myurbandream reblogged
feel free to reblog and explain your answer in the tags!
myurbandream reblogged
One of the more common frustrations I’ve seen expressed on Tumblr is “why don’t neurotypical people just say what they want?” – and I guarantee you, 100% of the time the answer is “because we live in a society that imposes an obligation to agree to any halfway-plausible request, no matter how unwelcome or inconvenient, unless you can cite a specific justification for refusing it”. That leads directly to this elaborate song and dance of implying requests without actually expressing them so that the receiving party is free to refuse without being obliged to justify themselves. It’s not irrational – it’s a specific solution to a specific problem!
(Now, if you’re going to ask why this deranged expectation that one should always agree to explicitly stated requests unless one can justify refusal has come about in the first place, well, that’s where we’re gonna have to get political.)
myurbandream reblogged
Anonymous asked:
What would a truly dark Qui Gon be like? I think he came close to falling after Tahl's death. How would it affect Sifo Dyas, Dooku, Obi Wan and Anakin?
Oooh, Sith!Qui-gon
- The thing about a Sith!Qui-gon - to my mind, at least - is that he wouldn’t be all that removed from light side Qui-gon. He would still be infuriating, hypocritical, in tune with the Living Force and willing to bend the rules to achieve his goals - except in this case, there are no more rules, so Qui-gon can step over that imaginary boundary and more or less do what he wants, when he wants.
- Unlike Dooku and/or a Sith!Obi-wan, Qui-gon has never been a creature of precision, and so if he’s upset, or mad, he just wreaks havoc then and there. To be honest, he would probably be a little like Anakin, except without the slave background meaning Qui-gon would be hard-pressed to be cowed by any authority.
- Qui-gon would probably spend much of his fall convincing himself he’s not falling. That he’s doing what the Force wants, that he alone is the conduit, that he can justify his increasingly violent actions because the Force is speaking to him, that he has seen the truth through the prophecies and that the Jedi are just stuck in rules and boundaries and the past.
- But when he’s not raging, he’s still kind, still calm, still Qui-gon. Which is probably the most frightening thing of all. Dooku cut off all the latent goodness within him, Obi-wan would be a frightening picture of composure and ice, and we all say what Anakin became, but Qui-gon…he would, look, talk, act - as if nothing happened. Until he buried a lightsaber in your gut, that is.
- Now, how would this affect others?
- Sifo-Diyas: I feel like they would stay in touch over prophecies and visions, that Qui-gon would use a wilting Sifo-Diyas (let’s face, Jedi Lost made some pretty large hints that Sifo was losing his sanity to his visions), would exploit him to gain knowledge of the future, to examine the prophecies, as Qui-gon himself was the seer, in that he could parse the meaning in the Force’s vague messages.
- Dooku: Aaaahhhhh. Now. This all depends on when this happens in terms of Dooku’s own fall. If Dooku were still with the Jedi, he would struggle with this. I mean, he’s been battling to dark most of his life and then his own student falls to it. Join him? Battle him? He’s not entirely sure. Best to corral Qui-gon, in his mind, to be a guiding hand one way or another. Dooku doesn’t disagree with a lot of what Qui-gon says, but he is not in control as a Sith, will eventually injure himself, or worse and that is one thing Dooku cannot stand for.
- Obi-wan: Obi-wan would be devastated. And mad. And probably find some circuitous way to blame himself for it happening. And then he’d get mad again. And it would get messy and I can see Obi-wan dropping off the radar for a bit - not turning dark, because he wouldn’t but maybe just…dropping out the Jedi, losing faith in everything he thought he (and his Master believed in). What would be the point? Nothing mattered, Qui-gon turned, he couldn’t save him, what kind of Jedi was Obi-wan if he couldn’t see this coming? What were the Jedi if Qui-gon felt so strongly to abandon all of his principles. So he probably goes on a bender, maybe joins Hondo’s crew, or - hell, if Rael Averross were still alive, he might even seek him out. (Now talk about an AU!) He doesn’t want to fight Qui-gon, doesn’t want to fight for the Jedi. He’s just going to do what he wants and falls into a deep, depressive nihilism.
- Anakin: The funny thing about Anakin and this situation is that…well, it would really depend on Palpatine. Because without Evil Sheevil, I could see Anakin getting very righteous about Qui-gon’s turn and him asserting that it’s wrong and Qui-gon needs to be defeated (which is hilariously tone-deaf, considering Anakin’s own struggles with the dark, but Anakin isn’t always the most self-aware person). And I could see this event shaking him up to the point where he might avoid falling. I could also see Sheev exploiting this to illustrate how the Jedi are failing and something needs to be done and Anakin could defeat Qui-gon by doing even more intense Dark Side stuff, I’m kind of partial to this event being a wakeup call for our hot mess Chosen One. Plus, it would actually throw the whole prophecy thing into doubt if the Council and Anakin believe Qui-gon made that assertion only to groom Anakin to turn, as well.
myurbandream reblogged
Ask Culture and Guess Culture
“One of my wife’s distant friends has attempted to invite herself to stay with us, again,” writes the exasperated owner of a prime 2 bedroom apartment in New York City in this Ask MetaFilter question. “She did this last March, and we used the excuse of me starting a new job and needing to do x, y, and z as well as the “out of town” excuse for any remaining dates. This got us off scot-free, but we both knew the time would come again… and it’s here. We need a final solution.”
He goes on to list two different possibilities he can think of for getting this woman to stop asking for free room and board. The first is a little white lie, something about their keys being hard to duplicate. The other is to be vague, to say something like “Sorry, that isn’t going to work for us” and hope she doesn’t ask why.
The first few answers give this poster very direct advice: Just say no. No need to give an explanation, it’s her who’s being rude by asking. Others give him advice that was probably more like what he was expecting: other ways to be vague like claiming that it’s “One of those random `Life in NYC things.’”
Another thread of discussion popped up around whether or not the woman asking for a place to stay was being rude. Some posters couldn’t understand how simply asking to stay in someone’s apartment was rude, while another went as far to say that putting someone in the position “having to be rude and say no” was rude in and of itself.
It is into this context that user tangerine contributes this answer:
This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.
In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.
In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.
All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you’re a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you’re likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.
If you’re an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.
Obviously she’s an Ask and you’re a Guess. (I’m a Guess too. Let me tell you, it’s great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)
Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you’ll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you’ll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.
As you read through the responses to this question, you can easily see who the Guess and the Ask commenters are. It’s an interesting exercise. (#)
After this comment many users, including the original poster himself, began to use these terms in discussing the issue. And why wouldn’t they? Ask Culture and Guess Culture describe two valid yet opposing ways of interacting with the world with very little value judgment given to them. Framing the argument as such was a stroke of utter genius by tangerine, broadening the perspective of many who participated in the discussion and adding to the general lifebuzz.
myurbandream reblogged
Racism in the Star Wars fandom: The Tumblr Years
In December 2014, the first trailer for The Force Awakens dropped.
On Tumblr, the Star Wars fandom started to come out of dormancy for the first time.
myurbandream reblogged
One thing I cannot forgive TROS for is Rey's drastic costume change from TLJ
It was already discussed how the grayness of her clothes in TLJ play into the themes the film had going: middle ground, gray morality, balance between light and dark, etc.
Moreover, I read from somewhere that her hair being relieved from the three mini buns she had since childhood also symbolised her letting go of the past, no longer seeking validation and belonging in the family that left her.
Now you can blatantly see how her get up in TROS directly contrasts her attire in TLJ, thus also indirectly contradicting or even negating all the themes, symbolisms of TLJ
I can't even– did they do this on purpose??? Like, It's almost funny how her TROS costume basically physically represents the regression of her characterization and the abandoned themes and symbolisms the previous films built up.
Star Wars deserved BETTER, and I'll never stop saying it
*EDIT* GUYS, I have just been informed that this was intentional so that it would match the scenes with Leia, which were shot before TFA. I'm sorry if I sounded petty and ignorant, but TROS still did so many other things wrong😭😭😭
myurbandream reblogged
My sociology professor had a really good metaphor for privilege today. She didn’t talk about race or gender or orientation or class, she talked about being left-handed.
A left-handed person walks into most classrooms and immediately is made aware of their left-handedness - they have to sit in a left-handed seat, which restricts their choices of where to sit. If there are not enough left-handed seats, they will have to sit in a right-handed seat and be continuously aware of their left-handedness. (There are other examples like left-handed scissors or baseball mitts as well.)
Meanwhile, right-handed people have much more choice about where to sit, and almost never have to think about their right-handedness.
Does this mean right-handed people are bad? No.
Does it mean that we should replace all right-handed desks with left-handed desks? No.
But could we maybe use different desk styles that can accommodate everyone and makes it so nobody has limited options or constant awareness that they are different? Yes.
Now think of this as a metaphor. For social class. For race. For ethnicity. For gender. For orientation. For anything else that sets us apart.
madamedraconis
WHY DOESN’T THIS HAVE MORE NOTES?
Because I posted it about 90 seconds ago, calm down.
if you lived your life never realizing until now some desks are in fact designed to be right handed then bonus revelation to how privilege works
We’re also more likely to die in industrial accidents because all the machines have been built for right handers. Use that in your metephor as you will.
myurbandream reblogged
The 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s seem to have all separate, unique personalities, but these last 17 years seem to just be one big chunk of time that has no significant meaning.
FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT
These last 17 years have an “oh no” feel that just gets bigger and louder with each consecutive year
I was watching Hasan Minaj’s episode on fast fashion and he talked about how fast fashion companies put out new collections each week instead of having a major release 4 times a year for each season. And then drew the comparison to Netflix putting out new content every week unlike traditional tv channels that also used to introduce new shows seasonally.
Dissolution of unions and rise of gig economy means working class people don’t take regular holidays and vacations anymore they just work continuously until they have a nervous breakdown or have random short term gigs interspersed with random intervals of under/un-employment.
And these are just two ways in which late stage capitalism is eroding our sense of time.
Buzzfeed did an article on the effect of non-linear social media on our sense of time: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katherinemiller/the-2010s-have-broken-our-sense-of-time
Speaking of seasons. Climate change is literally changing how seasons work. Plants are blooming at the wrong time. Animals are coming out of hibernation at the wrong time.
myurbandream reblogged
not to throw myself into discourse or anything but fandom went downhill the moment fans began holding up fandom content to mainstream content standards
Elaborate pls.
Shipping is no longer about “hey I think these characters have an interesting dynamic and I want to explore what they would be like together”, it’s “but it needs to be canon, it needs to be healthy, it needs to be representation”
Headcanons are no longer personal opinions but “you are wrong and always have been wrong”, “you are DIRECTLY going against canon with this and here’s a list of reasons why this is so!”
Do I even need to bring up the “fiction = reality” argument here that’s currently so prevalent in fandom circles that, sure, definitely has some truth in it when you’re considering a piece of mainstream media which is going to reach millions of people, but not so much when you’re applying it to a fanfiction with 100 views tops
There are certain things fans want to see in their mainstream content, and that’s okay! I do that too! Diversity is a necessity in media and it’s wonderful that the mainstream media is finally taking steps to rectify that, no matter how small. Fans can now openly communicate with content creators on social media and get them to confirm all manner of headcanons, and that’s good too!
Except some fans have run with this and started using it against fandom, and suddenly you’ve ended up with fans terrified to put forth their own content because it doesn’t fit into the requirements they’re requesting from the mainstream.
One of the best examples to illustrate this recent shift that I can think of is (oh god here we go I’m not even in this fandom) Reylo. If it were to become canon in the films? Sure, feel free to criticise the creators behind the decision all you want! However, exploring the potential such a relationship could have in a fanfiction no-one’s going to read except other people interested in the same idea doesn’t open it up to this same criticism.
tl;dr: through wanting to transform the canon, fans are forgetting how to transform the canon for themselves into their own fanworks and this is leading to fans criticising each other on the same level with which they criticise mainstream media without considering the history & small nature of fandom and the intention of fans in their production of content
I agree with what you’re saying, but I do want to point out that sometimes those fanfics with only 100 views end up getting more views and becoming mainstream media (namely, 50 shades of grey).
I agree with everything else you said - I don’t think that what’s mainstream should dictate what’s in fandom, but when stories get big (and just before becoming mainstream), should they still be excluded from criticism?
This is a good point, but allow me to use 50 Shades of Grey as an example since you’ve brought it up:
50 Shades of Grey, in its original form as Twilight fanfiction, was fanfiction written for fandom consumption and published in a fandom space.
EL James, in deciding to publish it, took that fanfiction out of the fandom space and opened it up to full public consumption.
And in turning that fanfic into a published novel, in removing it from its fandom space and placing it in a literature space, EL James should have done her research, or at least sought out critical opinions which influenced the novel’s transition from a fanfic written entirely to amuse herself to a published work.
Does this mean we should be criticising fanfictions which gain popularity in fandom in case the authors decide to do as EL James did and publish it as an original work??
In my opinion, no.
Fanfictions published in fandom spaces are written freely, given freely. We have no way of judging why an author felt the need to write their fanfics and fanfiction authors do not need to justify themselves even if they do (to use 50 Shades again) write fucked up dynamics in a romantic way, or haven’t done any research on a topic central to their work such as BDSM, etc. If, however, you choose to edit your fanfiction into an original work, it no longer exists in a fandom space and you should be aware of that.
Those popular fanfictions? Remain excluded from criticism because they still exist in a fandom space. If you find aspects of a popular fanfiction to be harmful or worthy of criticism in some way, there’s the back button, or even better, a blank word page to begin writing your own fanfic.
myurbandream reblogged
i learned that in 1998 Sony had the chance to buy the rights to almost every Marvel character for 25 million. They opted to only buy the rights to Spider-Man for just 7 million, stating, “Nobody gives a shit about the other Marvel characters.” (x)
they were right
It seems hilarious now, but Marvel wasn’t desperately auctioning off licensing rights to their characters because anybody cared. In the mid and late 90s, Marvel was desperately battleing bankruptcy, and they continued to battle bankruptcy until Disney bought them.
myurbandream reblogged
[id: tweet by buffalocialism reading “if you have so many prisoners that you have to deny them the right to vote because they would significantly impact election results, the main substantive problem is that you live in a police state”]
myurbandream reblogged
literally is there a better example than this of the clickbait-industrial complex laying waste to craft….like no wonder the acting is so flat no one knows even the basic plot of the movie they’re filming
#i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again:#if the entire experience of reading or watching your story is ruined by someone finding out the twist#you didn’t write a story. you merely wrote a twist.#the twist might lose some power to shock or surprise you. but experiencing the story should still be worthwhile and compelling.#works of art like films or television shows don’t live or die on plot alone. there’s character and style and cinematography and music#there’s atmosphere and tone and pacing and everything else that contributes to that total experience#knowing in advance that the avengers are going to go to space and fuck thanos up is… literally the least interesting thing about endgame#and if you don’t think so then we truly disagree on what art and fiction are doing and what they’re for#nobody should intentionally spoil the whole plot of a movie to someone who doesn’t want to be spoiled: that’s always a dick move#but i am fucking *exhausted* by anti-spoiler culture#and i am tired beyond imagining of the kind of storytelling that’s evolved around it#the puzzlebox shit is only designed to affect me in one place: the wallet. not the heart or mind. (x)
myurbandream reblogged
Old pictures and articles about the suburbs
Hi! I’m not sure it’s gonna work but I have no idea of where on the internet I should post this (reddit? fb?).
I’m doing my master degree project on the suburbs, and I’m looking for some old pictures (of houses, streets, malls, postcards, family pictures (if used in my project, the faces will obviously be concealed) or articles (from the 50s/60s/70s) about the suburbs
Thank you!!
myurbandream reblogged
I understand more and more things about cisgender men the longer I’m on testosterone. I know why teenage boys use so much axe now. I understand the crying thing. I know why they accidentally break things. I know why they wear shorts in the snow. I know why so many of them don’t use washcloths. I see everything.
Okay. Y’all want explainations? I’ll tell you all the things.
- Testosterone makes you warm. With young men especially it can actually get really uncomfortable while their testosterone levels are at their peak. Often times coats and winter pants will keep in all their heat and it gets uncomfortable. So it makes sense to pick a part of the body to be exposed to help them stay cool. The legs tend to be the least uncomfortable part of the body to feel cold on. The arms are uncomfortable, the face hurts when it gets cold, and the torso is where all the important stuff is. It doesn’t actually hurt that much to have your lower legs exposed and there’s no important organs there so that’s what they go with to keep themselves from overheating in their winter jackets. Along this same vein, they might take their shirts off to jog or just have a naked torso in general during the summer because they’re in more danger of overheating than estrogen dominant people. Older men, children, and estrogen dominant people tend to do this stuff less because they have less testosterone and are therefore colder.
- The axe thing is because of testosterone as well. Early on in puberty especially and into adulthood as well boys and men will stink no matter how hard they try. People often complain about how men don’t shower enough and while there is some truth to that testosterone makes you sweaty and it makes your smell last longer. It doesn’t smell worse than women’s BO, but it is harder to get rid of and easier to get. Before I started taking T I could get away with taking a shower every other day or even every three days. Now I have to take a shower every day. And some days when I shower, put on deodorant, put body spray on my clothes, avoid heavy physical activity, I still end up smelling awful. I just smell bad and there’s only so much I can do about it and that bottle of axe starts looking really tempting.
- With crying? Testosterone just makes you cry less. You still feel all the same emotions. You just don’t cry as much. Men are often socialized to not cry, yes, but even those who haven’t been taught that still cry less. That’s just how testosterone works. They hit puberty and then it’s just harder to cry. It doesn’t necessarily mean they feel less than estrogen dominant people or that they’re repressed. They just have a different physical reaction to emotion.
- They accidentally break things because testosterone makes it easier to gain muscle. Sometimes you even do it without meaning to. I already accidentally grabbed or slammed things too hard. Now I have to consciously be gentle. Some people forget about being gentle for a split second. Then things break. Sometimes I look at my hands now like what the hell did I just do. Relearning how to know my own strength. It’s a learning process.
- The thing where some men don’t use washcloths and use their hands or a bar of soap instead isn’t because they’re lazy. It’s because they’re covered in hair and the washcloth pulls at it. It’s really uncomfortable actually.
01-hug-man
WOW THAT IS AWESOME INFO
This sounds like spiderman finding his superpowers
God, I love that comparison.
Op have you felt the urge to slap the top of the doorframe yet?
ghostkid-reimagined
OKAY I REALLY WANNA KNOW THAT TOO WHY DO THEY DO THAT???
That one is to test how tall they’re getting. Men are on average six inches taller than women and it’s fun when you get really tall and can reach stuff you never could before. Once they’re done growing it’s either to demonstrate how tall they are to other people or just because it’s fun. Jumping is fun and slapping the doorframe demonstrates both your height and how high you can jump, or if you’re so tall you don’t need to jump. Hitting stuff is fun too when nobody gets hurt from it. I did that even before I started T lol. I stopped growing before I started T but I still do it because it’s fun. It’s just one of life’s little joys. For a lot of people it also just becomes a habit. Like tapping on a desk when you’re thinking or giving your friend a high five whenever you pass them.
wow I appreciate knowing this so much
myurbandream reblogged
bassiter
you know what trope incenses and baffles me? the Heterosexual Consolation Kiss.
like a dude is pursuing a girl or is at least openly Into her for the duration of a movie or episode of a show or even a whole season/arc, and she makes NO move to indicate that she’s not into him for any of the time until the very end when it turns out she’s in a relationship already. and the guy is like >:O so the girl gives him a kiss on the cheek to like?? acknowledge his efforts or something??? as though he deserves it just for Being Into Her???? it just reinforces the whole “women are prizes to be won” thing and i honestly highly doubt it EVER happens irl
myurbandream reblogged
ape babies: hey whats up I can climb around and do whatever the fuck i want basically from birth
human baby: uhhhhhhhhhhh guess ill be a dumb immobile little slug for like a year
hank0331
Human babies are born at the last possible moment before their craniums can’t pass through the birth canal. We’re basically all born premature because of our big brains.
nightsarmament
big brained babies too stupid to do sick flips from tree branches
myurbandream reblogged
BIG DISCLAIMER: i was 9 when 9/11 happened, so this might be more about my own crystalizing tastes than anything else. i think it’s a pretty darn good theory tho and other people have validated it.
BIGGER DISCLAIMER: i am not saying that country music prior to 9/11 was free from nationalist, racist, misogynist undertones - i just think that these themes became more the norm!
MY HOT TAKE:
with very few exceptions, including goodbye earl, before he cheats, and daddy Iessons (side note - all women!) 9/11 ruined country music. around 2014 onward we’ve got margo price, sturgill simpson, jason isbell etc., who are making country music great again (wink), but those folks are mostly considered “alternative” country. the mainstream country music for well over a decade now is a glut of trash performative patriotic / working-class-but-not-really lab-crafted budweiser-sponsored nonsense that has managed to sound rebellious (or has convinced its fans that it sounds rebellious) without ever actually questioning any power structure. so much so that artists who ACTUALLY criticized the government were literally blacklisted for nearly a decade (the dixie chicks)
pre-9/11 country music, though not perfect or ideologically pure by any stretch, did not have the raging american flag painted truck boner that comes to mind for a lot of people who say “i like everything except rap and country”
SPECIFICALLY, toby keith’s “courtesy of the red, white, and blue (the angry american)” (2002) literally destroyed country music. it was a direct answer to the 9/11 attacks and war song in support of the invasion of afghanistan. the lyrics read like a disjointed feverish email chain letter forwarded from your great uncle sprinkled with glittering american flag gifs and heavily saturated pictures of bald eagles. the entire song is lifted from an estimated 248 peeling bumper stickers collected from rusted trucks on cinder blocks in overgrown yards, cut up and arranged to fit a catchy, formulaic tune that is almost certainly the background music playing in george w. bush’s head at all times.
“we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the american way and uncle sam put your name at the top of his list and the statue of liberty started shakin’ her fist and the eagle will fly, and it’s gonna be hell, when you hear mother freedom start a'ringin’ her bell”
country music and the new country musicians that toby keith paved the way for became so pro establishment and so unquestioningly nationalistic that, again, the dixie chicks who went against this grain were blacklisted by the industry and received death threats from country music fans. hell, there are folks who STILL froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the dixie chicks.
9/11 killed outlaw country - how can you sing the praises of law breakers when your main circuit consists of singing to troops? there are some great classic country songs critiquing the police state - especially from johnny cash and merle haggard - now country music artists hold fundraisers for FOPs. new country music is basically in-law country music.
you don’t have to write a pro-bush patriotic anthem to be part of this post-9/11 ruination. playing meaningless songs about living in the heart of (read: white) america, eschewing the city (read: not white), and cracking open a cold one with the boys for “authentic” country music is also important to the war effort.
there’s a progression of themes here:
post 9/11 top tier: war anthem, vocally patriotic, directly used as pro war propaganda; which paved the way for: “things used to be so much better” thinly veiled racist laments, good for campaign ads; which paved the way for meaningless party anthems - attempts to make things “like they used to be” and craft a reality that neither the artist nor listener likely ever experience.
that brings us to what most people think of today when they say they hate country music: the country party anthem - “tiny hot gal in tight jean shorts who can drink beer like the guys, she doesn’t like beyoncé Like Other Girls, oh she’s so into me and my truck, i’m gonna take her fishing after i finish sowing my corn - sung by a guy who’s never touched a tractor” - has overtaken the tragic, done me wrong, despairing country ballads of tammy wynette, george jones, and even up into pre-9/11 contemporaries like reba mcentire and george strait. you didn’t necessarily have to be country to relate to their pain. now you have to perform suburban redneckness to enjoy luke bryan.
when was the last time you heard a sad country song?
after 9/11, cowboys (whether or not they had ever been near a cow) weren’t allowed to be sad anymore (no more done me wrong country), and they certainly weren’t allowed to question authority (no more outlaw country). partying hardy became the most important American Thing and if you don’t sing about that, our Enemies Will Win.
so - understanding that country music has always had bad stuff, and that like any genre it suffers from commercialization, 9/11 DESTROYED COUNTRY MUSIC. and toby keith gleefully helped destroy it.
for some further evidence of the decline of country music, please listen to the dixie chicks’ “long time gone” which is an indictment of the industry (i believe it was written before 9/11 but my point still stands - the genre was on the decline and 9/11 was the major cultural event that hastened the decline).
maybe i am a curmudgeon - almost every generation of country music has had its own “country music is not what it used to be” anthem, but i really think something distinct happened with 9/11.
Can confirm. Alan Jackson and Toby Keith, the blacklisting of Dixie Chicks, literally the only singer I can think of that ever spoke out against anything from 2001-2010 was Johnny Cash. I’d also say that the uber-patriotic stance lead to the shiny, vapid County Boy® nonsense that lead to so many of the solo artists all sounding and looking the same.
queensryche
Johnny cash wrote an entire album about the destruction of Indigenous lands and of Indigenous people, Kris Kristofferson has been an activist most of his career working closely with the UFM, Woody Guthrie was a social justice advocate and union activist, Dolly Parton has tackled explicitly feminist issues even in the 60s and has been an avid supporter of her lgbt fans, Willie Nelson made Farm Aid to try and help farmers in danger of losing their farms due to mortgages keep them and is also an avid supporter of LGBT rights as well as marijuana legalization, Lorettea Lynn wrote about birth control in the 70s and had her song banned, i could go on!
When in the correct hands, country music is a powerful medium, but post 9/11 it’s been handed off to apathetic white men who have turned it into the most useless genre of music out there.