Shut the Hell Up! – Page 2

Tanner Upstaged

August 13, 2012

Now for a feminine pubescent edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Anyone who says anything along the lines of “Girls today are starting puberty at younger ages!” And goes on to treat it like some utter catastrophe. A serious problem for today’s kids. Something we must absolutely do something about to protect little girl innocence! Eeeek!

*facepalm* *sigh*

Oh, concern trolling, such a frequent opponent to youth rights feminism!

Okay, time for some unpacking of bullshit.

1. Not only is the claim that the age of female puberty is steadily getting younger questionable, but those shrieking about this “problem” often either don’t specify ages or the ages they do specify, usually around 10 or 11, are still within the normal range of puberty (ages 8 to 16). And even so, they’re usually talking about onset, which is the development of breasts (which doesn’t exactly happen overnight), as opposed to first period, which is often a couple years later. Breasts budding at 10 or 11 means the period shows up around 12 or 13, which is totally fucking normal! And even the ones who get their periods at 10 or 11 might be earlier than average but it’s not abnormal, and for every one of them, there are girls who start it at 14 or 15.
Continue reading “Tanner Upstaged”

What You Want

April 23, 2012

Now for an ageist, condescending edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Anyone who says either “you’re too young to know what you want yet” or “you’re too young to know who you are yet”. Seriously, you just really really need to be shot.

Who the hell are you to say that to anyone? Okay, even if said person-younger-and-therefore-stupider-than-you does in fact not know what he/she wants or whatever, whatever the hell that even means, you know who knows this even less than they do? YOU, dumbass!

It’s a typical silencing and invalidation technique towards young people, an excuse to belittle absolutely any life choices they make by convincing them they are incapable of making sound choices and as such they’ll definitely regret it in like a week. I mean, it’s a terrific way to instill life-halting insecurities and uncertainties into people, making them feel they are never “ready” to do anything, but hey, at least they aren’t making personal decisions that, even though such decisions don’t involve you in any way, make you personally uncomfortable because you just have to pry into their lives, right?
Continue reading “What You Want”

Mmmm, Candy Hearts 7

February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine’s Day!

And now, for a candy munching, romance crunching edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

There’s no such thing as the “friend zone”!

It’s called… she’s just not into you romantically/sexually, but you can’t accept that, so you instead misogynistically pathologize it.

It’s the idea that a girl who to chooses to remain platonic friends with a guy has put him in the supposedly dreaded “friend zone”, but he doesn’t want to be her friend because he wants to be her boyfriend, and he hates it oh so much when she dates some other guy or expresses dissatisfaction with said other guy or with prospective romantic partners in general, because how dare she say that when she turned him down!

Come off it. Seriously, girls, just like guys, are just into someone that way right now or not. It’s not more complicated than that. There are no special “zones”. Nor is there something about being someone’s friend that kills the possibility of it being something else later (though that of course depends on the people involved).

We’ve all heard it. The self-proclaimed “nice guy” can’t understand why a girl he’s interested in isn’t interested in him. So instead of just, you know, accepting that it’s not going to happen and moving on with his life, he assumes she’s the one who has some “female problem” and that’s the real reason she’s not into him. Because why else would she turn down such a Nice Guy like you?

But wait, there’s more!
Continue reading “Mmmm, Candy Hearts 7”

Getting Kids Reading

December 26, 2011

Now for a juvenile, literary edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

People who are all like “we’ve got to get kids reading!”

There’s been ads for James Patterson books on TV, and some recent ones start off with “James Patterson gets kids reading!” Because he’s apparently written young adult lit now, so it shows a pre-teen reading from a book about middle school.

Because if there’s anyone who truly knows what middle school is like, it’s authors in their sixties!

But, what, they couldn’t just advertise the book? They have to include some crap about “getting kids reading”?

That takes away the “here’s something you’ll enjoy” factor and turns it into yet another “getting kids to do things adults want them to be doing”. Okay, the implication seems to be “it gets them reading BECAUSE it’s enjoyable”, but it still makes it being enjoyable to the young reader secondary to satisfying some cliched expectation. Because, after all, the world cares nothing for kids’ personal desires and cares entirely for what adults desire for them.

Also, maybe someone should tell these adults that when kids are reading, they’re generally -gasp!- inside and sitting! Oh noes, they’re getting fat! So send them outside to get exercise. Then bitch that they aren’t reading enough. Ugh!

Participating in Life

December 11, 2011

Now for a generational, sneering edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

I’m really getting sick of the same canned “complaint” about the younger generation, whether my own or ones after or even a little before, that we expect life to be fair all the time. This is blamed on school and maybe parents that supposedly give out awards just for participating, hoping to squash competition in order to prevent anyone from “feeling bad”. Or occasionally blamed on pop culture telling stories implying nothing seriously bad will ever happen to you.

And that all these messages have supposedly spoiled us and made us think life is perfect or that we’re good at things even when we’re not.

Speaking as someone whose schools and teams and such did have participation awards…

Bull-fucking-shit.

How stupid do you think we are?
Continue reading “Participating in Life”

OMG It’s All Ones!

November 11, 2011

Now for a calendar obsessive edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Okay, today is November 11, 2011, so it’s 11/11/11. And at 11:11am I was watching the clock. Ha. Neat.

And that is the extent to which all the elevens are remotely relevant to anything.

Instead, I’m hearing people having rituals.

I’m hearing concerns about the end of the world.

I’m hearing terrorist concerns.

*facepalm*

Fucking hell, people, ENOUGH! Are you that goddamn thick? You think the universe as a whole cares about all or most of the numbers of the Gregorian date being the same?

Really, we’ve been over this and over this. As you may recall, no, the world did not end on January 1, 2000. Nothing happened this year on May 21 or October 21. Nothing is going to happen next year. The world will continue to exist. There is nothing inherently special about any of these dates.

And what about days when things did happen? Was September 11 of any significance before the attack for which it is now known? Or December 7 before Pearl Harbor was bombed? Or July 4 before the United States? I mean, there are people who might try to trace back through religious texts and try to say there was and we “should have seen it coming” but honestly, you can do that about any date.

You’re not going to find any universal truths or omens by reading too much into how our dates are written, you jackasses. Jesus tapdancing Christ…

Laziness Is Universal

June 14, 2011

Now for a sleepy, groggy, snooze-button-hitting edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Really really getting tired of the trope about teens being lazy, always sleeping in on weekends, not wanting to get up for school, etc. Everything from so-called “teen experts” (who are invariably adults who are so astoundingly self-righteous they think they know teens better than teens know themselves and make a career of it) to Windex commercials mocks teens for – gasp! – still being in bed after sunrise.

Are you people really so goddamn thick? EVERYBODY sleeps in! You do, too, unless you’re one of these people who gets up at 5am every morning to jog or something. In which case, you may notice you’re mostly alone when doing this. This is not normal behavior. Sleeping in until you absolutely have to get up for school or work, or sometimes later, is the normal behavior. Sleeping on weekends until your body decides it’s tired of being in bed and wants to try movement again is what is normal. For all ages. When you deride teens for doing this, you’re deriding them for normal behavior. Why?

Oh, right, you’re the adult, so against any logic or awareness of the world outside of your prejudices, you simply must look down on teens and scrutinize them and marginalize them and make damn sure they don’t feel welcome in Your World. You know, because you’re mature apparently.

This has been Day 22 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 11. Summertime!

Jokes that Need to Die

February 2, 2011

Now for a pseudo-humorous, stale edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

I consider sense of humor to be perhaps the most important character trait in anyone. Couldn’t very well go through life without it. Funny stuff is fun. However, then you get the jokes that just get repeated over and over, from different people acting like they invented it and that they’re so smart and witty. If they were ever clever, it was lost long ago.

Two very recent examples?

“I don’t understand! How could Tunisia have overthrown their government without me signing a petition or changing my Twitter avatar?”

And…

“The new Starbucks Trenta is larger than the average human stomach! Lulz!”
Continue reading “Jokes that Need to Die”

Extreme Temps, Extremist Bullcrap

December 30, 2010

Now for an environmental, temperate edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

You know what I’m really getting fucking sick of? Or, at least, that I’m choosing to mention at the moment? Every time the temperature dips a little higher or a little lower than is normal for a given season, you get wingnut assholes deciding this is some definite information about global warming.

You see it from both sides…

“OMG, it’s a 70 degree day in January! Global warming has killed winter!”

“OMG, it’s a 50 degree day in July! Global warming doesn’t exist!”

Uh, hi, I’d like to introduce you both to the Hasty Generalization logical fallacy.

I mean, it’s of course not about expressing any actual scientific knowledge, as those with actual scientific knowledge on this get drowned in partisan propaganda, and many scientific studies even then get performed often by or at least funded by those who want a particular result. No, the entire point is to be a pompous ass to the other side, all like “see? I was right about global warming and you were wrong!” Who cares if the “info” you’re basing this on is even remotely sound when it can be made to fit your gloating needs at a given moment, right?

So, really, STFU both of you. If you think one unseasonably warm or cool day or week or even season totally validates your insistance that global warming is a real threat or just something Al Gore made up, then you don’t have any damn clue what you’re talking about on this issue.

And, just saying… regardless of the truth of global warming… it’s hardly the only reason to be worrying about air pollution.

The Choice Is Clear

December 26, 2010

Now for a gestational, abortive edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Let’s say you hear a news story, something like this: A man beats his pregnant girlfriend to death because she did not want to have an abortion. Or the perpetrator may not be a boyfriend but a husband or one of her parents or whoever. May not have beaten her to death but raped her or injured her severely in some other way.

And who should shut the hell up? These fucking idiot prolifers who point to this horrible shit and say “see! see! pro-choice people commit violence, too!” Often times the headlines of these articles will identify the assailant as pro-choice or pro-abortion (which a lot of idiots think is just another word for pro-choice, which is bullshit, but more on that in a sec).

*facepalm*
Continue reading “The Choice Is Clear”