chat

We've had these little depressions on this site before.

We're only 6-7 months into Trump 2 and it's extremely depraved. We're quickly moving beyond Trump not being subtle enough when carrying out the mission of empire. It's his own goals and the goals of a smaller, more dedicated group of ghouls. It's becoming apparent there is no mission for reactionary politics outside of Trump. It's gotta be him or they have nothing. Even Thiel's money isn't enough for succession. Therefore the only way is an extended 2nd term or an entire third term. If you also notice, the lib outrage against Trump isn't really there. They've been relegated to the kiddie pool on bluesky. AOC isn't crying in front of camps anymore. Bernie is just showing up for a free refills of coffee. Fascist infighting is inconsequential and collapses into supporting Trump.

It's not great. It's going to get worse. However, I think the silver lining is that these changes are happening probably because the grip of capital is weakening or, at least, the American empire is for sure crumbling. All this is just to keep it afloat. So it's not so much an increase in strength so much as a scramble to avoid weakening.

The Palestinian holocaust getting to the stage where it is now with extreme forced starvation and the shameless complicity of the imperialists bending laws to arrest protestors is more than enough of a reason to feel extra miserable. Mass layoffs, disability benefits being cut, cost inflation of food and rent, slop machine capitalists threatening to replace you, governments trying to stomp on trans rights, Nazis feeling free to behave and do as they please, scratched libs, weaponized mass surveillance, the global north finally feeling the effects of climate change, Deportations and and new prisons in Amerikkka (but I heard it was worse during Obama so I am not sure about that) and reasons I am missing. The few bloomer bits I feel come from Sahelian states and sometimes China but my life and disabilities with capitalism amplifying the effects it has on my life have only gotten progressively worse with age.

All the mutual aid post lately have really been getting to me. Everytime i see someone in a worse situation then me i feel guilty I'm not helping but I'm also living a life where i have to count every single dollar i spend. I've thought about blocking the com for my mental health but something about that feels wrong too.

Gaza has been depressing for a while but now it's really depressing. So bad it can make it difficult to be a bloomer.

I don't know if this is not a common opinion, but I do think that this community has a tendency to focus upon societal negatives often to a degree that is unhelpful and unwarranted. I find myself having to take breaks for my mental health because I'm constantly being presented with major problems that neither I nor anyone else here can do anything about.

Some stuff I find more acceptable, like I feel it's important to be aware of what is going on in Palestine for example... but shit like "omg omg there's microplastics in your brain and also you're gonna get turbo bird flu with a 90% kill rate holy shit" just gives me psychic damage with no outlet to do anything about it and little moral imperative for focusing on it. It just feels like doom-saying for the sake of itself.

Obviously it's better to be aware of these kinds of issues than not, but fixating on it to the point of seeing posts about it sometimes multiple times a day doesn't really accomplish anything but to stoke anxiety, which I'm already pretty much maxed out on.

This is a political site and the politics globally aren’t good. I haven’t been as active but irl my life is going great. I just don’t really feel like posting about it and so I’ll doompost about the political landscape lol

Look homey. Shit absolutely sucks ass. Nothing is going well fucking anywhere. But we all still make it through the churn. Everything is fucking hard. We don't get easy mode. We all get full-ass late-stage capitalism mode. And it fucking sucks. But we have to keep fighting. We're going to have to do this shit forever. It's our lot in life. Unfortunate for us, but the world we can create for those who come after is what makes it worthwhile.

"Old men plant trees who's shade they know they shall never sit in."

I love you homey, and I love shitposting with you. Never give up.

Things are bad

But only some things

I had my physical and my doctor gave me a clean bill of health

A publisher wants to talk to me about my book

One of my favorite artists dropped a new single

You gotta find the light where you can

You definitely dont annoy everyone

I think the gestures wildly problems are just very very bad and people are struggling.

Is it just because the collapse is getting particularly bad and everyone is extra miserable?

I think this is a reasonable supposition. Things are getting worse and I get the impression we are overwhelmingly a bunch of downtrodden and beaten down people trying to provide community and help for each other. But there are very real limits to what online communities can do to help each other with offline problems, and as we are ourselves beaten down more and more we are able to do less. e.g. I see people pleading for help and I feel that deep sense of duty to help, but I'm also in such a bad state that I'm only getting by because I'm relying on other people irl so I've got nothing material to give. It's not a good feeling.

However:

I'm sorry if I annoy everyone

Real talk I haven't seen reason to think people are annoyed by you, at least from comments I've seen on your post. And if they have, let me counter them! You are one of my favorite posters here and not just because I love birds. You've got a subtle and different sense of humor that is pleasant to run into. Inasmuch as any online community can help with offline problems, I find your contributions and posts are part of what I like about this site, and it feels like that is actually helpful. (That's not meant to pressure you to be consistent about posting or anything, but to let you know that even when you don't see it, you create ripples which do help people in small ways you wouldn't ever know about or think about).

There is something to be said for people coming together to create a small community or culture that is safe, welcoming, and free of a lot of the brainworms that corporate social media have. The few times I lapse and check out reddit I'm reminded just how bad other places are.

On for-profit social media, people are products in that (and they even have a term for it) User Generated Content is what keeps people using the site so that the site can sell ad space on the grounds that it gets engagement. Here that's not the case. Here when we post something and it makes a stranger smile, we're just making someone else's day a tiny bit less terrible and no corporate vampires get to leech off that.

I'm really tired and not figuring out how to say what I'm trying to say, but I hope this helps.

I almost got final destinationed sorry for making the vibes weird

Since the intensification of the starvation I've socially retreated even worse, I have no interest in talking when I can't say what I'm thinking. I think partly I finally made an account on here because I need some interaction with sane people.

I feel like I do when Syria fell. I knew people there, I don't want to elaborate, but like they were just citizens. I have not heard from them since. I regret that I did not learn much about Syria from them, as we were mostly talking about Palestine.

And yeah my life sucks personally too, but I suppose I mostly roll my eyes at it compared to the other shit going on in the world. People here have lost their fucking minds with transphobia, they think we're all in some groomer cult or something, bringing up kids when they start yelling at me for no reason in the street, when the reality is I don't interact with children at all. Nobody I know has any because we're too gay. And we can't afford to raise them anyway. And I've internalized their bullshit so I'm afraid to be around children. But I think their accusations are confessions. It's getting really hard not to just hate the general public. I only seem to make friends among the people who are also marginalized.

There are a lot of people quietly opposing the genocide because of the obvious consequences. I sometimes feel like if we weren't "quiet" we would realize how many of us are really on the same page and fucking actually do something but any time I get a burst of courage it's usually extinguished by my supposed comrades who don't want me to rock the boat in case it makes a group who overwhelmingly support the genocide uncomfortable.

But yeah. There is a very weird "air".

I know exactly what you mean, it's just hard to drum up motivation to just "keep my head down" and do my normal job as if nothing was wrong, but I don't have the means or the resources to help people as much as I like, so it just gets way too easy to spiral. Even my liberal friends can feel it, even the most "apolitcal" ones know that shit is going to hit the fan very soon. When even the most people I know can't ignore everything going on in the world and can see the house of cards collapsing, it's hard not to despair.

But I try to think about how impermanent this all is, people probably felt similarly bleak just before WW1, and especially before WW2, and people got through both of those, tough times are ahead, but there's brighter times after that.

And it'll probably sound a little sappy, but seeing your posts always makes me smile and does help me deal with the despair a little better.

There definitely seems to be an uptick in mutual aid posts (for good reason), so that might be affecting your impression.

everything in the world sucks and also im very lonely

Nah, you don't annoy anyone here. Shit's just that bad right now. It's a perfectly cromulent fuckcrustab--ugh, I can't

Idk, but to do what I can ill make some more check in posts like I used to

i am just screaming constantly for we are in hell sorry i will be quieter

Sort of, yes. I think there's a lot more shitposting than posting about actual news (because the news is always the same at the moment..). I also wonder if the 'old guard' of posters have now simply gotten too old and busy with life to use this place as much. That's the case for me.

I get it. It could be that summer is ending for me, but I have a feeling of impending doom. I mean, more than usual.

It's weird. We're going through a collective rough patch, right now. You're not bothering me. I think most of us wish we could do more, for ourselves and each other.

Reading here, this is one of the sweetest threads I've ever read. There are still good and kind people, at home and abroad, whatever and wherever that means to us.

I’m a huge fan of yours, inasmuch as people here can have fans.

I’ve been sick and haven’t been posting. Prior to that I was binge watching documentaries on the WW2 Eastern Front and the Nazi holocaust. That’s depressing shit. Well, the Eastern Front had a great ending, though.

I do think it’s rough now because of stuff worldwide, not the least of which is that Gaza is like the Siege of Leningrad without the Red Army to break it. And that’s depressing, because cutting off and starving a population is far more efficient at killing them than transporting people by rail and putting them in camps, and the latter is the only way the west thinks something can be genocidal.

Sorry, tangent. I have enjoyed reading the wholesome comments on this thread. I hope I’m not changing the vibe here. I do think shit’s depressing.

Yeah the vibes are mad fucked

Everything does feel pretty dark and I've personally decided not to post a few times now just because none of its nothing but depressing. People here already know how grim it is so it feels like just dwelling in misery at times.

Just yesterday I spent half the day sad about the way my national news made a story about the starving khamas hostages, with pictures. And at the same time they have not even once done this for the Palestinians. It's exhausting to see the consent machine turn and sitting here so helpless about it. I often find I have nothing left to say after I am done with the mandatory wake up, work, see horrible things nobody cares about, sleep-cycle.

But still to the comrades on this here site, this place is keeping me sane.

Maybe we should all read this book or something similar together. Burnout - The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat

I'm early transition in the US, yea I'm pretty fuckin' miserable right now. Worried about money. No degree, no full time job. Need to move out. Dysphoria is terrible rn. Also climate change gives me little hope in a better future.

You don't annoy me, I like you and your posts.

Join a leftist party. I've been putting my frustrated/angry energy into organizing and learning theory. Feels good man.

I can fuck off to the safe and secure utopia called Russia like any day (like a coward). I'm holding off because moving really sucks and all my friends/stuff is here. My extended family would be happy to home me long-term, but I have no rosy ideas about what my employment future is or that my tiny savings will have any value (because the dollar will probably collapse). My biggest fear is that I'll suddenly find out my last chance to leave was yesterday. My second biggest fear is the possibility of me risking everything to leave, then for whatever reason things suddenly revert back to normal (e.g. my company already replaced me, no job market, COL doubled again with no wage growth, all my personal belongings of sentimental value gone forever, have to get a new phone number) and then I have to continue life at a loss while the democrat majority congress does nearly nothing to undo Trump's damage.