care-tags.org

Just cancelled my trip per my friend pussyfooting around me no longer having a place to stay for varying reasons.

It's just disappointing to tell her "yeah I'm coming out to hang with you so you have someone to chat with and cook a meal with on christmas and new years" and have it end up with me being accused "I hope you don't want to just come out here to have sex". How shallow do you think I am? It's disheartening that the thought of that even came up.

Hearing someone I care for fuck in the next room isn't high on a list of things I want to subject myself to.

It's weird how it doesn't really hurt. I want it to, but it just comes up hollow.

hooplah come back to irc

whenever i read stuff i write online i feel like i come off as so annoying and tryhard.

i'm worried i'm just another person built by the internet in the worst way possible.

awareness is the first step to recovery, b4my! anything in particular you write that distresses you?
i feel like that too, but i think in the end as long as you are ~*~authentic~*~ it's fine. but then—

what does authentic mean?
i guess for me it means

never doing anything i'm ashamed of the day after
or things i'd be ashamed of confessing to a loved one who expects the best from me
having the same standards of behavior online as i do offline
preferring to be earnest and kind rather than sarcastic and caustic
choosing to be kind instead of trying to act cool
having high standards of expressivity and exactness through words
disengaging from the need for approval/internet points

oh, and not making egregious grammatical mistakes. sometimes it still happens, sadly

aw that was so well thought out and cool of you to say!!

yeah it's not like a rude behavior thing, i'm generally quite nice on the internet actually. it's more like I feel that sometimes I use the internet as a substitute for going out and having actual experiences, and i don't know if I bring anything to the table in terms of discussions on forums like this because of that.

especially fashion stuff cause half the stuff i'm talking about i won't be able to afford or handle irl.

oh~ i see.

tl;dr—i've had that feeling of not bringing anything to the table too; i think part of it is just a knowledge gap/stylistic immaturity that you'll get over, and in any case i don't think it matters all that much. something something i love care-tags

i definitely get what you mean about feeling like a poseur for not being able to afford crazy stuff. it's weird for me to say this because i made a pretty significant cop last night, but for the first few years of my involvement in fashion communities i was, you know, wearing forever 21 and h&m. and i also dressed like shit. there was this long period where my taste was improving and i was becoming more aware and discerning, and so i started formulating all these opinions and joining in discussions and stating my opinion about x and y designer, and meanwhile i'd be sitting in my room wearing a bunch of awkwardly fitted graphic tees, lol

so i do kind of have this insecurity complex about "wait, am i even allowed to say this? why is anyone taking me seriously?" and obviously i did start to dress better and i also tried to formalize my knowledge a bit—look back at designers and their archived collections, read fashion history books, look through the christian dior by dior and balenciaga by balenciaga stuff (when the OG designers were still alive, to try and work out house influences and founding values). so that's helped a bit.

i think the big thing to do is be humble and seek knowledge and find ways (once you feel comfortable) to get that knowledge irl too, and also try as much as possible to be around people who won't do this elitist support circle thing to you if your knowledge is incomplete/you're not #nxtlvl enough or whatever. i feel fashion forums get this a lot, and so far that's been the shining light and joy of care-tags (along with having a pretty good gender balance)—we don't try to tear people up for not being good enough, we're just here to be enthusiastic about fashion and talk about it with like-minded people.

and i guess also getting braver (thanks freddy for telling me the story of how he did this and giving me flintstone/impetus to do it too) so that i could walk into fancy department stores and boutiques and look at all the expensive/nicely crafted clothing and get a feel for it. i used to get this awestruck feeling of meeting a celebrity when i handled stuff i'd seen in runway images. i still do, to a certain extent.

i think it's nice and valuable to have the actual experiences. but i don't think it makes you lesser or less interesting or anything, although i highly recommend it in the future. it's just nice, you know? TO RUB YOUR FACE INTO BEAUTIFUL SOFT COZY KNITS

if you're ever in SF when i'm in SF we can run around together and get over our fear of real-life fashion experiences

I've been largely offline for the past couple of days because I'm in Paris with Katy and checking care-tags now is giving me a panic attack because there are too many unread threads.

Just drink four espressos and power through.

I dunno when I started being afraid of being earnest.

My grandfather is called Earnest and isn't afraid.

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

re: earnestness

i sometimes have some weird idea that i will lose and reform in a slightly different shape that irony or sarcasm don't really exist - they are just an expression of an earnest opinion. i am currently of the opinion that in one particular form, this is true: when an earnest opinion is held, the ironic or sarcastic expression of that will reveal the earnest opinion, only negatively (that is to say, the absence of). the problem i have with sarcasm, despite it being a favorite tool, is that as a negative expression it does not necessarily require a positive basis and through its becoming a regular means of expression, people no longer actually have to have an opinion. the absence of an earnest opinion is enough for discourse, especially on the internet.

a facile example. a question: do you like candy? a sarcastic answer: no, i don't like candy. because of the link between ironic and earnest expression and the binary choices of yes or no, the meaning is taken to be that one does like candy. the person could be ambivalent to candy, but through sarcasm makes an appeal to what the link should describe, which is to say what the other person or people as a whole would put there and without actually having said anything has made themselves agreeable to the community at large. they've instantly generated an opinion in the other person's view that is the "right one." the only way this system fails is if they were to sarcastically present the only option that the other person finds correct (assuming they have an opinion themselves) and then the issue is forced.

to combat this conversational laziness, i run on a pro-opinion platform. it is ok to take a stand and like or dislike things. there is a bravery in that when the prevailing method is to appeal to a crowd-sourced taste. this is not to say sarcasm as a tool is useless or dangerous but that in its use it should refer to a solid base. i recently read an essay on how a "philosophical moment" is when two people with different axiomatic beliefs collide. sarcasm and irony without earnestness avoid any collision - the moments it provides are when two people have axiomatic beliefs they don't have. it is a way to prevent intellectual conflict and has become so widespread that intellectual conflict, rather than an opportunity for growth, is viewed as being uncouth.

so dwindles, have an opinion. be earnest in your opinions. force other people to have opinions that aren't just the negative space of yours. it's not easier, but it allows the choices you make and the things you enjoy to be specifically yours, traceable, and not the products of things that they aren't.

Happy thanksgiving.

My brother and his wife flew in from Colorado and surprised everyone for thanksgiving! It was so good to see them.

care-tags is now my 2nd most visited site

it's my first. beat out facebook and my university's student information dashboard and pinterest even.

yesterday i had bad feels but today is great. nice day at work, just editing some photos now and seeing family tomorrow.

My dog died today :(

I need to find some new friends.. Everyone around me is pressing my buttons and I really can't be arsed to try and accept peoples annoyances for any longer. I've really tried to "Look at it in a positive way! You're just too negative! The things they do aren't THAT annoying!" but every friday I have to just throw everything and be with myself and not meet any people for a few days.

ugggggggh wish my friends would stop getting married

man i can't wait for one of my friends to get married
i love weddings, and a wedding with all of your friends has to be the best thing ever

Wedding with your friends is great. Wedding as a +1 for people you've met a handful of times or distant relatives is hard to get excited about.

i wanna be clear that i love my friends and i am happy that they have found people they want to spend the rest of their lives with and i am sure i will enjoy being at all of their weddings

but i mean we're all like 23 and it makes me feel weird because:
1) no exaggeration, nearly all of them have wedding plans or are at least with a person they will likely marry
2) it reminds me that there are a ton of things that would need to happen in my life before i would even consider marriage

23 is way too early dude. don't beat yourself up about it

23 is insanely young, I can't even comprehend doing it before 30 personally

I dont know if I should feel bad about not really feeling "bad" about breaking up with my girlfriend of 4 years. I broke up with her over a month and a half ago and it doesnt really ever feel like a bad thing, nor do I feel like I miss her. There are times that Ill get depressed thinking about really great moments we had together, but that doesnt happen all that much. Ive never really talked about it with anyone either, I brought it up in a really drunken state the night it happened with friends, but that was all I ever talked about it.

Ive been wanting to open up a little more with people so heres my chance to do so.

this is a good place to open up

anyways—don't beat yourself up over not having the appropriate emotional response. as long as you comported yourself well and you weren't unnecessarily cruel/inconsiderate during the breakup process, just feel however you want.

I definitely wasnt unnecessarily cruel going through the break up, I told her how I felt in the most honest way I could. One other thing that leads me to be so confused is the fact that she guilt tripped me throughout it, saying things like "you dont know what youre leaving behind" and "youre just lazy" and that made me feel really bad, which is understandable. But I knew I had to move on, and I confused myself by doing so. People keep telling me that itll be fine in the long run, which I know it will, I just have a hard time dealing with it sometimes. Talking about this is definitely a big help and I appreciate the advice and conversation.