Monday, August 29, 2016

2016, You're the Worst

What does it feel like when all your heroes die?

It feels like 2016, that's what.

I thought maybe nothing could be worse than losing Robin Williams in 2014. It felt like my favorite uncle died and I thought surely - SURELY - nothing could be worse than losing Peter Pan.

And then 2016 came.

I'm sure you're all well aware of the hell scape that is this dump fire of a year. Donald Trump is a serious presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders isn't, and Will and Grace still isn't streaming online anywhere. I've worked out a theory that perhaps the Mayan calendar was off a few years. I guess we can cut them some slack. They were working with sundials and goat bladders.

But really, I know this year has been the world's worst, longest New Year's hangover for most people. It's hard to imagine feeling less stable or more unsure. For those of us who came off last year hoping for a fresh start, 2016 has been something of a gut punch. With a tire iron. But here we are, soldiering on.
And maybe its just me, but one of the things that's always made it easier to deal with a world that isn't always kind is my love of pop culture - movies and music and tv shows and a damn great book. Nothing makes me feel better after a hard day than coming home, changing into my sweats, and watching Friends reruns. It's like a hug from an old friend - full of memories of times gone by and the pleasure of reliving a love that never faded. Of course, an integral part of my love of pop culture is, and always will be, the celebrities that make pop culture what it is - the great comic legends, the geniuses of music, the writers who excite and move us.

So maybe this is why 2016 feels like a cosmic bitch slap. I grew up with Gene Wilder. Of the movies my dad would stop to watch anytime, regardless of what was going on, were Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. I'll always remember him cracking up as Gene Wilder and the Monster (oh god, Peter Boyle!) danced to "Puttin on the Ritz." It's a staple of my childhood memories. As is watching Gary Marshall's Laverne and Shirley with my sister and brother on Nick at Nite. Our parents' let us stay up late in the summer just to watch the show and sometimes we even got Nutty Buddies. And you know what? It was a damn good time.

It felt special. It felt happy.

So, for me - and I suspect a number of other Millennials whose parents let them sneak a late night to watch tv - 2016 has been the last nail in the coffin of our innocence. All of the faces we grew up with - Professor Snape, Ziggy Stardust, Marie Barone - disappeared. If our childhoods ended when Robin Williams died, our innocence officially took its swan dive after 2016.

BUT I think there might be a silver lining here: in a world where people are divided by generations and political parties and races, the deaths of our favorite pop culture icons has reminded us all the we're just humans. Humans who love laughing, who love listening to catchy tunes, who still get excited about the release of a new book. Maybe 2016 has thrown us back into the past, to the memories we love, to remind us that there's a future we have to nurture.

Maybe that's a reach? I hope not.

Instead, I hope one day my kids remember ice cream and late night tv as a sweet summertime treat. And I hope my parents one day show my kids Laverne and Shirley, and we all laugh at Gene Wilder tap dancing with Frankenstein's monster.

So, today, August 29, 2016, on the day we say goodbye to Gene Wilder, let's remember all of our heroes, the people we never thought about not having:

David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Ellie Wiesel, Pat Summit, Gary Shandling, Gordie Howe, Morley Safer, Paul Kantner, Doris Roberts, Merle Haggard, Pat Conroy, Maurice White, Abe Vigoda, Phife Dawg, Gary Marshall, and Prince. And on and on.

We miss you. We love you.


All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2016-2016.


Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Trolls: Confessions of a Woman on Twitter

When I was a little kid, my dad used to tell me stories about trolls. He told me they lived under bridges, usually when we were at the playground and he was pretending to "get" me. He used to drive with one of those plastic troll dolls sitting on his steering wheel, "talking" to me and my brother and sister on the way to school about lunch and recess and troll stuff.

Now I'm older. And now I know that trolls are all too real.

Last night, on Twitter, I quoted a fairly innocuous tweet from Cosmopolitan, of all places:

You'll notice I didn't hashtag anything. I didn't tag anyone. I was just scrolling through Twitter on a Tuesday night, relaxing before bed, thinking about how I might introduce myself to my new students the next day.

I won't deny sizeism and thin privilege have always been interests of mine. I minored in Gender Studies and took a number of gender and sexuality studies courses during my MA program. I'm especially interested in the ways Western culture sexualizes, constructs, hides, and displays fat bodies, especially women's. I suspect this is partly because my own siblings and I vary wildly in weight, height, and even skin tones despite the fact that we were born of the same parents. I find it incredibly interesting that genetics should work one way while culture dictates different responses based largely on arbitrary categories. Fat studies isn't my major field of interest, but I do find the conversation interesting, nonetheless.

But apparently, being a woman with an opinion is absolutely not allowed.

I woke up the next day, went to work, met some of my fantastic new students, and generally felt happy about the outlook of the semester. And then, around lunchtime, as I was contemplating what to fix, my phone began pinging out of control. My Twitter notifications were going off, and I thought l, "Surely no one is this interested in my tweet about waking up early. I mean, really." And I was right. No one was interested in that tweet. What I did get was a barrage of hateful responses to a tweet I had already forgotten about.

The onslaught began when this Milo Yiannopoulous-wannabe quoted my tweet:

Let's ignore for the moment that this person had to search nearly 15 HOURS worth of tweets to find mine and quote it. Fine. Whatever. He has no life. Let's instead focus on the fact that, instead of engaging me in any kind of meaningful dialogue about an opinion he obviously doesn't agree with, he chose to call me fat and jealous. And let me point out that I mentioned nothing about being fat myself in my own tweet; I referred, instead, to a culture in which fat-bodied people are maligned by the medical and fashion communities for being annoying, troublesome, and unwilling to fit the "norm."

Now, I probably shouldn't have responded. I know how trolls work. I know the pathology. Rile em up and "trigger" em. Make them look crazy. Gaslight them. But my own pain and hurt got the better of me. So I said:



(That typo will haunt me for the rest of my life.)

And I thought that would be the end of things. Apparently, though, by a quick look at my face and hair, this user could tell I was fat, ugly, and too disgusting to warrant basic human decency. And his was followed by a nearly constant, hour long stream of abusive tweets:








And then this one, perhaps the worst of all:


Yes. Hideous. Like a fucking monster.

And I have to wonder why. Because I dared to have an opinion? Because I'm a woman who dared to have an opinion? Because I'm not thin-bodied but I still have things to say?

But wait a second. This is MY Twitter feed. And even though it is public, I expect to post without incurring the wrath of (mostly male) trolls who feel the need to comment on my appearance and intelligence because they don't agree with my opinion. And most importantly, I didn't seek out an argument. These trolls found me. And they assumed, like all bigots do, that I'm a caricature of a human being - a slovenly liberal fatty, sitting around my apartment in my jelly-stained shirt, gorging on donuts and burgers.

Well, here's some things you missed, Twitter trolls:

1. I home cook nearly all of my meals. I consciously plan meals which incorporate all the food groups so as to consume all my daily nutrients. I generally try to follow a high protein, low-fat diet.

2. I listen to true crime podcasts (s/o to My Favorite Murder) and creep myself out.

3. I rescued a dog a year ago that I walk up and down the hills of my mountain town, so we can BOTH get exercise.

4. My favorite snack is pecans. Donuts are pretty dope, but the sugar makes my head hurt after awhile.

5. I like to watch crime dramas and documentaries. (And not always the good ones. Like shitty History channel ones.)

6. I have two more pets for whom I would literally gnaw off my own arm if need be.

7. I take vitamins everyday to ensure that my body is healthy, especially my boss red curls.

8. I love sports, especially football. I religiously watch the Saints play, even when they lose. (Which is often.)

9. I hand-make wreaths because I'm fucking talented.

10. I'm in a PhD program because I'm smart. I'm incredibly close to my family. I have friends that love me who I love in return. I have a favorite song and a favorite book and a favorite movie. You see, Twitter trolls, I'm a person. A real person. And when you say these things - these horrible, insensitive things - you say them to a person with feelings, with memories, with morals, with highs and lows and the capacity to really, truly be wounded by your words.

See, you, Twitter trolls, you are bullies, and this is what bullies do. You needle a person, hone in on one thing, the thing which they are the most insecure about, and you exploit it until that person is a shell of their former glory. And you'll keep doing it. I know - I watched, fairly helpless, as you moved on to harass a black woman who felt confident enough to post a picture of herself in a bathing suit and revel in her own body. And I'm sure you think you won something.

But not this time, babies.

Because I'm glorious. And you may think I'm fat. That's fine. But I'm not any less FUCKING GLORIOUS.

So, suck on them apples, bitches.

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2016-2016.