using my powers for good

died and came back wrong and no one could tell the difference

Men on the left wringing their hands about how we need to be nicer to the poor left-behind Trump voting men and stop telling them they're the bad guys, meanwhile my friend who teaches high school had to give detention to a bunch of boys chanting "her body, our choice!" during lunch and their parents have already complained to her boss.

We are fucking cooked, y'all

Being overly nice to people who've been radicalized doesn't help, it only enables them. Even deradicalization strategies that involve personally reaching out to someone are clear about not tolerating their bigotry, not letting that be a thing that gets a positive or neutral response when they express it.

We have to instead push for more understanding of how online extremism works, how to deradicalize people, and more regulation of Internet spaces (gonna be way more difficult under Trump obviously).

One thing you can do is if you are an educator or a parent, educate yourself better on this and put it into practice in your school/parenting as best you can. If you have a son or nephew or other child you have some supervision over, keep an eye on his Internet and iPad and app use, don't let younger kids go long stretches on there without supervision, create the kind of relationship that encourages him to talk to you about what you see online. Familiarize yourself with this stuff and start a dialogue with him about it. Tell friends who have sons all this stuff, too. As an educator, try to include more stuff on digital extremism, critical thinking skills, and anti-fascism to the extent you can do that in your lessons, and encourage schools to do the same as well. (Also, all of this obviously applies too if you know someone who isn't a boy getting into this stuff, as some do - but let's be real and not pretend this is not a gendered phenomenon)

"Male loneliness" is a stupid framing, every young person is lonely (why do we act like men are the only people with feelings?), young people across the board are having way less sex and romantic relationships than previous generations, and men aren't entitled to women to make them feel less bad, especially when those men hate women. In fact, it's probably for the best if young women and girls make a point of avoiding dating or sex with men who have misogynistic views and support Trump! Negatively incentivize them to do that! And for women dating men to set ultimata if their partners get like that - as it is something that has genuinely caused some people to have a change of heart, if they fear losing a relationship.

But we should probably do something about the way the Internet is radicalizing young men and boys, white and Latino ones in particular. It's just not the responsible of women and girls their own age - it's the responsibility of the adults who have power over them. It's the responsibility of their families and schools.

Y'all, I cannot stress enough as someone who used to teach very young people and now teaches teenagers how -little- interaction some kids get from their parents and how a lot of the time incredibly dangerous things are framed in 'cutesy' language in order to fly under parental radar.

I do not have enough fingers and toes to count the amount of times I had to sit a parent down and explain "huggy-wuggy" and "Squid Game" and explain that if your eleven year old boy is cooing about something called 'Rainbow Friends' you may want to do a quick Google.

I am both an Internet and a Child savvy person - I know the rule of "I don't know what that is so I'm gonna do a quick google." So many parents don't know who Tate is. So many Teachers don't know who Tate is. Sitting another grown-ass adult down and explaining to them that they need to google the shit their child says and screen it is so exhausting, especially when education professionals often get the "don't tell me how to raise my kids!" nonsense.

"Sir, I'm sure you're a great dad but your kid is watching Andrew Tate on YouTube and you need to look into that" should not be a radical sentence.

Like, a lot of parents genuinely don't know about Algorithms and YouTube celebrities and that's fine - back when I was a kid a lot of parents bought their kids inappropriate video games because they assumed all games were for kids.

But please, as a teacher, I'm begging you to listen to your kids and find out what media they're engaging in so that you can sit them down and have productive conversations about this shit before it's too late.

if somebody you knew for a year said "listen. im just gonna be honest here. i know ive known you too long to not know your name. but i simply do not. i dont know how this happened. im reasonably confident you told me your name at some point. could you remind me please" how would you react

"(Name), I told you last week it's Ms Cat. The other two teachers are Ms (Name) and Mx (Name.) You really need to get your ADD looked at, son."

"i saw your name in the kudos list of the devil's sacrament"

Okay, but what were YOU doing in the kudos list of the devil's sacrament? 👀

Writing it.

You should have seen me when I was younger. Hot-blooded and cocky, always ready to fight.

At the end of the day, some people are correct and believe the purpose of literature is to observe, reflect, and analyze life and the human experience, and some people are incorrect and believe the purpose of all literature is unilaterally to impart good moral lessons to small children, and we're never going to agree with each other

Here's a legal PSA:

If you've committed a crime and a detective gathers everyone involved in the room, especially if he's not actually a detective and is instead a novelist, puzzle-setter, psychic, fake psychic, dog, chess grandmaster, etc. ...

YOU SHOULD NOT CONFESS.

Every year, hundreds of people are put away by non-traditional "detectives" who have either inserted themselves into the case or are working with the police in a dubiously legal capacity as advisor. In 99% of these cases, the murderer gives a full confession even though the evidence against them is circumstantial at best and often requires a long just-so story which can only guess at motive.

If this happens to you, stay quiet, do not attempt to defend yourself or talk your way out of it, only say "I want a lawyer".

Now if you find yourself being investigated by a boy genius, magician's assistant, anthropologist, classics scholar, or philosopher, it's likely that refusing to talk to the police (or investigator with no legal authority) is merely the end of the second act, and by the end of the third act they will have you dead to rights.

YOU SHOULD STILL NOT CONFESS.

Make them take it to court. Force the eccentric detective and his straight-laced police partner to take the stand and explain their methods to a jury of your peers. Have your lawyer look at the chain of custody on the evidence, especially if you believe it to have been handled by someone who has only bumbled into detective work through their natural charm and/or unique set of skills and outsider perspective that come in handy more often than they should.

Know your rights. Don't let eccentric detectives put you away.