One absolutely bizarre thing I’ve seen people with children say to childfree people is “If you wait until you’re ‘ready’, you will never have kids.” Like, yeah. I think that’s better than having kids and not being able to care for them, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially. How is never having children worse than having kids you can’t take care of? One affects you and only you and the other brings in an innocent party?
When you try to talk about enshittification, it sounds like conspiracy theories. (I’m not crazy)
Amazon made their service worse, to force people to pay for Prime.
Nowadays, if you order from Amazon, there is a week long delay before your package is shipped. (on purpose)
I remember when orders would ship out the same day. (I remember - it was real)
YouTube didn’t used to have ads. Now, ads play in the middle of videos. (it’s worse than TV ever was)
The best can opener I have owned is over 40 years old. Modern ones just don’t hold up as well. (The ones I bought new broke ages ago)
The bread machine my mom got for her wedding lasted 30 years. It’s been replaced twice in the last 5 years. (How can you fuck this up?)
The cardboard tubes in the middle of toilet paper rolls have gotten larger. (This too?) Companies increasing the price of the product while selling you less. (REALLY?)
It sounds crazy. (it’s the truth) When you talk about it, YOU sound crazy. (it’s true)
Even when people believe you (do they really), all they can say is “it sucks”. (it’s too big) Because the problem is so big, so pervasive, what can we even DO about it???
To get the necessary laws written and passed, we need politicians, to get the politicians elected we need information campaigns, to fund campaigns we need money, and all the money is being hoarded by the people profiting from enshittification. (it sounds so fake)
So I talk about enshittification (it sounds crazy), so people don’t forget that things have been made worse on purpose (it’s true), even though I sound crazy. (maybe I am)
i’ve started looking at weight and health the way i look at class and income and it really puts a lot of things into a new perspective.
let me explain: in america at least, the lower class have significantly worse health outcomes, even when accounting for other factors. just being poor is enough to make your overall health worse. we don’t know that being fat makes your health directly worse, like the data just isn’t there, but for a moment, pretend it does.
imagine going to the doctor with a health problem and the doctor looking at your chart and saying well, this problem will be less severe if you go up an income bracket. have you thought about becoming rich? it would really help. start by saving a little money every month.
ridiculous, right?? very few people successfully go from working class to rich, it just doesn’t happen on a large scale in society. maybe for a time you pick up some overtime hours, spend a little beyond your means, and appear rich. but eventually you burn out, your car needs to be repaired, and you return to being working class.
we do have this data: only some people can successfully lose large amounts of weight, and only a tiny fraction of people who lose that weight actually keep it off for more than a year. telling people to lose weight for their health is just absurd because they almost certainly can’t do it any more than they can double their income for their health.
and yet i see it everywhere. a little poster in my work breakroom tells me to improve my blood pressure by losing weight! a psa on the radio says you need to take care of your heart by losing weight! we can’t even conclusively prove that weight is the cause rather than just correlated with a lot of these problems but here it is offered anyway: have you tried being rich?
You hit the nail on the head. A lot of people tend to try and invalidate fatphobia as a form of oppression by saying its not an immutible quality like race or sexuality or gender. The old “you can lose weight, i can’t become white/straight/cis” argument.
That’s because fatphobia is a lot more like classism; i.e. it’s a form of bigotry that is only TECHNICALLY changeable. They’re both seen as a lot more changeable than they actually are, for all the reasons you’ve listed.
insanely funny that they put anti-piracy ads on actual legit dvds back in the day. “hey you, person who presumably bought this dvd the legal way and doesn’t pirate. here’s an annoying ad we’re going to make you watch. by the way did you know there’s a way to download and watch this shit for free? well you do now. please don’t use it. bye bye”. i can’t believe it didn’t work out for them
