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It doesn't get better.
Avraham
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My friend Violeta wrote this for our satirical newspaper (at the University of Maryland) and I would like to share it with as many people as possible:
A Message from the President
In the past couple of months, at least nine young people have taken their lives because of homophobic bullying endured at the hands of their peers. As a result, several celebrities have put out videos on youtube explaining, primarily, that it gets better.
I’m not a celebrity. I don’t have a youtube account (okay, I do, but I mostly use it to keep a supply of adorable animals falling asleep readily available). But I, like most people of the myfacetwittr.com generation, do have a message, and feel that it’s at least as important as my opinion on the latest episode of Glee, in that it should be shared with as wide an audience as possible.
Basically, what I think you all should know is this: it doesn’t get better.
That’s not me inciting you to violence or pitching you heedless and terrified into the pit of existential despair while bellowing something appropriately memetic. That’s me being honest. It’s also me being cynical, but in my experience, that kind of helps.
You know the good stuff already: high school ends. You go to college, you make friends. Real ones, who don’t give a shit about your sexual experiences so long as you’re willing to help them have a few of their own. You learn to drink and smoke and hook up with questionable people. You go to bars and maybe get stabbed, although I’d avoid that one. At some point you go to class, probably while hung over. Eventually, you go to enough of them, and you graduate.
You move back in with your parents. You get the kind of job even illegal migrant workers wouldn’t want. You fall in love and you get your heart broken and then you fall in love again, and the cycle continues, because that’s what cycles do. You live.
But guess what? You’re not the only one. Those ignorant, shallow, bigoted jackasses who torment you, the ones that make it their life’s mission to increase your misery, they graduate, too. They get jobs, they live in your country, they vote against your rights. They teach their children to hate your children, to hate children like you were.
So what I’m saying is, it doesn’t just get better. You have to make it better.
You have to fight.
You have to live. You have to vote. You have to write. You have to speak and love and be.
Run for office. Lead by example, lead such a fucking awesome life that other people, your coworkers, your neighbors, the people you avoid eye contact with on the metro, can’t help but realize how awesome you are, too.
Lead a life that shows people who think there’s something wrong with you, that you don’t deserve the space you take up on this planet, that you’re staying on it anyway and don’t give a fuck what they think.
You have to fight.
You have to learn to not care what some people think of you. You have to love your life when right down the street some person is condemning you to hell for living it. And sometimes that person isn’t down the street, sometimes the ignorance is coming from inside the house, and you have to hide who you are and what you want till you can get out.
You have to fight. It’s tough, it’s unfair, and it’s complete and total bullshit, but right now, it’s still necessary, and more importantly, it’s still worth it.
There’s people out there, people you haven’t met yet, that you’ll love. Or that you’ll have a really hot one night stand with, and then the next morning, you’ll wake up, look at them, and think to yourself, Seriously?
There’s friends that you’ll meet and feel like you’ve known forever. TV shows that you’ll watch obsessively and spend hours on forums arguing over. Sporting events that you’ll…enjoy however it is such things are enjoyed, don’t look at me for that one.
There’s movies yet to be filmed and countries yet to be invaded. Careers to be had and rendered obsolete by improvements in technology. Money to invest in market bubbles that will pop.
There’s crappy food to be eaten, to feel as it begins to clog your arteries but not before it saturates your mouth with pure awesome. Catchy pop songs on the radio to pretend to loathe but sing along to at the top of your lungs in your car. Sarah Palin’s inevitable run for higher office, just imagine the malapropisms that’ll come out of that mouth.
And there’s jokes to be made about all of that. There’s power to be gained from the ability to look at the world’s cruelty and the world’s gifts and be able to laugh at them both, because they’re equally random and they’re equally real.
There’s people out there who will spend the rest of their lives worshiping a god that they believe wants them to stand on the side of the road holding a sign proclaiming his hatred for fags. And if they were British that would be marginally less pathetic, but even then, really?
They could be out. They could be living. They could be watching the leaves change or listening to a baby’s laugh or perusing icanhazcheesburger. They could be having sex. They could be enjoying their bible-sanctioned genital pop-and-lock. They could be falling in love.
But they would rather, or actually, the heavenly father they depend on for salvation, would rather they stand by the side of the road and proclaim hate.
How sad is that? How truly, utterly tragic is it, to have lost the ability to live a joyful life in the gamble for a better afterlife?
Don’t be like them. Don’t give up on this world before you’ve had a chance to enjoy it.
So buck up, kiddos. Live your lives. Fight for what you deserve. Take a sad song. Make it better.
Violeta, President of the Maryland Cow Nipple
A Message from the President
In the past couple of months, at least nine young people have taken their lives because of homophobic bullying endured at the hands of their peers. As a result, several celebrities have put out videos on youtube explaining, primarily, that it gets better.
I’m not a celebrity. I don’t have a youtube account (okay, I do, but I mostly use it to keep a supply of adorable animals falling asleep readily available). But I, like most people of the myfacetwittr.com generation, do have a message, and feel that it’s at least as important as my opinion on the latest episode of Glee, in that it should be shared with as wide an audience as possible.
Basically, what I think you all should know is this: it doesn’t get better.
That’s not me inciting you to violence or pitching you heedless and terrified into the pit of existential despair while bellowing something appropriately memetic. That’s me being honest. It’s also me being cynical, but in my experience, that kind of helps.
You know the good stuff already: high school ends. You go to college, you make friends. Real ones, who don’t give a shit about your sexual experiences so long as you’re willing to help them have a few of their own. You learn to drink and smoke and hook up with questionable people. You go to bars and maybe get stabbed, although I’d avoid that one. At some point you go to class, probably while hung over. Eventually, you go to enough of them, and you graduate.
You move back in with your parents. You get the kind of job even illegal migrant workers wouldn’t want. You fall in love and you get your heart broken and then you fall in love again, and the cycle continues, because that’s what cycles do. You live.
But guess what? You’re not the only one. Those ignorant, shallow, bigoted jackasses who torment you, the ones that make it their life’s mission to increase your misery, they graduate, too. They get jobs, they live in your country, they vote against your rights. They teach their children to hate your children, to hate children like you were.
So what I’m saying is, it doesn’t just get better. You have to make it better.
You have to fight.
You have to live. You have to vote. You have to write. You have to speak and love and be.
Run for office. Lead by example, lead such a fucking awesome life that other people, your coworkers, your neighbors, the people you avoid eye contact with on the metro, can’t help but realize how awesome you are, too.
Lead a life that shows people who think there’s something wrong with you, that you don’t deserve the space you take up on this planet, that you’re staying on it anyway and don’t give a fuck what they think.
You have to fight.
You have to learn to not care what some people think of you. You have to love your life when right down the street some person is condemning you to hell for living it. And sometimes that person isn’t down the street, sometimes the ignorance is coming from inside the house, and you have to hide who you are and what you want till you can get out.
You have to fight. It’s tough, it’s unfair, and it’s complete and total bullshit, but right now, it’s still necessary, and more importantly, it’s still worth it.
There’s people out there, people you haven’t met yet, that you’ll love. Or that you’ll have a really hot one night stand with, and then the next morning, you’ll wake up, look at them, and think to yourself, Seriously?
There’s friends that you’ll meet and feel like you’ve known forever. TV shows that you’ll watch obsessively and spend hours on forums arguing over. Sporting events that you’ll…enjoy however it is such things are enjoyed, don’t look at me for that one.
There’s movies yet to be filmed and countries yet to be invaded. Careers to be had and rendered obsolete by improvements in technology. Money to invest in market bubbles that will pop.
There’s crappy food to be eaten, to feel as it begins to clog your arteries but not before it saturates your mouth with pure awesome. Catchy pop songs on the radio to pretend to loathe but sing along to at the top of your lungs in your car. Sarah Palin’s inevitable run for higher office, just imagine the malapropisms that’ll come out of that mouth.
And there’s jokes to be made about all of that. There’s power to be gained from the ability to look at the world’s cruelty and the world’s gifts and be able to laugh at them both, because they’re equally random and they’re equally real.
There’s people out there who will spend the rest of their lives worshiping a god that they believe wants them to stand on the side of the road holding a sign proclaiming his hatred for fags. And if they were British that would be marginally less pathetic, but even then, really?
They could be out. They could be living. They could be watching the leaves change or listening to a baby’s laugh or perusing icanhazcheesburger. They could be having sex. They could be enjoying their bible-sanctioned genital pop-and-lock. They could be falling in love.
But they would rather, or actually, the heavenly father they depend on for salvation, would rather they stand by the side of the road and proclaim hate.
How sad is that? How truly, utterly tragic is it, to have lost the ability to live a joyful life in the gamble for a better afterlife?
Don’t be like them. Don’t give up on this world before you’ve had a chance to enjoy it.
So buck up, kiddos. Live your lives. Fight for what you deserve. Take a sad song. Make it better.
Violeta, President of the Maryland Cow Nipple
:bz: :bz: :bzz:
Avraham on
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And if that makes me a heretic or whatever, well then, I guess I'm a heretic.
nope, you got it right the first time
what can I say, I was surprised and moved by her words. We usually write lowbrow stuff like "I'm Not Crazy Just Because I Built This Moat Around Our House"
If you hate reading then you hate Levar Burton.
I'm sure it's very meaningful, though
But reading made Levar Burton tear his own eyes out!
No, he did that so he could get a prosthetic eyebar that was better than his old eyes.
Because that was nice and all but thinking "This person might be retarded" every single line sort of distracts from the message
(i like it)
I go there
could you like, space it out maybe with some returns?
it hurts my eyes to try and read that
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
What are you, old
WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU GET OFF TELLIN' ME WHAT RETURNS ARE CALLED?!
WHAT'RE YOU, FRIENDS WITH THAT WUSS, BEN URICH?
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
Martin Sheen says it pretty well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSXJzybEeJM
God I love that clip.
I'm uh.. pretty sure it wasn't written by "Leviticus"
Unless you know that and were making a joke
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU-
Is that 4chan scream because I was being dumb and not getting your joke or because you didn't realize something?
The latter.
I feel as if I'm missing out on something, but nothing I want, like a chainsaw vasectomy.
This is the only place I need.
I don't even like reading Erfworld anymore and Order of the Stick moves too slowly these days.
Occasionally someone will drop something valuable in there, but there's always someone available to dig through the shit to retrieve it for you.
uh duh it was like THE GENUINE WORD OF GOD. so obv fags should burn.
-crazy christian fundie who doesn't comprehend that people didnt speak King James english in the ancient Middle East.