This is Halloween

I've talked about holidays I used to love that now are at the very least a little uncomfortable for me before. But one holiday that never got ruined for me is Halloween.

I remember a Halloween from when my little sister had just been born, before our brother was, where Mom was Raggedy Anne and Dad was Frankenstein's monster. It sticks out for me because Dad had a very Frankenstein's monster-esque scar on his forehead from tripping and hitting his head on my little sister's bassinet, and Mom was just so damned cute with the little red dot on her nose and the red wig. I don't even remember what anybody else was, but we all went trick-or-treating and then went home and listened to a record of "scary" stories for kids before bed. It was just a really, really great night.

I don't remember when, but it wasn't long before Halloween became another holiday Dad kind of took charge of, and he had this whole, methodical process to it.

September: Start thinking about costumes. He'd sporadically stop one of us kids and say, "Know what you wanna be for Halloween yet?" as we were doing something mundane like getting a snack or going to the bathroom (I remember one time he did this and I really had to pee). Eventually, Mom and my older sis stopped going, and Dad and I stopped dressing up, so the focus became what the two young-uns were going to do. My little brother was Buzz Lightyear at least twice (I feel like it was more, though), in this exact costume, inflatable wings and all:

First week of October: Buy a bunch of pumpkin carving books and kits, almost always from Pumpkin Masters. Then he would take them to work with him illicitly make a bunch of copies of every pattern. After long enough, we had so many pumpkin saws and those little pokey-things that they filled a whole gallon-sized Ziplock, and so many patterns that they filled a whole filing box. So, y'know, this eventually evolved into "get the box with all of the pumpkin shit out of the garage and start looking through the mountain of patterns." We would also put up our decorations. Nothing too outrageous, but we had a respectable amount of stuff outside to show we were a Halloween Family, if you know what I mean.

Second week of October: Buy the costumes. I only remember one year where we waited until within a week of Halloween; Dad was usually super on top of it, even when I was in high school and most of everything else was starting to crumble. This was also the week we needed to finalize our picks for the pumpkin patterns we wanted to carve, as well. I specifically picked the skull pattern in the background in this shot from Hocus Pocus at least twice simply because it was in that shot and that movie is everything:

Third week of October: Buy candy and pumpkins. The candy and pumpkins were almost always retrieved on the same trip to the grocery store, but what's special (to me) about this is Dad would bring a copy of every pattern being carved that year, and he and I would take turns being the one to hold a potential pumpkin and the person laying a pattern on it to see if it would fit nicely. Once I got older and stronger, he'd hand me a few of the patterns and let me find some by myself while he did likewise, but we always double-checked each other's matches to make sure. If we needed more tea lights, he'd get them at this time, too.

Within a week of Halloween: Carve the pumpkins and bake the seeds. This was always a Big Thing. Dad would spread newspaper on the table and do all of the hollowing out himself; I sometimes helped him wash the seeds clean, but he always seasoned them himself. When I was a teenager, I suggested he make some chili pepper ones for himself and cinnamon-sugar ones for everybody, and that year was particularly great- things were starting to go downhill, but it made him genuinely happy to see how much everyone liked the sweet ones, and it made me really happy to see how much he liked the spicy ones. 

Halloween: Go trick-or-treating. Like I said before, the lineup kind of changed, but towards the end of my time living at home, when I was in high school and it was me and Dad taking the young-uns around, it felt special. Dad was more his old self on Halloween, and even though he didn't need me there with them, I insisted on going because I was covetous of that temporary change in him- I wasn't about to miss a chance to spend time with the Dad of the Year from my youth, so I went under the auspices of "helping out" with the young-uns. I think he knew that, too, because we'd sometimes walk holding hands and he'd hug me in a way he hadn't since I was younger than the young-uns. It hurts to remember, but in a good way.

There was one time where an older gentleman in the neighborhood, a widower, noticed me standing more at the back of the walkway up to the door and shouted, "One for Mom, too!" and tossed a bag of the little pumpkin-shaped pretzels he was giving out to me. I caught it, mortified, as Dad, who had gone up to the door with the young-uns, laughed and said, "Oh, no, that's Gab, remember? One of the older girls!" But he called me "Mom" the rest of the time we were out that night, and I lost track of how many times I pushed and punched him for it. 

I think that was my junior year of high school.

Then I went to college. As I write this, I realize I've never thought to ask how much of that faded away, and when. I'm sure it did. But since I was never home for any Halloweens after high school, in my own head canon, Halloween never changed. 

So I think that's why it became my favorite holiday as an adult. I've been rather transient because of school and moving around, so I haven't really been able to come up with my own traditions, but in a perfect world, I'd build off of what we did when I was a kid. I would carve a pumpkin, bake the seeds, and have a costume. But I would also decorate the shit out of wherever I live, since I know Dad would have loved that, and the idea of that makes me super happy and excited. I'm talking, like, flashing lights and animatronics and motion-sensors everywhere. The analogy I use is similar to the one about fireworks and Christmas displays. I would have the absolute scariest, coolest mothereffing house on the block- but I would have at least one cutsie thing to try to keep the littler, more easily frightened kids at ease. And if I could afford it, I would rotate through a few different setups/have enough stuff that it wouldn't be the same within two or three years. Props like this, that look kinda cheesy up close, but from farther out would be creepy af:

Or stuff like this; I'm a huge fan of these light effects that look like ghosts and stuff- it's really awesome what people have come up with the past couple years, and I bet my dad would have loved this crap:

Holy cow, and how fun would it be to go from a Nightmare theme for October

I'd be way more elaborate and get, like, creepy trees and stuff
from a Halloween store, but this is the gist

to something like this for December

I would just love to be able to do that. 

I know none of this house decor stuff will ever happen. I want to be a special ed teacher, and I live in Seattleish where COLA is ridiculous; there's no way I'll be able to afford this much stuff, let alone the house I would need to do it. But it's nice to dream, and to think of how proud my dad would be of me if I pulled it off.

More plausibly, when I eventually have kids, I would, of course, take them in my own costume every year, and if their dad was with me, leave candy out with a note about the honor's system and such. And I'd stay in costume once we got home so that I could give candy out to kiddoes, dressed up in whatever. I particularly like the idea of bonding with kids over their costumes, like, "I was that when I was a kid!" or, "Look, we're both superheroes!"

And if I don't have kids, I would at least attend, if not host a party with spooky music and a costume contest and dry ice in the fake cauldron with the punch; if I hosted, for sure there would be spooky board games like Betrayal at the House on the Hill and Elder Sign* and stuff. Hell, maybe we'd watch Hocus Pocus or Nightmare Before Christmas and have a drinking game of it, too. 

What's also made getting anything of my own really going nigh impossible is I've been working retail for so damned long, even while in school, that this is the first Halloween in years that I can remember where I won't be working for at least the start of the evening. I did get to hand out candy to like four kids a few years ago, but they had been stragglers, kids at the end, since I had been working earlier and got home after sunset. But anyway, I've been so busy lately with a thing that had me in the hospital a few times (I'm fine, nothing even remotely life-threatening, just SUPER annoying) and working two jobs and school, I haven't had the time to get any decorations, a pumpkin, not even candy. And it disappoints me. Like this is my one chance in so many years, and I've pretty much blown it.

Maybe I'll just get a couple mini pumpkins and some candy and put the former on the porch so kids know they can come up to our apartment and get the latter from me. Since I'm nowhere near ready to have kids (situationally- I want them, yeah, but I know I can't right now, not for some time), my best bet is to absorb what I can from the ones that would come to my door. But also, being in an apartment, I highly doubt more than one or two kids will show up, anyway. That makes me sad, too.  

So even though Halloween hasn't been ruined for me by family drama, it's certainly been disappointing, and I have no idea when I'll be able to actually make it better. But what I do know is as soon as I can, I will, and it's going to be amazeballs. Even if just for me. And that's worth smiling about.

*Not Arkham Horror. Fuck that game and its ridiculously complex rules and its nigh impossibility of actually winning. 

Mind the Rule of Three

I used to work in special education (as a paraprofessional), and I know I missed my calling there. It came naturally to me, having grown up in a household with disabled siblings. I was nine when the older of the two was born. And since I spent so much time with my younger siblings and their peers, I was surrounded by kids younger than I from just about the age when you start to develop cognizant perceptions of people and who they are, right as you start to do it for yourself. Kids with disabilities were more "normal" to me than typicals, simply because I was around kids with disabilities way more frequently. 

I think this, in part, has to do with why I always despised my peers as a whole when I was in middle school. Not just having matured emotionally at an earlier time than most of them because of the home situation, but because having been around kids with disabilities so often, I found the behavior of my own peers without them insufferable. You see,  kids with disabilities often have behavioral problems, sure, but these can be traced back to their disabilities and how they're treated and cared for regularly; when given appropriate coping skills and in the care of people that understand  them, those behavioral problems can shrink down to a bare minimum. Kids with disabilities may seemingly behave selfishly, but that seemingly selfish kid may actually not be able to understand concepts like selfishness and its opposite, selflessness. They may act out, but if you figure out the trigger and eliminate it, it can be prevented in the future.*

Middle schoolers? They're just selfish assholes that act out at any given opportunity, for no other reason than the fact that they can't see past their own goddamned noses. 

You, right now

Yes, I said it. I can't stand middle schoolers. Even when I was in middle school, I couldn't stand  them. I think some of my peers thought I was stuck up, and in a way, I guess I was. Because I knew I was better than them. Not in the Pride and Prejudice kind of way, but that I was a better human being. I actually gave a damn about other people, I didn't try to be center of attention every second I got, I didn't make a scene over absolutely goddamned nothing. 

And duh, I get it. Middle school, your tweens, is the time in your life where, like I said already, you're starting to understand individuality in more intense ways than just "I need to poop" and "I want a puppy." It's puberty. It's when you're trying to attempt self actualization, without even really knowing what that is, or what it looks like, or what you want it to look like. When you start to want to do things outside the house with your friends, so you either need to bike or bus it, or figure out a way to cajole a ride from those assholes you have to call your "parents." It's social  pressure. It's really caring about what people think about you, while simultaneously trying desperately to not let that show, otherwise you're really uncool.

I get it. And I got it back then. But I was still disdainful at my peers writ large, en mass. Because, the way I saw it, just because you may be having a hard time on your own, you still didn't (don't) have the right to be an asshole (at least, not in a situation where no wrong had come to you- by all means, stand up for yourself and your beliefs). I guess that since I had had so many  huge things already happen in my life, I thought it was petty and pathetic that there would be so much drama over such stupid shit like backpack brand and who sat next to whom in the goddamn cafeteria. And I didn't realize  it, but a lot of that was privilege, on their  end- I went to school with some rich-ass kids, and while the biggest complaint  they could lodge with their parents was that they "need mo' allowance," I had dealt with violence, death, and so much pain, from personal, deeply influential experiences, that I couldn't relate to most of them. I couldn't relate to how all they cared about was themselves, when I had grown up caring so deeply for my family, and especially my younger siblings. From the moment the older one was born, I put them first, and I didn't understand how so may of the kids in school with me couldn't comprehend how to do that, ever. Especially the ones with siblings a similar age as mine- I had seen some  of these middle schoolers be mean to their younger siblings when we were in elementary school, and I especially didn't want to be around these individuals. 

Now of course, I had friends. I had tons of them, and because I was (am) so goddamned nice. And these friends were consistently also more mature than errbody else, which is why I wanted to be friends with them in the first place. I was beat up and made fun of, sure, but there were always specific reasons for that, i.e. someone with a personal grudge or beef with me over something entirely inane, but that was so goddamn important because... middle schoolers. (Sigh.) I was actually, I would say, of the Middle Class, socially- the Popular kids would sit or chat with me when not enough of their own people were around, and I would get invited to birthday parties by people of every ilk. I was usually more comfortable with other Middle Classers and also Lower Class kids, though, because they were usually less selfish and asshole-ee then the socially elite.

But back to the beginning. Like I said, I have always been extremely comfortable (one could say "at home") around kids with disabilities. So I get mildly embarrassed nowadays when I tell someone for the first time that I used to work in a special education room, and they get all reverent at me. They say things like, "You must have the patience of a saint!" or "Wow, that's amazing!" or "Ohmygod, really? I could never do that!" It feels weird to me, like they're really saying, "OH MY GOD YOU KNOW HOW TO BREATHE!"

Every bloody time...

Well, you know what I say to anybody when I find out they teach middle school?

"You must have the patience of a saint!" and "I could never do that!!!" Etc.

And I mean it. I could never teach a whole class of goddamn middle schoolers. I would literally prefer to be in a classroom where getting poop thrown at you isn't entirely unheard of than have to deal with middle schoolers all day. 

Now,  before you get all, "MY KID IS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HE/SHE IS AN ANGEL!" on me, let me get to my theory about middle schoolers, and why I was able to maintain friendships with them back then, and also why I've never actually strangled one to death.

See, they're fine on their own, or in pairs. Even in groups of three, they can be decent, even enjoyable to be around. I've met many a sweet, kind middle schooler in my adult life, and I'm more than happy to, say, keep an eye on a middle schooler on their own when in public. I like chatting up the middle schoolers that come to the store I work at when their parent(s) are busy, or when they're all at the register. I especially enjoyed ringing up families during the Back-to-School season when I was head cashier at an office supply store- I liked asking the kids their favorite subjects, if they played any sports or played any instruments, etc. Because I like kids, I do. And the poor things often look so painfully miserable to be there. When they're in smaller numbers, I actually try to engage. And when I was in middle school, I didn't usually do things in big groups (and whenever there were more than three involved, there was eventually drama, even if not immediately).

But when there are more than three...

I think it's a law of physics. Like  when too many of their bodies are in the same space, the chemicals in their brains start going  haywire, and they compulsively turn into walking turds that bump into you, block your way, yell in your ear, insult you, and go out of their way to make sure you can hear them swearing profusely. If you separate them out, they'll go back to normal and wonder why you're so upset with them, as if they can't even remember how bratty they were behaving literally ten seconds earlier. In packs, they act out, they give you the side-eye as they misbehave in public, making sure you're noticing them but totally playing it cool and pretending to ignore you. One-on-one, you can have meaningful conversations with them and enjoy their presence. 

To prove this theory, I went into the field earlier today to gather data, at my own peril, for the sake of Science. Namely, I went to a Safeway across the street from a middle school ten minutes after school got out.** 

And it was utter chaos.  

Packs of middle schoolers were running and shouting everywhere, flailing their  arms like Kermit the frog as they scampered from aisle to aisle. It was so bad, there were actually five security guards in a huddle by the registers as I left, and from what I could overhear, they were literally strategizing how to handle the groups of kids causing problems. But see, that's just it: the ones causing the ruckus were the ones in groups of four or more. Because I also saw a bunch of kids flying solo, or with one or two companions, that were much quieter and politer. While the ones running around in hoards would bump into me without a word, would congregate in the middle of the goddamn aisle, shouting as many swear words as they could fit into each sentence, would barrel out of the aisle without yielding to those passing***; if there were any less, they would smile and make eye contact, would apologize if they bumped into me by accident, would hold out a hand as if to say, "After you," if we both got to an intersection at the same time. Hell, I even saw a kid on his own bend and pick up the can an old lady just dropped for her, and while a cluster of five boys on the other end of the aisle was holding a shoving match, to boot.

I mean, damn, can you geta better symbolic moment than that??? Seriously. I'm picturing beams of light coming from the can as the solo kid hands it to the woman, her eyes glossing over in gratitude, an undulating blob of darkness behind them. Then the beams fade as the foreground and background slowly switch in clarity, and we discover the blob is actually a cluster of boys  rough-housing in the middle of a goddamn grocery store. ::cue horror movie music::

Bam! See? 

Yeah, yeah, I know, anecdotal evidence isn't proof of anything. But just as how the lived experiences of women may individually be anecdotal when it comes to harassment, while the overall reality is that women deal with a lot of shit men don't "get" every goddamn day, I find this idea of mine too often corroborated to be merely a whimsical notion made up all by me onesie. Because a number of (adult) friends of mine have said they feel the same about kids that age. That on their own, they're fine. But in groups, they're terrifying. 

And it makes me think, "God, I hope I do a good enough job that my kids aren't little snots like that when they're that age." This isn't to say  the behavior of every delinquent-esque middle school kid is the result of failed parenting. I just hope I can teach my kids the lessons I learned without them having to learn them the way I did.

And as an adult, I realize that was probably part of it, too: I was jealous of them, because I knew why we were so different had to do with how different our lives had been. I resented them for not having known the kind of pain I had. And no, not every friend I made then had experienced tragedy and trauma like my own, but you could say, in those cases, it was a mild form of bigotry with the, "Well, you're different," qualifier attached to the friends, "the exceptions  that prove the rule," or something. 

So no, I don't want my kids to live the way  I did. But I hope they act the way I did. That they  respect others (or at least,  those deserving), that they apologize for bumping into someone, that they save the swearing for the house, and that they be willing to sit  next to the school's biggest nerd when he/she is alone, too. And all this, even while they're in that "delicate stage" of life, or whatever the fuck it's called.

But I'll still tell them to keep their social engagements small. Three, at most. 


DISCLAIMER

I would never wish any actual harm to a child. This was just a sort of rant from a stodgy old woman that doesn't appreciate getting her glasses knocked off by some kid flailing his arm and yelling at a friend, a kid that then laughs and  runs off with the rest of his buddies, and a chance for me to muse over something I've thought about a lot in the past. Like I said, I do love kids, and I would put myself in harm's way for the sake of a bunch of middle schoolers, if it came down to it.


*Yes, I know I'm being very simplistic, here, but hang in there with me.

**I lied. I actually totally forgot school was getting out, and I nearly got back in my car when I realized the huge mistake  I had made in going to that Safeway at that exact, unfortunate moment.

**Grocery Store Etiquette 101, you ALWAYS yield when exiting an aisle. 

Songs About Nothing, Vol. 1: Can't Even *Start* the Feeling

Okay, so I know I've started a million different "series" on here, like the "Girl Nerdery" one or the "Diversity in Comics" one (which still only has one entry... oops?) and... I feel like there are more, but I'm gonna confess I'm too lazy to go back and see if there are more. But I was in my car and a song from my childhood came on the "throwback"* station. And I was contemplating the lyrics and said, "This song is emphatically about nothing." And yes, I said it aloud. I'll do a post on that song sometime soon**, but as I was already writing about JT's newest single with a similar theses in mind, so... why not, eh?

I think Justin Timberlake seems to have this unfortunate habit of not churning out albums as quickly as his fans would like. I remember when this video came out, and how I thought, "These people; they get me. From the gal talking about Bruno Mars, to the dude admitting he can't say 'Da'... Because that's how science works!"

It was still almost two years after this video when The 20/20 Experience came out. Of course, I had to get the Target exclusives of it and Part 2 of 2. BECAUSE I NEEDED THOSE EXTRA SONGS OR MY LADYBITS WOULD HAVE GIVEN UP ON LIFE. And now we've been waiting again, and we're on year three. Until early May, I had resigned myself to the fact that it would probably be another year or two from now. 

And then I saw people talking about JT's  new single all over The Facebooks and The Twitters (yes, I still creep on Twitter, even though I rarely tweet nowadays). I was at work, of course, on a break, and didn't want to suck up the data, and also didn't want what promised to be an orgasmic experience (since, hey, it's Justin Timberlake's new single, people!) to be ruined by the shoddy reception in the office at work. So I was antsy with anticipation, and as soon as I got home***, I looked it up on YouTube. And what I found was this:

I kind of sat there, not even bothering to stop the autoplay from starting some random song I don't even remember but know I wasn't interested in. I was stunned. I wasn't super sad and disappointed, but  I also wasn't super excited about it. The best way to describe it, is I was whelmed:

I mean, it's a decent song, but it's  not... amazing. And when JT does stuff for himself, i.e., his albums,  amazing is one of the descriptors I would use. I just felt kinda meh about it. So I hit the back button and replayed it again. And again. And again. And I honestly don't know how many times I actually listened to it before I realized the problem: At the end of the day, it's just an empty pop song, intentionally catchy and about so many things at once that it's about nothing. 

Either that, or it's about a massive orgy.

First, I do want to acknowledge that the funky baseline kind of saves it from being bad. That is true Justin Timberlake there. But the rest? Let's look at the lyrics, shall we? (Note: The link is to a basic, I'm assuming, fan-done posting that The Googles pointed me to; I have the same link that's embedded up there open in another tab and listen to it when I think the full lyric linked is incorrect, so if there's a difference, don't freak out.)

I got this feeling inside my bones/It goes electric, wavy when I turn it on: Okay, nothing too weird here. Dude's just happy, and making vaguely nerdy sciencey references.

All through my city, all through my home/ We're flying up, no ceiling when we're in our zone: This already starts to scatter things. Dude was alone at first, then is singing about other people. So... maybe they're sharing the joy with him? But it's just a little jarring, since he's singing with first-person singular pronouns, and then suddenly jumps to plural. He could have at least had a line about how he has his friends all up in his home or something. 

I got that sunshine in my pocket: That's cute. Like the kind of stuff you'd see in an episode of a kids' show, like Gullah Gullah Island or Out of the Box. This is actually the crux of the whole thing, but I'll get to that later. I should note that, once again, he's singing in first person. Where'd the people that make the earlier part a "we" go? 

Got that good soul on my feet: What? I mean, okay, he means soul music, but I don't really feel like soul is usually attributed to lots of dancing. And the bass line and beat aren't that "soul-ee," but more R&B-ee, or even funk...ee. Funky! Get it? 

I feel that hot blood in my body when it drops/ I can't take my eyes up off it, moving so phenomenally: What the fuck is "it"? The beat? The coke? Take his eyes off what? And in the overall lyrical content of the song, "phenomenally" is quite out of place. The first time you hear it, it's pretty obvious he couldn't figure out what to put there without sounding erudite.****  It's kind of jarring. Then later, when you hear it again, it's... uncomfortable, but not as shocking, since you know it's coming.

Room on lock the way we rock it, so don't stop: I'm going to guess this is where the orgy starts taking place. Obviously, you'd lock the doors of an orgy. I would think, anyway, since I've no personal experience. 

All of you, judging me now

Okay, seriously, though, this is just entirely nonsensical. I guess they lock the doors of his "home" referenced earlier? 

Under the lights when everything goes/ Nowhere to hide when I'm getting you close: WHERE DOES WHAT GO? I'm just frustrated, because these lyrics are bouncing around like pinballs in a box  of potential topics. Now he's singing to one person? I thought he had all his homies? So he's been singing about one person the whole time, and just singing about them, eh? The fact that it took this long for there to be a singular noun that isn't first-person makes it hard to understand. 

When we move, well you already know/ So just imagine: Do you SEE why I can't get away from this orgy theory? I mean, yes, he next starts singing about dancing, but "dance" is often  metaphor for sex...

Nothing I can see but you when you dance/Feel good creeping up on you, so just dance: So it's kiiiiiinda a love song? Or just a physical attraction. After all, there's nothing about this person's character, just a lot of underlying sexual tension and hints at sweating bodies.

Feel good creeping up on you, so just dance/ All those things I shouldn't do, but you dance: Hmm... So he's seducing this person, even though he shouldn't? I'm going to make the assumption, then, that they're in a relationship and he's persuading them to cheat. Tut-TUT, Mr. Timberlake. Either that, or they're getting into some really kinky shit in their little sex party. 

Ain't nobody leavin' soon, so keep dancin': And this is where the big sex orgy comes (HAH!) back. Maybe he's being super creepy, like horror move, I-have-you-trapped-in-my-death-house-creepy, because a killer in a horror flick would say that kind of thing, "Nobody's getting out of here any time soon, MUAHAHAHA!" And it's not in the context of a breakup song, such as "D.O.A." by the Foo Fighters; the whole song is about the buildup of this positive "feeling." So no, not creepy. So... 

HE'S GOT YOU LOCKED IN HIS SEX DUNGEON!!! 

Or, you know, it could just be that the party is so good, no one is going to want to leave. But that's not as exciting. And also, if it's not meant to be a sinister command, the use of "nobody" indicates more than just one other person besides the singer. 

I can't stop the feeling/ So just dance (etc.): Meh, that's filler. Which is kind of pathetic, since the phrase "can't stop the feeling" is the NAME OF THE SONG. This gets at my main point of all of this, which will show up pretty soon.

Because honestly, the next verse is just more  bullshit about the ever-present-yet-unspecified "it." And another line about "control" that says  the singer really is a sex-crazed maniac with a bunch of prisoners in his sex dungeon, forcing them to participate in ritual and sacrificial sex acts involving animals and freshly dead bodies. 

If you're still with me, then here's the deal. I said at the beginning that this song is about so much random shit, that it's about nothing. And that's possible. But actually, I think the real problem with the lyrics to this song is that they're your basic, generic, "Top 20" dance anthem. It's a song about dancing, and that's it. Nothing more. It's topic and lyrical execution are dull, bland, and overdone in basically every genre, not just pop, per se, but also country, rap, hip-hop, rock, whatever. Everybody does it. Not everybody has a single that hits the charts, or does as well as this one, but this song has a lot to back it up: First and foremost, Justin Timberlake. That alone is enough to get it into the Top 10, because the vast majority of his fans will soak this up, regardless of content or quality, or whether it's up to his usual caliber of song or not. Second, since it is for a movie, Dreamworks (the company making said movie) will throw money at it to promote it (which, I'm sure, is  why  they let JT release the above video first, conveniently featuring the cast of the flick). And for a movie about gorram TROLLS to have a single that's radio-worthy, it couldn't actually be about the trolls. So it's about, as I said, dancing. 

But I think, since Justin Timberlake is more an artiste than just "artist," meaning he cares about his craft the way a person would care about their child (hence why there's such a gap between albums- he works long on them, perfecting and refining them, caressing them into the shape he thinks they deserve), he avoided a lot of the stereotypes in the usual "party rock" repertoire. 

And so perhaps why I don't overtly hate this song is because JT at least has enough class to keep his fucking hands out of the air (in  the lyrics... the video... well...), and never actually says shit like "party" and "fun" and doesn't talk about drinking. The last point is obviously because this song is for a kids' movie. But even so, avoiding "da club" and cars and hot babes, as well as that amazing baseline, makes this song at least tolerably close to his usual level of product. 

So I at least can say I still respect him. The song itself is disappointing as a fan of his,  and no, I don't keep listening when it comes on the radio. But I appreciate his attempt to raise the bar in what comes down to a basic dance anthem. And I just pray that, sooner or later, he comes out with an entire album of his own that makes this song a blip on the radar. 

*I say "throwback" because they play Bruno Mars's newest stuff... and Drake. Maybe I'm being picky, but I feel like "throwback" indicates at least ten years old... right?

**Or maybe I won't, given my penchant for getting excited about a Thing, "starting a series," and then forgetting about that Thing.

***After letting out my dog to pee, and taking a wee, myself.

****As one of my best friends said when we looked this up because a professor said she was "too erudite" in a gorram research paper, "I don't think a person can use 'erudite' without being erudite themselves..." ;)

Next In Line: The Intersection of Disability with Asshole Customers and What Should Already Not Be Okay

In case anyone that has been following this blog (HAH! Followers.... I crack me up...), I'm no longer a grad student. My program ended up pushing me out (and no Mom, I don't have grounds for any substantive lawsuit). But that doesn't mean I stopped thinking academically about life and situations I may find myself in on a daily basis. Like one I found myself in the middle of on the way home a few weeks ago. 

I stopped at Target for a few things before hitting the highway: lotion, shaving gel, TP, etc. There were a surprising number of people checking out at such a late hour, so the cashiers were all kind of backed up and doing their best to get people out the door in a timely manner. I got in a line with two people in front of me, a gentleman in a suit that I'll call Silver Fox from now on (because he was probably in his mid-forties but damn handsome, and the salt-and-pepper hair gave him a very Richard Gere kind of look) in the middle of being helped. And a younger guy in line behind him, wearing one of these specific Dragon Ball/Z/GT shirts: 

Yeah, you've probably seen them, and to the uninitiated in the ways of the Dragonballs (insert dirty Lord of the Rings joke here, right?), the shirt is a mockup of the outfit the Good Guys wear (think of it as their dojo's uniform) (and yes, pedantic fans, I know, it's called Turtle Training School and run by Master Roshi). This guy also had on a hat with a patch in the image of Totoro on it, so I'm calling him Anime Dude for the rest of this post. 

The cashier (whom I'll call Cashier, so as to give him a "name" here, too) was a man probably a few years older than me (God, I'm officially in my 30s now...), and from listening to him interact with Silver Fox, I could tell he has some sort of developmental disability, accompanied with some sort of mild speech impediment (starting words with hard consonant sounds like hard "c" or a "b" usually involved a stutter). He was being pretty jovial, though, and Silver Fox was smiling and engaging pleasantly in the conversation that Cashier was making; I came in late to the conversation, but it seemed like they were just talking about their mutual love of cheese (I can only presume Silver Fox was purchasing some?). When Cashier told him to have a nice night, Silver Fox said, "You too, son," and grabbed his bag and walked away, smiling.

As Silver Fox was leaving, a woman not much older than me put a hodgepodge of stuff on the conveyer belt: some fruit snacks, an energy drink, diapers, and a thing of baby food. So while I'm a feminist and I don't think a woman's identity is based solely on her motherhood, I'm going to call her Tired Mama (because she sure did  look tired- I smiled at her in an "I get it" kind of way,  and she sighed and smiled back). 

Then Anime Dude's turn came, and after the usual, "How are you?"s were exchanged, Cashier asked, smiling up at Anime Dude (who was a good four or five inches taller than him), "So, that symbol on your shirt, is it Chinese or Japanese?"

"Japanese," Anime Dude said, frankly.

"Aaaah," Cashier said, enthusiastically, "okay, cool! Yeah, when they look like that, I figure it's got to be one or the other, so a fifty-fifty chance, right?"

"It's Japanese,"Anime Dude snapped, kind of jerking his head and his hands to emphasize it. His whole aura was prickly and hostile, and it even caused me to jump back a bit, and I was already a few feet away (because I hate it when people crowd me as I'm being checked out, so I try to provide the courtesy I prefer to others). 

"Oh," Cashier said, looking down now, "sorry." And his body language went from open and excited to closed off and sad, maybe even a little scared. I noticed that while he had maintained eye contact with the Silver Fox at every chance he could, save when he absolutely had to look at the screen or some other thing he was using to do the technical parts of his job at that moment, he was now staring at the things he was scanning, and the counter, and anything else besides Anime Dude he could look at (but, I should note, not anyONE else- he was focused on his station). His shoulders were slouched, his head craned downward.

After a few long, uncomfortable seconds in which  Tired Mama and I exchanged, "Did he really just do that?" looks, I finally couldn't take it.

"Well," I said, toward both Cashier and Anime Dude, "actually," and I tried to sound as authoritative as I could, "that depends. See, Dragon Ball-Z," and at this point, I turned directly to Anime Dude, "and yes, I recognize where that shirt comes from, I get it." And then I turned toward Cashier now, "Dragon Ball-Z, the show that shirt comes from, is a Japanese show, but  the Japanese language has three different  alphabets, one of which is based off of Chinese characters. And the symbols on that shirt," and I pointed at Anime Dude without looking at him, "are from the alphabet based off of the Chinese stuff." At this point, I moved a little closer and turned my body so that if Cashier wanted to, he could look at me and  not have to look at Anime Dude at all while still doing what he needed to in order to finish the transaction (which wasn't much, as they were in the transaction phase at this point). "So, it depends on how you look at it. You could say it's Japanese because it's the Japanese use of that symbol, or you could say it's Chinese because of the original use of it, a Japan-ized version of a Chinese thing, as a way of putting it."

Cashier straightened up like a flower blooming and smiled a little again. "Reeeeally?"

"Yup!" I said, smiling, "I took Japanese in high school, so I know all kinds of stuff about that sort of thing." 

Cashier's smile got even bigger. "Wow, I had no idea! That's so cool!"

"Not really," I said, chuckling, "I'm just a nerd that's into super nerdy things, and fixing mistakes is one of them." I looked pointedly at Anime Dude, who was now the one looking down a little. We made eye contact, though, and then he darted his eyes away.  

"Nah," Cashier said, "that IS cool! My New Year's Resolution was to learn something  new every week, and that makes two things for this week, so thanks!"

"Wow!" I said, "That's a really great resolution! Most people pick things they don't stick to, like losing weight or exercising. Lord knows I have tried that."

At this point, the receipt was printing, and as soon  as Cashier handed it to Anime Dude, who already had his bag, I moved into Anime Dude's space to "suggest" he get out. He went around the edge that's parallel with Cashier, and said, sounding defeated, "You have a good night," to Cashier. Cashier looked a little wary as Anime Dude kind of bowed to me and said, "And you too, ma'am." He looked up at me just before scampering off with a very apologetic look on his face.

I turned to Tired Mama, and she had a kind of smug grin on her own face, as if to say, "Hah, you showed him!"

I spent the rest of my time at the register talking to Cashier about his snow boarding trip from earlier that day and how cool he must be because I know I would spend more time with my butt in the snow than my feet on the snowboard if I ever tried that because I'm so clumsy. I could feel Tired Mama's eyes on me the whole time, and when I finally looked at her, she had a kind of... well... motherly look, like she was proud of her baby bird for flying. Cashier was genuinely funny and earnest, and I didn't pretend to laugh at his jokes, and couldn't have been more sincere when I said I hoped he got some good rest that night when he made it home. 

I knew I was justified. Anime Dude had been a jerk. I mean, Silver Fox had been joking and smiling, and Tired Mama seemed as shocked at Anime Dude as I was, and pleased with how I handled it.

But when I got to my car, I was like this on the drive home:

Seriously, I am still amazed I didn't crash... again... Ugh.

ANYhoo, the whole thing brought up so many emotions for me, on as many levels.

The most general is the interaction between a friendly cashier/person in customer service and an asshole customer. Cashier had been nothing but sincere and pleasant, and for absolutely no reason, entirely unprovoked, Anime Dude snapped at him. I don't care how shitty your day has been, it is 100% not okay to take it out on someone else; and if you catch yourself doing it, you fucking call yourself out and apologize. That doesn't make it okay, but at least it lets the other person know it wasn't them, and it makes it easier for them to move forward.  

This shit happens to me all the time. It's annoying, and I get it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me at least a little. I've had people yell at me for nothing and snap every time I tried to appease them, and a few times they were bad enough before starting to tell me everything that they had on their mind (that had nothing to do with the store they were in, by the way), I even said something along the lines of, "Well, that has nothing to do with me, and I'm trying to make this experience as pleasant for you as possible, but that's easier when I'm not getting yelled at."

I actually had something like this just a few days ago- a gal came in and was super curt the whole time we were interacting, and the fact that she was shopping for a trip that was the next day made any solutions I offered with respect to ordering what she wanted impossible didn't help; I didn't want to ring her up, she had been so rude, but I did, and so I said, "And since I seem to have done nothing but get on your nerves and disappoint you today, I'm going to give you this coupon." She got bug-eyed and apologized, saying she was annoyed with her husband when she walked in, that must have been why she was so rude. I never said she was forgiven; I just nodded, said, "Ah, I see," and kept doing my thing, to give her the same message: That I had nothing to do with what happened with her husband, and she had been rude to me for no reason as I was bending over backwards trying to find what she wanted. She felt guilty, and seemed distressed. And to a certain degree, I felt bad, but not very much: She kind of deserved to realize she had been a shitty person to a super nice one, and it was entirely unwarranted. 

So Anime Dude. My pointed look and "mistake" comment that was totally for him, obviously, were meant to send that message: That he had been shitty for no reason to a perfectly, frankly exemplary, person behind the register- because not every cashier actually makes jokes and conversation. And I'm fairly certain  he got the point, what with how he basically ran off with his tale between his legs. And I'm happy about that. Anime Dude's behavior was 100% Not Okay. And us retail workers need to stick together, and any time we can educate the assholes we deal with is a win. Right?

But the other, deeper level, and the reason I was such a blubbering mess on my home has to do with disability. I saw my little brother in Cashier in so many ways. High-functioning, curious, sweet, sincere. For my little brother, being a cashier would be peek achievement level. And I hate it. Not because I think he's "above" that in some snobby way, but because I know he'll be in situations like the one I just saw. He'll get his own Anime Dude, that snaps for no reason, and he'll think  he did something wrong, but he won't know what. And he'll be as sad and apologetic as Cashier was. Because he won't be able to understand that it wasn't him, his customer was just a jerk, unless someone standing right there can tell him that immediately. And even if he tried explaining it later, he may not have the vocabulary and grammatical skills to express it in a way that someone besides a trained professional or a person in our family would understand well enough to reassure him it wasn't his fault. 

And that enrages me and makes me  want to scream and sob and break a whole dinner set or just knock  over anything knock-over-able in my general vicinity. 

I was proud and relieved I was there for Cashier, but I can't be there every time, and I won't ever be able to be there for my brother. 

I hate that we live in a world where customers can just be assholes and get what they want. But I hate even more that we live in a world that then makes people with disabilities like my brother feel guilty for that behavior. That allows them to feel that way. Because they don't have the comprehension to see that they didn't do anything wrong, that they did everything right. A world where people like my brother, people that need it more than others, can't defend themselves. A world where we put people that are already vulnerable, that already experience all sorts of systemic abuse, into situations where they are supposed to tolerate abuse like that.

This actually relates to the whole Orange Debate: Those oranges that are pre-peeled for convenience also happen to be more accessible, so they're beneficial on multiple levels. Well, this is the reverse: The fact that cashiers are expected to just take it (even though corporate handbooks claim otherwise, that they don't tolerate abuse and stuff, their actual definition of "abuse" really just comes down to overtly threatening language and physical attacks; being super shitty and snapping and even insulting doesn't cut it) is doubly-hard on people with lower cognitive abilities, since the people with disabilities working in customer service are even less likely than non-disabled persons to recognize they hadn't done anything wrong. And  by perpetuating this "the customer is always right" bullshit, we're actually perpetuating a system of ableism.

Because the system doesn't require an apology to the cashier. There is no remedy in the system for the genuinely distressed or hurt feelings a cashier with disabilities may feel as a result of the combination of their shitty customer's behavior and their own cognitive comprehension levels. There is no recourse for a person with disabilities that entirely, 100% unjustly believes they hurt someone else. That person just goes on thinking they upset someone, and that customer goes on with their day, being shitty to other people and not getting any kind of lesson on manners, respect, or humanity. 

AND  WHAT REALLY MAKES ME ANGRY IS I HAVE NO SOLUTION. THIS  IS HOW CAPITALISM WORKS. CAPITALISM IS INHERENTLY ABLEIST IN THIS AND SO MANY OTHER FUCKING WAYS.

I mean, think about it. What if Cashier had snapped back at Anime Dude? Anime Dude could then have complained and had him fired. And Cashier is already in a precarious state: Unemployment and poverty rates for persons with disabilities are leaps and bounds higher than other demographic groups, even when taking into account things like equal levels of educational attainment (so to put it differently, a PWD with a BA is less likely to have a job or more likely to be underemployed than someone without one). This is exactly how intersectionality works. Customer service workers are already lower in the pecking order and prone to being treated like crap by a shitty customer; a person with disabilities is more susceptible to them and less likely to at least have comebacks like I did with the gal who was pissed at her husband. I mean, if I snapped back, I am certain I could get another job, were I to get fired. But if Cashier snapped back, if my brother snapped back, not likely, or at least with much more difficulty.

Because I don't buy the "equal opportunity employer" line. If every company that claims they're "equal opportunity" actually was, the statistics wouldn't be so skewed against persons with disabilities. That's capitalism. These companies don't want to hire (or promote) persons with disabilities for any combination of these, and I'm sure many other that I'm forgetting, reasons:

1) Accommodations may be "too costly."

2) They may assume less output from disabled employees.

3) Whoever is doing the hiring at the ground level has at least latent, if not blatant, ableist tendencies that influence their hiring process.

4) They fabricate statistics to avoid investigations by any organization that may be monitoring them for discriminatory hiring practices. 

Etc.

I don't  really know how to end this. Except to say that customers really shouldn't be allowed to treat people working at where they're shopping/eating/whatever like shit, especially for stuff that's out of the hands of the people working there. But it's exceptionally vile when the target of the poor behavior is a person with a disability. And I recognize I'm saying this from my non-disabled, fully-employed position; but I can't help but picture my little brother with a mop at a McDonald's getting screamed at because someone just clogged the bathroom he had cleaned less than an hour ago, and  him crying because he didn't know what he had done wrong and had just checked on that bathroom and it was fine...

Sigh.

Girl Nerdery 3: #YesAllGeekGirls

So rather than directly addressing the Eliot Rodgers stuff, I'm going to put my nerdy spin on this whole #YesAllWomen thing. Because as I've said before, nerd culture is sort of a microcosm and hyper-active space for "normal" hierarchies and behaviors. So let's start with this piece from io9 (I'll quote the relevant section here):

Hello!

I've been a fan of the X-Men since the early 90s, when I watched the (awesome 90stastic) cartoon. I've enjoyed (most of) the live action films, especially the most recent, X-Men: DoFP. I've never been able to keep up with the comics, but I'd like to read about the important story lines, character origins, X-Men history, etc. The problem is that there's a ton out there and I haven't a clue where to start. Do you have any recommendations? Perhaps there are some compiled anthology-type materials?

I've asked at a comic book store once and the guy just rolled his eyes at me and said they weren't girly comics, so I shouldn't bother...

Well, screw him. I want to get into this, but I just don't know the best starting points.

Please help!

Okay. I really want to help. But first there's something I've gotta do.

Dear Mr. Comic Store Employee Who Told Lori To Stick To Girly Comics, and Every Comic Store Employee Who Has Ever Done or Said Something Similar: Eat shit.

Seriously, go to the bathroom, take a dump, don't flush, go grab a spoon and fork, and just eat that shit up. The fact that it's 2014 and you have the fucking gall to assume a woman who enters your comic store does not want or somehow cannot handle a superhero comic is both insane and fucking horrible.

Is this the most awful act of misogyny in the world? Unfortunately, as recent events have shown, it obviously isn't. But it's so needless, so petty, so clearly, transparently incorrectnowadays that it drives me insane that this is still happening, or that it ever happened. And I don't mean just morally wrong, I mean factually wrong. Unless this idiot has somehow ignored all the women who have entered his store, and never been to a con, and never been online, there is copious proof that women like all the same nerdy stuff men like. ALL OF IT.

And I get extra offended any time a nerd pulls this shit. I remember being a nerd in the '80s and '90s, being ostracized by my peers, and the fact that any nerd would willingly choose to do the same thing to anyone, let alone another nerd or potential nerd, appalls me. We should know better. We do know better. Second of all, I remember a severe dearth of nerdy girls growing up, and I would have done horrible, horrible things to live in the gender-even nerd renaissance we live in now.

He is a Neanderthal. A nerdy Neanderthal. A NERDANDERTHAL. Fuck him.

I say, "Slow clap," for the most part. And in an exceptionally timely bit of happenstance, a gal on a forum I'm part of on FB just happened to post a picture of herself with a crapton of X-Men comics a friend of hers let her borrow for the same reason the gal seeking advice above had. When I posted a link to this article, a dude posted the following hashtag:

#NotAllComicBookStoreEmployees

Now granted, this is still while the battle over #NotAllMen vs. #YesAllWomen is being raged on blogs and forums in all of Inernetdum. So my response?

#YesAllGeekGirls

Because, well, yes all geek girls. 

I know the guy was being at least a little facetious, but it's so goddamned true. 

I'd say the one thing I disagree with the columnist about is their final part, goes like this: "Second of all, I remember a severe dearth of nerdy girls growing up, and I would have done horrible, horrible things to live in the gender-even nerd renaissance we live in now."

I'm going to have to call..

Because this is a two-pronged fallacy, here. First off, what, we didn't exist in the nineties? Excuse me? How about the fact that you dudes were, indeed, ostracizing and excluding us? Women may have become more nerdy recently, sure, but we didn't not exist. Remember when I said the boys didn't let me play Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering with them? Yeah, I didn't make that shit up. I still have some weird complexes about acceptance and being "who I am" that I'm sure are related to this. Also, I have a nasty scar on my left knee from the time the cargo pants I was wearing got caught on a nail. I AM LITERALLY SCARRED BECAUSE THE  BOYS WOULDN'T LET ME PLAY WITH THEM  IN THEIR NERD THINGS!!!

Second, this assertion that we live in a "gender-even nerd renaissance" nowadays? What rock is he under? I mean, not to, like, ovarysplain, here, but the author of the column  is a dude, and I just... I don't think he realizes how pervasive this kind of shit is for us women/girls/ladies/gals.  Anita Sarkeesian is still getting trolled and threatened for her videos;  reviewers of video games that point out underdeveloped female roles are still called hypersensitive, and the whole "male characters are objectified, too!" bullshit gets tossed (along with plenty other bits of textual fecal matter) in the comments; and there are YouTube channels dedicated to teaching other dudes how to harass women gamers.*

"Nerd renaissance?"

Excuse  me while I count to ten...

See this is exactly what perpetuates the problems. This ignorance with respect to the systemic issues geek girls face on a day-to-day basis as they go about their nerdery and geekiness. I mean, sure, I'm glad he's pissed, but his indignation is misguided in his assertion that this comic book store employee is somehow an anomaly. His (what I can only assume is) shock and disbelief stems from his total oblivion to the real problems women in the geek world face. I mean, granted, I agree and like the term "Nerdanterthal," it's pretty apt- it rather cleverly points at how backwards this mindset is. But I think this columnist is missing the key fact that this "Nerdanderthal" is one of millions of asshole geek men that assume women don't know anything about nerdery and that deliberately exclude us. I've had very similar interactions with comic book store workers in my own lifetime- I'll be perusing, often looking for a specific title, when the dude behind the counter saunters from his post, walks up next to me, and asks with a tone you'd reserve for a child you caught doing something naughty,

"Now, is there anything I can help you with?" When I say no, they inquire again, as if giving me a second chance to "come clean," "Are you sure?" I tell them no, I'm really okay, thank you, and they say, the way you give in to someone that refuses assistance, despite it being devastatingly obvious they need it, "Okaaaay, if you're suuuure. I'll just be over here if you need me, okay?" Sometimes it's not an "if," but rather a "when," by the way.

Fuck, even when I go to Hot Topic, if it's not a gal behind the counter, the dude gives me these really condescending looks and smirks as I buy my Batman or Walking Dead merch. I even had one ask me if my boyfriend watches the latter once- I promptly responded, "It's for me, is that a problem?" I guess the pink shirt and big, dangly earrings threw him off.

And so excuse me  for being a little  frustrated.

I get it. Not all geek guys are sexist. Not all of them drool and stutter when a human with boobs walks into the comic book store. Not all of them assume ladies only like rom-comics. Not all geek guys harass female gamers. Not all male nerds would turn down a lady that asks to join them and throw down some Magic cards. But it happens so often that geek girls come to expect it, or at least come to be entirely unsurprised when a male nerd assumes ignorance on their part. Or suggests they try some other media that's more "girly," too. Call me a cynic, but I'm actually surprised when it doesn't happen, when the dude treats me  as an equal, not like some little child pretending to understand something like thermodynamics or how to fix a jammed printer. And for a geek guy to act surprised and indignant when confronted with an example of a fellow male nerd being sexist, it shows how, just like in the world outside Nerddom, dudes are putting their heads in the sand and pretending there's no problem- without realizing that actually creates more problems. 

And too often, they assume it's a personal attack and blame game, rather than a call for awareness and responsibility when it's pointed out in their midst- often because they're positive that they're open-minded and socially aware, too. They think that because they may not have ever behaved that way, it's an affront for them to be exposed to critiques of other dudes. They are obviously not a part of the problem, so why point the finger at them? (I can't tell you how many times I've heard a dude say, "Hey, I'm all for diversity, I like [name drops Black male character], I just don't think [insert female character name here] should get her own movie/series/etc." or something along those lines when I bring up the lack of female/POC representation in comics and movies. That's the equivalent of the, "I have a Black friend," argument.) But again, it's about responsibility, not blame. 

There is everyday sexism in Nerddom, folks. So next time a gal tells you a story about something she experiences, don't waste time on acting shocked and appalled. Just get right to the point and tell her you get it, that geek culture is a cesspool of concentrated rape culture and misogyny, and brainstorm things you can do as a [insert gender identity here] to help change the discourse.

Because there are things you can do. Like calling out sexist comments. Like encouraging a woman being mansplained at to stand up for herself as it's happening, or saying something to the dude mansplaining at her later (because we do need to be careful about White Knighting, too). Like giving a woman  the benefit of the doubt and not questioning her credentials when she expresses interest in anything nerdy, walks into a comic or game store, sits at your nerd table. Like not freaking out if you get beat by a woman in a game because she's a she (I mean, it's cool to be mad you lost, but to be all, "I CAN'T BELIEVE I LOST TO A GIRL," is just plain ridiculous).

Do I need to give you more?

The anti-woman sentimentality underpinning crap like what the gal writing the letter described is why women feel unsafe in lots of geeky environments. It's what leads to Anita Sarkeesian getting rape threats and having her personal info spread around and a flash game where you beat her face in made. And while no, geek girls haven't been targeted by a mass murderer as of the writing of this post, the fact that they get threats online when they beat men in games along the lines of, "I'm going to find you and rape you then kill you," doesn't make me think it's entirely out of the question for the future. I hope it never comes to that, but by golly, if that Eliot Rodgers isn't a catalyst for the problems in society, I don't think even a big brawl at a gaming convention caused by a dude being upset he lost to a woman would make much difference to anybody, either. It's sad, but really. If THAT shit doesn't lead to some change, I don't know what else could. 

#YesAllGeekGirls

*Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the whole racism thing, if he's going to have the balls to call it a "nerd renaissance."