I'm reminded of Freddie DeBoer's recent post re: multiplicity horror, one of which consequences he describes as the intelligibility urge, "the deep desire to be made in some sense easily and consistently comprehensible to others in a way that provides comfort to yourself."
"When confronted with the innumerable personas that populate the i…
I'm reminded of Freddie DeBoer's recent post re: multiplicity horror, one of which consequences he describes as the intelligibility urge, "the deep desire to be made in some sense easily and consistently comprehensible to others in a way that provides comfort to yourself."
"When confronted with the innumerable personas that populate the internet, we’re faced with several different kinds of terror. The first is that we might be just one more face among all of them. The second is that they might perceive us in a way different than we perceive ourselves. And so the intelligibility urge is the desire to be easily digestible to others, to have clear boundaries and associations that enable others to clock us quickly and assign us to a tribe. Dogmom. Wine aficionado. ACAB. Funkopop enthusiast. Hufflepuff. Proudboy. 6’2. Hopeless romantic. Pronouns in bio. Whatever the current trappings of “irony” are."
I was somewhat disturbed to read "A lot of times, the new stereotypes around new pronouns are actually beneficial." I get their primary point was to say they found value in the label insofar as it allowed them to find their 'tribe', but it was almost like saying being assigned a stereotype isn't the problem, it's being assigned the WRONG stereotype.
Sure, stereotypes exist because they're useful heuristics, and people are social and want community and that's why lost teens have desperately sought labels since time immemorial, but labels and stereotypes are different things serving different purposes. Stereotypes shouldn't be used for self-identification because they're ultimately a trap: they always end up boxing in people eventually. It rankles me to hear them being described as "beneficial".
I'm reminded of Freddie DeBoer's recent post re: multiplicity horror, one of which consequences he describes as the intelligibility urge, "the deep desire to be made in some sense easily and consistently comprehensible to others in a way that provides comfort to yourself."
"When confronted with the innumerable personas that populate the internet, we’re faced with several different kinds of terror. The first is that we might be just one more face among all of them. The second is that they might perceive us in a way different than we perceive ourselves. And so the intelligibility urge is the desire to be easily digestible to others, to have clear boundaries and associations that enable others to clock us quickly and assign us to a tribe. Dogmom. Wine aficionado. ACAB. Funkopop enthusiast. Hufflepuff. Proudboy. 6’2. Hopeless romantic. Pronouns in bio. Whatever the current trappings of “irony” are."
I was somewhat disturbed to read "A lot of times, the new stereotypes around new pronouns are actually beneficial." I get their primary point was to say they found value in the label insofar as it allowed them to find their 'tribe', but it was almost like saying being assigned a stereotype isn't the problem, it's being assigned the WRONG stereotype.
Sure, stereotypes exist because they're useful heuristics, and people are social and want community and that's why lost teens have desperately sought labels since time immemorial, but labels and stereotypes are different things serving different purposes. Stereotypes shouldn't be used for self-identification because they're ultimately a trap: they always end up boxing in people eventually. It rankles me to hear them being described as "beneficial".