#the tumblrinas are getting grown adult jobs now!!!

[shivvroys]

i got a facebook notification once that a page i’d liked had changed their name…someone had converted their orphan black fanpage into their professional therapy services page

#i genuinely didnt know whether to be proud or scared #the tumblrinas are getting grown adult jobs now!!! #orphan black #btw i dont tag anything these days bc im lazy and always on the mobile app #so to this day ‘clonepocalypse’ shows up as my most frequently used tag #y’all remember the clonepocalypse???? #clap if u remember #good times good times

[communistkenobi]

this is maybe silly to tell you about but i'm very envious of how smart you seem and the level of grasp you have on theory that feels incredibly scary to me. i was in uni for sociology, and save for one text that i understood from start to finish, the rest of it always felt like it was deleting my brain cells slowly and made me feel stupid, even as smn who had grown up being a "literature" person. i think it's just a matter of getting started, but it all feels embarrassing >>

what I’m about to say is going to sound very masturbatory and self-aggrandising, but that can’t really helped on account of the fact that the topic is what a smart little boy I am

one, thank you! I’m always very flattered when people give me this compliment. I don’t think it’s silly at all. two, I’m pursuing a PhD in the social sciences with the intent to stay in the academy after I get my doctorate, and my particular field of study skews towards critical theory. on average only 1% of people in canada have a PhD, and a fraction of that percentile have my particular academic trajectory - all of which to say, I am an outlier amongst a peer group of outliers, so I’m an extremely bad measuring stick to use when judging your own critical capabilities. I’ve been in post-secondary school for roughly 7 years now and will be in it for at least four more, and for the past 4ish of those years my main source of employment has been teaching and research, so I am both paying for and being paid to read theory and teach it to undergraduate students in small classroom settings. By the standards of academia I’m very junior, but I have a lot of specialised training in talking and reading, which is to say, it’s taken me a very long time to be where I am now. My academic career depends on my ability to produce original thoughts and write them down in a way that both speaks to existing scholarship while contributing new things to said scholarship, so I’m in an environment that enforces a very particular kind of discipline that is not remotely common or normal. Being a graduate student isn’t a rich profession by any means, but you are paid to learn information and write it down - something I would not be able to do if I was working a full time job.

I also frequently don’t understand the shit I’m reading! It’s extremely difficult to read academic texts because they’re meant to be read in classroom settings where you’re forced to voice your confusion, speak with other people about what you’re reading, defend your positions, connect it to other work, synthesise it in essay format, and so on. My live-blogging of books I’m reading is an attempt to simulate that, because I tend to learn best when writing out why I have the opinions I hold. Being confused isn’t a sign of stupidity but rather a simple fact that you’re brushing up against concepts and theories that take people their whole careers to develop and publish.

My own background in academia is also very eclectic, so I know a little bit about many topics, but there are very little topics can I speak authoritatively on - I can’t speak about the state of knowledge on, say, international relations, or critical race legal scholarship, or employment disability policy, but I know vaguely of those things. I’m not even a well-read marxist lol

All of which is to say - I am a horrible metric to compare yourself to. I am one of the few sickos who genuinely wants to remain in the academy for the rest of my life because I sincerely believe in the pursuit and production of knowledge, and my chance to do so is largely dependant on my ability to explain myself to other people. Put another way, I have spent my entire adult life training to be a marginally popular communist tumblrina on a website primarily known for producing supernatural actor porn. So either way don’t feel bad about it

#asks

[scoutbert]

I’m so confused I just logged onto tumblr and now people are calling you a term can I please have some context

i reblogged a few posts from some radical feminists (remember guys when i said i was gonna follow everyone on Tumblr back in 2013? ya. TERF wasnt even a term really back then) that poked fun/criticized some of tumblrs more.... ridiculous gender bullshit. i cant believe how touchy people get about this shit like get a fucking life lmfao. the world exists outside this wretched hellsite and its my genuine opinion that if you live in america and have internet and have exposure to mogai and kin and all that other bullshit you are absolutely privileged (including myself) and probably have severe cognitive dissonance about how the rest of the world outside here functions. try going to apply for a job, a serious job, and look your interviewer straight in the face and try to tell them you're a demi- this or quasi that or a thing kin. try explaining that you think you're a wolf, or that you're 6 genders at once, or you believe you're an alien. im as liberal as the next tumblrina but some of this shit is so incredibly ridiculous and mind blowing to me that grown ass adults are running around arguing and screeching about their quasi gender space kin bullshit with their poorly dyed undercuts and instantly damning anyone who questions the authenticity/logistics of their "identities" as a TERF... imagine being so insecure in your own argument/beliefs that you have to name call, doxx, and block anyone who questions/criticises you?? absolutely childish.