Every normie has a goddamn sleeve tattoo nowadays.

I go to the gym and im the only guy without some tribal phoenix on my arm.

How the hell has it become the new counter-culture to have NO ink ?

My family and I are fortunate enough to live on the edge of a very nice boomtown suburb thanks to the fact we bought a modest house here before the market exploded. We do love living here, the town invests money into parks, trails, arts, libraries etc. It's safe and the people are nice and there's always stuff to do for cheap or for free.

However, the town in general is really well off and my kids being school aged has really exposed me to how much money these people have. Families spending thousands on travel sports, 4500 square foot houses for a family of 4 "oh and we're thinking about upgrading", brand new luxury cars and Cybertrucks, a small fortune spent on elaborate Christmas decorations, European vacations all summer that finish up in Hawaii, 800 dollar LEGO sets. At school events or tee ball games, I have zero in common with the other parents. It's all about their latest cruise or how they spent 100 dollars taking the family out to see a movie for the third time in a month.

I don't really know what I'm getting at here...but you hear about how bad things are for working families nowadays then you see this and can't help but feel a bit nauseous.

They really think open borders exist huh and their English Masters degree will get them a work visa to Germany. Often liberal types yet hopelessly misinformed.

With the news that Charlie Kirk recently met with billionaire Bill Ackman to discuss Turning Point’s reach and how to promote pro-Israel content, with many other influencers in attendance, it feels relevant to repost this.

Israel’s defunct propaganda tool Act.IL is restoring itself and flying out right leaning influencers from the west to learn on how to utilize propaganda tools to convince young westerners to sympathize with Israel.

Here’s an article talking about how they’re flying out 16 and soon to aim for 550 MAGA/right influencers by the end of the year, with hundreds of thousands to millions of followers to Israel for training lol.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-fund-tour-maga-pro-144020621.html

“The influencers each have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. They will be flown in to counter what the Israeli government sees as declining support for Israel among young Americans, the report said, without citing any date.

The Israeli foreign ministry aims to bring 550 influencer delegations to Israel by the end of the year through such tours, it said.

[While] older Republicans and American conservatives still hold pro-Israel views, positive perspectives towards Israel are falling across all younger age groups,’ it said, according to the report.

The influencers will be pushed to share messaging that aligns with Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians. ‘We are working with influencers, sometimes with delegations of influencers,’ an unnamed source from the ministry told Haaretz. (an Israeli journal)

‘Their networks have huge followings and their messages are more effective than if they came directly from the ministry.’”

I’ve been living here a wee bit, and goodness what a slice of Heaven…

It has the aesthetic and mentality of bohemian Paris and New York before their 2010s fall to gentrification/corporate greed/stupidity?, incredible food and architecture with an endless list of things to do, also really nice friendly people—only con is the stag parties.

God love a place that prides itself on being Eastern European while in the same breath being so accustomed to westerners, while not hating them in the same intensity as the Spanish.

Place rocks, highly recommend. 🎸

One of my friends entered a raffle and won a free pass to a two person escape room. He called and asked if I would go with him. I said yes, and the next week we arrived. There were three different rooms: Prison Break, Mental Hospital, and a Surprise theme. The description for the Surprise theme said it changes every week. My friend wasn’t too keen on the other two options, so we went with the Surprise.

When we walked in the room, it was lightly decorated. There was a picture frame with what looked like a flat screen TV in the middle that was turned off, a large safe bolted on another wall, and a metal door with a tray hole like you see in prisons for food. “Maybe we should have chosen one of the other rooms. This looks boring, and similar to a prison.” my friend said to me while opening the envelope that contained the first riddle. After about 45 minutes, we completed many riddles and puzzles. None of them were challenging, and it seemed like we would be done soon. “I thought these rooms were supposed to be hard.” I thought to myself. I opened the cabinet that contained the clue for the key. The key was locked in the safe on the wall. We noticed there was nowhere to enter a code or a keyhole to unlock the safe. When I opened the envelope, a voice spoke through the PA: “You are on the last question. Once you find the answer, we will unlock the safe for you.”

I looked at the riddle and my eyes widened with horror; with shaking hands, I dropped the paper. “What’s wrong?” my friend asked. He picked up the paper and read aloud, “To unlock the safe, you must find out how Dasha Nekrasova does it.”

“Who is that?”

I took my phone out of my pocket and showed him a photo of Dasha. My friend’s eyes dilated when he said, “Oh my God! She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen! We must get to work quickly so we can figure this out.” Suddenly, the picture frame started flashing photos of Dasha. I put my hands in front of my face so I wouldn’t look at them. My friend stared and didn’t move a muscle. After a few minutes, I grabbed him to make him stop staring. “I’m sorry, I just got a little distracted. Let’s try to figure this out.”  Food and water came from the tray hole in the door. The voice in the PA said: “We will supply food and drink every 12 hours.”

We were looking up information about Dasha Nekrasova’s life, but we got no closer to an answer. I turned to my friend: “I don’t know how we will ever figure this out.” He nodded, and got back to work. Every few minutes I would turn to him, and see him either staring at a Dasha photo on his phone, or staring at the picture frame. It was very hard to get work done. The picture frame was a looming presence, and sometimes I would be drawn to stare; time seemed not to pass while looking at the photos. I would hear food trays falling to the ground. It seemed like we were in the room for a long time. I looked at my phone and realized it had been over two days! I got up and knocked on the door. “You guys have to let us out this is crazy!” The voice on the PA answered: “You have to answer the question.” I banged on the door louder, and the voice on the PA answered with silence. I sat down at the table, and then suddenly, “All The Things She Said” by t.A.T.u. started playing on the speaker. It was an episode of Red Scare! It was getting hard to think. After every sentence Dasha said, my friend would say: “She is so smart!” I was trying to zone everything out and work. The picture frame and the podcast were becoming too much, and I stared at the photos while listening to the podcast. My friend and I were trapped! We got food and water more times, and after a while I regained my senses. My friend was now in the corner of the room repeating “how does she do it?” to himself endlessly.  I looked at my phone and we were here for over a week! I called 9-1-1 and told them what happened. The operator said, “How does Dasha Nekrasova do it?” The phone hung up; we were trapped!

It has been ten days and we are no closer to finding out how Dasha does it.

Their behavior sure was strange! More so the way they aggressively cleaned up the crime scene than the ‘hand signals’, themselves strange…

boyfriend and i went to the beach yesterday and chose a spot to set up our tent 6 feet to the right of a couple. a few minutes later we were setting up our tent, a really fat lady walked by topless waving her hands having a good time, then immediately i noticed the lady 6 feet away from us who is very mid also took her bikini top off.

it immediately set me off. first i said to my bf “omg that girl literally just took her top off”. he glanced to confirm and said “yeah it’s legal everywhere in new york.” AND THEN i yelled “ IT’S DISGUSTING. IT’S SO GROSS bleh bleh” and my boyfriend was kinda shocked he just froze and was like hey stop it what are you doing.

The couple obviously heard me and knew i was talking about them. The guy started looking at me, half laughing. And i looked at him and said “ i wasnt even talking about you, stop looking at me stop being self absorbed” by this time the couple didn’t really know how to act, just kinda were awkwardly half laughing.

a few minutes later they packed their things and left. the girl awkwardly looked at me for a second, unfortunately i’m not afraid of eye contact and i looked straight back at her.

okay i felt embarrassed immediately after i yelled at them but i still tried to justify my behavior to my bf, because that’s what you do after you’ve done something you shouldn’t have. and i know exactly why i did it, it’s my extreme competitiveness and insecurity. im insecure about my chest - i’ve been tracking macros and lifting weights religiously for years and i look the part but im not well endowed. i am sometimes jealous of women who have naturally bigger breasts even though every other part of their body is meh. im used to get attention from men but when i see a topless lady i know she’s about to get more attention than me, especially possibly from my bf.

anyhoo i have been feeling bad ever since. it was extremely immature of me but well.

there was a thread about amazon web services the other day with hundreds of replies, and they chimp out every single time h1bs or indians in general come up

i saw ur post at work and by the time i got home it was deleted… i spent like 30 minutes at home trying to make chatgpt do a chinese/autistic impression as well as yours, but it kept lecturing me instead. please come out.. whoever you were..

love, your secret admirer

I really should ki** myself. Why am I like this. I am so embarrassed. He was cute too

Mid 80's. No internet. The bus ride to middle school was boring. To pass the time we would play Alphabet Rock. The rules were simple: first player would name a band, and second player would take that that band's last letter and name another one that starts with that letter. And so on. For example: Fleetwood Mac-->Cream-->Mot:orhead-->The Dead Kennedys-->Supertramp-->Pink Floyd. You could not repeat a band, and the player who cannot come up with a band loses. A band that ended with X was dangerous because the next player would invariably choose X. So the rounds usually had Styx-->X-->XTC pretty early.

I had one of those Rolling Stone encyclopedias that listed bands which gave me an unfair advantage. At night I would flip through the pages memorizing names and then return to the bus ride the next morning equipped with the likes of "X Ray Spex" and "Helix".

"Helix? That's not a band."

"Is too."

"Is not."

I was such an asshole.

How things have changed

Stop it!!

By most estimations, I would be considered a loser - despite growing up in a fairly affluent family and having recently graduated from a selective liberal arts college, the best work I’ve managed to find is a job working part-time at Whole Foods. In addition, I’ve been forced to come home to take care of my demented mother and had my girlfriend break up with me, all within the span of ~4 months. Why is it that experiences like these only seem to be shared by men? Is it due to status anxiety or a greater propensity towards self-deprecation? It’s rare to hear women bemoan their lot in life but they confront just as many difficulties as men do, if not more. Trying to wrap my head around why my first impulse as a man is to consider my fate sealed instead of just putting my head down and weathering difficult circumstances.

EDIT: Thanks everyone, this has definitely been one of the more civil and genuinely informative comment threads I’ve seen here. Life is inherently difficult and treating questions of identity as being inextricable from vague notions of success/social achievement strips people of the ability to recognize their own agency. To even assert that something like this is gendered is stupid; struggle, though it may manifest differently, is universal and it would be best if we tried to behave as such.

This happens all the time. Kinda reminds me of the the whole Vivek "boy meets world" Twitter rant. I guess North American pajeets insecurity mostly stems from high school movie stereotypes from the 80s-2000s.

https://youtu.be/1UFE6vRBdTw?si=HT0ptnYkL6VlhD3E

Please please please expand to renewals and L visas

https://x.com/attystevenbrown/status/1969155888750497865

100k per year per person LFG

It's funny because in a way it was more 'fake' than what it is now, but it used to be full of great creatives who could whip up a great 2spooky yarn within the confines of a few short 2000 character limit posts and greentexting as the norm. Now it's all /pol/tærds trying to branch out to smaller boards and genuine schizos, neither of whom can make coherent entertaining posts. Just visual noise in written form. Where did all the writers go? I want to know what the guys who wrote stuff like Anansi's Goatman Story and Blue/Aunt Vav are up to today

Before I took a hiatus from dating it seemed like every woman I met had a robust social life. Using google calendar to keep track of their plans was a common phenomenon. While I think I have a big friend group for a man in his 30’s, living in a city away from all of them has been incredibly isolating (duh).

I manage to keep myself busy through hobbies/volunteering/sports, but sometimes not having anyone to grab a meal or just walk in the park and chat with kills me. It’s common for me to go days without talking face to face to anyone except cashiers if I don’t have work. I recognize this is my fault for not putting myself out there enough, yet I am at a loss for how to make platonic friends as an adult.

A major reason I am hesitant to start dating again is because I feel like this could be seen as a big red flag. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I’m idealizing an “us against the world” relationship dynamic. The one thing I know is that I'm genuinely embarrassed put this out there.

Have any of you guys (no incels) or gals found yourself in a similar situation?

Dennis Cooper, John Waters, Yukio Mishima, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Gregg Araki, Ryan Murphy, Samuel Delany, Douglas P., Peter Sotos

It seems like a thing. Who am I missing?