\n\n\na few years ago people would make posts like \u201cI don\u2019t know who needs to hear this right now, but [generic words of affirmation and encouragement for the people who need to hear this right now]\u201d and now people are making posts like \u201cI don\u2019t know who needs to hear this right now, but [the people who need to hear this right now are doing something completely awful and they should stop]\u201d.
the putative \u201cneed\u201d to hear a thing has changed from a vaguely sympathetic posture where someone thinks you might have a need for reassurance or solidarity to a need in the sense where, say, a serial killer might \u201cneed\u201d to hear that they should stop serial killing. but just as telling a serial killer to stop serial killing falls on deaf ears, it\u2019s fairly clear that these posts are in fact for the audience, and not really for the person \u201cwho needs to hear this\u201d, anymore. but at the same time, the framing of the post strongly encourages the reader to place themself in the position of, perhaps, being the person who needs to hear this.
so my theory is that these posts actually intend to make you feel like you fucked up for no particular reason.
Sometimes I think about how the “queer = great” valuation all about this grew out of was a later-90s culture where to be openly gay, etc. was to first of all declare that you could build an entirety functional life, meaning, etc. withOUT relying on dumb legacy mass normie culture
And now when people are merely not cishetero they feel like they still deserve that sense of freedom, and seek to preserve it by restraining people seeking their own lives, et&
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