#this might make very little sense and theres probably a lot of logic leaps i didnt explain and maybe im super wrong and whatever but

[mathieubellamont]

man in relation to that last post, and its not really related to this blog outside of it but its weighing on my mind

ive seen two things lately about audiences and content creators, specifically those of the Edgy kind. And, as a disclaimer, i am both LGBT and mixed race and oh, also disabled, and i am not saying “yes their content is offensive But you should care about them more” like ofc im gonna care more about the people who are hurt by the spreading of harmful shit but. anyway

whats been on my mind is the fact that these creators create, with all their edginess and their discarding of feelings for Facts and whatnot forms these audiences that, even if mild in their reactions, have and hold no place for feelings, and people who they disagree with. Even the ones who just have “Comedic” content thats laughing at minorities and whatnot, it breeds things in the audience - and attracts peole who’re already infected by it - that focus on laughing and making fun of people and tearing people down who they just mildly disagree with. We all knew that, but specifically whats weighing on my mind is that........... When you do that, theres no backing down. If you realise youve been wrong somewhere and the people youre attacking have been right, if you realise you dont want to make this content anymore, if you realise you’re tired or stressed, or the environment youve created has gotten too toxic, how are you going to back down? People look to you for their vicious entertainment, people look to you for things to tear apart however lightly, to Roast or to offend or to seriously hurt, and if you arent providing fresh bodies to that audience, theyll take it from you. You have to either be sure when you go into creating edgy content that youll be doing this for the rest of your life, or youre ok with being the subject of what youre inflicting on others when you stop. That, or you have to hope to god that your audience gets bored of you before you call it quits

like...... It all boils down to this. Edginess attracts two main kinds of people, people who are clueless about the harm theyre doing and looking to parrot others/who want to make people uncomfortable or upset/who want to make people feel like they feel, thats one category, and the other main category is genuinely fucked up people who like to see the hurt and the offence it causes, who want women/other minorities to be uncomfortable at best or unwelcome or feel in danger at worst, people who show through their humour that theyre willing to act in ways that hurt people for fun. The first category, people who dont get the harm it causes and just want to shock people (which, as a person clueless to microaggressions and racism and why things actually offend people could either be just surprise Or serious harm they label as shock), theyre clueless about the power youre breeding in them and the cluelessness, but the second group of people are actively harmful. Either way, when you finally need your audience to be understanding, when you need to post your “my mental health is going downhill and i cant ignore it anymore” video or post, youre stuck with these people, and obviously others outside those categories, but youre stuck with them. The people who are willing to beat down already beaten down minorities? Who reduce everyone to a set of stereotypes and if they disagree with any quality you have youre their target? Who think doxxing and swatting are funny, who think harrassment and death threats are just edgy and, well, you know edgy is totally fine right?? Edgy is good right?? what are you going to do?

Maybe when youre in your hour of need your audience will have a change of heart, but if you attract an audience who follow you for and approve of your disregard for peoples needs, who make fun of and attact people saying they need help (”i suffer at the hands of oppression” “im disabled” “im a targeted minority” “ive suffered from harassment” etc) what do you think theyre going to do to you when you dont want to play the game anymore? 

Like theres a leap in logic here between being an edgy content creator and definitely reaching a point where you wont do it anymore. Yes, maybe youll be edgy for the rest of your life....... But as someone who was an edgy teenager slinging around slurs constantly and racist and homophobic and transphobic shit...... The end to that was the singular logical conclusion for me as someone trying to be a good person. When you actually learn about these things, or when you start to live it as an lgbt person or you reconnect with your nonwhite half, or you have a family member who is assaulted, or a friend who finally confesses their online harassment and the severe damage its done to them, and you have an audience waiting for you to tell them who to laugh at/treat like shit if they want to because well, theyre wrong and stupid arent they, why should anyone treat them well - thats the conclusion a lot of these people take from seeing people be made the butt of jokes.......... What are you going to do?

Ive always tried to make this blog a mentally and emotionally safe place. Ive made mistakes, but ive always tried to own up to them and learn from. Like, yeah, theres been some racist shit on this blog before, probably some transphobic shit too, ive had this blog since i just turned 17 in dec. 2013....... Its important for my followers that i cultivate a place that is good for them, that isnt stressful, that focuses on good content or. me having fun in video games lmao. and why is that good? well, because i want to. Its not necessarily the right thing to do nor the wrong thing to do, it just Is morally. But when it comes to cultivating an audience based on constantly shocking people, and making people uncomfortable, and making innocent people scared to exist or ashamed of their existence or hurt because theyre reminded that what they are is disgusting to people like you, whether you mean it or not? Thats where I feel things like this become a moral choice. Like, first of all, even if youre doing it jokingly, if youre having fun pretending to throw punches and kicks even if the point is to laugh at you, you run the risk of people getting hit. Thats why we dont do that in public spaces. When youre jokingly throwing metaphorical punches even if the joke is that youre being an arse purposely, youre in that corridor, and the traffic in that corridor is every single person that sees your post, possibly hundreds, possibly thousands, and so the chance that youre going to hit people - many people - is huge. But to get back to whats on my mind, even if you dont give a shit about all the people you hit accidentally or on purpose, when you train an audience to expect you to feed them meat, when you stop feeding them meat theyll still be looking at you, and if theyre hungry enough - entitled enough, angry enough, uncaring enough, tired of life and other people enough, unknowing enough, ready enough to bring the fight to other people - theyre going to pick at you if not take chunks off you if not tear you to shreds. When you call people who think shock humour and hurting other people is acceptable, well, thats what youve done right?

You dont need to make a blog like mine thats purpose is to be safe. You dont need to actively try to make sure people feel like they fit in with your content, you dont need to create a space for other people to enjoy at all, maybe you just wanna do what makes you laugh. But the less space we hold for people to hurt people the less people are going to get hurt, shocker i know, but also the less harmful people’s anger we are unknowingly feeding, and the less fucking clueless kids who are going to grow up parroting things theyve heard and never understood, that truly evil people understand, and the less content creators in the future we’re going to have to dig out of the hole they back themselves into

anyway. odd post, its done now

#i cant proofread this ugh im at my limit. kinda defeats the point of making this post if its not understandable but anyway #sorry this. i put it here because its directly related to the below post and its about content creators #this might make very little sense and theres probably a lot of logic leaps i didnt explain and maybe im super wrong and whatever but #theres absolutely no need for anyone to address this and its better if it isnt addressed but im in a bit of a bad space mentally right now #(dont worry im going to bed after i do the dishes) #unknowingly hurting people and hurting people in general and people unknowingly backing themselves into corners is just. #on my mind except on my Heart ad emotions right now i just need to talk about it #i just keep thinking if i can save one fucking kid from getting into trouble #hell even the content creators i thoroughly disagree with. the ones echoing harmful ideas and Haha Offensive oppressive content #the idea that some of them are still doing it because they cant escape...... the idea of anyone realising their mistakes and being stuck #and not being able to get out of it #theres so much anger in the world and i Know everyones tired and theyre aching emotionally #everyone including the people i really dont like are all doing what theyre doing because. anyway #its just. the more we can talk about this - and i understand as Many Minority Statuses Overlapping that we dont owe any assholes conversatio #n - the more people who can talk about this talk about this and bridge the gap and drag people who dont know better out of their edgy #phases to become better more conscious people.............. #oof. its almost 5am #traitor's ramblings #assault #mention.

[themoneybuff-blog]

What it means to be rich: The difference between income and wealth

Shares 292 Im generally a pretty laid-back guy but, like anyone, I do have pet peeves. Because I write about money, I have lots of trivial personal-finance pet peeves. (Its saving rate, not savings rate. Dave Ramsey did not invent the debt snowball, and his version is but one kind of debt snowball. Its not the only debt snowball. See? I told you these pet peeves were trivial!) Its silly that Im bugged by this stuff, but I am. Im sure you have pet peeves too, especially when it comes to your work. One of my top pet peeves in the world of personal finance is when people who should know better conflate income and wealth. A high income can lead to great wealth although it doesnt always but theyre not the same thing. I see this error frequently even in high-profile articles at major media outlets. This morning, for example, I read an article at Vox about income inequality in Europe and the United States. The piece opens like this: Income inequality is a growing problem in the United States. The richest Americans have reaped a disproportional amount of economic growth while worker wages have failed to keep pace. The author elaborates: From 1980 to 2016, the poorest half of the US population has seen its share of income steadily decline, and the top 1 percent have grabbed more. What bugs me here are the logical leaps from low income to poor and from high income to rich. But I cant blame the author of this article; the source material makes the same mistake. The Difference Between Income and Wealth Now, Im not here to explore income equality thats a subject for another day but I want to talk about the difference between income and wealthand why theyre not the same thing. First, lets define our terms. Income is earning money. Yes, its the primary piece of wealth creation, but income itself is not wealth.Wealth is having money. If you have a lot of money, you are rich. If you dont have much money, youre poor. Income and wealth are related, but its a complicated relationship. In 2016, the Dont Quit Your Day Job blog took data from the Federal Reserves 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances to examine this very subject. They created this chart to graph the data:

The conclusion at DQYDJ? Yes, people with higher incomes do tend to have higher net worths. However, the connection is a lot looser than it may appear before looking into the statistics. For any given income level, people have a huge range of net worths. If you look at the $100,000 income level in the chart, for instance, folks have net worths ranging from $1000 to $10,000,000. That said, people with higher incomes do tend to have greater wealth. In a follow-up piece, DQYDJ graphed the correlation of income and wealth by age:

As you can see and as you might expect for young adults, income has very little to do with net worth. During prime earning years, however, theres a strong correlation. Then the correlation drops. Then, once you get past fifty, the correlation isnt strong at all. Why is this? Earning money is only part of the equation. What you do with the money you earn has a profound impact on your wealth. Filling the Bucket If you earn a lot but you also spend a lot especially on things that lose value then you wont accumulate wealth. If you make poor investments, you wont accumulate wealth. If you suffer misfortune, you wont accumulate wealth. Your income is like water flowing through a hose. The higher your income, the larger the flow of water. But wealth net worth is like a bucket that youre filling with water. If you have a high-flow hose, but youre spilling the water on the ground instead of filling the bucket, youre not going to fill it very quickly. On the other hand, even a trickle of water can fill the bucket if youre careful and take your time.

In my Real Life, I know families with household incomes approaching $250,000 that have almost zero net worth. They buy (and sometimes wreck) fancy cars, cars that quickly depreciate in value. They take expensive vacations. They eat out for every meal. They spend a ton on entertainment. These folks have high incomes and live a lavish lifestyle but theyre not rich. If they were to lose their jobs, theyd be in trouble. On the other hand, Ive met with many Get Rich Slowly readers who have mundane jobs with modest incomes, yet theyve managed to build small fortunes (especially in relation to their spending). How? By keeping expenses low. They may not make as much, but they have high a saving rate and they know how to invest wisely. Yesterday at A Wealth of Common Sense, Ben Carlson wrote about the three levels of wealth. He looked at both income and net worth numbers, and at how these relate to economic class. His conclusion? The standard of living where you choose to reside can have a huge impact on how far any of these income or wealth numbers can get you. And how much or how little you choose to spend of that income or wealth also plays a role. Lifestyle inflation can be a killer if youre not careful, no matter how much money you make. A high income can fund a lavish lifestyle, but if you spend most (or all) of that income, youre not building wealth. Youre not rich. The high times probably will not last. (Believing that they will is part of the forever fallacy.) Shares 292 https://www.getrichslowly.org/income-vs-wealth/