two cents
Rating Apple nonbinary emojis
👶 Baby
All babies are born nonbinary. True.
4/10
🧒 Child
👧👦
This one is cute, i like their hair.
5/10
🧑 Adults Head
👩👨
Standard default nonbinary here. I like it, it reads neutral and is helped by them adding mustaches to nearly every Man emoji.
5/10
🧑🦱Adults Head with curly hair
👩🦱👨🦱
Like the next few emojis it doesn’t necessarily need to be a nonbinary person, but it’s a good option. I do think the woman from this set is better.
5/10
🧑🦰 Adults Head with red hair
👩🦰👨🦰
Same as standard for me
5/10
👱 Person with blond hair
👱♀️👱♂️
Outcunted by miss ponytail unfortunately
3/10
🧑🦳 Adults Head with white hair
👩🦳👨🦳
I think this one is fun
6/10
🧑🦲Adults Head with no hair
👩🦲👨🦲
Doing phrenology to find out if I’m nonbinary
7/10
🧔 Bearded Person
🧔♀️🧔♂️
One of many cases where they had a Man emoji and retrofit the other two
2/10
🧓 Older Adult with gray hair
👵👴
I don’t like this one i think it was sort of lazy maybe. Too close to grandma, she just got a haircut.
2/10
👲Man with Chinese cap
No gender options
0/10
🧕 Woman with headscarf
No gender options
0/10
👳 Nonbinary Person wearing turban
👳♀️👳♂️
I like the way their hair sticks out the bottom, I’ve never worn a turban though idk if you would wear it like that.
6/10
👮 Nonbinary Police Officer
👮♀️👮♂️
ACAB even Officer They. But it’s really funny tho
1/10
👷 Nonbinary Construction Worker
👷♀️👷♂️
Lowkey me when I’m out in the field
7/10
💂Nonbinary Guard
💂♀️💂♂️
This one they could have easily gotten away with only doing one emoji but they went the extra mile for some reason and that’s so funny to me. The man guard is the only one not smiling, which is sort of their whole thing tho.
6/10
🕵️ Nonbinary Detective
🕵️♀️🕵️♂️
I love this premise. Nonbinary detective is a combination of words that just makes me want to know more. Who are they? What mystery are they solving? I must know more.
10/10
🧑⚕️ Nonbinary Doctor
👩⚕️👨⚕️
Doctor They! We need you in the O.R. NOW! Your nonbinary patient is crashing.
7/10
🧑🌾 Nonbinary Farmer
👩🌾👨🌾
Yeahhhhh yup. Outshone by miss ponytail again but this is good stuff. I love them.
7/10
🧑🍳 Nonbinary Cook
👩🍳👨🍳
Yes chef.
6/10
🧑🎓 Nonbinary Student
👩🎓👨🎓
For some reason the male version of this one has a little smile, but the nonbinary one is completely neutral. They are indifferent to their graduation. True to my experience.
7/10
🧑🎤 Nonbinary Singer
👩🎤👨🎤
Sorry but all of these are dogshit. Green is the nonbinary color tho
2/10
🧑🏫 Nonbinary Teacher
👩🏫👨🏫
They look good in their little glasses.
7/10
🧑🏭 Nonbinary Factory Worker
👩🏭👨🏭
I am quite fond of this one.
8/10
🧑💻 Nonbinary Technology Worker
👩💻👨💻
Now why is this a worker. Maybe they’re playing games on there. Maybe they’re watching movies. Anything but working. Oh i guess they’re all wearing blue shirts bc they work at Apple. Whatever.
4/10
🧑💼 Nonbinary Office Worker
👩💼👨💼
Free them!!! But their outfit is a slay i gotta start dressing like that honestly.
9/10
🧑🔧 Nonbinary Mechanic
👩🔧👨🔧
Same as factory worker for me. It strikes a chord when we have a blue collar They.
8/10
🧑🔬 Nonbinary Scientist
👩🔬👨🔬
Yeah no kidding. Forget about women in STEM we need to talk about Them in STEM.
7/10
🧑🎨 Nonbinary Artist
👩🎨👨🎨
Oh I’m sureeeee they are. Unfortunately woman artist gets a cute little bob and man artist gets his little mustache. So in comparison it weakens our friend.
5/10
🧑🚒 Nonbinary Firefighter
👩🚒👨🚒
Thank you for your service. Hero.
7/10
🧑✈️ Nonbinary Pilot
👩✈️👨✈️
No strong feelings here. Don’t care about pilots i guess.
5/10
🧑🚀 Nonbinary Astronaut
👩🚀👨🚀
This makes me feel like my childhood dreams can still come true.
8/10
🧑⚖️ Nonbinary Judge
👩⚖️👨⚖️
Funny premise. This is what conservatives think will happen if Woke wins.
6/10
👰 Nonbinary Person wearing bridal veil
👰♀️👰♂️
Wish they weren’t making the nonbinary expression of neutrality here. Give us a smile They you’re getting married!!
5/10
🤵 Person in a Tuxedo
🤵♀️🤵♂️
Same as above they look like waitstaff
5/10
🫅 Nonbinary person with crown
👸🤴
Okay there is something crazy going on with the male version of this emoji. The crown is different and the skin tone is a different shade of yellow and flatter. It’s so weird. They look fine though otherwise.
6/10
🥷 Person in ninja outfit
All ninjas implicitly nonbinary. But doesn’t really count.
3/10
🦸 Nonbinary Superhero
🦸♀️🦸♂️
This one’s alright but i think the gendered hair options are better.
4/10
🦹 Nonbinary Supervillain
🦹♀️🦹♂️
I don’t even know what they’re going for here but it’s not for me.
2/10
🧑🎄 Nonbinary Person dressed as Santa Claus
🤶🎅
Idk what the solution is here but i still just do not like the old nonbinary option idk
2/10
🧙 Nonbinary Mage with a pointed hat and staff
🧙♀️🧙♂️
Somehow i think losing the glasses would help for me, but this one is better than Santa They.
3/10
🧝 Nonbinary Elf
🧝♀️🧝♂️
Now elves should be giving nonbinary more than anything but somehow They are outdone by both male and female elf. Come off looking more like elf child, which maybe was the goal from a design standpoint. Still cute tho!
6/10
🧌 Troll
Don’t make me spell it out.
10/10
🧛 Nonbinary Vampire
🧛♀️🧛♂️
Same sort of deal as elf. Not relevant but female vampires hair is kind of a flop.
5/10
🧟 Nonbinary Zombie
🧟♀️🧟♂️
While this is sort of the same thing as elf and vampire somehow it works better here. It’s also funny how their eyes and hair are less fucked up than the other two. Nonbinary zombies are hot for some reason.
7/10
🧞 Nonbinary Genie
🧞♀️🧞♂️
I really like this one even though they have the worst haircut. Their top is so cute.
8/10
🧜 Merperson
🧜♀️🧜♂️
I’m crazy about this one i really love this one.
10/10
🧚 Nonbinary Fairy
🧚♀️🧚♂️
Twinkerbell sort of.
6/10
🫄Nonbinary Pregnant Person
🤰🫃
Me when i ate a big burger. Me when im pregnant. Great stuff.
9/10
🧑🍼 Person Feeding Baby
🤱👩🍼👨🍼
Just want to point out only woman can breastfeed and i find that offensive. Also they put a lot more effort into the motherly gaze than the other two. Feels like an afterthought.
2/10
🙇 Person Bowing Deeply
🙇♀️🙇♂️
I love this one but somethings wrong with the hair idk
4/10
💁 Information Desk Person
💁♀️💁♂️
Why is that what this emoji is called. Nonbinary person isn’t smiling!!! They (Apple) fucking hate us. We’re given crumbs. Crumbs!
4/10
🙅 Person making a cross sign with their arms
🙅♀️🙅♂️
Not specific to this one but i do really like the gray shirt. No notes here it’s just a classic.
6/10
🙆 Person with hands clasped above their head making the “ok” gesture
🙆♀️🙆♂️
Me when I’m clasping my hands above my head making an ok gesture. I don’t know who would interpret this as an ok gesture but that’s what it’s called. The lack of smile helps this one for some reason. To me.
7/10
🙋 Person raising one hand
🙋♀️🙋♂️
We don’t get to smile we are too busy being nonbinary
5/10
🧏 Deaf Person gesturing to their ear
🧏♀️🧏♂️
I like this emoji
6/10
🤦 Person facepalming
🤦♀️🤦♂️
Me when they won’t let us smile.
8/10
🤷 Person shrugging
🤷♀️🤷♂️
The only one with a good facial expression is the woman but it’s all about the shrug anyways so it’s not a huge loss.
7/10
🙎 Person staring straight ahead
🙎♀️🙎♂️
This is one of my new favorite emojis.
10/10
🙍Person with downcast face
🙍♀️🙍♂️
Cheer up They!
7/10
💇 Person getting a haircut
💇♀️💇♂️
Me when my nonbinary barber gives me a nonbinary haircut.
8/10
💆 Person getting a head massage
💆♀️💆♂️
Need. They are at peace.
8/10
🧖Person in a sauna
🧖♀️🧖♂️
I love the top plus towel combo. This is just like the average of the man and woman emoji. Which works.
7/10
💃 Woman dancing
🕺 Man dancing
Nonbinary people are not permitted to dance. There is no emoji for this. Which leaves us with only one conclusion:
🕴️ Man in business suit levitating
This must be the nonbinary person dancing emoji. I don’t care what it’s called, that’s what it is until they give us our own.
0/10
👯 Dancing People wearing bunny ears
👯♀️👯♂️
Iconic really
8/10
🧑🦽🧑🦽➡️Person in a manual wheelchair
👩🦽👨🦽➡️
It’s hard to see but the nonbinary ones have sort of a bowl cut which is funny. Idk.
5/10
🧑🦼🧑🦼➡️Person in motorized wheelchair
👩🦼👨🦼➡️
The man changed into a red shirt. But she and they are still in purple and grey.
4/10
🚶🚶➡️Person Walking
🚶♀️🚶♂️➡️
Chill ass they.
8/10
🧑🦯🧑🦯➡️ Person with a white cane
👩🦯👨🦯➡️
Still chilling.
8/10
🧎🧎➡️ Person kneeling
🧎♀️🧎♂️➡️
This is a good emoji i gotta start using. Nothing special about the nonbinary version per se
8/10
🏃🏃➡️ Person running
🏃♀️🏃♂️➡️
Loses points for the bowl cut idk
4/10
🧍Person Standing
🧍♀️🧍♂️
I love these proportions they are so cute.
9/10
👫👭👬 Holding Hands
No hand holding for they’s. This one makes me sad for some reason. The layout in the emoji keyboard sets alone they next to all of these couples, and they’re not included in any of them. Not that deep i understand why. But still.
0/10
💑 Couple with heart between them
👩❤️👨👩❤️👩👨❤️👨
They can only love they. They can’t love men or women. Nor be loved by. These emojis are crazy anyways you tap on them and they take you to a big menu to choose your players. Surely you could throw a nb option in there. Fine. Plenty of hot nonbinary people to go around.
3/10
💏 Couple kissing
👩❤️💋👨👩❤️💋👩👨❤️💋👨
Same as above only i think this emoji is better.
4/10
⛷️🏂🪂
Genderless. Not gonna bother looking up what they’re called. Don’t actually count.
🏋️ Person weightlifting
🏋️♀️🏋️♂️
Me when i did weightlifting in 7th grade.
3/10
🤼 People wrestling
🤼♀️🤼♂️
I don’t even know that these need genders tbh. Me when i wrestled in 6th grade.
3/10
🤸 Person doing a cartwheel
🤸♀️🤸♂️
Me when i
6/10
⛹️ Person dribbling a basketball
⛹️♀️⛹️♂️
I’ll be damned, that They can ball.
5/10
🤺 Fencer
Doesn’t count but. Me when we briefly did fencing in gym class in middle school. (I’m nonbinary).
2/10
🤾 Person playing handball
🤾♀️🤾♂️
Not gonna pretend this is a real thing
1/10
🏌️ Person playing golf
🏌️♀️🏌️♂️
Me the other week when i had to golf. I wish i had known about this emoji then. I would have felt less alone.
8/10
🏇 Jockey on racing horse
The horse is nonbinary
3/10
🧘 Person in lotus position
🧘♀️🧘♂️
Me becoming more nonbinary
9/10
🏄 Person surfing
🏄♀️🏄♂️
One would have sufficed here i reckon. The person is so small.
🏊 Person swimming
🏊♀️🏊♂️
Nothing special
4/10
🤽Person playing water polo
🤽♀️🤽♂️
This one’s good i think. I’ll never use it but it’s a good variation.
5/10
🚣 Person rowing a boat
🚣♀️🚣♂️
Come on. How are we supposed to know they’re nonbinary.
1/10
🧗 Nonbinary Rockclimber
🧗♀️🧗♂️
Same as above but they’re a bit bigger. I think the man should have had sleeves and non-binary sleeveless.
2/10
🚵 Person riding a mountain bike
🚵♀️🚵♂️
Be real
1/10
🚴 Person riding a bike
🚴♀️🚴♂️
Better…
2/10
🤹 Person juggling colored balls
🤹♀️🤹♂️
Strong finish after a bunch of duds. Nonbinary juggler just makes sense. There was this clown i used to follow on twitter that posted these insane juggling videos and their gender was so mysterious and fun. Not relevant here but.
7/10
In summary:
Dear Steve Tim Apple,
I have taken a look at your gendered emojis and overall am satisfied with your output. I do have a few notes however. My number one note would be to do a quick pass on the facial expressions on these emojis. There are some inconsistencies that leave some emojis expressing a slightly different idea or emotion than the others. The best example of this would of course be the bride and groom emojis. Put a smile on those faces it’s the best day of their lives. Of course there are some emojis missing genders that i would love for you to fill in the gaps. The most notable of which i would say is Nonbinary Person Dancing. For the couple kissing and holding hands emoji i suggest a consolidation of these down into a single emoji each, which then offers options like they currently do for skin tone, but you can also select for gender. I can provide a mockup of the UI if it would be helpful. On the opposite side of things, i think most if not all of the sports/activity emojis could be stripped down to a single genderless emoji. If you would like to get me in the studio i would love to consult on a case by case basis, i think we could really spruce up quite a few of these. When in doubt on the nonbinary emojis, make the haircut cooler, it will help. Nonbinary elder needs some work yall.
Talking Bugleague
Mostly brought on by @ashley telling me that i text like i flounder, I’ve been thinking about the way i use words. The way i talk and write.
Sometimes i think ive injected too many folksy aphorisms into my vocabulary. But then i pop off a good one and ride that high for the rest of the day.
I’ve accepted that I’m no longer in control of the way i talk. There are words that i pronounce wrong every time and in a way that started as a joke and is now just how i say those words.
I’m saying things are Epic all the time, which was at some point a lampooning of the way that millenials would talk but now that’s just me.
I say howdy and yall all the time and I’m not even southern.
I don’t know how big words get into my vocabulary because i really am not reading like that. I look up words a lot, when i hear them and when i am thinking about using them and want to make sure they mean what im trying to say.
I’ve been getting really into innovating in the prefix space, by which i mean making up words that dont exist. “That’s not a word”, yes it is i literally just said it.
I guess i don’t really know what I’m trying to sound like, if there’s any cohesion to it at all. I think it’s more that i latch onto things that sound good to me and allow for greater specificity.
I feel responsible for reintroducing the word ‘soonly’ to the (my) world, which apparently was a word in old English, but stopped being used or accepted by like the 1950s. But i hear my friends say soonly and whether or not it’s true, i give myself credit for that.
Still trying to get “worm” to take off, as a variation of “word” as an affirmative acknowledgement. Like “oh, worm” like “got it”. I picked up “word” from a guy who sold me weed in high school and was in my gfs band briefly.
I’ve picked up quite a few vocal tics from M lately, such as “well, yes”, which I’m saying soooo much unfortunately. Also saying yayyyy all the time. Which is fun.
Realized i was listening to this podcast too much because i started saying “literally” between every fourth word. Trying to cut that out of my diet because it is literally annoying.
I feel like me and my friend E are often in the wordspace together, swapping stuff back and forth. She’s the one i hear say soonly probably the most and i do know for certain she got it from me. She’s got really good phrases too.
Sometimes i will throw one single Spanish noun in the middle of a sentence and im like oh that’s the @biggreengirl influence.
I love Capitalizing a word or throwing a period in the middle of a sentence to try and capture my speaking rhythm and emphasis. I don’t know if it reads as well as it writes but i can hear myself when i read back something i wrote.
My earliest writing quirk i can remember developing is the incessant use of parentheticals. (Which is actually an adjective but I’m using it as a noun here). I love an aside. I love a bit of extra information that feels optional. I love the way that it encloses an idea. It’s like the rest of the writing is the script and the parenthesis is an ad lib.
When i have to use business or technical terms at work it sometimes feels like im speaking another language, but im good at it.
I love a good format too. I’ll get them stuck in my head sometimes. Longest running is “She ___ on my ____ til I ____” and i sort of languish in having it make as little sense as possible.
Sometimes i get myself into a sentence that the only way out of is a word that is not coming to mind readily and it is so frustrating. Like this whole sentence was based around that word but i can’t remember what it is.
I think that’s enough on that for now.
Research Notes:
I have noticed in my studies a series of coincidences most curious. Though I have been unable to identify the cause as of yet, i will document my findings herein, with the hopes that further information may shed light onto the connective tissue between these seemingly connected events.
Postulate: That The Clothes Make The Man
How come when I’m wearing the most nonbinary outfit ever devised i feel like this:
I could kill god, but i won’t because me and that guy are friends, and really that would be more of a mutually assured destruction than any sort of victory. I have powers.
And yet, when i am wearing a three button polo shirt and “khakis” i feel like this:
I fear i have grown quite weary, it would seem i have come down with a rather virulent case of consumption. I am not long for this world, but i must keep a stiff upper lip and remain strong for mother, bless her heart.
The connective tissue between these two outcomes defies explanation. And as it continues to elude me, it entices me all the more, calling to me to discover this unknown link. Doomed i fear. For there could be no simple explanation for these things.
Corollary: The “THEY” Hat
This item warrants closer inspection, as it would seem to occupy multiple spaces simultaneously, a superpositional anomaly.
It is true, in totality, that this hat is funny. The fact i bought it from a white woman rapper who’s merch site is so funny. The predistressed fraying on the bill. The huge THEY in white in all caps. Not they/them, not them, THEY. Emphatic in its assertion. Wearing a silly hat to me is the pinnacle of humor. Hats are easily the funniest item of clothing. They can often serve as a catalyst for an outfit, not fully being necessary for the look, but somehow aiding in cohesion. They are form and function. And they go right up top where everybody is already looking. You put your favorite sports team up there. You put your favorite consumer apparel brand logo up there. For me, the THEY hat is like wearing a hat with an advertisement on it. An ad for THEY. My team. Raising awareness for the cause. A quick point up to the top of my head can readily serve as the setup OR punchline to a quick little joke. A jape, even.
And yet, while being fully silly, completely ironic, it’s also real and indicative of my true lived experience. I’ve been doing a lot of internal work over the last couple years, a lot of learning and unlearning, and a lot of accepting and embracing. I have found a lot of value in places that i did not even consider i cared about before. I have found support and recognition where i didn’t even know i was missing it. A depth of self that i had been pretty content to broadly ignore. I spent a lot of time downplaying gender and insisting that it wasn’t a big deal to me, and that I’m basically fine being treated however and referred to however, as long as that is with respect. Trying not to be difficult, or ask too much of anyone. I couldn’t bring myself to fully commit to asking everyone to call me by my preferred name, leaving the option open for anyone to choose. I’ve got no guff with my first name, but that just isn’t me. Reactionary to a lot of the way i had observed, primarily in online spaces, queer people appear uncouth or inflexible with other understandings of gender, i aired on the side of being easy going, casual and imparticular.
Not wanting to be difficult, i let others dictate where my boundaries would be. I’m not one of /those/ i would think, and quickly caveat that i hold no ill will towards /those/. Bright Target™ brand rainbow pride shirt, pronoun circle, pronoun pin gays that made me cringe. Not because they were queer, but because of how they were presenting it. Gauche and embarrassing to me, who had learned in my own time that nothing is more shameful than earnestness and vulnerability. That detachment worked so well as a defense.
Instead of contend with the harshness of unacceptance, the risk inherent to being earnest, i subsumed that critic into myself. Insisting that of course i do accept myself and these ideas but, it would be best to account for the perspective of those that don’t. Safer that way. Won’t be caught off guard and embarrassed. But internalizing all of these things, the types of things, for instance (random), my father would say about queer people, not hateful, just judgmental, didn’t help me at all. I just had a cop in my head now. One that largely said: Don’t be a faggot. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Not even a word I’d use. But fucking don’t be.
Those instincts are still in the back of my head, the way my brain grew. But i have discovered this amazing feeling, this softening of self that i experience when im in community with people who are like me. And i have found that it means more to me than anything. I don’t and cant fault myself for the time it took me to get here, because i don’t think thats how time works. It would have always taken me this long, it would have always been this hard. Not needing to hide behind irony or detachment to be safe feels good. Makes me feel more like myself. I haven’t changed so much other than i know now what it feels like to unclench. So i am trying to do this more. I’m not writing this from an endpoint, but from an in progress state. All things transitory and in flux anyways. I’m leaning back and easing my grasp, trusting.
Which brings us back to the hat. In a very real way it does represent a new place in my journey, a milestone in my acceptance of self and willingness to embrace it. Im not hiding anything it’s up on my head. I’m out. I’m They. I like how it feels to wear it. It feels like a little reminder to myself that I’m carrying this around with me, and also soothes the part of my mind that is so worried about inconveniencing others. I’m literally giving them a cheat sheet. My eyes are up here, my pronouns are up there. It’s not all in my head anymore, it’s on top of it. And other such jokes.
I do think a lot of well meaning people struggle with queerness because they are unfamiliar with it and they want to do right, but when the signifiers they rely on to identify how they should refer to or interact with someone are blurred or conflicting, there is a natural anxiety response. They want the comfort of knowing that calling someone sir or conversely ma’am will be received with the respect it is intended, and maybe get confused on anxious in being implicitly asked to challenge the assumptions they don’t really even think about. I wish our language was a lot more gender neutral, i think that would help everyone feel a little easier about it all. Sometimes you simply have to pick between gendered options.
And here’s my hat saying, what if you didn’t. What if i was just a person. Would that be so bad. They hat says no. They hat also says have fun with it. They hat says if you don’t have a better word, you can always slap a They in there and it will be funny at least. And there’s nothing wrong with being funny. But a joke isn’t a lie, something being funny doesn’t mean it isn’t true. My THEY hat is important to me and signifies a hard earned place I’ve come to in my gender experience.
In short, the THEY hat:
If i mean it so earnestly, then why does it make me laugh so much? And if it’s just a joke to me, why does it make me smile? It’s both at the same time. I feel I’ve earned that.
Sort of lost my format somewhere in there but, this is a lot of what I’ve been stewing on lately, especially in the wake of fully coming out to my parents. Felt like time to get it out a little bit. Idk, I’m still learning and trying to settle into it all.
Gender
(in progress, subject to revision and expansion)
Here’s what i got so far, in the order i thought of them. I still feel like im missing something huge
The Thing from The Thing
Alien from Alien
Sigourney Weaver, in alien and otherwise
Winry from FMA (gotta rewatch this)
Frog and Toad, but mostly toad
Snufkin Moomin (in theory, still haven’t watched)
That lioness that grew a mane
Carrie from Mythbusters before she started working for oil companies
Woodworking videos
Rollie pollies
Cow tools
Popeye and Olive Oyl
Sluggo and Nancy
Tom (Cat)
Wile E Coyote
Grown up Bart with an earring
This one comic artist i follow on twitter who does lesbian Lisa Simpson
Ferb and Vanessa Doofinsmurtz (sapphic somehow)
Ashley Spinelli Recess
Blaze Foley
Arthur Morgan
Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park
Hunter Schaeffer
Jak from Jak and Daxter (PS2)
Kira from Jak and Daxter (PS2)
Precursor Statue from Jak and Daxter (PS2)
Precursor Orb (and the sound it makes when you collect it)
Mulder X Files
Scully X Files
Rubber Gray Alien they use in some episodes of X Files
Carabiner
Wearing a long sleeve shirt under a short sleeve
Wearing an open flannel/button-up over a crop top
Those wooden segmented snakes you can get at a souvenir store probably
A beaver building a dam
A dog who is friends with different kinds of animals and sort of thinks he is one of them
Phillips head screwdriver
Swiss Army knife
Women with deep voices
My VHS copy of the Matrix
The scene where they take the robot out of Neos belly button
The vocoder mirror throat scene
Flat carpenters pencil from Home Depot
Earrings made out of a cool little item
Green caterpillars
Female cardinals
Tia Blake
Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons as a couple
GameCube Controller
Red yellow white RCA/AV cables and ports
Tux Paint in the elementary school computer lab
Furniture that comes with its own Allen wrench
Butch lesbians playing pool
Tying the laces on your boots in an interesting way
Hi-vis PPE
Keeping dead flowers in a vase for a long time
A big tree that looks like it’s been through some shit
A footpath forming where there is no sidewalk, but there should be
Hanging out under a bridge
Understated touch of colored eye shadow
Big belt buckle
A device that an old guy built for a specific purpose that works perfectly
A device that an old guy built for a specific purpose that just makes the whole thing harder and more complicated for no clear reason
Getting a ride from someone and they have to stop and give you a few disclaimers before you can get in the car (the doors don’t open, the ac only kicks on over 80 mph, etc)
Saving pickle jars under the kitchen sink
The smell walking past a laundromat
Having soft hands
Opening a jar for someone
Identifying with dogs in a normal way
Neon signs
Street lights reflecting on wet asphalt
A guy so ready to give up his seat on the train that he hardly sits all the way down
Holding the door
Being included when someone says “the girls”
The way my aunt grabs someone’s arm when she’s about to say something funny
The aliens from outer wilds. Those nonbinary hearthians, as well as the cunty nomai and inhabitants of the stranger
Accidentally going on a nine hour long date
The woman on the moon on a bottle of high life
Acoustic guitar that you can plug in!
Calling someone girl (derogatory)
Calling someone girl (lovingly)
Drinking beers with the boys
Lightning bugs
Picking a leaf off a plant as you walk by (gatherer instincts)
Lowkey Roxas from Kingdom Hearts
Classic yellow smiley Lego head
Pissing standing up in an alley when you’re drunk
Thinking machetes are cool
Green M&M
Shooting a gun at aluminum cans
Trapping a spider and putting it outside instead of squashing it
Picking up worms off the sidewalk and putting them in the dirt
The smell of citrus
Knowing about the word petrichor
Petrichor
Seraphim
Double monitor computer setup
That computer woman off of cyber chase
The casual intimacy of girls going to the bathroom together
Being in charge of starting the fire
Lesbians (i just think they’re neat - Marge)
Women years into their transition who start getting masc with it again because they’ve cracked the code
The scooby doo gang
Wearing a cool jacket
Being a mother
Cowboy hat
Having really nice hair that looks like effort went into it before you went out today
Messy bun
Rolling up your sleeves
Putting together a bouquet for someone from Trader Joe’s flowers
Dandelions
The term tomboy
Wearing a vest in a womanly way
Silent recognition between two strangers who both happen to be transgendered
Wanting to be pursued (romantically)
Wearing jewelry (aspirational)
Big pants little shirt
Big shirt regular pants
3” inseam shorts at the max
Bleached blonde hair
Sharing clothes
Feeling like an angel
Feeling like an animal
Septum piercing
Yellow pikmin
Basically women and girls sometimes
Coveralls/jumpsuit
Working with your hands
Playing in the dirt
Trying really hard to dance normal
Female vocalist rock band
Leather jacket
The idea of wearing rings, but not doing it because you’re scared of getting them stuck
Wishing you had glasses but having perfect vision
Somebody you can tell is trans but you have no idea which way
Making up a new fake word to be obtusely gender neutral
Not being weird about it
The gender neutral emojis in gray shirts. I fuck with them heavy
Woman who are good at voice training
Big giant buff 8ft tall woman with a sword
Having a weird relationship with your mom
Having a weird relationship with your dad
Clocky cis women
Some of those beautiful women i see in Dropout clips on reels, only one whose name i know is Vic
Having a really clean bathroom
The lesbians from the intro to Boa
Bright shining silhouette of a genderless body suspended in the ether
Getting a short haircut after having really long hair (chopped bob style)
An alien that doesn’t know what sex is
Just like a classic green alien in a saucer
Bugs bunny in drag
Very specific instances of famous actors playing trans women (goggins in whatever show that was, s2 twin peaks Duchovny)
Having green skin
Helping somebody cook
Having a job to do
Being on the girl side of the line when that thing happens at a party or dinner where all the boys are talking together about a boy thing, and the girls are having a separate conversation
Transmasc voice
Wearing a robe or a cloak or some such garment
Robot gender
If a man and a woman had a baby that’s what I’d be
Being pregnant
Clone gender (no belly button)
Earth tones
Digital consciousness
Transcending the gender binary
Hiding from the gender binary
Killing the gender binary
Making sweet sweet love to the gender binary
Being normal about the gender binary
Person gender
Normal gender
Centrist gender
Cryptid gender
Bigfoot or Jersey Devil
Gender neutral aliens Riker hits on in TNG
Gender swapping aliens in that X files episode where they are Amish i think?
The term unisex
Being hot with a buzz cut
Calling a woman in authority sir out of respect
Worm gender
Woman named Jo or Mo or something like that
on bisexuals
My sister is genuinely biphobic in the same way that i am biphobic as a joke and it’s really starting to annoy me. You are ruining my awesome joke of biphobia not existing. Don’t take this from me, sometimes it’s all i have. Forced to enlist in the Bisexual Liberation Front until my sister gets woke. Then it’s back to pretending that my entire target demographic isn’t bisexual women, and that i myself am not nominally bisexual. Don’t even get me started on pansexual
Actually I’m bored. Going to yarn about it a bit.
Coming to a place where i really squarely see myself as nonbinary (whatever that means (i know what it means (duh))) has had such a funny effect on my view of the whole thing where i find the hard-coded born-this-way type framing to be fundamentally unhelpful. Like oh i was born to be attracted to men, but what is a man, and what am i, and at what point in those intersecting lines does a novel label distinguish meaningful separation? Or the opposite, obviously. But even my use of opposite there is not really accurate or helpful. The opposite of man is not woman. The opposite of man is the entire universe as inverted about the boundary of the man’s outer edge. Select ‘Man’ —> Invert Selection.
Like i ride for my old school tumblr cohorts who were inventing names for their specific brand of sexuality left and right, but it never rang true to me. Like the way that you learn an oversimplified version of something in school when you are little, and then later it is revealed to be largely illusory and less coherent of a narrative that initially implied. I actually have an issue with this method of education but that’s not what I’m talking about right now. Like basically once you figure out that people can be gay and that gender is a social thing, all the rigid boundaries sort of lack any tangible application.
The cumulative traits and performances associated with each binary gender construct are not binary in nature themselves. The binary is created in the aggregate, so you will always always be carving out exceptions and twisting your vocabulary to account for all outcomes. When it’s much simpler to just throw your hands up and say “hey wanna fuck?” to someone you think is hot. It is reassuring and i suppose helpful at the outset to be able to define who is and isn’t in your pool of prospects, but i guess basically my point is once you’ve left the kiddie pool you don’t need the training wheels. Mixed metaphors rock, shut up.
I have been accused (by myself mostly) of being a gender abolitionist, though I’ve never really felt like that’s a political stance of mine, more just a personal belief. I think it would be interesting to live in a world where the boxes had not been drawn, just see how things would shake out. More practically, i guess my main point is that it all just doesn’t matter very much to me what labels other people use because i find all attempt at labeling to be a futile gesture. The concept of a single word that can group together 100% of the people i want to fuck is silly. Bisexual, pansexual. I’m not any of those things. I’m just sexual (backstreets back, alright!).
It’s all just made up and silly. That’s fun! In regards to people rocking with assigned genders i guess the whole thing plays a lot cleaner but A) fuck em and B) let’s not constrict our worldview so tight. I am just a thing, and so if you are attracted to me, your sexuality must definitionally be inclusive of things like me. Even when I’m boymode. Especially then.
I’m bisexual, you say bravely. I say, you and everybody else, pal.
I think i default to using bisexual over pansexual mostly because i had it described to me when i was younger as “being attracted to one’s own gender, as well as other genders” and no matter what my own gender is, that always worked for me. Plus the pansexual flag is uglier than the bi flag.
But yeah basically my sister refuses to date anyone she thinks might be bisexual because she’s convinced they would cheat on her and like. Come on girl what are we doing, you were supposed to be the woke one.
on bosses
I guess i might as well tell you guys about my bosses. I realized while doing this I’ve basically only had four jobs as far as i can remember. So I’m going by job actually.
Job 1
Pleasant Valley Kennels
This was a boarding kennel that i worked at through all of high school and a bit after. There were two separate buildings there was the kennel itself where all of the dogs lived, and then there was the office which was the basement of this three story house (this is relevant). 10 hour shifts and we worked a lot of holidays due to many people would board their pets during the holidays. I have dreams that I’m working back at the kennel pretty frequently and i forgot to bring the dogs inside when it was raining or something.
Boss 1
Michelle
She grew up in the house that the office is in the basement of, her mom Patti is the owner. She was so funny and I was always her favorite I think. They also bred dogs for show too i think so she would travel sometimes for that. She was good with dogs and very friendly. I saw her yell at someone one time and it was weird. She cursed a lot which made me laugh. Her brother Andy was disabled and would sometimes need help getting his wheelchair through the door when he’d work the office. Typically there would only ever be like two or three people working at a time. So Michelle was the big boss but then whoever was the manager working that day was basically in charge, sometimes this would be Michelle.
Boss 2
Carrie
She was just a manager and i only really bring her up because she was extremely bossy and rude. She had this doctor who decal on her car that pissed me off so bad. And this husky that was one of the meanest dogs ever. She was rough with dogs a lot which was upsetting to me. Eventually i got promoted to manager and i realized that the position itself did not carry that much authority, she was just acting that way. Lazy and bossy and snarky. I got my sister a job at the kennel when she got to high school and we’d always shit talk Carrie together. Bad attitude.
Job 2
Fox Theater
This was pretty short lived i think i did it for maybe six months. I was bussing tables and running food at the kitchen for the theater. Worked some weddings and events like that, which i think i preferred to dinner service before a show. My uncle was one of the chefs and i needed work so i could buy weed. Had to get drug tested and i had smoked literally the day i interviewed and they wanted me to get tested that week so i drank so much water in three days that it diluted my blood and i became slightly intoxicated. Keep in mind i had been smoking weed for like two years multiple times a day at this point, so it felt warranted. And i was scared it would make my uncle look bad. But fuck that uncle honestly he’s a piece of shit.
Boss 3
I’m sure her name was Carol or something like that
She was friendly enough but i simply was not there for long enough for her to leave an impression. I swear so much and i dropped a big tray full of glasses and shattered them and learned that food service was likely not for me.
Boss 4
Piece of shit uncle
I liked when i got to work in the kitchen, i wasn’t preparing any food, but they’d have me do plating and stuff in there sometimes. Technically when i was doing this, Chef Mike was my boss. I feel that had i moved back to St. Louis, a physical altercation would have been imminent. He was fine at this job to be clear. But he’s a right wing piece of shit asshole who has always been lazy and openly cruel to my mother. So i didn’t feel bad when i quit.
Job 3
SLU
I stopped bussing tables bc i got hired by one of my professors as an assistant.
Boss 5
Chris
Chris taught Structural Analysis and Structural Dynamics and one other class i can’t remember the name of, and was the head of the Civil Engineering department. He was such a douchebag. If i showed you a picture you could immediately intuit half of what you’d need to know. He was from Tennessee and he thought he was hot shit. He had this over gelled hair and generally wore a tight button up shirt. He was constantly overcommitted and behind on everything and overworked, and would openly complain about it. And yet he had no sympathy at all for anyone in the same situation. He was openly antagonistic towards students. He played favorites so plainly and obviously. He would flirt with some of the girls in the grade ahead of us in a way that made everybody feel icky (One of these girls works at my current job too). He was unmarried and somebody found his tinder profile. He had the age range set wayy down. Obviously. He was on the young ish end for my professors. Technically i was hired as a research assistant in the structures lab, but i wound up doing a lot of things. Got some construction experience bending rebar, putting together formwork, pouring concrete. Helped assemble large scale models for classes. And then i was just sort of also on call for any odd job he wanted done. Overall it was a fun job and he liked me, which was advantageous to me, though i do think my disdain for him eventually became clear.
Job 4
Current Job
I got hired summer after my junior year as an intern here, worked part time through the school year, then offered a full time position when i graduated.
Boss 6
Jimbo
Jim is atypical for Engineers in that he loves to talk. He’s this big boisterous guy who loves fishing and has a photographic memory and loves learning. He’ll learn everything there is to know about something and then spew it all out at you while you’re trying to have a brief meeting. It’s funny, he can’t help it. Open secret if you want to kill some time and not get in trouble is ask Jim if he’s been fishing recently. He is also notorious for pushing people really hard to get things done. Which i experienced while i was in the St. Louis office with his office directly over my shoulder of the cubicle i worked in. I don’t work to much with him on the day to day he’s more of a big picture guy, but when he needs something he needs it right now. But fortunately im good at my job.
Boss 7
Christy
Christy is one rung below Jim in the company hierarchy, but is more my boss than anyone else is. She trained me on most everything and when the office started to fill up we ended up sharing a cubicle because she was only in the St. Louis office half of the week. She has since moved to North Carolina. I work on her projects more than anyone else’s and I’m most comfortable asking her for help when i need it. She is sometimes intentionally vague and not great at communicating, but for the most part pretty laid back and frank. I like her a lot and I’m glad i work so closely with her because as far as i can tell the other options here are not ideal.
Boss 8
Steve
One of the three Steve’s in the Chicago office, and as of now the only one who has not semi-retired. He’s the office manager up here and also the only other person in my department. He falls asleep at his desk a lot. Seems pretty lazy. He has this slow way of talking that makes me nervous. Like it makes me feel like I’ve said something stupid but i think really it just takes him a second to think. I think he’s not great at his job but it is hard to tell honestly. As a project manager he is one of the worst I’ve worked with. He frequently gives me enormous tasks with little to no guidance or instruction on how to accomplish them or what specifically he is looking for. Asking him for help is like pulling teeth and it’s often better to just brute force it. I think he’s really lucky that i am as good at my job as i am. I do some of his job for him, training and supervising and reviewing the work of the intern. We have nothing in common really so we never have much to say in terms of small talk. We’re both from St. Louis. Sometimes he comes out of nowhere with a really funny line. He told me JD Vance killed the Pope which was so unexpected from him and made me laugh. From what i can tell he’s a Democrat type of guy, from what i can tell. I like him well enough when I’m not working with him directly.
Final Boss
The trick when fighting the final boss is if you jump right before his attack hits, you can run up and stun him before he has time to get off his next hit. It’s pretty easy to get through the first phase this way, but once he gets in the Mecha Suit, you have to parry his rockets in a specific order to disable his weapons. The final phase is more about surviving his attacks than anything, as the final hit is a scripted event.
On #adulting
My sister is stressed out about graduating and having to work the rest of her life. Me too girl. But I’ve been trying to offer her what insight i have that can help with the transition. I have introduced her to what i have internally been calling the Dog/Walker concept (not to be confused with Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic). This is the way i have tried to find balance between the things required of one to participate in public life and the things one actually wants out of life.
Inside of you there is one dog, and one walker. A dog is a happy creature. Pleasure-seeking and joy-feeling. The dog just wants to play all day. Run around and sniff everything. Piss on the floor. Chew up the rug. It’s all fair game and the game is having fun. But the dog doesn’t know anything. The dog doesn’t pay rent, can’t go to the grocery store, doesn’t know when it’s time for a walk and time for bed. The dog just is. The dog is reliant on the owner/walker to meet its needs, keep it fed and happy. The walker puts the leash on the dog so it won’t run out in the street and get run over. The walker pays taxes, keeps a roof over their heads. The walker does what needs to be done so at the end of the day, they can both play catch in the yard. That’s the basic concept.
If you spend all of your time being the dog, shit just won’t get done. It may work for a minute, but it will fall apart if you can’t figure out how to do things on your own. The dog pisses on the floor and nobody cleans it up, so the floor is ruined.
On the other end if you spend all your time as the walker, you will have no fun. The stress will start to get to you, you’ll feel like it’s all hopeless and pointless. You’ll find all your time and effort is spent in service of nothing, and you either resign yourself to that bleak fate, or you crash out. You go home to an empty house, and without your dog to come and make you go play, you will just dwell in the emptiness.
Both parties are happiest when they are on a walk together. The dog leads the way, up ahead at the end of the leash, pulling (this is not the most well behaved dog and that’s fine). The walker keeps them on the path and knows how far to go before turning back. They’re a single unit, working together to walk around the block.
I don’t think this is like revolutionary, but it’s something i return to often. I take myself on a walk every day no matter what. Because the dog needs it, and I need the dog (Important to note i do not currently live with a dog). I used to get so frustrated and pissed off about having to do things i don’t want to do. And i still do sometimes but when i frame it as “well someone has to buy the Pro-plan Chicken and Rice, or else the dog will starve” it helps me.
There is room in life for fun and games and arts and crafts and just running around and having fun. You just have to be able to keep the dog alive, which means working even when you hate it, and calling your doctor on the phone to set up an appointment. And keeping a calendar.
That’s all i have to say about that right now.
On AI
Was listening to a podcast yesterday (which I’m trying to do less of. Trying to relearn how to sit around and be quiet and bored, not constantly pumping something into my ears) and the guy in it was being a little cagey about condemning generative AI. Like “oh well the problem is the intellectual theft but the technology is not inherently bad. I get why someone would want to like use ChatGPT as a sounding board for ideas, though i personally wouldn’t recommend it” and they talked about this kid who (TW) killed himself after like getting super engrossed talking to ai chatbots.
And i realized how reactionary i really am about ai. I think that there is no use-case for it that justifies its existence. And i mean primarily generative ai, but that’s not all that i mean. I think anything but outward hostility towards the mainstreaming of this technology is actively harmful to the fabric of our society. I think it’s bad to use for a joke. I think it’s bad to send a single message to a chatbot. All of this furthers this psychotic project of incorporating this stuff into daily life which will do nothing but weaken the admittedly already feeble minds of the American people. I don’t think this is something that can be easily undone and i want no part in it.
If generative ai only drew from open source or public domain works, or anyone who contributed was compensated and signed off on its use, i would still want it destroyed. We are in a moment that requires clear minds and pragmatic thinking about the future, and this is a project that is not only a distraction, but an illusory sense of comfort which is not capable of saving us. There is a pretty good chance that some ChatGPT or grok ai thing was used by the Trump administration to generate their tariff plan, based on sources more familiar than i am with the particulars. This is my concern.
As anyone who is even passively familiar with the technology understands, it is not capable of creating anything new, simply wasting energy* (i will get to this piece later) completing complex computations to stitch together existing pieces. I will speak here to climate change because this is what i am always speaking to and what i am familiar with. There is no solution to climate change that exists made entirely of constituent parts that exist in the world. If that were the case, we may not have waited so so very long to do anything about it. The solution to this problem must be something radically new, and i can’t tell you the number of times i have heard people say that they think that we will eventually create a super intelligent AI that can be put into place to solve climate change. This is a malicious delusion. You might as well believe that a wizard will come and save us at the last possible second. Boy i wish.
Sure, I’ll say it’s plausible that an AI technology built from the software that is being developed now could reach a level where it is more intelligent than *some* people. But *some* people are very stupid. The way that I understand this technology to work, however, would prevent this AI from becoming more intelligent than *all* people. It’ll plateau around the average of what it’s fed. And sure it’ll have access to more pools of data than a human mind but i just don’t believe that true intelligence can be created in the aggregate like this. A human mind has things it cares about, its intelligence can be used in a direction, with intent. A program will only do what it is told, and i do not trust any of the people who claim to want to build this program, or who would set themselves in a place to be telling the program what to do. It is a fantasy, and a waste of time.
In addition to wasting time, which i will emphasize, we are short on, this technology is built on an inherent waste of ENERGY. This is something i have gotten so fixated on and frustrated by. From crypto mining, to NFTs, to this latest speculative bubble of generative AI, it is so befuddling to me that at this exact moment in time there would be such of a coalescence around Monetized Energy Waste.
The short of it for the layman is that these technologies are all based on complex computations, which require a lot of processing power to run, and as the demand for [studio ghibli ai meme generator] increases, the people who profit from this technology want more and faster processing, which requires larger data centers, more energy used to this end. That is the COST of the free [ai SpongeBob chatbot], energy waste.
Which is explicitly the driving force behind the progression and acceleration of climate change. We do not have the infrastructure to meet our current energy demands, and yet we continue to expand them. We do not have the resources to continue to be fueled by combustion based energy (oil, natural gas), and our environment cannot afford for us to use them at the rate at which we currently do. We need to be reducing our energy footprint and switching any and all necessary use to renewable energy.
And to meet this moment, ironically, we have this boom of speculative investment around energy waste. I do wonder if this is a self aware rejection of the current moment, a refutation of the facts of the situation, or if it is just neatly coincidentally illustrative of the larger societal disaster. We just can’t fucking help ourselves. Surely the shovel we used to dig this hole is the best tool for the job of getting us out of it. Dig deeper, we might come out the other side.
And those are my most principled reasons, but if i can go on, and i will, this is not the end of my hatred of this technology. From an artistic angle, it is disgusting and craven and cruel to me. Such a cynical understanding of what the value of art must be. You must like art because of the way that it looks. Art MEANS something. It is an emergent phenomena of being alive. Experiencing the pain and the splendor of living on this one and only planet. Art is something you can feel. Made with the heart, not the hand.
And to have these tech bozo fuckass losers come in and reduce art to numbers, to a calculation and reproduction, is nothing short of criminal. It is the attempted murder of creativity. An ai image genuinely makes me feel ill. Because no matter how long you look at it, there is nothing to interpret there. There is no authorial intent. No possibility of meaning slipping between the artists hands even accidentally. It’s just static noise. Nothing.
An ai image looks like violence to me. I feel the same way when i look at roadkill and I’m not exaggerating for emphasis here. It’s the same emotion. Nausea and regret and mourning. I hate it. I loathe it. And the smug attitude of the fools who deign to call themselves “ai artists” or “prompt generators”. For them it is explicitly part of the appeal that generative ai is cynical and cruel. That’s what they like about it. The way a schoolyard bully feels, smashing someone else's toy.
It’s lazy and inauthentic, and the more you use it, the more your brain turns to literal mush. It is poisonous slop and i cannot play any part in tolerating it. Nobody i know is really a big AI guy, but i still see it around, and it pisses me off. Every app, every website wants me to talk to their new chatbot. And i won’t, and i won’t stop being angry about it. If this is my only victory, so be it. I don’t talk to computers, i don’t look at generated images, i don’t read generated words. These things are sacrilegious to me. That’s all i have to say for now. Got myself worked up and had to rant.
TTYL xoxo
bugleague.flounder.online/