Memo 14: Sometimes
Howdy and welcome back to Jouissance — I took the last two weeks off because of a certain overhanging political event or two, but now that that’s clearly a thing of the past (why would an election ever drag on?), I’m back! Instead of talking about serious world-changing politics right now, we are going to talk about something else as important and pressing as that: Harry Styles in dresses.
I heard about Harry’s activities last week for the first time in a hot minute when I learned of his Vogue cover. In the time between then and now, I’m sure you’ve heard of it too, potentially from Ben Shapiro or Candance Owens for their takes on Harry weakening masculinity (which sound as stupid as the below photo). Many people could not wait to rip into those two and launched a barrage of counter-opinions.
There were other takes that popped up among the discussion, ranging from nuanced musings on how wearing dresses is great but not groundbreaking to what masculinity means (is it a static appearance or a constantly changing set of actions done to preserve power?). All right in some ways, all wrong in other ways.
Originally, I was going to write this post about an interesting standoff of opinions on a related topic. There is a niche rise of men (usually teenage) wearing maid outfits, dresses, etc and posting it online to the praise of women (usually teenage). The two dueling opinions on that phenomenon are either that this is ultimately beneficial, as men are now more comfortable and can bend masculinity into something less toxic as they embrace feminine clothing, or ultimately harmful, as these teenage men are doing it because they see the attention that alt-girls give to men in dresses and they play the game to get attention while not actually caring about breaking down gender lines. But then I realized something.
A lot of these takes, I’ve noticed, follow a similar lifespan. It goes: person A on the internet, unprompted and of their own free will, announces their opinion on a situation. Person or group B notices this and replies, saying that this opinion does not hold because of X or if X happens or when looking at it a certain X way. Person A replies, pivoting slightly or digging into their original take further to be correct. Back and forth it goes until it ends on polite thankfulness, name-calling or avoidance.
Obviously, engaging in conversations over one’s opinion is useful for both parties and when done with respect, furthers the minds of both parties. But many times, it’s done with hostility, an attitude of “you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about because your take is wrong in some situations so I’m going to show you your place.” Why do these hot takes eventually spiral into an exhausting spat show?
Because literally nothing is true 100% of the time! Or, put another way, everything is true at the same time. This sounds like an obvious thing to say but hear me out. When these hot takes are stated online, they straddle the line between opinion and almost-near fact. But statistically speaking, there is no way that these can be right all the time. There’s just too many people and situations out there to allow one to cover their bases with one sharpened opinion.
This is especially present when groups that have not been able to speak as freely as white men in the past now have the room to do so online, but they are not a monolith, so not one hot take speaks for all of them. As an example: even if I say something seemingly true like, all women would like the right to choose what they do with their bodies, there is statistically a woman out there who doesn’t feel this way. Boom, my take that is 99.9% correct is technically wrong in some situations.
In line with the men-in-dresses situation noted above, are there situations where teenage boys are wearing dresses and posting it to the internet because the acceptance online helps them be more comfortable with who they want to be? Yes! Are there also little manipulators out there that still have an ingrained sense of masculinity and only wear dresses to lord power over girls? Yes! But these takes often do not have an either/or clause, or at least are not presented that way. Instead of agreeing that both takes being true at once (or neither being fully true), it’s handled online in a way of needing to be more right than the other person. It’s a battle and not a conversation.
What can be done about this? One option is to have everybody shut up everywhere, forever, over anything possible. Not in a repressive way or anything; more in a like, there is some much babble out there in the world. Too much babble. Nobody should speak ever again, we can return to the woods and nature, and live in a slightly confusing but peacefully silent life.
That’s not happening anytime soon, so the other option I came to is an arguably easier fix: adding the word “sometimes” to one’s hot takes. Like I have been referring to all along, one should do this with nuance on a case-by-case basis — leave out the word “sometimes” when there’s a good reason to do so, maybe use a synonym of “sometimes” or add a disclaimer beforehand instead of putting it into the take fully. No matter how it’s done, all that matters is the acknowledgment that everything is situational and you are signaling to that before launching on a hot take.
And some people may not want to put “sometimes” in at all! That’s valid, sure, if you don’t mind the barrage of retorts that are sure to come your way. And to state clearly: I really have no skin in the game about these hot takes, this is more of a musing than actual advice that I expect people to follow. But if you want a little bit less of a headache, I think my idea isn’t half-bad. It’s pretty good… sometimes.
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
The Best Online Staging of Chekhov's Seagull Is in The Sims. Capitalism breeds innovation? No! The Sims breeds innovation.
Closer Look: Aaron Siskind’s Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation, a quick read on a fantastic set of photographs. I have a soft spot for art that centers around this lack of background and what it means for the subject, and this is no exception.
In Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, Wilbur the dog has won a heated election for town mayor. Ok, so I am technically getting political in this post after all, but I think this is well-worth breaking my word for.
Anxiety isn’t a pathology. It drives us to push back the unknown. Up-in-the-clouds writing on neurodivergent pathology from Aeon, what more can a girl ask for? I don’t quite agree with everything brought up here, and it’s a little more history-focused than what I expected, but a very good start of a potential rabbit hole of ideas.
A Nameless Hiker and the Case the Internet Can’t Crack, which does keep me up a bit a night.