Yeah but that fried tofu becomes soggy inside sauce, that’s what I meant

Or fry it to oblivion. I constantly make this mistake when I order takeout, in my mind they just put tofu pieces into the sauce, but no, it’s always that soggy overfried tofu.

I’m 32 and I am constantly baffled by how inevitable we assume social media is. There are constantly articles and videos and blogs and vlogs and insta stories about how instagram and such make us either unhappy by constant comparison, by sucking up our time, by reducing our attention span, or by altering our brain chemistry. And all of this is presented in a way that doesn’t even question whether we… need an instagram account?

When facebook etc started to come around I quite immediately realized that if I started to engage in this, in trying to present myself online or look at others’ presentations of themselves, that would be the end of me. It would suck me in. I stayed away from the beginning and I still have no instagram, facebook, tiktok, etc. I have no account on a platform where I would ever even be able to post pictures or stories of myself. And I am by far not a social outcast, introvert or alternative person. By most accounts I am very average and mainstream and I do just fine without social media (unless you count lemmy or watching some youtube video as social media). I manage to make new friends and even know what is trending without following vlogs and blogs and whatnot.

Like, there is a life - a livable life, a life not on the outskirts of society - where social media just doesn’t play a role. Where you don’t need to consider whether this picture of you is providing too much personal information.

I’m not sure what country you are from, but as someone whose vote literally is counted before I even see a ballot, let me tell you, please vote or at least do something. If you don’t like the way politics in your country work, go out and demonstrate. Take it to the streets. Talk to your neighbors, make leaflets. But please don’t just go bitter and sit in your corner because everything is shit anyways. Because this is how we ended up with a lot of the messes we are having now. I “voted” for the first time this year in a rigged election and before that I also always thought the way you do. Democracy is dead, why bother, my vote doesn’t count anyway. But once I stood in this fucking line and smuggled in a non erasable pen and voted and went out knowing no one will even look at this ballot something changed.

For just about all former soviet states, the N word is the term used to describe black people, because the word imported from Europe to describe Africans. It doesn’t have the connotations or baggage that westerners attach to it. Diddo for blackface and sambo imagery, it’s usually used more out of ignorance than malice.

Oh dear God, let me tell you, I feel my bones tickling when I read this. All these flashbacks of my parents meeting other Russian people and, all of the sudden, casually dropping the n word in conversations in public and me just freezing and praying no one overheard them. I mean it was with no mean intent (as you wrote, more like ignorance paired with custom) but if someone heard them, then they didn’t understand the context and only heard them say n*ger.

I’m sorry but when I read “pride month is defeated” in the context of a heterosexual engagement my mind immediately assumes the dude is a closeted homosexual who chose her as his beard instead of coming out. And this is how he “defeated pride”. By choosing a heteronormative lifestyle over his actual preferences.

The most optimistic scenario my head can come up with to make the sentence make sense would be that she’s bisexual and because of him she chose to commit to a heteronormative relationship.

In any way, for a lack of a better term, putting your engagement in context of defeating pride makes you look quite gay.

Feel free not to like him, but it seems very biased to assume a 17 year old cannot consent to sexual relations with a 23 year old, but a 18 year old totally can. In the Western world a big majority of people have their first sexual experiences in their teenage years. Naturally, age gaps happen.

On a further note, you might want to look up terms like ephebophilia, hebephilia and pedophilia before accusing people of being pedos. And neither does a victim need to be underage for a perpetrator to be molesting them, nor are child molesters necessarily pedophiles. The majority of child molesters has no pedophilic tendencies.

He is Swedish. The age of consent in Sweden is 15. So there is nothing to “admit” here except that he might have been quite successful in hitting on girls all along.

Well that’s $1000 well spent if she found joy and entertainment and even something like success by being the number one worldwide in this game. I’ve seen much more stupider Guinness world records. And much more stupider ways to spend money.

Just to be clear, I brought the toddler, they didn’t provide the toddler

For real, fuck ICE. My fully booked evening train got cancelled after we had already boarded, the next two that day were fully booked as well, I had to find an airbnb with a toddler and travel the next day, and they replaced just half of the ticket price because I cOuLD HaVe tAKeN AnOtHer TrAiN

On the other hand their child merch is cute af

The funny thing is as long as you have a small kid with you - doesn’t even have to be a baby, just stroller-age - you can bring anything. I’m not even talking about a sealed bottle of water - which, to me, would kind of make sense with the regulations - but all of the sudden your normal 500ml bottle with water, juice, or whatever, is fine. A thermo can with boiling hot water inside? Sure, no problem.

I’m honestly baffled by how immigration in Germany is supposed to be a problem. We have a horribly low birth rate. Our retirement security is basically gone because there won’t be enough working people. Retirement homes, hospitals, kindergartens, all these places suffer from a lack of personnel. These jobs are notoriously stressful, have horrible working conditions, and underpay extremely.

The free market has obviously failed to solve this problem. Even with unions and tariffs: An increase of 1€ per hour does a good living not make. Neither are bonuses a long term solution. And even if you made these jobs attractive af: we will still not have enough people choosing them anytime soon. And even if we did, it’s simply still not enough people in the workforce to secure pension for the elderly and generations to come.

And let’s be very real for a second here. Skilled immigration from third countries (i.e. not EU, not talking about third world here) isn’t an easy ride. These high paying job offers of privileged jobs like IT or science are not going away but they are also rather rare. It’s a niche thing compared to the waves of immigration of, well, low paying and often low skilled jobs.

And while I can “understand” if an asshole wants to cut the former, why would you want to cut the latter? Jesus, no one is stealing your job because I doubt you want to work cleaning toilets at McDonald’s. If you want to go wipe asses in retirement homes you’ll find a job stat no matter whether the Ukrainian, Romanian or Syrian girls apply too.

We are literally insanely exploitative of immigrants. We either have a brain drain from countries that immensely need them, or cause them to have a demographic crisis of their own by buffering our birth rates with their people, or we simply give them jobs that pay so little that they hardly survive. All that while doing shit for their integration into society. But they still pay taxes and buy products in the supermarket and ride the tram and everything. We get all the positives and they get all the negatives. Why would you even want to get rid of that if you’re a cunt?

Oh fuck off

Well yeah it is either a literal capitalist candle or a specifically styled candle for symbolic reasons or a lingo for something that is not a literal candle. I mistook baptising candles in a baby shop for dildos yesterday so I think my mind went that direction.

Edit: according to google it is really the first

Forgive my ignorance but what is a lesbian candle?

Man, a guaranteed 5 mins of a quiet break and coffee that I don’t have to bring myself sounds kinda nice

That’s an interesting take, wanna tell me more? (I’m sick right now and my brain cells don’t function well enough to think for myself but that’s unironically an interesting take)

I remember the first time I was shown a meme by a friend. She showed me a rage comic on 9 gag and I absolutely didn’t get it obviously and she was desperate to explain and just said “yeah it’s not that funny but when you see them often you kinda start getting what they mean” and I thought that’s a stupid ass concept and wtf.

Well, here we are now. It’s about 15 years later. By now I have a toddler who speaks “English” but it’s basically just meme quotes in fitting situations because her parents mostly communicate in memes.

May I add: Hitler was largely supported by the youth. Putin is mostly supported by the elderly.