retain whatever rights they have when they put something on Tumblr.
Subscriber Content is defined in the Agreement as Subscriber-submitted/transferred/provided “video, audio, photographs, images, illustrations, animations, logos, tools, written posts, replies, comments, information, data, text, software, scripts, executable files, graphics, Themes and interactive features.”
In other words, you submit/transfer/provide, you still own what you already owned (ie the text on a pic of Doge, your poetry and songs and fanfic and the photo of the hot Butterbeer you had for breakfast yesterday).
Copyright (in the US, where tumblr and Yahoo are located) attaches to a work – a photo, note, story, poem, song, video – as soon as that work is “fixed” – such as when it’s written on paper, printed out or saved to a hard drive, the cloud or a USB stick – or when it’s posted on a website. And it vests in the creator, unless that creator assigns the copyright away. A license is not the same as an assignment – it means you’re giving someone else some rights, but not all of them.
WHY does tumblr keep a license to my stuff after I delete my blog and go away?!?
Because someone else may have reblogged it in the meantime. That’s how tumblr works, and why it’s different from sites like MySpace, or how LiveJournal used to be. If someone reblogs your content while your account is live, they have a copy of it – sometimes with their comments on the post or in tags – and to use tumblr the way it was created to be used, the way it has been used for years, they need to be able to hold on to a license to keep using content you submitted to tumblr.
If you don’t want tumblr users to reblog your stuff or even host it after you leave or delete it, host it offsite and link to it or embed it. Then you keep more control over the content itself.But what about commercialization! I don’t want anyone commercializing my stuff!
Given how tumblr exists, you can’t stop other tumblr users from reblogging your stuff on tumblr, or linking to it from other sites.
There are commercial sites with accounts on tumblr. Tumblr and Yahoo are for-profit companies. Tumblr and Yahoo have been profiting off of user-posted/submitted content since said content was first submitted.
That’s how the sites work, and why they exist.
But even if you are ok with Tumblr and Yahoo making money off of your content, what about other sites – those “third parties”? They could be anyone! You might not like them!
True. But as long as they are on tumblr, they can reblog your posts, images, videos, stories, etc – and they can put ads on them, or link back to their site which has ads, or put a link that gets them more followers, etc.
If you’re not comfortable with the theoretical possibility of that happening with your content, don’t use Tumblr. That’s your decision.
But it’s been an aspect of Tumblr’s platform for years, so please don’t freak out that it’s some sort of new and weird and evil sudden action.
What is Poor Man’s Copyright and should I do it with all my stuff right now so tumblr something-something?
Back in days of yore before computers and the internet allowed us to have a machine document the creation date/time of a work, people would mail their original or a copy to themselves in a sealed- sometimes Notary-Public-certified – envelope because it would supposedly confirm the date on which something was created. As the US Copyright Office says on their website, there is “no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.” Registration is a cool thing to do with stuff you’ve created, and we’ll do a post on it later this week, but whether you have it or not won’t impact anything re tumblr’s current or proposed Terms of Use.
Kudos and thanks to basilintime for a fantastic summary of the changes with much less tl;dr than our post.
As of now the panic-generating images posted by psychfacts’ tumblr have almost 60,000 Notes – a bunch of them explain the ToU and contradict the panic, but please reblog this so our (admittedly tl;dr) analysis can be out there.
ETA re Psychfacts: We don’t know if they’re trying a social experiment on tumblr users, or if they just think it’s funny to post lies and see how many reblogs they get.
We do know this: Many if not all of the “scientific” terms mentioned in the images on psychfacts’ posts are fake. “Hexodermic radiation”? “Kemblen cycle”? “Sutoamephrine”? NONE of it exists.
It is possible that Psychfacts is experimenting on tumblr users to see how many reblogs they can get for made-up content that’s scary, in contrast to how many reblogs they can get for made-up content that’s soothing or cheerful. If that’s their intention, then they’ve managed over 60,000 reblogs for the scary versus an average close to twenty for things that are not.
It’s possible they’re making stuff up for some other reason. We have no idea. But they are not honest in their posts, and they are deceptive in their post re the tumblr ToU.
THANK YOU. I’ve been seeing that graph go around and I knew it was crap but didn’t have the time and patience to explain it.
Holy fucking hell thank you for making this post
Tumblr’s mad bandwagon freak outs over things that just aren’t even a real thing REALLY BOTHER ME. Everyone calm down :p
setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:
“I think what we need is a colorblind society.” Now folks, when you hear somebody say that you know you’re listening to a racist…
– Jane Elliot and Oprah Winfrey discussing racism in 1992 on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
THIS WAS IN
1992
NINETEEN FUCKING NINETY-TWO
Jane Elliot is the fucking truth
she goes “i know this maybe hard for you because white males are accustomed to telling people things not listening to people so let me break it down for you”
i have died and she has resurrected me
There was a time in the early 90’s where people were really talking about race and what it meant to be black.
A new set for an apocalypse movie?
No.
The riots in Kiev. This is happening right now.Those breathtaking pictures were taken by the young and usually happy tumblarian girl RedMisa during her volunteer work at Kiev.
“I never thought that I would cry for my native country. I’m not particularly patriotic, I do not like politics, large gatherings of people, meetings and inspirational slogans. but I still go to the central street of Kyiv almost every day, doing volunteer work, doing all I can to help. two months of no change for the better, things were getting worse and worse. but when the killings began, catching the protesters in the streets and beating them up…that was the last straw for me. I do not know what to expect next.”
– RedMisa, http://redmisa.tumblr.com/
The Ukraine probably won’t have access to the internet soon. Read more about it here.
THIS KINDA NEEDS A SIGNAL BOOST RIGHT NOW
BIG TIME, GUYS.
alliseeisthewarpandimgoingmad:
“there’s nothing wrong with the video game community”
I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET ANYMORE
They all need a good punch in the D, tbh.
47% of gamers are female.
47% of gamers are female.
47% of gamers are female.
47% of gamers are female.
- 47% of gamers are female
- 47% of gamers are female
And did I mention 47% OF GAMERS ARE FEMALE.THESE STUDIES WERE PUBLISHED ONLINE FOR FREE TO THE PUBLIC – BY THE PEOPLE WHO OWN AND RUN E3 SO FUCK YOU AND YOUR MISOGYNISTIC BULLSHIT YOU ASSHOLES.
Flawless commentary warrants another reblog. 🙂
Well there’s ten individuals who’re never going to get a date ever…
Never.
Not.
Relevant.
These fellas need a good schoolin’
the thing to realize here is that conservatives find the idea of paying workers a livable wage so absurd that they make hyperbolic comparisons like this
because fifteen dollars and hour and a hundred thousand dollars an hour both mean the same thing to them; more than you deserve
^That commentary is very important.
Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.
So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.
God, what a Mary Sue.
I just described Batman.
Wish fulfillment characters have been around since the beginning of time. The good guys tend to win, get the girl and have everything fall into place for them. It’s only when women started doing it that it became a problem.
TV Tropes on the origin of Mary Sue:
The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment.
Notice the strange emphasis on female here. TV Tropes goes on to say that is took a long time for the male counterpart “Marty Stu” to be used. “Most fanfic writers are girls” is given as the reason. So when women dominate a genre, that means people are on close watch, ready to scorn any wish fulfillment they may engage in. This term could only originate if the default was female.
In fact, one of the CONTROVERSIES listed on the TV Tropes page is if a male sue is even possible. That’s right, it’s impossible to have an idealizied male character. Men are already the ideal.
In our culture, male tends to be the default. Women take on the distaff parts. “Him” and “mankind” are what humanity are, “her” and “womankind” are secondary. Yet this isn’t true for Mary Sue as a term. That name was created first. It was a Star Trek fic that coined it and the female desigination was likely a big reason it caught on. This female is name the default to use when describing idealized characters. Marty Stu and Gary Stu are only to be used if you’re discussing men specifically. Heck, there isn’t even an agreed upon term for them. So the only time female can be default is when discussing a badly written character, someone who is more powerful or important or liked than they should be allowed to be, someone the plot focuses on more than you would like, someone you don’t want to read about. Hmmm.
What’s really wrong with a thirteen year old girl having a power fantasy, even if it’s badly written? Who is it hurting? Men have baldly admitted to writing power fantasies and self inserts since the beginning of time. How many nerdy, schlubby guys suddenly become badasses and have hot girls chasing after them in fiction? See: Spiderman- blatant everyman who happens to stumble across amazing powers and catch the eye of a supermodel. Mary Sue is considered the worst insult to throw at a character as it renders them worthless. But since when are idealized characters automatically worthless? Aren’t all heroes idealized in some way? Don’t all heroes represent the author in some way? Aren’t these characters supposed to be people we look up to, people who represent human potential, the goodness that we strive for? Fantasy by nature is idealized, even the tragic ones.
If you look at the TV Tropes page for Mary Sue, it’s ridiculous. You can be a sue for having too many flaws, or not enough, for fixing things or messing things up, for being a hero or a villain. And of course, this is specifically pointed out as a trope related to the Princess and Magical Girl genres- genres aimed towards women are naturally full of Mary Sues. Magical girls are powerful and heroic and actually flaunt femininity as a good thing. They are a power fantasy designed for girls. So of course, a girl using traditionally feminine traits to dominate and triumph means she’s a sickeningly pure Mary Sue who makes everything go their way. Feminine traits are disdained and look down on, so when the positive feminine traits are prominent, the reader has an aversive reaction. How can a character be so feminine and triumph? She must be unrealistic, she must be badly written, because everyone knows it is impossible to be feminine and powerful.
Let’s look at what kinds of Mary Sues people will point to. People will claim a female character is a Mary Sue if she is a love interest. Put a female character within a foot of a male character, and people will scream “Mary Sue!” Why does someone falling in love with her make her a Mary Sue? Well, she hasn’t “earned” this awesome dude character’s love. What has she done to show she’s worthy of him? Fans miss the irony that this line of logic makes the male character seem more like the Sue in Question, as he’s apparently so perfect one has work for his coveted love and praise.
The idea that woman has to “earn” any power, praise, love, or plot prominence is central to Mary Sue. Men do not have to do this, they are naturally assumed to be powerful, central and loveable. That’s why it’s the first thing thrown at a female character- what has she done to be given the same consideration as a male character? Why is she suddenly usurping a male role? “Mary Sue” is the easiest way to dismiss a character. It sounds bad to say “I don’t like this female character. I don’t like that this woman is powerful. I don’t like it when the plot focuses on her. I don’t like that a character I like has affections for her.” But “Mary Sue” is a way to say these things without really saying them. It gives you legitimacy.
If a character is badly written, there’s generally something much more problematic than idealization going on. The plot will be dull and the character will perpetuate harmful stereotypes while other characters act oddly. For instance, Bella Swan is one of the only characters I’d even begin to classify as a Mary Sue, yet it’s not really her supposed Mary Sue traits that bother me. I don’t mind that she gets what she wants and everyone loves her, that she’s Meyer’s power fantasy. What I actually mind is that Stephenie Meyer has her perpetuate harmful anti-woman stereotypes- women need to be protected, women are shallow, women’s worth rests in desirability. That’s what’s actually harmful about her and worth discussing. I would criticize that rather than even get to the fact Bella got to be “too perfect and powerful”- that’s just a tiny, insignificant thing not worth mentioning in a huge pile of problems.
And that’s why I don’t call characters Mary Sue anymore. There’s really nothing bad about a power fantasy or wish fulfillment. It’s what’s fiction’s about. If one of my characters is called a Sue, I’ll proudly say “yep”, because that must mean that she broke out of that box a female character is supposed to be in. So I’ll go and say it: I love me some Mary Sues.
I’ve often felt like anti-choice people don’t see pregnant people as, you know, people, but I’ve never heard one come straight out and say that pregnant people don’t have basic human rights before.
I’ll show you someone on Facebook who likes her own statuses.
