ButterSkeleton posted:

I'm totally gunna come off as an rear end on this, but looking into the replies, I'm kinda annoyed at Patrick Klepek because he seems like the whitest dude ever and he's asking people to DM him epilepsy stories.

I get it, but something about a cis white guy doing that kinda stuff rubs me the wrong way.

Bakeneko posted:

You might come across as less of an rear end if you explained why exactly you feel that way.

Some quick googling tells me he's a journalist so I would guess he's doing research for an article, which is a legitimate reason to ask people for their stories as long as he's being polite about it. And what does someone's race and gender identity have to do with epilepsy?

ButterSkeleton posted:

I have a predisposition against super white rear end journalists who write articles about the suffering of others. In this case the article work definitely isn't a race/gender thing, but the approach is still white as hell. Sitting at home and collecting stories in DMs is IMO the safest, whitest poo poo on the planet.

ButterSkeleton posted:

I have a predisposition against super white rear end journalists who write articles about the suffering of others. In this case the article work definitely isn't a race/gender thing, but the approach is still white as hell. Sitting at home and collecting stories in DMs is IMO the safest, whitest poo poo on the planet.

ButterSkeleton posted:

I have a predisposition against super white rear end journalists who write articles about the suffering of others. In this case the article work definitely isn't a race/gender thing, but the approach is still white as hell. Sitting at home and collecting stories in DMs is IMO the safest, whitest poo poo on the planet.

ButterSkeleton posted:

It'd be infinitely less lame if he tore a new one into CDPR and called them bitches for doing an obviously stupid thing and poorly handling it. Or tagged the whole studio in one big post and was like yo what the gently caress

ButterSkeleton posted:

I have a predisposition against super white rear end journalists who write articles about the suffering of others. In this case the article work definitely isn't a race/gender thing, but the approach is still white as hell. Sitting at home and collecting stories in DMs is IMO the safest, whitest poo poo on the planet.

RareAcumen posted:

I'm cis and straight but I'm also black. How sus am I?

Nuebot posted:

Nuebot posted:

Epilepsy is something that doesn't really give a poo poo about your race, gender, sex, or pretty much any other facet of your identity. People across the globe can get it and suffer from it, a lot of people can get hit by it and literally never know or realize what it is because we, as a sort of increasingly media reliant culture, have a weirdly specific and usually joke-focused definition of what epilepsy and seizures are (people watch cartoons, fall down flailing wildly and comically) and the majority of people will probably go through life without ever encountering a seizure or even knowing an epileptic personally even though there are certain types of non-dangerous epileptic activity that are fairly common in a lot of the population. All most people know about this poo poo tends to come from things like The Simpsons which had one episode that jokes about anime causing seizures. And the hosed up thing? Any epileptic who doesn't like being made light of like that just gets told to shut the gently caress up and stop being a bitch. Just like with the recent cyberpunk controversy where tons of people I, otherwise, thought were cool and respectable couldn't wait to prove just how much they loving hated people who's brains are broken.

It's something that doesn't get reported about, often, and a ton of people are very ignorant about to the point where there's this massive almost insultingly myopic view about epileptics where even people in progressive spaces just have zero sympathy or empathy for us. I see arguments like "Well if you ignore the warning signs whatever happens is your own fault" and it's just a really callous and exhausting one because basically every facet of your life is potentially seizure triggering unless you wear a blindfold all day and sleep perfectly every night in a hyperbaric chamber or some other absurd poo poo like that because it's an absurdly varied and individual disability to have. Know what the number one thing that makes me feel dizzy and faint is? The sun. Specifically morning sun, the way it flashes behind trees, poles and other things when riding in a bus or other vehicle. For years that made getting to school or work an absolute nightmare because sometimes I'd arrive borderline incoherent and most people would just shrug their shoulders and tell me that was my own problem (I, in fact, failed phys ed. because my school didn't give a poo poo about what my doctor said). There's nothing I can do about that except try to work my life around that poo poo and I was lucky enough to be diagnosed when I was young so I've had decades to adjust and adapt to a fairly restrictive life in regards to garbage like that. For people who get diagnosed later in life, it's very difficult to adapt because depending on the severity they might well have to treat every day like they're made of glass now and if anything goes wrong the entire world is ready to just tell them to gently caress off it's their own fault. It's really, really, hosed up how lovely people are to epileptics and diabetics, yo.

Here's a personal anecdote about just how much this poo poo sucks: I was diagnosed at thirteen. I had just started learning how to drive, because I'd have been able to get my learners in the next few years, and was really excited to finally have a car and be able to drive. But my seizures were hard hitting and we didn't know what triggered them right away, so unless we could figure that out and get them under control (in my state at least it's something like two years seizure free and owning your own car and having a driver's license is pretty key to a poo poo ton of jobs in America, even if you don't need them for that job - boy howdy let me tell you how fun it is to try and get a job when you have neither of these things.) then I'd just flat out never be able to drive. So that was one hopeful dream smashed. Movies? Video games? Watching TV? Even browsing the internet? Well again, depending on what set off the seizures and whether or not we could find a medication that would get them under control I would either not be able to do these things at all or would have to do so in a severely limited fashion lest I be risking my life every time I wanted to look at fun jpgs. Oh and stress and exhaustion exacerbated my new condition and made me even more prone to seizures. Know what makes me real stressed and exhausted? Having all of my hobbies potentially hacked away from my life and having to spend the next few decades structuring my life around a heavily restricted schedule and public transit. Any time I had a seizure my doctor blamed me for it. I wasn't following the restrictions, I wasn't taking my medication, I wasn't doing it right. But the medication didn't work. I kept saying this, it didn't loving work. It just made me sick. Seizures kept coming, and since no one loving listens to an epileptic, they just blame us, I got to spend a good few years getting worse and worse until I could finally, legally, make my own medical choices and find a doctor who would listen to me. Even then it took us another five years to find a medication that works because that's just the joy of epilepsy. My current medication, and as far as we know the only thing that works, destroys my bones though. I now have to take five different medications just to stop my ribs from shattering at the most mild of impacts, it's just a loving horror show down there now, not a single one lines up with another anymore. Oh, and during all of this? I had no one to talk to. No one who gave a poo poo. Because Epilepsiy is a funny joke! Pretty much anyone who found out in real life spaces would immediately try to start flashing the nearest light switch. People online would start sending gifs and youtube links.

I say all of this because holy gently caress, if the reaction to that cyberpunk thing proved anything it's that we desperately need more people to report on epilepsy. Because, still, people don't give a poo poo about epileptics. Our experiences are ignored and dismissed, even when it's about our own reactions and experiences. People continually look for excuses to blame us for what happens and the sheer disdain shown for something we literally have no control over is not only disgusting, but depressing. We deserve to have fun too, and we deserve to be treated with respect like anyone else. But at best people just kind of treat us like we don't exist. Because when they do, it's just as a joke or active dislike.

ButterSkeleton posted:

It's unbelievably terrible that you have to deal with that poo poo. It's awful, especially, how alone you felt about all of it. I hope you have found at least some support network nowadays who have provided some help for you.

Nuebot posted:

It was the start of my becoming Very Online, really. Since I couldn't do as much fun stuff as I could before I started hanging out on more forums (which was how I discovered SA eventually) and I made some internet friends who were nice people, eventually. Some of whom I'm still in contact with well over a decade later.

ButterSkeleton posted:

I'm glad you've found some people who understand you and keep on contact with. And I apologise if my topic upset you in particular, I'm trying to work through a personal grudge I have I think.

ButterSkeleton posted:

I see essentially where I'm fumbling, and at it's core I probably do have a fundamental issue with some basic principles of journalism, and that it feels like it's exacerbated when white people write for marginalized groups.

ButterSkeleton posted:

Eh, all I can really say is I distrust cis white dudes with anything to do with publishing work on groups of people. It's impersonal, it's mildly exploitative, and it's not hitting anyone or taking advantage of privelege. At best it's using people's feeling of wanting to be understood to get another dude paid.

Kim Justice posted:

Which take is worse: Being mad at Patrick Klepek for following the basic tasks of his job, or calling Mia Mulder bougie for complaining about being woken up by jackhammers in the morning?

Mr Phillby posted:

Its healthy to question the motives of anyone writing about a disadvantaged minority they don't belong to but like a Gay Trans Aboriginee would also not have any idea about epilepsy without talking to people with actual experience of the condition.

Sarcopenia posted:

Broey Deschanel made a neat video on Miyazaki and Romanticism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbJeGN0SbM

JordanKai posted:

https://twitter.com/Ad_Inifinitum/status/1336710426420269058

These days you'll get arrested and thrown in jail just for saying you failed the LSAT.

Kim Justice posted:

How far would Destiny get in an "Internet shitarse" tournament to find the most hated dickhead out there? Got to be a high seed, surely.