@Mahonia
@lemmy.worldKind of an aside, but there are a lot people who think they don't like tomatoes because of what is generally commercially available and sold as "fresh" tomato.
It's actually wild how different vine-ripened tomatoes are in taste and texture, compared to their commercially produced counterparts.
The flavour and texture of fresh tomatoes tends to develop more fully than if picked half-ripe and ripened during transport or storage. Also, the soil tomatoes are or aren't grown in has a pretty significant influence on its flavour. Refrigeration also has a pretty significant effect on taste as well. It's suggested that you don't chill them, as this reportedly changes the flavour considerably.
There are actually a few recent studies that assess the flavour qualities of different tomatoes by region, variety and method of growing. Commercially produced tomatoes have largely been selected for shelf life and yield, without much consideration given to taste or texture (and it shows).
Just so we're clear, this is the endgame of all of the propaganda against trans people. Many are culpable in this.
I think these things are very related.
I'm queer and trans, and I'm not so picky about the demographic that I hang out with. I've met a lot of dudes who wanted to act their best in good faith, but received such vitriol for even showing up in conversations that they stopped bothering. Even as a transgender person, I don't tend to engage much with community because there's so little room for meaningful dialogue that isn't totally prescribed. There seem to be a lot of rules on how you should and shouldn't be. I understand that propping up the voices of those who have historically been ignored is an important thing, but there is something to be said about the fact that men and boys are often actively shunned from specific groups. If you're frequently told that you have no place in community, you're probably going to model a different community around that rejection.
Now what I actually think is happening is that tools of mass manipulation like the more centralized social media platforms are weaponizing the language of social justice to create division and escalation. All media platforms are quite effective at serving the ruling class, but social media is particularly insidious in that it pretends to be real life and the exposure is virtually constant.
This is kind of an aside but it's always weird looking at caricatures of poverty from the 90s and earlier, where people live in modest homes they seem to own. Or people living alone in plain apartments in places like New York.
A six-figure salary in so many cities means that you can probably rent a decent apartment and never own anything. It's just so obvious that this system isn't working.
That's really not an accurate representation. Here's a short article that goes into this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14661582
They're also heavily implicated in the illegal logging trade in eastern Europe: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/ikea-likely-sold-furniture-linked-illegal-logging-forests-crucial-earth-n1273745
Fundamentally I have a problem with oppressed people licking the boots of oppressors. And what that means partially is using consumerism as "representation" (that in this case directly benefits a billionaire family with direct and deep Nazi ties) is not super cool with me. Do you know the term pink washing? It refers to a thinly-veiled attempt to get financial support of queers without any meaningful support to queers. Lots of corporations have pride floats -- it's great, low-cost marketing.
Like whatever. Consume to your heart's content. But I think it's pretty embarrassing to have this prepackaged garbage as the best we can do for a modern icon, especially considering the source. You do you, but I'm just saying this shit is dumb.
When I saw them prop it up I thought "Oh good they figured it out" and then they started rolling it... the hard way. What a ride.