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Tl;dr I am just talking about how I was lucky to not grow up as an incel
Growing up I had no role models and so, me getting out of that alt right mysogynist pipeline was because 13 y/o me saw a video about Nirvana. A few years ago I was part of a subreddit where mostly older girls and ladies were and as I would read their comments i realised the many wrong things i was doing everyday which could end up hurting someone if they ever got together with me. A few weeks ago, i saw a reel where a girl was talking about how frustrating it was when guys ignored menial tasks like throwing socks in laundry and I realised, "oh! I do this sometimes" and ever since I saw it, anytime I ignore such things, i immediately remember that reel and all the comments on it and I just do the whole thing because I don't want to be an asshole because of my ignorance which was a result of me growing up in an environment which enabled my shitty behaviour.
I feel like I was lucky in this sense because I inadvertently came across the right places. The creators I grew up with were decent human beings. Not a single youtuber I used to watch growing up ended up being in any controversy. I watched some of them again recently and some are even making videos calling out trash behaviour.
It's also worth noting that back in 2014-15 yt was not full of alpha male shit. Everyone was just chilling and playing Minecraft. The video essays were still as great as they are now. If I was born any later, I am afraid I might've fallen down that pipeline and become a completely irredeemable pos.
Apr 11, 2025
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good on you for being able to and appreciate something like this! I'm glad the right internet spaces found you and that you listened too
Apr 11, 2025
@MOONBEAMS it was a slow process. My family was basically in a religious cult and they promoted all the harmful ideas. The irony was that the god we worshipped was the complete opposite and so I learnt more from the stories of that God as well, instead of the cults ideas. At one point i believed that the earth was flat and moon landing was fake as well lmao. But a lot happened. I was queerphobic then I realised that i myself am bisexual and my gender identity is still a massive struggle for me. Now that I've written it down, i once again realise just how far I've come along haha
Apr 11, 2025
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In cinema, women who take pride in their appearance by investing time in their makeup, hair, and outfits while also indulging in the finer things in life are commonly villainised.
Whether it is loving to splurge on materialistic things, such as expensive clothes and jewellery, handbags, or shoesāthe portrayed women are usually always the antagonist.
Take Highschool musical. Sharpay, a woman who prided herself on her appearance was solely obsessed with status and boys.
The Devil Wears Prada. Andy was portrayed to be less inclined with her appearance and therefore the most ākind-heartedā character within her workplace, while the other ladies who were equally diligent at their jobs and who also worked equally long hours and busted their butts were portrayed to be snubbish and rude. As Andy then moved on to change her appearance, she maintained her self respect but lost it from her partner (to me this heavily reinforced the notion that āboys donāt like women who spend money on their looks blah blah blah they just want a ārealā woman) due to her changing appearance and her dedication to her job.
Legally Blonde. She never did it for herself in the first place, she did it to prove herself to her ex-boyfriend. She ended up becoming an awesome lawyer at the end but I hated that she started off ditsy and they couldnāt even get her character to be somewhat professional for a Harvard Interview tape, really undermining her professionalism.
Grease. Dany loved Sandy. AND SHE STILL CHANGED HER WHOLE STYLE FOR HIM AT THE VERY END.
In these these movies, itās also common for the more ātom-boyishā women to tear down the more āfeminineā women, which in my personal experience unconsciously led me down the same behaviour path while I was in my impressionable teen years. Women so focused on tearing other women down.
For the longest time growing up, I detested the colour pink and I hated wearing makeup and dresses. Instead, I skateboarded and played soccer and video games on my DS and PSP (which I loved to do) while I was secretly jealous of my sisterās pink barbie dolls and sparkly dresses. All these movies that I grew up watching, although I didnāt know it then, looked down on the idea of enjoying the feminine things in lifeāespecially to get a boys attention. As an insecure kid, it really messed me up, thinking the only way I could get a boys attention was rejecting the things I secretly liked. What young girls needed was a mix of representation of strong women while not vilifying a lifestyle. It took a lot of self-reflection and development as well as maturity to unlearn the inherent behaviour patterns that I learnt through the media I was consuming. Especially unlearning the phrase a lot of teen girls are familiar with: āgirls are too much drama.ā
No, girls are not too much drama.
It is okay to like pink, to like makeup and dresses, to be materialistic and enjoy collecting shoes and bags. The right man/partner for you wonāt care what you choose to do with your appearance, but will encourage you to be happy. And most importantly, you will be happy.
As a 23 year old Civil Engineer by trade, women are awesome. No matter their style preference or job choice. I like materialistic things, I get my nails done once a month, and my eyebrows done once a fortnight, and I love to shop for clothes and handbags. But Iād also like to believe this isnāt my soul personality trait, I like to go to the gym, I am a big gamer and I love to read, Iāve been watching anime since I was nine, and playing in the mud on rainy days is still a fun secret hobby of mine.
I also would like to believe that I am a good person who is also good at what I do, and that I also possess my own drives and passions, despite my love for pink and Christian Dior.
Jan 23, 2025
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and I feel lucky about that; it made me who I am today!
But as an adult woman I can definitely relate and I imagine what it would be like to feel that sense of freedom from being perceived as a woman and the societal expectations that come with that. Sylvia Plath said it best in her journals:
āYes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regularsāto be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recordingāall this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...ā
I do think though that itās fruitless to fixate on these things, imagining the grass to be greener on the other side and essentially wishing you could have grown up and lived as another person, because 1 itās not possible 2 the life you imagine has so many downsides to it too that you canāt even imagine not having experienced itself and 3 if you were a different person then the You you are now wouldnāt exist, and that would be a shame! I also think men are having a tough time now and many of them are probably just as neurotic, inhibited, and fearful as women.
Obviously people are free to reject these notions and live life as whoever they want, and I respect and appreciate those who choose to do this, but Iām not interested in doing that for myself. Instead, I challenge the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in the ways that I can, which feels like the right choice for me!
Jun 28, 2024
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i really also think about how much boys are taught ways to perform masculinity & how it is legitimised through tangible things like building a career etc but with women i find that from a young age our identity, behaviours, & thoughts are always spoken about in relation to other people/things ā gender roles within the family, how weāre perceived by men, our friendships with other women, our relationships with material things etc etc ā and this shows up in the labels that women are often given too! so and so is someoneās daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother etc etc. i envy the freedom of boyhood so much, the freedom to just be (this is not to discount the toxicity of traditional masculinity, i just think that boys are still afforded more āplayā and therefore have more opportunities to develop their sense of self).
maybe i am also biased because of how iāve grown up & whatnot but i never really understood what it meant to quote unquote be a woman or perform femininity. i only saw this modelled within my nurturing friendships with women as iāve gotten older but when i was younger, in church it was always āok well donāt do this or that because x y z will happen to men if you doā or within my extended family it was often āare you seeing anyone? when are you having kidsā. damn what happened to asking about how iām doing or what my dreams are!!!
long rant sorry !! but thatās my long winded way of saying āi feel youā haha
Jun 28, 2024
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Mar 7, 2025
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It's a long rant so tldr; I am too fucking lonely.
I feel like crying right now but I haven't been able to cry for the past two years...
Every single time I have to be the one to take the initiative yet no one ever asks me out.... Everytime I hang out with someone, they tell me that they loved being with me but like, can't you ask me out too? I make further plans but no one ever reaches out again. If they don't like me, can't they just tell me straight up? I know I can be overbearing so I keep the words to minimum. I always blend my words to match everyone's humor.
I just feel so fucking lonely. I always check up on everyone but no one does it for me. I've never had a single person ask me if I'm doing good and ask me to go out with them to talk and shit... I do it. I do it with everyone. I live so far away from everyone and I can travel for an hour to help anyone out but not a single person does that for me... I love to help everyone out and it doesn't really matter much if no one returns the help because I know I'm crying rn but I'll bounce back in a few days and I'll continue doing what I do, but I can't help but feel disappointed.
Mar 27, 2025