So a tiny story: on Black Friday a few weeks ago I went to Gamestop to buy my brother a game for Christmas, and I noticed this older man was watching me like a hawk. He was loitering around the front of the store without really buying anything, and every time I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye he was looking at me. I went to look at the PS4 games, and he was looking at something right behind me. I checked out the Nintendo games, and he was looking at them too. I was the only woman in the store, by the way.
By the time I got in line to pay he was loitering at the front of the store again, and I just had that feeling that he was going to try and take the game I just bought, or steal my purse, as soon as I left the store. OR, he was going to try and follow me home. And I know I don’t have to explain that terror to any woman reading this, but all I could think was that I’m in this Gamestop alone with at least twenty other men and something is about to happen. I’m beginning to freak out, to the point where I’ve just pulled my pepper spray out of my purse and into the pocket of my coat.
So there I am, next in line to pay, and there is this GIGANTIC dudebro right behind me, and I say gigantic as a 6 foot tall woman. He says, “Ma’am? Don’t be offended, but would it be alright if I walked you to your car?” and I was like “Are you serious?” and he was like “There are some weird guys in here right now. Have you noticed that guy watching you?” and then I showed the dudebro the pepper spray in my pocket and he was like “Right on. Would you still let me walk you to your car?” and I said yes.
So I paid, and waited while HE paid, and he walked me to my car. And just as I was getting in, the weird guy who’d been loitering came out of the store, saw me and my dudebro, and turned around and walked away in the opposite direction.
In short: men who recognize that women are unsafe in dark alleys, college campuses, grocery stores, gas stations and retail stores and do something about it are the kind of quality men that this world needs more of.
Hey, do you know that feeling of hitching up a long skirt so you don’t fall on your face when walking upstairs, and then you immediately become a wretched yet resolute Jane Austen character? It’s a universal thing, right?
It’s like resting a laundry basket against your hip and suddenly you’re a long-suffering peasant woman, wondering if you’ll survive the winter.
a shawl wrapped around the shoulders and you’re wandering the moors in a Brönte novel, feeling melancholic
Looking out the window at the rain and you’re a love-stricken newlywed wondering when your husband will return from the war.
Long skirt billowing behind you while to go down the stairs, you’re a proper Lady in a flowing ball gown being introduced at a fancy social function.
So I’m not sure if this has been said already, but the speed with which language is evolving nowadays is genuinely something that I feel is going to be the hallmark of this century when future historical linguists are studying this timeperiod in a thousand years’ time.
The example that comes to the forefront of my mind, as ridiculous as it is, is the phrase ‘big dick energy’ which, in the weeks since which the phrase was conceived, has not only spread to become common parlance (at least within a certain demographic) but has rapidly changed from its original meaning (which was the literal energy that a person gives off when they have a literal big penis–Anthony Bourdain, to be exact) to its current meaning, which is something like, “A person, who may or may not have a penis, who is in possession of a tremendous amount of confidence and competency, which is obvious to the viewer to a point where it is palpable.”
It’s a difficult and nebulous concept to convey, and something that…honestly, we probably needed a phrase for. The term ‘big dick energy’ was a literal joke and has now filled a hole in the English vocabulary. That’s like the inside joke that your friends had in high school becoming common parlance for the entire English-speaking world.
Something like this couldn’t have happened fifty years ago. At least, not so fast. Until very, very recently, it took things like this years, if not decades, to occur. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary, there are countless words that have archaic meanings which no longer apply. Hell, we don’t even have to go that far back–the word ‘gay’, as we all know, used to mean happy, and then was repurposed as a derogatory euphemism for homosexuality, which was then reclaimed by the gay community and is now its most oft-used identifier. One could even postulate that the word ‘gay’ is now returning somewhat to its original meaning, considering that those in the know with queer culture sometimes use it to describe pleasant concepts such as romantic attraction and various acts of self-care and also consider it a positive aspect of their personality but that’s a different story.
This is just one example; there are many others. Thousands, probably, in the English language alone. But they took time. The evolution of the word gay took 100+ years.
Big Dick Energy happened in seven weeks.
The internet is the steroids by which the etymology of popular phrases has increased to lightning fast speeds and I feel like we should all be afraid–or at least be taking note.
the demons in my head: cat.(ding ) I’m a kitty cat. and I dance dance dance.
me: what year am I in
This meme is so ancient most ppl who rebloged this prolly dont even know the video jingle this came from.
12 years. This meme is 12 years old
according to know your meme it’s actually 14 years old. as of today, coincidentally. happy birthday kitty cat dance thank you for your contribution to meme history
Gregorian monks singing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”
EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND LISTEN TO THIS RIGHT FUCKING NOW
Why is this a thing that exists?
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL
“on the boooooolovarrrd of brooookennnn dreeeemmsss”
I turned this on and at that moment my roommate opened the curtains, and I immediately had this epic video in my head of us cleaning our apartment, and raising a castle around it with hammers and magic.
I’ve introduced so many people to Gregorian: the best way to do it is to slip it into a normal playlist.
This is the soundtrack of an angel that was thrown out of heaven unjustly and is existing on earth, and being tracked by an adversary, while an angel friend is preparing to come rescue him.
misterjazzmaster 