Perspective on things in perspective.
Aug. 24th, 2013 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseFirst things first: I wasn't offended by this particular meme by any legitimate definition of offended. I had little emotional reaction even when I thought "Oh, yeah, that's not really right." When I hit the comments and the claim about its context, I had a bit of an emotional reaction but not one I could describe as "Offended". It was too mild for that.
But I do think it deserves a closer look and some thinking.
This is the meme I saw pop up a few times today, and which a couple of people on my friends list shared or linked automatically, usually with a comment on it making them cry or making them think.
Things in Perspective
I saw the first couple of shots in it, and I kinda nodded, as one does. Yes, we have it a lot better overall. At least in part because some people go out and do hard things so we don't have to.
Then, the second juxtaposition made me say, "Hmmm."
And as I went on I had less nodding, "Yes this is perspective" and a lot more "Something's not right here."
_______
Thinking #1: What qualifies as trivial?
I have a friend. Not one of my closest friends, but a friend. We've helped each other move, hung around, and sometimes even regretted not hanging around more. But only sometimes.
This friend had a hard life. Living on her own at 13 levels of hard. Things were very bad for a long time, but I won't give more details even of the details I know. She's picked herself up a lot since those days, and is doing well by most peoples' criteria.
Which is part of why very few people can ever tell her if they feel that something is going badly.
Because she is the sort of person who does seem to sometimes take some pleasure in having had it worse. Because she can be remarkably unsympathetic to people whose problems are less bad than hers.
One of the things that warranted one of the header posts for the Dysfunctional Families threads on Making Light was this very point: "... the doubt whether one’s own situation is “bad enough” to be a problem." A commenter going by Laura in that thread had this to say about it: "Trauma dick-sizing is overrated. If it hurts you, it counts, and you're allowed to feel something about it, and to process those feelings."
It's also pointed out that it's often people whose feelings have been dismissed or outright ignored who wonder this.
I feel that a lot. I grant you there are some genuinely trivial problems in the world: "My latte is too hot" is a favourite example. On that very meme, "Wishing Summer would come quicker so you can wear your favourite clothes again" definitely qualifies. There are some things that people gripe about that make me think, "Oh, you poor unfortunate." in the most dripping sarcasm.
But several of the pictures in that meme have another message. Several of the slogans on the pictures could be as easily applied to people suffering depression. Could easily be applied to the state of the economy, the environment, or education.
"Wodnering how your future will turn out to be" could be the easy idling of a middle or upper class girl debating which college will accept her or whether she can afford a trip to South Asia before she continues school. Or it could be the question it's almost impossible even to contemplate for the person trying to figure out how to escape severe poverty. The person in the refugee camp in one of the very other images.
"Missing your old friends" might just mean they're now at a different school and you see them less. Or it could mean they've crossed the continent and live in another city. Or it could mean, even for a teenage girl, they've passed away. I consider myself lucky: I lost nobody significant to me in my school years. But we had a teen die in the year ahead of me in my school. And the year after. And one boy beaten into an extended hospital stay. I'm pretty sure their friends and even some "Mere classmates" missed them. And maybe they looked at pictures of their dead or battered friends that were as goofy and fun-filled as the picture of the girls in Mario and Luigi costumes, and wept over them?
Some of the others, like the second one, are flags for depression, which is a genuine non-trivial medical condition for many, and potentially deadly.
Maybe it's the fact that if I were stopped on the street and asked to name 5 people I know with depression, I doubt it would take me 10 seconds (It didn't when I tried it earlier today. Or just now -- and one of the names changed.) And that I know of a few people (Not necessarily the SAME people) who have made genuine suicide attempts. (And some who made cry for attention suicide "attempts", which I can't entirely take lightly either, because even if their life is not in the same danger, you can't say everything is really okay when that's what they feel it takes to get attention.)
Thinking #2: Teenage Girls
And I wonder how many of those "trivial" Justgirlythings problems would look less trivial if a different face was applied to the picture.
I wonder if some of the slogans would look less trivial if they were applied to images of the elderly ("Not being able to fall asleep because you're constantly remembering the past, present, and future", or "Not being able to live with your best friend" or "remembering is easy, it's the forgetting that's hard") instead of teenagers, and how many to images of men instead of women. In obviously impoverished settings.
Of the "serious pictures", the images of wartime, two feature women. One is a group of refugees. One is a widow. There are no pictures of women in service. They at least covered a range of ages. (On BOTH sides there is exactly one black person and nobody obviously any other non-white racial background, but I leave it to people better versed in racial issues to unpack that.)
But all the pictures, being taken from some girly source, are teen girls. Usually in some setting that usually hints that they at least have money and comfort.
This erodes what good message there is. Because there *is* something to be said sometimes for looking at the state of the world and some of the places in it and saying, "Y'know, my problems ain't so bad." There's something to be said for remembering that soldiers have a hard life with a huge danger of death or dismemberment or trauma. It's worth honouring them. (Though I don't think this meme honours them.)
But the actual takeaway is "No teenage girls have real problems. Ever. And almost no grown women either. Take men seriously. We do all the really hard work. We have the real problems. We're the only ones who really suffer and die."
I was a middle-classed white teenage girl. I had a lot fewer problems than I thought I did. This is flat truth.
But I call bullshit on extrapolating this universally.
Thing is, though, at first I thought this was accidental, reflexive sexism creeping in as an unintended second message.
If one commentor is to be believed, I was wrong.
Thinking #3: 4chan
One of the comments fairly far down notes that this meme actually originated in 4chan on a weapons board, and was meant to be funny. The person who noted this also thinks they are hilarious, and suggests that maybe other people haven't seen enough images of war. Which I think is ridiculous: "Look, you aren't desensitized enough". However, he is right that whoever posted these images saw them in their original context in 4chan and KNEW THAT.
I have a natural revulsion for 4chan, as one of the few places that has ever given me a true full visceral case of revulsion and horror at the sheer true level of hatefulness out there. So here I'm not, perhaps, wholly unbiased. She understated.
Nonetheless, I think this is an issue in itself.
A lot of people, seeing mostly the "servicemen, veterans, refugees and people in prison camps know true suffering that we in the free world don't", felt it was touching. Them, I have no beef with, though I think it's worth thinking about the first two points above a bit before agreeing with it 100%.
But knowing this was meant to be funny puts a whole nastier spin on it. It means that a lot of those faces of serious and suffering servicemen aren't meant to make you feel for them or what they're going through.
They're meant to be looking at the teenage girls with their first world problems and saying the equivalent of "LOLWHUT?"
Which is something on the order of the opposite of honouring soldiers or veterans. "Let's use your pictures to mock and deride others" is not honouring.
It being 4chan based, and intended as humourous, also almost certainly means the negativity towards women is not accidental, it's the actual true point of it. Because there is no (intended) message about the worth of veterans. There is only the intent to point and laugh at the women.
(It also implies something to me about why it's so pasty pale aside from the last image, and that's a whole other ugly thought.)
Of course, the other "perspective" message is there. That it was unintended can't erase it. But it can taint it.
Someone (two someones possibly but one was a vague enough comment to be unsure) also made a claim that one of the pictures of soldiers is of the Nazi army. I'm not that good with uniforms or context, if this is 4chan based and intended as humour, I can see that being inserted as an extra joke for the people who do know their military. And that adds the message, "Even the Nazis had more real problems and deserve more sympathy than first-world white teenage girls."
_________________
White Middle-class-and-up North American teenage girls are some of the more privileged people in the world, probably behind only white middle-class-and-up North American teens and men and some parts of Europe. A lot of them badly need a bit of perspective about their problems versus the level of drama they make. I sure did.
But it doesn't mean it isn't possible for genuine trauma to happen to such a person.
I did study the World Wars, and something of Korea and Viet Nam. I've been alive for two Gulf Wars and know servicemen and women current and recent. I think we do badly by our soldiers.
But I don't think a meme with so much underlying unpleasantness is anything like the way to honour their work or be touched thereby.
I don't have to be offended at a problematic thing to note that hey, something here is problematic.
But I do think it deserves a closer look and some thinking.
This is the meme I saw pop up a few times today, and which a couple of people on my friends list shared or linked automatically, usually with a comment on it making them cry or making them think.
Things in Perspective
I saw the first couple of shots in it, and I kinda nodded, as one does. Yes, we have it a lot better overall. At least in part because some people go out and do hard things so we don't have to.
Then, the second juxtaposition made me say, "Hmmm."
And as I went on I had less nodding, "Yes this is perspective" and a lot more "Something's not right here."
_______
Thinking #1: What qualifies as trivial?
I have a friend. Not one of my closest friends, but a friend. We've helped each other move, hung around, and sometimes even regretted not hanging around more. But only sometimes.
This friend had a hard life. Living on her own at 13 levels of hard. Things were very bad for a long time, but I won't give more details even of the details I know. She's picked herself up a lot since those days, and is doing well by most peoples' criteria.
Which is part of why very few people can ever tell her if they feel that something is going badly.
Because she is the sort of person who does seem to sometimes take some pleasure in having had it worse. Because she can be remarkably unsympathetic to people whose problems are less bad than hers.
One of the things that warranted one of the header posts for the Dysfunctional Families threads on Making Light was this very point: "... the doubt whether one’s own situation is “bad enough” to be a problem." A commenter going by Laura in that thread had this to say about it: "Trauma dick-sizing is overrated. If it hurts you, it counts, and you're allowed to feel something about it, and to process those feelings."
It's also pointed out that it's often people whose feelings have been dismissed or outright ignored who wonder this.
I feel that a lot. I grant you there are some genuinely trivial problems in the world: "My latte is too hot" is a favourite example. On that very meme, "Wishing Summer would come quicker so you can wear your favourite clothes again" definitely qualifies. There are some things that people gripe about that make me think, "Oh, you poor unfortunate." in the most dripping sarcasm.
But several of the pictures in that meme have another message. Several of the slogans on the pictures could be as easily applied to people suffering depression. Could easily be applied to the state of the economy, the environment, or education.
"Wodnering how your future will turn out to be" could be the easy idling of a middle or upper class girl debating which college will accept her or whether she can afford a trip to South Asia before she continues school. Or it could be the question it's almost impossible even to contemplate for the person trying to figure out how to escape severe poverty. The person in the refugee camp in one of the very other images.
"Missing your old friends" might just mean they're now at a different school and you see them less. Or it could mean they've crossed the continent and live in another city. Or it could mean, even for a teenage girl, they've passed away. I consider myself lucky: I lost nobody significant to me in my school years. But we had a teen die in the year ahead of me in my school. And the year after. And one boy beaten into an extended hospital stay. I'm pretty sure their friends and even some "Mere classmates" missed them. And maybe they looked at pictures of their dead or battered friends that were as goofy and fun-filled as the picture of the girls in Mario and Luigi costumes, and wept over them?
Some of the others, like the second one, are flags for depression, which is a genuine non-trivial medical condition for many, and potentially deadly.
Maybe it's the fact that if I were stopped on the street and asked to name 5 people I know with depression, I doubt it would take me 10 seconds (It didn't when I tried it earlier today. Or just now -- and one of the names changed.) And that I know of a few people (Not necessarily the SAME people) who have made genuine suicide attempts. (And some who made cry for attention suicide "attempts", which I can't entirely take lightly either, because even if their life is not in the same danger, you can't say everything is really okay when that's what they feel it takes to get attention.)
Thinking #2: Teenage Girls
And I wonder how many of those "trivial" Justgirlythings problems would look less trivial if a different face was applied to the picture.
I wonder if some of the slogans would look less trivial if they were applied to images of the elderly ("Not being able to fall asleep because you're constantly remembering the past, present, and future", or "Not being able to live with your best friend" or "remembering is easy, it's the forgetting that's hard") instead of teenagers, and how many to images of men instead of women. In obviously impoverished settings.
Of the "serious pictures", the images of wartime, two feature women. One is a group of refugees. One is a widow. There are no pictures of women in service. They at least covered a range of ages. (On BOTH sides there is exactly one black person and nobody obviously any other non-white racial background, but I leave it to people better versed in racial issues to unpack that.)
But all the pictures, being taken from some girly source, are teen girls. Usually in some setting that usually hints that they at least have money and comfort.
This erodes what good message there is. Because there *is* something to be said sometimes for looking at the state of the world and some of the places in it and saying, "Y'know, my problems ain't so bad." There's something to be said for remembering that soldiers have a hard life with a huge danger of death or dismemberment or trauma. It's worth honouring them. (Though I don't think this meme honours them.)
But the actual takeaway is "No teenage girls have real problems. Ever. And almost no grown women either. Take men seriously. We do all the really hard work. We have the real problems. We're the only ones who really suffer and die."
I was a middle-classed white teenage girl. I had a lot fewer problems than I thought I did. This is flat truth.
But I call bullshit on extrapolating this universally.
Thing is, though, at first I thought this was accidental, reflexive sexism creeping in as an unintended second message.
If one commentor is to be believed, I was wrong.
Thinking #3: 4chan
One of the comments fairly far down notes that this meme actually originated in 4chan on a weapons board, and was meant to be funny. The person who noted this also thinks they are hilarious, and suggests that maybe other people haven't seen enough images of war. Which I think is ridiculous: "Look, you aren't desensitized enough". However, he is right that whoever posted these images saw them in their original context in 4chan and KNEW THAT.
I have a natural revulsion for 4chan, as one of the few places that has ever given me a true full visceral case of revulsion and horror at the sheer true level of hatefulness out there. So here I'm not, perhaps, wholly unbiased. She understated.
Nonetheless, I think this is an issue in itself.
A lot of people, seeing mostly the "servicemen, veterans, refugees and people in prison camps know true suffering that we in the free world don't", felt it was touching. Them, I have no beef with, though I think it's worth thinking about the first two points above a bit before agreeing with it 100%.
But knowing this was meant to be funny puts a whole nastier spin on it. It means that a lot of those faces of serious and suffering servicemen aren't meant to make you feel for them or what they're going through.
They're meant to be looking at the teenage girls with their first world problems and saying the equivalent of "LOLWHUT?"
Which is something on the order of the opposite of honouring soldiers or veterans. "Let's use your pictures to mock and deride others" is not honouring.
It being 4chan based, and intended as humourous, also almost certainly means the negativity towards women is not accidental, it's the actual true point of it. Because there is no (intended) message about the worth of veterans. There is only the intent to point and laugh at the women.
(It also implies something to me about why it's so pasty pale aside from the last image, and that's a whole other ugly thought.)
Of course, the other "perspective" message is there. That it was unintended can't erase it. But it can taint it.
Someone (two someones possibly but one was a vague enough comment to be unsure) also made a claim that one of the pictures of soldiers is of the Nazi army. I'm not that good with uniforms or context, if this is 4chan based and intended as humour, I can see that being inserted as an extra joke for the people who do know their military. And that adds the message, "Even the Nazis had more real problems and deserve more sympathy than first-world white teenage girls."
_________________
White Middle-class-and-up North American teenage girls are some of the more privileged people in the world, probably behind only white middle-class-and-up North American teens and men and some parts of Europe. A lot of them badly need a bit of perspective about their problems versus the level of drama they make. I sure did.
But it doesn't mean it isn't possible for genuine trauma to happen to such a person.
I did study the World Wars, and something of Korea and Viet Nam. I've been alive for two Gulf Wars and know servicemen and women current and recent. I think we do badly by our soldiers.
But I don't think a meme with so much underlying unpleasantness is anything like the way to honour their work or be touched thereby.
I don't have to be offended at a problematic thing to note that hey, something here is problematic.
