I Am Starting A Thread Of Songs I Want People To Make Edits To. TikTok, YouTube, I Don’t Care If You

Today I tried to dress like a character (because usually I’m dressed like a bum) so I’m wearing like wide leg jeans, this purple turtle neck, a little gold chain and a beige knit vest that hugs my girlies pretty nice, with my white cowgirl boots, an oversized green army jacket and my headphones. And I’m waiting at the train station and I see ANOTHER character coded person with tattoos all up their (pretty muscular) arms and neck, ripped jeans, bright colored shoes, that matched his headphones, and at least 3 layers very specifically exposed their tattoos, chains on their belt and just an outfit that radiates this persons vibe so distinctly. And we were both kinda bopping to our headphones on the platform and it made me feel very much like a cross over episode where two characters from different shows (Supergirl and Flash, or Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place, or Supernatural and Scooby Doo) meet and maybe the plots intersect, but maybe I’m just Jesse and he’s just Adam Sandler and Ganganam Style is playing in the background.

Oh god. My daily reminder that I’m depressed.

“Time is the one currency you can’t get back.”

— Mark Travis Rivera

TikTok has been down for like 12 hours and I can already see exactly how no other app is going to be able to offer what TikTok does. I always see the memes of oh when AO3 is down or crashes immediately in real time everyone’s reactions on this app are like sound the alarm. But that’s kinda only for that specific instance. TikTok did that for EVERYTHING! The ceo death, instant reactions from all sides, the cease fire, opinions analysis and takes across the board. Now, I went omg people must be blowing up that is actually happened like how they were the past few weeks but on the other platforms now, and the reality is that no other platform can give the same instantaneous reactions and unfiltered responses as things happen. No matter your stance on if you like TikTok or not it has to be acknowledged that this is such a huge form of censorship and limitations from allowing people to actually connect with one another.

I think of how “trends” used to take years to spread from the bigger cities like New York to the smaller areas states over. Or even across the ocean from Italy to here, etc. but as technology advanced the physical gap of distance became ideologically shorter as we were able to connect closer and closer to real time with one another but the second we achieved a platform the facilitated that in a raw form, it was taken down and removed. I wonder who benefits the most from division of people dependent on location, socialization, and ideology confinement?

Most people on this app are consumers of media and information that varies from topic to topic and format to format but the one thing that is consistent amongst us all is that we are impacted by the content we seek and what find us. We find ourselves within it and eachother as we form communities and create connections. Something that is seen across so many fandoms and forms of media is the destruction of division and people seeking total control, as well as the the societal repercussions that come from actions claiming to be for the better while in reality perpetuating these motifs.

The world has always been a place of turmoil. It has always had these dark moments. WE (the common people) just never had the ability to SHARE our perspectives and be HEARD by others. We have never been able to form emotional connections without shared experience in real time. There have always been people that are selfish and seemingly evil just for the sake of being evil but when those things would happen, people couldn’t do much more than endure. And eventually when endurance ran short and people became fed up change would happen, but it could only be made by the individuals experiencing these darknesses. Now we have created channels of support, community and awareness that allow for endurance and education. It allows for new options to be explored and perceived. That’s been snuffed out time and time again through banned books, canceled media, government interference and the monetary control of main news and information distribution. Eventually endurance will run out as it has in the past and we the people now have the knowledge of something different. Of lives spent without these sources of turmoil and alternative solutions to problems within our control.

Do not go silent into the night. We can not regress into a technological darkness as websites are being bought out, controlled, monitored and censored to strip the common people of their resources, communities and opportunities for growth. Survival and endurance are the current focuses of so many of us, but for those in a place of power, a place of privilege, and a place of compassion, that can see the other side, have connected across the social barriers they continue to construct and have begun dismantling the divisions that try to force us to forget that we are all humans, one in the same, creatures of the earth and souled beings capable of intense beauty and intense pain.

Dead On Arrival by FOB is one of those songs that has levels of complexity to it. Like for me, the song literally is talking about itself. I ALWAYS skipped DOA because it was different from a lot of the other songs I was listening to by them. And then I gave it a listen and was like oh I forgot the ending bit is more interesting and I started fighting that instinct to skip it. Then I listened to it HIGH. I heard the words and got the meaning and I was like ohhhhh. It’s the irony of how fans react to music YEARS later. Because it has been yeaaaaaars and I’m still the target audience of emo sad hours and I’m being perceived by their music and it’s just so poetic, and then I’m like these are just some dudes and I am just high and this is just a song.

Bruhhhhhh are you fucking for real right now. I am grieving a BABY!

It’s with a very heavy heart that I’m asking for help and kindness from anyone that is able. My niece Luna passed away this past weekend at less than 2 months old. We are raising money to help support her family through this tragedy. Please, anything you can do to help Jenn fly her daughter home to be laid to rest will benefit greatly.

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Lay Baby Luna To Rest, organized by Heather Vancooten

Luna Faye was born 7 lbs 9oz on 12/07/24 to her loving parents, Jennifer and Anthony. The… Heather Vancooten needs your support for Help Lay

To the guy I saw on the side of the subway station hallway, using the free wifi to do things on a very clearly work laptop; you are so incredibly real for that but please brother. Please go home. I just know they don’t pay you enough for this.

Maybe all I needed was to walk around listening to fob, and smoking a joint. Then go to the park and shitpost on Tumblr from the swings.

Chat, is it wrong to send my therapist a TikTok? At 11:15pm?