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Jade Apple jar to lubricate postage stamps.

St. Petersburg, 1899-1904.

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I think the hot new trends for this summer should be reading comprehension and critical thinking skills

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Columbia University students at the Gaza solidarity encampment reading Wisam Rafeedie's The Trinity of Fundamentals and Ghassan Kanafani's The Revolution of 1936–1939 in Palestine (ph. Ian Bartlett).

#palestine #columbia university

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David Shrigley, This huge cat (2022)

#art

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Isn't Hannibal a bad person though?

I can't think of anything bad he did

#hannibal

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Sketchbook conversations with my four year old

#art #cosmic

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Joël Stein (1926-2012) — Three Chromatic Circles [acrylic on canvas, 1967]

#art

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I think we should have a turn of phrase for "I'm not in the right, but I AM annoyed with this situation, so I just need to go bitch to a friend about this before I suck it up and go do the right thing" because more and more I'm finding this is a critical element of functional adulthood.

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Night Owls Rejoice: A Neon-Lit Time Capsule in Albuquerque, 1986 ฆ‰ŒŒ

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and you know i gotta say. the vast majority of the people losing their shit this weekend made it very clear that they do not understand the difference between "artists who want a measure of comfort in their lives" and "the billionaires actually being targeted by phrases like eat the rich." that is such a weird thing to be so proud to announce to the whole entire internet.

it's also extremely weird to behave as though any individual is entitled to an artist's work for free. or that the audience should be the final say in determining what an artist creates. there is a major difference between the betrayal of an artist who produces art and then banks on their social capital to engage in harmful, violent, bigoted behavior (like jk rowling) and the "betrayal" of an artist who decides that they should be or need to be compensated for their work. the latter isn't actually a betrayal at all. it's just a shift.

the thing is that the watcher boys didn't invent capitalism, they didn't invent the streaming model, they didn't invent youtube or patreon. they aren't getting 100% of the money from either. their merch doesn't magically appear as if made by elves while they sleep. their videos don't happen out of nowhere and without incurring bills. they have a business which employs people, and sure, you can say they employ too many people, but do they actually? a bunch of randos on the internet don't actually know that. they don't know these job titles, or how necessary it is to have everyone there. it's pure speculation. the entire company exists within a system they did not invent and are trying to stay afloat in said system while a bunch of assholes on the internet berate them for not acquiescing to their every whim at the expense of their artistic integrity, their ability to compensate their staff fairly, and their ability to keep making art.

and jumping from "i want to continue enjoying this artist's work for free" to "i think people should be fired and the remaining employees should be given greater responsibilities and more tasks to complete" is wild to me. there's nothing leftist in that and so trying to leverage leftist jargon to prove some sort of moral superiority is fucking wild, it's disingenuous, and it's sketchy as hell. you're allowed to be disappointed. you're not magically exempt from being told you're being an asshole if you decide your disappointment entitles you to take part in asshole behavior.

"but we don't want something heavily produced and we don't want these shows" then don't watch! that's it! don't watch! you are not being held hostage and forced to engage with this content. you have the choice not to. throwing a tantrum and launching racist vitriol at steven lim and demanding he step down as CEO shows a level of entitlement and childishness that, frankly, i wish they could have ignored, but they're both kinder & more patient than i am.

anyway congratulations to watcher on their new streaming service and their gorgeous new website, congratulations to the boys on a new step in their careers and on achieving something they've made clear they've wanted for ages, thank you to the boys for all their hard work and for sharing their creativity with us. thank you too for taking such a big and genuinely brave step to no longer be beholden to major corporations and advertisers so you can make the art you want to make. thank you to steven lim for taking so many steps back to keep the company running and for doing your best in a shit economy and while being targeted by this kind of nastiness online. and thank you to the entire team at @wearewatcher for continuing to do amazing work despite being treated like shit by the fan community at large on the internet while you're trying to make a living and create art. you all deserve better than you've been shown of late and i hate that such an exciting moment got overshadowed by so many temper tantrums.

because the whole fucking point, the dream, is getting to make the art that matters to them, without being held back. i'm sorry y'all don't want the heavily produced and high quality shit but your preferences as a member of an audience are not the law by which artists should abide. they are artists and they are free to, and deserve to, make the art they want to make.

#the way people have claimed to be anti capitalist and then been like ugh they should downsize and be better at Business #like what #watcher

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the joy of creation :3 !! (anything worth doing is worth doing badly)

#art

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#honestly. I’m somehow even more annoyed at how angry people were at them. #like…the entitlement?? the backlash was SO parasocial #it was like people’s best friends had personally betrayed them instead of people making a questionable business decision #and I still keep seeing people calling them rich. #the difference between rich and can pay $6 a month is so so so wide #they live in LA where that’s basically the price of a box of cereal #not everyone can afford $6 per month BUT it is not a sign you’re rich to think that’s relatively reasonable #and the way people are condemning the way they run their business as if that’s some CRIME and an AFFRONT to viewers #everyone is anti-capitalist till they are angry and then they’re like oh just downsize and do austerity and be a Good Business #what happened to having sympathy for artists who are like. #not businesspeople #and made a questionable business call #people don’t actually owe you art for free!! #even if you’ve supported them before! they don’t owe you forever #and they are not betraying people by wanting to make more expensive work. you can decide not to support that but it’s not an EVIL BETRAYAL #ppl want them to be a perfect business except they also want them to only ever do what their fans want and those aren’t even compatible

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Black Sails spinoff show about Silver’s backstory except every episode shows something completely different and contradictory

#black sails

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#calvin and hobbes

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reblog to give a strawberry to the person you reblogged this from

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#censorship #u.s. politics