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Things I Have Never Done That I Would Like To Do Before the World Ends

illustration of god's giant hand

So, the bad news is that we’re all going to die. The good news is that we know when we’re going to die, so we can blow our life savings this week to do all the things we’ve always wanted to do.

Unfortunately, my life savings is somewhere in the low four figures (and my debts hover in the six figures), so, no trips to Antarctica for me. But! There are free and relatively (relative to my impending death) cheap things that I have never done, but which can be done in the next few days before the world ends. My top seven apocalypse-is-nigh to-do list:

1. Heroin.

2. Buy a one-way ticket to Paris and survive only on wine and unpasteurized cheese.
3. Shave my head. Shave my cat to match. Wear a giant blonde wig.
4. Purchase a small pony. Use it as my primary means of transportation.
5. Tasteful Playboy spread. (Haha, just kidding. Filthy Hustler spread. Related: Epic orgy).
6. Face tattoo of something totally creepy, like another person’s face.
7. Adopt 15 puppies and sleep with them all in a big heap.

And if I really get bored in the next three days, maybe I’ll get pregnant just to see what that’s like.


209 thoughts on Things I Have Never Done That I Would Like To Do Before the World Ends

  1. I would suggest doing the heroin last, as it might get in the way of your other goals.

  2. LOL, Florence is right. (Somebody named Joplin should have listened.)

    Also, I would just do No. 7 over and over.

  3. Coke and sex. For sure. Don’t do drugs, kids, but if there are no consequences, coke and sex.

  4. 1) Tell the CEO of my company to fuck off as I quit my job
    2) Swim in the East River (might be my demise)
    3) Shoot a machine gun
    4) LSD
    5) Ride in a hot air balloon
    6) Busk
    7) Turn it up to 11

  5. Well, given you’ve only got the four days, I really don’t see why you can’t show some nerve and stowaway to Antarctica. You’re still thinking small, Jill, so I’m not sure I’m going to invite you to my mass-indulging-of-suicidal-impulses party, a little thing I like to call the Rapture. Because I like Blondie and things that float in the sky.!

    Remember when the avant garde was considered the nihilists? Just because you wear lavender suits and matching pumps, evangelicals, it doesn’t wash away the nihilism of, you know, a death wish. That’s still pretty dark, kids!

    It’s all just so Sid and Nancy and “please bury me next to my baby.”

  6. Hmmm…those are things that would definitely get you kicked out of being raptured, in which case you purportedly have 7 more years to do everything you want! I mean, in between the sulfur rain and the fire and the antichrist thingies. But my guess is that heroine will be in easy supply.

  7. 1. LSD. Heroin’s never tempted me, but I want to know what LSD is like before I die.
    2. Kittens. I sternly restrict myself with cats. An entire litter of kittens, sleeping in a multicoloured fluffy pile.
    3. I have a dozen bottles of really astonishingly good wine that in real life I’m drinking slowly, one celebration at a time. Three days left. Four bottles a day. I’m going to stay at the exact level of happy-drunk I like to be at for four days. (I’ll drink pints of water in between to make sure no hangovers.)
    4. There’s this appallingly ugly building nearby. Really, really, scarily ugly. I’m going to find whoever wants to spend their last three days doing the best mural in the world, fly them here, and spend my entire savings except for whatever I need for (5) on paint and whatever equipment they need. Also pizza for the people who live there.
    5. Water zorbing.
    6. Finish reading everything Diana Wynne Jones ever wrote.
    7. Fill my apartment with playpen balls.

  8. With hours to go, I’d eat all the gluten-containing foods I’ve been missing these past 8 or so years. Especially stuffing and Krispy Kremes.

  9. Really? REALLY?

    I suppose I get to be first on the scene for the thought-police or whatever, but heroin? Really? I’m sure those out there who can’t knock the addiction thanks to lack of resources would applaud your choice in zany fun things to do during the Apocalypse.

    1. Really? REALLY?

      I suppose I get to be first on the scene for the thought-police or whatever, but heroin? Really? I’m sure those out there who can’t knock the addiction thanks to lack of resources would applaud your choice in zany fun things to do during the Apocalypse.

      I was just waiting until someone yelled at me for suggesting I would do a terrible, horribly addicting drug right before death. I stand by it. It doesn’t mean I think heroin is “zany fun.”

  10. I suppose I get to be first on the scene for the thought-police or whatever, but heroin? Really? I’m sure those out there who can’t knock the addiction thanks to lack of resources would applaud your choice in zany fun things to do during the Apocalypse.

    And I’m sure there are some people who can’t knock it because hey, they just love doing heroin, and they don’t appreciate the insinuation that everyone who does it needs to knock it.

  11. patchouli:
    Really?REALLY?

    I suppose I get to be first on the scene for the thought-police or whatever, but heroin?Really?I’m sure those out there who can’t knock the addiction thanks to lack of resources would applaud your choice in zany fun things to do during the Apocalypse.

    but hey, we made it ELEVEN comments before this happened this time, so good going, everyone.

    can we start referring to these as “combo breakers” like the kids do?

  12. Actually, we supposedly have 5 months. Except — “It will be on May 21st that God will raise up all the dead that have ever died from their graves.” Which is why I’m buying this.

  13. Tawny: but hey, we made it ELEVEN comments before this happened this time, so good going, everyone.

    can we start referring to these as “combo breakers” like the kids do?

    C-C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!!!!!

  14. Hey, I’m all for number 7, and if you get huskies then you have a mobile blanket for when you are running to the Arctic circle to avoid the Zombies (Mmmm Zombie brains).

  15. patchouli:
    Really?REALLY?

    I suppose I get to be first on the scene for the thought-police or whatever, but heroin?Really?I’m sure those out there who can’t knock the addiction thanks to lack of resources would applaud your choice in zany fun things to do during the Apocalypse.

    I’ll second that. And what the hell with the puppies? Animal abuse, allergies, veganism, etc. Your list is so full of privilege I could just… STOP READING THIS BLOG FOREVER UNTIL I COME BACK TO CHECK THE COMMENTS IN 5 MINUTES TO SEE IF ANYONE IS PAYING ATTENTION TO ME!!!!

  16. Wait, so we have five months to live but those are five months with zombies? I guess stockpile weapons will be on my apocalypse list. Also: take up smoking; orgy (a nice one); subsist on wine, cheese and cake; oh, and I guess tell my family I love them. Even the zombie ones!

  17. Things that are also awesome? LSD, cocaine, mushrooms, ecstasy. I don’t do them because I don’t want to deal with the actual, physical consequences of them, in my real-world, every-day life. But in a hypothetical world where we’re all going to die anyway? Serotonin be damned, I’m going to take some ecstasy, dance, and screw.

    Also, I want you all to know that your fantasies are offensive.

  18. Jill, you’re getting your fundy theology all wrong! *The Rapture is what will happen on May 21st, which means that all True Christians will magically fly up to heaven to be with Jesus while we sinners will suffer for 7 years under the reign of the Anti-Christ. This period, called The Tribulation, will culminate in the Battle of Armageddon, when Jesus himself will come to Earth, riding on a white horse and leading an army of angels, and defeat the Anti-Christ, cast all the sinners into hell and rule on Earth for 1000 years.

    *All totally real fundy dogma taken seriously by ppl like Pat Robertson and 55% of Americans. *sigh*

  19. Tony: Except — “It will be on May 21st that God will raise up all the dead that have ever died from their graves.”

    I live right next to a gigantic cemetery. Fuck. Can they wait until I’m in Berlin?

  20. I think I would also try heroin. And sky diving. Also, lots and lots of unprotected sex. Probably not in that order.

  21. *sorry is my comment above was offensive to drug addicts, people afraid of heights/flying, and asexuals… I also plan to become insensitive in my last days of life.

  22. gumbyann, you could try combining all three? logistically difficult, but probably not impossible.

  23. Well, during all the drinking, the eating, and the experimenting with drugs…

    1. Put a really nice, very expensive bed on a credit card and snuggle. And fuck.
    2. Mailbox baseball.
    3. Harry Potter World.
    4. A massage at the most ridiculously expensive spa I can find.
    5. Fly to Tahiti and watch the sunset over the water right before the end.

    I’d also get some costumes for the pets (oh, I’m sorry; non-human companions) and some face paint so my partner and I will look like zombies, the non-human companions will look like demons, and we can fool the real zombies into thinking we belong. Plus, Tahiti is an archipelago, so all you suckers on the mainland will have a lot more zombies to deal with, since I don’t think they can drive boats.

    Yonmei: The playpen ball thing? Awesome. I just don’t think I’ll have time.

  24. Heroin addicts, generally speaking, when they do want to get clean, want to get clean for reasons that would be irrelevant if the world were ending in short order.

    In other words, Jill, nearly all heroin addicts applaud your fine discerning taste.

  25. 5 months? Oy, I’m obviously a Biblical loser. I could have sworn there was something about 7 years during which the antichrist will rise to power and we’ll get chips in our hands to pay for things and then a bunch of other stuff before the big horsemen and fire thing…ah hell, now I’ve got to start reading Revelations and figure out where the heck I got that from.

    But zombies!

  26. Comrade Kevin:
    I’d like to eat a kit-kat bar with melted nacho cheese on it.

    What the hell is wrong with you?! That is sick! Nevermind my kid, I’m like ewwwww!

    Slightly more seriously, I think it’s cool that your last earthly pleasure is something so simple, but the thought of kit kats and cheese *boak*. Sorry for the sweet-shaming.

    I would like to have blue hair and dive into a swimming pool filled with Malteasers and Smarties.

  27. Everyone’s ideas are so great! Each time I read one, I’m like, “Oooh, an expensive bed! Ohhh, Bruce Campbell marathon!” I totally want to hang out with all of you in the End Times!

  28. …I would totally try a kit kat in nacho cheese. Hahaha.

    Also, I’ve never had deep fried candy bars. I would totally have one.

  29. 1) Start smoking.
    2) Find a fairy penguin and tickle the bejebus out of it.
    3) Take pictures of myself riding the biggest tortoise available while flipping the camera off with both hands. Send copies of the picture to everyone who has ever displeased me.
    4) Break into a museum and turn all the modern art pieces upside down.
    5) A mountain of pot.
    6) Eat a whole box of Twix bars whilst surrounded by a flock of button quail with their babies.
    7) Fight a cassowary.

  30. 1. Tattoo of Feminist Hulk.
    2. Prepare tank-girl outfit for the post-Apocalypse.
    3. Vomit on Andrew Bolt.
    4. Carb-load.

  31. Yonmei:
    7. Fill my apartment with playpen balls.

    A guy in my dorm when I was in school lofted his bed and filled the area under it with playpen balls. It was absolutely the coolest room ever.

    As for me:

    1. Puppies puppies puppies. Me and all the puppies I can get my hands on, cuddled up in a bed. Preferably a bed in one of those fake rooms at Ikea, where my boyfriend always tells me to stop laying in the model beds (If possible, I’ll move the model bed into the fake living room that looks like a library.).
    2. Since I’m already at Ikea, eat a bajillion meatballs and that delicious cake they have.
    3. Fight Club.
    4. Sleeping. I love sleeping so much. I know a lot of people wouldn’t want to “waste” their last days with sleep, but sleep is fucking awesome.

  32. Li:
    1. Tattoo of Feminist Hulk.
    2. Prepare tank-girl outfit for the post-Apocalypse.
    3. Vomit on Andrew Bolt.
    4. Carb-load.

    Ooh, #3 reminds me! Poop in Jan Brewer’s shoes!

    (I joke about getting my dog to do it. But I think that in light of an immediately ending world, I would like the fecal satisfaction for myself.)

  33. 1. Sex. All of it.
    2. Quit my job with epic flare. Take the goldfish with me.
    3. Track down my ex and punch him in the gut. Or balls.
    4. Pizza. As much pizza as I can get my hands on. Dairy allergy be damned.
    5. Dance.
    6. Drugs. All of them.
    7. Streak at a Giants’ game

  34. I’d throw myself in front of John Barrowman and scream, “TAKE ME! TAKE ME NOW!!!!!”

  35. OH…also, I would break into a See’s candy story and eat those dark chocolate walnut candies until I barb.

  36. 1.) Have lots of great sex with the grad student I’ve had a crush on all year. I’m pretty sure she’d be ok with this.
    2.) Sleep with all the other people I’ve been casually meaning to. Such as Noomi Rapace and Sarah Shahi.
    3.) Steal the puppycam puppies
    4.) Have a gigantic game of paintball on campus
    5.) Finish watching the second season of The Good Wife
    6.) Run a zipline between the Space Needle and some other tall building
    7.) Start smoking

    also, re: deep fried candy bars – y’all should try deep fried oreos dipped in fudge sauce and whipped cream. Just sayin.

  37. @Laura

    OH god yes. It’s only been a year and a half for me, but I’m dying here. I don’t get symptoms for 2 days, so 2 days before the rapture I’m totally going for a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza, Krispy Kremes, a grilled stuft burrito from Taco Bell, fried chicken, a giant hamburger, and then some Hostess cupcakes. Or Sno-balls. Not sure which. And something fried from LJS.

    I know it seems like a waste to eat so much fast food, but it’s the mundane, everyday stuff that I miss most, not the fancypants gourmet stuff I’d eat once a year.

  38. 1) Caffiene. Mainline espresso beans. (Sorry herion addicts, but I’ve only got so much time to crame this all in and I need to be AWAKE.)

    2) Go to the New England Aquarium, set up my rod and reel in the giant indoor fishtank, and go fishing.

    3) Pasta. LOTS OF PASTA.

    4) Rob a bank. For real.

    5) Toro sashimi. I don’t give a fuck if you don’t have it, restaurant owner, get it. I just robbed a bank and have a shitload of cash.

    6) Give the rest of the cash away to whomever I liked.

    7) Given the last-minute sex fantasies of everyone here, start a brothel for women and build a nice little business for after when it turns out that there won’t be a rapture or end times after all.

    8) Use the proceeds from the brothel to defend myself from charges of 1) pimping (HEY THEY WILL ALL BE UNION WORKERS AND HAVE A RETIREMENT PLAN, 401K’S AND HEALTH BENEFITS AS WELL AS GENEROUS VACATION AND TUITION REIMBURSEMENT DAMMIT) and 2) bank robbery (see #4).

  39. Crap. I forgot view all the Regular exhibits at the Met. Also defend Sheelzebub’s brothel in exchange for some of coffee and sashimi

  40. Also, I’ve never had deep fried candy bars. I would totally have one.

    Pretty Amiable, there is NO NEED to wait for the rapture for that. GET ONE. IMMEDIATELY.

    (I prefer Milky Way–breading with melting chocolate and caramel…HEAVEN.)

  41. Kristen J.: Crap. I forgot view all the Regular exhibits at the Met. Also defend Sheelzebub’s brothel in exchange for some of coffee and sashimi

    YOU’RE HIRED.

  42. “Ooh, #3 reminds me! Poop in Jan Brewer’s shoes!

    (I joke about getting my dog to do it. But I think that in light of an immediately ending world, I would like the fecal satisfaction for myself.)”

    AHHH! Now I’m remembering that I’ve always wanted to pee on Joe McCarthy’s grave. Also, I really want to trip Jan Brewer AND Russell Pearce. Preferably in a two-fer, in which they both fall and he lands on her and gets all tangled in her terrible hair.

  43. @preyingmantis:
    “Take pictures of myself riding the biggest tortoise available while flipping the camera off with both hands. Send copies of the picture to everyone who has ever displeased me.”

    As in, “Slow fuck yourself” ?

  44. Jeff Goldblum and I are going to fly a spaceship to the Nevada desert and blow up Jesus’s spaceship, thereby negating the apocalypse.

    I’m going to call it “Independence Day.”

  45. “As in, “Slow fuck yourself” ?”

    More like “I am riding a tortoise and also flipping you off as hard as I can.” It’s the apocalypse. It doesn’t have to make sense so long as it feels right.

  46. FashionablyEvil: Pretty Amiable, there is NO NEED to wait for the rapture for that. GET ONE. IMMEDIATELY.

    (I prefer Milky Way–breading with melting chocolate and caramel…HEAVEN.)

    So, I’ve only seen them at carnivals. can you make them yourself? Because if so, this might be my graduation treat.

  47. Florence:
    Jeff Goldblum and I are going to fly a spaceship to the Nevada desert and blow up Jesus’s spaceship, thereby negating the apocalypse.

    I’m going to call it “Independence Day.”

    *snort* *choke* *laugh*

    Florence and Jeff Goldblum ARE the anti-Christ.

  48. 1) Sex with a) a man, b) a woman, c) multiple people, and d) involving toys.

    2) Gallop a horse across a open field with the wind in my helmet-free hair.

    2b) Ride a motorcycle.

    3) Sneak into a major sporting event. Shame baseball is the only game in town.

    4) Egg the homes of several of my dad’s most annoying parishoners (and then run like hell, ’cause trust me, they won’t be doing the Off-To-See-Jesus Poof).

    5) Rewatch the entire extended Lord of the Rings Trilogy in one sitting while subsisting on popcorn and Ben & Jerrys. Time well spent.

  49. I’m gonna join Yonmei on the playpen balls thing. I’ve been wanting to do that for a whiiiiiile but enough balls to fill a room (HAHAAHA I’m twelve) can get pretty pricey.

    Also, I figured out today that Spokane Comicon is on the same day the world will end. However, it ends right before the rapture will supposedly start. I think that’s good nerd karma.

  50. Since Jill’s post on calling out culture, there’s been a noticeable uptick in the mass release of sarcastic responses when a commenter is perceived as being too sensitive, not having a sense of humor, too easily offended, or too critical. I’m not saying I agree with the original commenter, but I hope people realize how this kind of behavior can make people with valid objections hold back because they feel like they’re going to be the butt of a joke, especially if their form of oppression hasn’t been commonly accepted into feminist canon. Like, saying “Oh, I love sex. Now are you gonna call me offensive to asexuals?! Har har har!” or whatever is a little close to the bone, considering how both the blog and its commenters – myself included – have been offensive to asexuals in the past. I do think it’s important for us to investigate how we call-out and problematize and critique things, and what role that plays in our activism…but I also think we need to investigate how we treat people who problematize stuff, because the pile-on that’s been happening lately where we revel in our supposedly new found freedom to smack down people who we perceive as being unreasonable isn’t very kind either. We already know that marginalized folks can feel very reasonably wary to speak up in a space like this, so maybe we can find a way to disagree with someone’s objection that doesn’t involve quite so much mockery and derision.

    And if I knew the apocalypse was coming, I’d find my ex and throw a brick at him. Then I’d eat a Skor bar. Because I’m a good activist like that.

  51. 1) Lamborghini Murcielago. Interstate. Ignore those silly signs with the numbers on them.
    2) Bugatti Veyron. Interstate. Don’t even see those silly signs with the numbers on them.
    3) Reread ALL the erotica I’ve written.
    4) Get every type of massage ever invented.
    5) Buy all the expensive sex toys that I’ve been eyeing over the years.
    6) Pet big cats. Possibly collect claw-scars from them. HAVE to put my head against their bodies while they are purring, though.
    7) Hang glide and BASE jump off every reasonably high surface available in my general location.

    8) Wonder why the fuck, given that certain circles have been saying that the works of the Anti-Christ are things like universal health care and same-sex marriage, the Tribulation wouldn’t be a basic improvement on business as usual and Hell a nice socialist quasi-utopia (barring the recurring wildfire problem and the sharing of real estate with Hitler and Osama bin Laden).

  52. @Tony – “God will raise up all the dead that have ever died from their graves”

    Which means all that time my husband and I spend on the PS3 shooting zombies in the Red Dead Redemption expansion pack is TOTALLY about to pay off.

  53. If you wait till the apocalypse to start smoking, you’ll never enjoy it. You need at least a couple of weeks worth of lead time before smoking becomes pleasant.

    Heroin is good right away.

  54. @Maggie – OMG thank you, I just Googled puppycam and I foresee a very big addiction coming on.

  55. I dunno. I’m a major perv. I’d probably just get a bunch of drugs and do that while having lots of different types of sex with my boyfriend while in costume and full public view.

  56. Saurus: I’m not saying I agree with the original commenter, but I hope people realize how this kind of behavior can make people with valid objections hold back

    What I took from it is that (a) there is no point in making an objection unless I feel really strongly about it, because Jill’s going to get sarky whatever and everyone’s going to join in, and (b) there is no point being conciliatory about objections, because Jill won’t be in her response and nor will anyone else.

    If you are or were addicted to heroin, jokes about trying it before the world ends probably aren’t that funny. I hold to my preference for LSD and really excellent wine. OTOH, if I was in chronic pain (which I am not, at the moment, though I was earlier in the year) I would gleefully brush aside all of the usual medical objections about opium-derivative drugs and just go GOD MADE POPPIES FOR A REASON, SHUT UP. (The really embarrassing thing about the Rapture would be that I’d have to stop being an atheist.)

    In fact in a 7-year-Tribulation, I’d grow opium poppies in my garden. I’d grow catnip in the garden of my church-going neighbour because he wouldn’t be around any more. I and the cats would have a seven-year high.

  57. re saurus’s point: I think it’s particularly problematic when it leads to the kinds of leaps made in this post. Someone posted that representing heroine use as good is bad, and this has somehow legitimated offhand criticisms of asexual perspectives. I am totally ok with criticising asexual posters when they call people out on things – that’s pretty much what conversation about feminist issues and sexual ones is about – but offhandedly attacking a group when they haven’t actually said anything offensive in the post? Not quite so much. Just as a logic thing – it risks creating straw arguments.

    Also, I would join in on vomiting on Andrew Bolt. I mean, one person just won’t be able to provide as much vomit as he deserves to be covered with. John Howard would get a burning paper bag on his doorstep.

  58. 1. Go to Kamchatka. Look at the volcanoes.

    2. Look at the volcanoes while simultaneously doing drugs.

    3. Sex under the stars.

    4. Dueling with bears.

    5. Survive the bear duel and do more drugs.

    6. Go back to Moscow and streak on live television. Preferably during a Very Important Press Conference at the Kremlin.

  59. Natalia, something about that list is positively poetic. I may need to get the whole list tattooed on my back or something, which HEY, sounds like the perfect thing to do before the world ends!

  60. but offhandedly attacking a group when they haven’t actually said anything offensive in the post? Not quite so much.

    +1
    No need to go around being pre-emptively sarcastic at asexual people.

    I’m not a huge fan of vomiting, but I would certainly hide all the towels and soap in preparation for the Great Bolt Purge. I would also open all the cupboards, put all the cat food in a big container, and secure an exit to the garden. It might be the apocalypse, but I don’t want my cat to starve to death when all the humans are dead. I would probably finish all my assignments too, because I’m a sucker.

  61. Someone posted that representing heroine use as good is bad

    I think using heroines is bad. Particularly if they’re Disney princesses.

    I want women in stories to be heroes, goddamit.

  62. Ah. Yes.

    I’ll add to my end of days list:

    Will mispell things hilariously on the interwebs without living long enough to get embarrased.

  63. If you are or were addicted to heroin, jokes about trying it before the world ends probably aren’t that funny.

    I’m actually offended on behalf of heroin addicts I have known and loved who had a sense of humour.

    Not, like super offended. But a tiny bit offended? I can’t see how Jill’s comment is offensive or in some way contributing to the oppression of heroin addicts or even making light of heroin addiction or that it’s hurtful or offensive in any way. If you had a heroin problem yourself and found that comment offensive, well, I’d listen to you. But it sounds like you don’t.

    And I think about people I knew who did, and the actual problems they’ve had to deal with in their lives as a result of addiction, and what they’d say at the idea that they would be hurt and offended at Jill’s line, and your comment is just very annoying.

  64. Comrade Kevin: I’d like to eat a kit-kat bar with melted nacho cheese on it.

    Really? REALLY?

    I suppose I get to be first on the scene for the thought-police or whatever, but a kit-kat bar with melted nacho cheese on it? Really? I’m sure those out there who can’t knock the addiction thanks to lack of resources would applaud your choice in zany fun things to do during the Apocalypse.

  65. “Someone posted that representing heroine use as good is bad”

    Except! When you’re listing “Do heroin” on your “Shit I want to do if the world is ending” post? You’re not representing it as some unmitigated good. I mean, for fuck’s sake. If you are waiting until the end of the fucking world to do something, it tends to be something that would either play out badly in the long term or has the potential to really fuck your shit up in unacceptable ways.

  66. Yes, but I need to note that I would actually obtain said kit-kat bar and nacho cheese from food stamps. It might not be the best quality food, but it’s the best I can do.

  67. Just to be clear – I don’t think that argument about heroin was a valid one. (In the end of days, I think I’d have maxed out my credit card on wine, getting a tattoo and plane tickets, but if I had more credit I think I’d try a LSD and eat lots of hash cookies). Just that the follow-on pre-emptive sarcasm about other oversensitivities wasn’t all that logical.

    Also, feel free to correct my spelling when you quote me. Pretty please? 😀

  68. Natalia, something about that list is positively poetic. I may need to get the whole list tattooed on my back or something, which HEY, sounds like the perfect thing to do before the world ends!

    I’m a poet, and I know it. 😉

    Surprised to see that no one has yet freaked out about my desire to duel with a bear on the eve of the Apocalypse. I mean, representing bear-dueling as good is bad! Dammit people, get your shit together!

  69. Yonmei: Someone posted that representing heroine use as good is bad

    I think using heroines is bad. Particularly if they’re Disney princesses.

    I want women in stories to be heroes, goddamit.

    Haaaaaaaaa.

  70. “Just that the follow-on pre-emptive sarcasm about other oversensitivities wasn’t all that logical.”

    Most of them had to do with stuff the had been posted, though. Jill would do heroin if the world was really ending, somebody got their back up because apocalypse-heroin is Serious Business, people snarked at them because it’s a silly argument to make, somebody snarked about the puppies thing, somebody else posted their list and then posted snarking about all the things you could object to in their list if you really wanted to get your objection on….

    Which seems kind of like a normal reaction to policing of “What would you do if the world was ending?” responses. They’re going to be intensely personal things, so it’s weird to try to generalize that out and act like someone is being oppressive by stating a preference that isn’t universal or that works out badly for people who do it when the world isn’t ending.

    “Also, feel free to correct my spelling when you quote me. Pretty please? :D”

    I actually thought about it. But sometimes that can come across as sort of an asshole move, so I decided against it. Noted for the future!

  71. umani: I’m actually offended on behalf of heroin addicts I have known and loved who had a sense of humour.

    If you had a heroin problem yourself and found that comment offensive, well, I’d listen to you. But it sounds like you don’t. So?

    and what they’d say at the idea that they would be hurt and offended at Jill’s line, and your comment is just very annoying.

    Fair enough. I accept your annoyance at my speculation that heroin addicts might not have enough of a sense of humor to find a rich white unaddicted lawyer making jokes about doing heroin for the apocalypse. I’m annoyed myself at people getting pre-emptively offended on behalf of others. I was trying to speculate, and I’m sorry my speculation annoyed you.

    Natalie: Surprised to see that no one has yet freaked out about my desire to duel with a bear on the eve of the Apocalypse. I mean, representing bear-dueling as good is bad!

    Yeah, but the bear would win.

    (Your list was fab. Especially the volcano watching while doing drugs. Can you imagine what a volcanic eruption looks like when you’re tripping on good acid? Nor can I, but I almost want to abandon my plans to spend the End of Days snuggled with kittens getting drunk on excellent wine and watching the world’s best mural being painted on the ugliest building I see on a daily basis, just to find out.)

  72. So, I’ve only seen them at carnivals. can you make them yourself?

    Well, my brother used to work somewhere that had a deep fryer and they would make them at the end of their shifts. That said, if you’re willing to deep fry, I don’t think it’d be hard. Take fun sized candy bars, stick a popsicle stick or bamboo skewer in the end of the candy bar, dip in a tempura-style batter, and fry.

    1. If you are or were addicted to heroin, jokes about trying it before the world ends probably aren’t that funny. I hold to my preference for LSD and really excellent wine.

      And if you’re an alcoholic, jokes about drinking wine probably aren’t that funny. See how we go down this rabbit hole?

      I do think Saurus has a point, though. My call-out culture post wasn’t intended to say “no one can ever raise objections ever,” and mocking made-in-good-faith objections isn’t cool. There are plenty of excellent objections to be raised. It’s the nitpicking and, yes, utter humorlessness that I can’t deal with. If there’s something that’s racist or sexist, or alienating to asexual people or other marginalized groups, by all means say something! That is productive, and it’s good social justice work.

      What is not particularly productive is finding something to Take Issue with. For example, “it is offensive that you said you would do heroin, because you are a rich white lawyer.” I mean, what? If the world was actually ending tomorrow, yeah, I probably actually would try some heroin if I could get my hands on it. Why in the world that should be insulting to heroin addicts is beyond me, any more than my saying “I would drink so much wine” should be insulting to alcoholics, or “I would go to France” should be insulting to people who have been deported from France. There is a difference between “I’m part of this marginalized group and I don’t know if you’ve thought about X like Y,” and the kind of ridiculous nit-picking that happened earlier in this thread (and in every other thread where anything funny is said).

      Ok, back to funny post!

  73. gretel: 1) Tell the CEO of my company to fuck off as I quit my job2) Swim in the East River (might be my demise)3) Shoot a machine gun4) LSD5) Ride in a hot air balloon6) Busk7) Turn it up to 11

    I would recommend doing LSD before all of this. It will make it so much more fun!

  74. Oh man, I was really enjoying the shit out of these comments. Then some people had to get all uptight and majorly harsh my buzz. It’s the end of the fucking world folks, time to take off the PC gloves & let your hair down. I love the idea that everyone has their own idea of bliss, but so much of it boils down to previously (currently?) frowned-upon vices like smoking, drugs & orgification of sex/furry animals. Thank you contributors – I smiled from my heart for the first time in days. Me, I’d re-start smoking, stockpile ecstasy & booze, raid my local library and get my ass to the nearest warm beach for 7 years (really, 7 years?!! OMG that’s awesome!!) of chillaxation. OK, smile is back…

  75. There are plenty of excellent objections to be raised. It’s the nitpicking and, yes, utter humorlessness that I can’t deal with.

    Oddly enough, it’s absolutely not my experience of you that you deal well with excellent objections. My experience is that you deal moderately badly with any objections outside of your own limited experience: that being conciliatory or polite with you is pointless, because you’ll react nastily no matter how nice anyone is about pointing out you overlooked something.

    Of course, that may simply be because anyone raising any additional material that strikes you as “nitpicking” – such as the actual policing and political issues around the Royal Wedding – is perceived as doing so out of “utter humourlessness” and so to be squelched.

    and mocking made-in-good-faith objections isn’t cool.

    And my objections to your linking without warning to the Daily Mail website is, in your mind, obviously not done in good faith. You’re wrong about that, but hey: it’s outside your experience, why would I expect you to be cool about it?

    1. Yonmei, I think throughout the history of this blog I have proven myself to be pretty good at accepting criticism and good-faith objections. I am not routinely all that cool to you, because you have been one of the most nitpicky commenters I’ve ever dealt with. I’m not nasty because things are “outside of my experience.” I am sometimes snarky towards you because you are obnoxious and make ridiculous demands, and you routinely de-rail threads to bring up grievances from past threads (see, e.g., here and now).

      So, I’m going to back to Funny Thread Being Funny and won’t be responding to you further on this post. Thanks.

  76. Though to be fair, pre-Royal Wedding my main awareness of your difficulty of dealing with people who have lives outside of your experience, was your annoyance at anyone who’s vegetarian / vegan and enjoys eating out. And the Royal Wedding was a crapstorm that hopefully won’t happen again for a few years. I apologise for bringing it up again, I really do, and I won’t in future. (At least, not until there’s another one. Ohgod.)

    I’m still right about the Daily Mail, though. One of the great things about the Rapture would be never having to read another Daily Mail story again.

  77. I’d go and build myself a gigantic soundsystem and have an enormous open-air rave playing the whole backcatalog of the best and deepest of Detroit Techno and Neurofunk while the sky is full of stars. Dancing and just staring at the sky, listening to the music, high on endorphines and superb italian espresso.

  78. Yonmei: I’m annoyed myself at people getting pre-emptively offended on behalf of others.

    I’m just confused that you said that. I get that you didn’t pick up on any deliberate irony in my post,and to be fair it was subtle, but surely you see the irony in that sentence? So you’re wishing you hadn’t said that about the heroin addicts then?

    Anyway, I guess it might be a good idea if you don’t try to speculate like that, since speculative “group X MIGHT be offended” nitpickiness is just so unnecessary and unpleasant when there’s enough stuff in the real world that is actually offensive to actual people without getting all caught up in some kind of weird alternative universe version of social justice internet-“activism” where you’re not even getting out of your own head but only deeper into it.

  79. “Well, my brother used to work somewhere that had a deep fryer and they would make them at the end of their shifts.”

    Oooh.

    8) Get a frozen turkey and a giant home-edition fryalator and go all MythBusters on the Thanksgiving Dinner of Mass Destruction phenomenon.

  80. I’m not saying I found this post offensive, or awful or anything, but it was triggering. Just, eh, food for thought, in terms of remembering drug use/drug addiction can be a trigger for people.

    Anyway, if I actually had proof that the May 21st guy was actually right about anything I’d probably spend my last days on earth banging my head against the wall in annoyance. I can’t even fathom the idea of that douchebag being the one who got it right all along.

    PS. and for your collective amusement: in-group conversations on the topic occasionally consist of people who believe in the rise-from-their-graves angle looking down on the people who believe in the rapture for being stupid and crazy.

  81. @Florence: While I still can’t get enough of that article because it is fucking awesome, I read that use of “triggering” as recovery-speak. Like a lot of recovering addicts will describe, say, drinking as a trigger for coke cravings. Like, “I quit drinking, even though alcohol wasn’t a problem, because I associated it so closely with doing coke that I couldn’t drink without really wanting a bump or two.” Alcohol would be described as a trigger in that situation.

    In unrelated news, trigger now looks weird and doesn’t parse as a real word. Thank you, semantic satiation.

  82. preying mantis: While I still can’t get enough of that article because it is fucking awesome, I read that use of “triggering” as recovery-speak. Like a lot of recovering addicts will describe, say, drinking as a trigger for coke cravings. Like, “I quit drinking, even though alcohol wasn’t a problem, because I associated it so closely with doing coke that I couldn’t drink without really wanting a bump or two.” Alcohol would be described as a trigger in that situation.

    Right, I agree. I’m actually quite familiar (sigh) with the AA/Al-Anon community, among other groups that have associated trigger groupings. I really don’t want to start an argument about triggers/trigger-warnings and the usefulness thereof, but triggers are generally regarded as something a person should work through and not harbor indefinitely, hence the existence of support and recovery groups like AA/A-A, etc.

  83. preying mantis: In unrelated news, trigger now looks weird and doesn’t parse as a real word. Thank you, semantic satiation.

    That’s me and the word “boss”, which has ceased to mean anything to my lizard brain since I was about seventeen.

  84. @Zes – I do what I can to spread the awesomeness that is puppycam.

    @outrageandsprinkles – Spokane, did you say? If you were at all interested in the fried oreos I mentioned earlier, you’ll be delighted to know that my source of fried oreos is the Onion restaurant in downtown Spokane.

  85. I wish I could enjoy drugs again. But the drugs I’m on would likely preclude any enjoyment of said drugs, and I can’t get off those drugs without causing sudden, abrupt risk to my health. Fucking epilepsy and the drugs that my brain is hooked on. (Oh, and I have been through withdrawal of one of my meds, and holy cow, it is not fun. Probably not heroin withdrawal not fun, but hallucinating I was stuck in a lettuce bin was also less than pleasant.) Anyway, my list!

    1. I would eat crab. I only don’t know because of the thinnest of ethics, but I would let it go for the end of the world.

    2. I would find a way to have a slow caffeine drip, enough to keep me alert, but not so much that I become a twitching ball of WIRED FREAKOUT ENERGY.

    3. I would make it my personal mission to slap everyone in the face that I felt needed it. Which is why I would need the caffeine drip, because there are a lot of people. (I would say kill, but I don’t think I could pull that off, even at the end of the world)

    4. I would also freely tell people what I REALLY thought of them until it was all over.

    5. Also, I would eat whatever cheese I wanted, rennet be damned.

  86. Things I would do before the apocalypse:

    1) Drugs (and yes, opiates, probably)
    2) Sex, lots of
    3) Rock and roll
    4) Cutting my hair really short and dying it an amazing shade of unnatural red
    5) Telling the people who have screwed me over that I am, in fact, mad about it and if that’s a problem for them then that’s too damned bad
    6) Telling my family and friends how much I love them, probably while a little buzzed but with extreme sincerity
    7) I would eat all the chocolate and sweets I could handle, and a few more for good measure
    8) I would try to time it so I could be in a beautiful place with people I care about, having blown through my savings down to the last penny, listening to an amazing piece of music when the world actually ended

  87. @PreyingMantis,

    I agree that people’s triggers shouldn’t ever be a reason to never post something or that it’s always the responsibility for a blog writer to accommodate every trigger all the time, but feministe generally seems to have a policy for warning about common triggers including mentions of sexual assault or eds. It was triggering to me to just out of nowhere in an otherwise funny post read “Things I would do: heroin”. I think if a blog is very serious about warning for one common type of trigger, it’s not unreasonable to ask that someone maybe consider that there are other common types of trigger. It’s not a horrible offensive deal to joke about drug use or anything, but just something a blog with a popular readership and a tradition of taking people’s triggers seriously might want to have in the back of its collective mind.
    I am not a person in recovery, by the way,

  88. This is why we can’t have funny things. Jill, I suggest posting nothing but pictures of landscapes. No commentary, no identifying information and for god sake’s NO HUMOR WHATSOEVER!!!!! Clearly, nothing you write is ever going to be pristine, perfect and pure enough.

    It’s a joke thread about a hypothetical event for fuck’s sake.

  89. Deep fried everything. To Hell with indigestion! That includes vegetables. My city has a Japanese restaurant that does the most wonderful tempura vegetables 😉

    Heh, and maybe pointing and laughing at any fundies who don’t get swept up into the sky to gloat over the rest of us facing armageddon…. there’s a limit of 144,000, so unfortunately there might be a few who don’t get in

  90. Things I want to do before the rapture:
    1) Go back to Paris.
    2) Go back to Greece.
    3) Go to the Oregon Coast.
    4) Meet Thom Yorke
    5) Spend a day at the beach with my kids
    6) Eat as many brownies as possible without worrying about the calories.
    7) Have crazy sex with my friend (who happens to be getting married Sat, so I’m guessing that notwithstanding our intense attraction, it ain’t going to happen).

  91. Selkie: I agree that people’s triggers shouldn’t ever be a reason to never post something or that it’s always the responsibility for a blog writer to accommodate every trigger all the time, but feministe generally seems to have a policy for warning about common triggers including mentions of sexual assault or eds. It was triggering to me to just out of nowhere in an otherwise funny post read “Things I would do: heroin”. I think if a blog is very serious about warning for one common type of trigger, it’s not unreasonable to ask that someone maybe consider that there are other common types of trigger. It’s not a horrible offensive deal to joke about drug use or anything, but just something a blog with a popular readership and a tradition of taking people’s triggers seriously might want to have in the back of its collective mind.
    I am not a person in recovery, by the way,

    M’kay, as a person in the recovery community, triggers are understood as a personal thing that must be resolved in order to survive, and as individuals we have to decide what our own boundaries are. As addicts or friends and family of, we come to understand that our problems are not everyone else’s problems, i.e. other people can drink and talk about such fine, and while that sucks for me, who can’t handle drugs/booze and doesn’t like to opine about how much I miss it, it’s not up to the rest of the world to stop to acknowledge my personal difficulty with this one wedge in my life (or any other issue, up to and including my list of phobias, celebrity disdain, undesirable news sources, silly hats, and vegans). I am personally accountable for my recovery and well-being, Jill is not. I do not expect Jill or any other writer to bend her writing/opinions/self-expression to my will/whims/issues because I am a reader of her blog. If blogs become a hindrance to my well-being, it is up to me to leave blogs, not for blogs to adhere to my strict set of personal standards.

    And as someone with experience enough with heroin, I can joke that Jill is hopefully not completing her fantasy end of days to-do list in order, or the heroin is really going to get in the way of her orgies and tattoos. Because heroin pretty much gets in the way of everything.

    1. So re: trigger warnings, I use Sady Doyle’s rules:

      I don’t use them all that often, except on a Tiger Beatdown post that has specifically very graphic and/or violent content. (The one I just linked to, for example, has a trigger warning in the first paragraph.) This is just because I think just about every kind of fucked-upness has the potential to trigger folks, and the purpose of a trigger warning, as I understand it, is to pre-emptively know what’s going to viscerally upset people and warn them away from it. But since I don’t know EVERYONE’s history and triggers, and I don’t want to hand out incomplete or inadequate trigger warnings, I tend to only use them when I know the discussion is going to cover very unusually, extremely violent and/or graphic stuff. Anyone else who posts on Tiger Beatdown gets to apply their own standards, though.

      Not every discussion involving rape or eating disorders has a trigger warning. Not every post that uses the word “heroin” is gong to have a trigger warning.

  92. I dunno, I feel like maybe this would be the right time to point out that this blog isn’t advertised as a therapeutic space?… I mean, there are places, on the web or anywhere else, where one should expect to go to and discuss a certain problem in a safe situation. But, you know, I don’t personally expect this blog to cater to my own psychological needs. There are conversations I stay away from as the result. And I think that’s… fine, you know? It’s not an insult to me. Why should it be an insult to anyone?

    Routinely, on this blog, all of the really painful, nasty things that happen to women during pregnancy and childbirth are discussed in frank detail, for example. And routinely the simple fact of a legal abortion being safer than childbirth is brought up. As a hugely pregnant woman – do I need to be reading that stuff right now? I don’t. But I don’t feel the need to criticize such discussions either, you know?

  93. Oh, and I totally forgot the strawberries! Apparently there’s a massive crop of strawberries about to ripen in the UK this year, so hopefully I’ll be able to pick some up from the market and eat my own body weight of them on saturday before the rapture/zombie rising.

    And another thought: play with liquid nitrogen! We have oodles of the stuff at work, sadly it’s a biological cat2 lab so no foodstuffs allowed in under normal circumstances. Strawberry sorbet made in minutes with liquid nitrogen!

  94. but I hope people realize how this kind of behavior can make people with valid objections hold back because they feel like they’re going to be the butt of a joke, especially if their form of oppression hasn’t been commonly accepted into feminist canon.

    I hope people realize that this kind of behaviour (the jokes) make some people much more likely to enjoy being here, and feel safer in making a comment that will not be immediately and savagely attacked the Problematic Chorus. Especially if their thought processes may not be accepted by the current feminist canon as enforced in these comment sections.

  95. Things I want to do just before ‘the rapture’:
    1)take a ride on a second hand space shuttle
    2)Play a round of golf on the moon, on LSD
    3)Surf a tsunami while smoking crack or have an IV drip if the wave keeps putting the lighter out.
    d) or 4 I guess) have chips implanted in to the pleasure centers of my brain, program a logic controller to randomly activate them when I hear the song ‘white rabbit’
    5)smoke DMT from a hook-ah while dressed as a Caterpillar on a huge Mushroom in central park New York.

    p.s. I am a Secular Humanist so, If anyone wants to hire a house sitter for the rapture, let me know. Make arrangements now who knows when the end will come. Payment must be made in advance.

  96. Miss S:
    Champagne
    Cocaine
    Find a pet wolf
    Scare my ex with the wolf
    More champagne

    I like this one. I’ll give you some of the money from my robbery take so you can buy a pet wolf. Or buy steakbones to bribe a wolf.

  97. I read this thread last night. Then today on my way to work there was a man outside the subway warning us about the Saturday apocalypse. I suggested that instead of handing out leaflets he should use his remaining time well and helpfully offered him some of the above suggestions. (Alas I did not give you all proper credit, as I felt that somehow, you could live without him knowing about this blog).

    So thanks on his behalf for no doubt jollying up his last few days considerably more than is likely if he spends them handing out leaflets in the rain.

  98. @Jill. No. I get it and I don’t want to be pushing for incredibly restrictive user of trigger warnings or wanting to make sure you never ever say anything that upsets anyone ever. It just seemed kind of rude for people, in a context where people are very sensitive to certain types of common triggers, for the response to people being kind of undone about something that is also a common trigger to a (small) outpouring of scorn and mockery. I mean, people wouldn’t, I hope, be so scornful of someone who was upset by a casual, non-explicit mention of sexual assault in the context of an otherwise light-hearted post, right?

    People would point out your general guidelines and how you’ve found a reasonable place to draw the line. People wouldn’t (again, I hope) start making cracks about “trigger for mention of puppies” or guffawing about how someone who was upset by a non-explicit mention sexual assault was just the stupidest most oversensitive person ever who has ruined everyone’s fun.
    The subject of drug use is an upsetting and traumatic one for a lot of people. It’s not like no one should ever talk about or make jokes about drug use ever but if someone’s a little taken aback by the joke or if they just don’t think it’s funny, then, well, why isn’t it okay for them to bring that up?

    1. The subject of drug use is an upsetting and traumatic one for a lot of people. It’s not like no one should ever talk about or make jokes about drug use ever but if someone’s a little taken aback by the joke or if they just don’t think it’s funny, then, well, why isn’t it okay for them to bring that up?

      I mean, sure, they can bring it up? But I guess my question is, what’s the point, other than saying “I was taken aback by this”? There are lots of things that I’m taken aback by or that I don’t love or that gross me out or that I find unnerving; I don’t comment on every single one of them. If something is racist, sexist, etc., then there’s an end game in pointing out that it’s racist / sexist / etc. But what’s the end game in saying, on a humorous post, “I don’t think that’s funny,” if we all agree that it’s ridiculous to argue that no one should ever talk about or make jokes about drug use?

      And as Florence pointed out earlier, the subject of spiders is traumatic for some people. Some of those people email websites complaining about the presence of spider photos. I think that is… ridiculous. I think it’s ridiculous while still understanding that people have certain phobias which are very real. However, I’m not sure those people have the right to demand that websites cater to their specific issues. People have addiction problems, and that is very real. However, I am not sure people have a right to demand that websites cater to their specific issues. Discussion of drugs and alcohol is pretty standard in the world. I understand that also may be triggering for some people, but if you can’t deal with seeing the word “heroin” on a website, that is something you need to work out, not something you need to be angry at the website proprietor for.

  99. Selkie,

    People wouldn’t (again, I hope) start making cracks about “trigger for mention of puppies” …was just the stupidest most oversensitive person ever who has ruined everyone’s fun.

    Clearly you aren’t a regular.

  100. Oh for Pete’s sake, we need trigger warnings for wanting to do heroin? I did more drugs back in the day than most of the people on this list, and by the grace of the deity who ain’t rapturing anybody on Saturday, I have nearly 13 years clean. Wasn’t triggered in the least.

    Honestly, I’ve done almost all the drugs, I’ve had more than my share of sex, and I’ve been to Antarctica.

    But Heloise has never been to Disneyland. I would take my daughter to Disneyland and let her eat whatever she wanted. And we wouldn’t worry about naps or sugar highs or anything, because we’d be at the happiest place on earth when the end comes.

  101. What if the people who rise from the dead, don’t rise as zombies, but as their normal, healthy selves?

    If that is the case, then I’m having first dibs on Freddie Mercury and I will follow his suggestions, because he knew how to party.

  102. Unami: So you’re wishing you hadn’t said that about the heroin addicts then?

    I was. And then it turned out I was right after all.

    Felixbc: I hope people realize that this kind of behaviour (the jokes) make some people much more likely to enjoy being here, and feel safer in making a comment that will not be immediately and savagely attacked the Problematic Chorus.

    Indeed, most people find it much more enjoyable to be part of a Problematic Chorus that savagely and immediately attacks people for “humourless nitpicking”. Much safer to be with the laughing bullies joking around than with the people they’re making jokes about. Very unsafe, on Feministe, to say you feel something different than the canon as enforced in these comment sections.

  103. Zes: I read this thread last night. Then today on my way to work there was a man outside the subway warning us about the Saturday apocalypse. I suggested that instead of handing out leaflets he should use his remaining time well and helpfully offered him some of the above suggestions.

    You win the internets.

  104. Yonmei: Indeed, most people find it much more enjoyable to be part of a Problematic Chorus that savagely and immediately attacks people for “humourless nitpicking”. Much safer to be with the laughing bullies joking around than with the people they’re making jokes about. Very unsafe, on Feministe, to say you feel something different than the canon as enforced in these comment sections.

    Yonmei, I was with you on the royal wedding thing. I was on your side on the merits, and I thought you got some rough treatment too. But ever since then, you’ve been picking fights and blaming the resulting flames on the people you’ve picked on.

    Take the Daily Mail thing. You’re right that the DM is a lying piece of shit reactionary rag. You’re absolutely right about that. But that’s not how you phrased your objection. You claimed that Jill had been “suckered” (she hadn’t), and demanded that she flag all DM links with explicit warnings (an unreasonable request). When people offered you workarounds, you rejected them, and when people pointed that the article Jill had linked to was legit, you continued to aggressively insist, in the face of the evidence, that she’d been duped.

    You’re not looking for a safe space here. You’re looking to brawl. That you keep finding what you’re looking for isn’t anyone else’s problem.

  105. If I knew the end was coming I’d probably spend all my time watching Glenn Beck reruns. a) It would make my time on earth seem to last A LOT longer and b) when death did finally come it would be a relief.

  106. saurus:
    Since Jill’s post on calling out culture, there’s been a noticeable uptick in the mass release of sarcastic responses when a commenter is perceived as being too sensitive, not having a sense of humor, too easily offended, or too critical. I’m not saying I agree with the original commenter, but I hope people realize how this kind of behavior can make people with valid objections hold back because they feel like they’re going to be the butt of a joke, especially if their form of oppression hasn’t been commonly accepted into feminist canon. Like, saying “Oh, I love sex. Now are you gonna call me offensive to asexuals?! Har har har!” or whatever is a little close to the bone, considering how both the blog and its commenters – myself included – have been offensive to asexuals in the past. I do think it’s important for us to investigate how we call-out and problematize and critique things, and what role that plays in our activism…but I also think we need to investigate how we treat people who problematize stuff, because the pile-on that’s been happening lately where we revel in our supposedly new found freedom to smack down people who we perceive as being unreasonable isn’t very kind either. We already know that marginalized folks can feel very reasonably wary to speak up in a space like this, so maybe we can find a way to disagree with someone’s objection that doesn’t involve quite so much mockery and derision.

    And if I knew the apocalypse was coming, I’d find my ex and throw a brick at him. Then I’d eat a Skor bar. Because I’m a good activist like that.

    As someone who has suffered face trauma from a brick launched at me by an ex-lover, I find your statement extremely triggering. I think a warning for violence would be appropriate.

  107. Well, heavens, you know what’s really triggering? The thought of the tribulations to come after the apocalypse. Yet somehow, we’re all managing to make light of the appalling doom that awaits each and everyone of us, the unrepentant.

    Like I said, going to Disneyland.

  108. @Maggie- Sweet! I’ve never been but I’ve heard very good things. I will definitely remember that.

  109. Hugo:
    Well, heavens, you know what’s really triggering?The thought of the tribulations to come after the apocalypse.Yet somehow, we’re all managing to make light of the appalling doom that awaits each and everyone of us, the unrepentant.

    yep

  110. rayuela23:
    I notice no-one is electing to spend their last days repenting?

    In terms of what I consider my sinful behavior, I pretty much make a habit of repenting continuously. I haven’t been saving it up for my last days (the idea being, I don’t really know when my last days will happen).

    In terms of behavior that aligns with my values and morality, well, no, I’m not going to spend my last days repenting of that.

  111. @Kristen J.

    (Glad you’re better btw) Yeah… a lot of these suggested activities are sounding heaps more fun than some dumb ol’ rapture.

  112. rayuela23:
    @Kristen J.

    (Glad you’re better btw) Yeah… a lot of these suggested activities are sounding heaps more fun than some dumb ol’ rapture.

    Thx! Good to be well just in time for the end apocalypse…

  113. Nahida: God is gonna be like, “You shouldn’t have procrastinated.”

    And all, “You’re not sorry you did it. You’re just sorry you got caught.”

  114. @Nahida, Opheelia

    Yes!!

    @Kristen J – well at least you’ll be in shape for the zombie slaying 🙂

  115. @Yonmei – thank you. You should have seen the guy’s face.

    My husband made a totally awesome suggestion: our apocalypse goal is now to run into a church where they are all sitting waiting to be Raptured, while holding an empty set of clothes. Then scream, “My friend just vanished! She’s been taken up! And there are zombies everywhere outside! It’s all over and we’ve been left behind!” Then run out again still screaming.

  116. @zes: you need to enlist a few other friends to wear make up, rip their clothes, and moan outside the church. Otherwise, your plan is perfect.

  117. Opheelia:
    @zes: you need to enlist a few other friends to wear make up, rip their clothes, and moan outside the church. Otherwise, your plan is perfect.

    I volunteer!! zes if you do that (and film it and put it on youtube) you shall be awarded one internet, and poor thanks it will be too for such incomparable hilarity.

  118. Champagne and oysters for me. And cheese. Lots of cheese.

    Jill, if you haven’t used heroin before you’re likely to either (a) go to sleep or (b) be violently ill. You don’t want to see the world end whilst chundering.

  119. I agree with Hugo.

    I have, in my life, been DEATHLY afraid of Revelation. I spent about 2 years of my preteen life buying it and honestly jumping at shadows. I once had a dream about it that had me practically full-panic-attack for the next 24 hours. It still wigs me out a little bit to consider the idea that I might be wrong and that there might be such a thing as Armageddon someday.

    This is the nearest (I hope) I’ll ever get to needing a trigger warning (and man, I would have been fucked these last two weeks if I did.) So of all the things to worry about in this thread, the actual choices someone would make if the world was ending are pretty low on the list.

  120. Angus: Yonmei, I was with you on the royal wedding thing. I was on your side on the merits, and I thought you got some rough treatment too.

    You know, part of the reason I am still so pissed off about the Royal Wedding thing is that it appeared to me that aside from a couple of Brits who’d got exactly the same treatment I did, everyone agreed with Jill and the rest of the ragbag band who got on our case? No one ventured to speak up and say what you just said at the time. Coming along way afterwards and saying “Gee, I’m sorry you were treated badly then, and I was on your side but I didn’t like to say so then, and um hum, you know, you haven’t been behaving very nicely since that time you were in the right and got a mass Internet-kicking because of it.”

    Yeah, I guess I haven’t. There’s a bloody reason why not.

    What’s the point of phrasing a nice objection to the Daily Mail? I started out nice on the Royal Wedding thread, and it turned out being nice didn’t matter if you were bringing up stuff Jill did not want to know about? Jill doesn’t want to know that the Daily Mail is a evil bloody rag full of lies, so what does it matter in what tone I point that out – I’ll still get slammed for bringing it up?

    Ok cookies, come on. Saurus’s comment was made in good faith, let’s not be mean for no reason.

    Thanks, Jill. Sounds like you’re coming on.

  121. @Yonmei – you’re “still so pissed off about the royal wedding thing”???

    maybe you should have a lie down?

  122. You know, part of the reason I am still so pissed off about the Royal Wedding thing is that it appeared to me that aside from a couple of Brits who’d got exactly the same treatment I did, everyone agreed with Jill and the rest of the ragbag band who got on our case? No one ventured to speak up and say what you just said at the time.

    I just wanted to say, I was kind of on your side on the Daily Mail thing. I think Jill would think twice before linking to Fox News, and that if she did link to Fox News that many, many, people would call her out in the comments for giving them pageviews.

    I could be utterly wrong in this assumption of double standards, Maybe Jill absolutely would link to Fox News just as readily as to the Mail. In which case, I really apologise for thinking otherwise, Jill.

    But it did seem to me in that thread that people were dismissing the harmfulness of the Daily Mail because the country whose political culture it has been poisoning for the last few decades is not the USA. (To people who aren’t aware– the Daily Mail is just as pernicious in its way as Fox. It’s racist, it’s sexist, and it hates poor people. Lots of people read it and the people who read it vote. The UK is a more intolerant, more economically unequal place than it would be otherwise because of the influence of the Daily Mail.)

    The thing is, though, that you were so obnoxious to Jill in that argument right from the beginning that I just thought “f*ck it, I’m not going to join in here.”

    That was probably hypocritical of me. I expect it’s a tone argument, too. But I couldn’t see any way to side with you without also siding with how you were being to Jill, so I just avoided the whole situation. That’s just one person’s perspective; feel free to dismiss it.

  123. Yes, I have to chime in here to say the Daily Mail is truly evil. It’s not just some silly tabloid but an organ for racism, xenophobia and some very unpleasant misogyny, made worse by the fact that it’s meant to be aimed at women.

    Anyway, in true Filling The Gaps (TM) style. Here is a link which lets you link to the Daily Mail without giving them pagehits:
    http://istyosty.com/

    To make this relevant to the post, I might fit in some smashing of the presses at the DM before the world ends. It would stop everyone having to read how the rapture was caused by immigration and working mothers.

    1. Ok, enough. This thread has been turned into how Yonmei is butthurt about the royal wedding and the Daily Mail, and would like it if the comment sections on this blog centered entirely around her. Sadly, this is not yonmei.com. The thread where I linked the Daily Mail is still open, so you are welcome to continue voicing your grievances all over that thread. You are not welcome to do it on every other thread on this blog, so I’ll be deleting further comments that are about what happened on other threads.

  124. In the last days before the rapture, I would come on Feministe and derail every thread I could because for me, being obnoxious is like heroin.

    1. In the last days before the rapture, I would come on Feministe and derail every thread I could because for me, being obnoxious is like heroin.

      Quoted for hilarity.

  125. Yonmei: No one ventured to speak up and say what you just said at the time. Coming along way afterwards and saying “Gee, I’m sorry you were treated badly then, and I was on your side but I didn’t like to say so then, and um hum, you know, you haven’t been behaving very nicely since that time you were in the right and got a mass Internet-kicking because of it.”

    Well, I did say something at the time, and then again shortly thereafter. I’m not going to go back through all the various threads to find quotes, but I did.

    But I wouldn’t say I was quite “on your side.” I agreed with some of your points about the wedding, and I thought that there was some unnecessary snottiness, but (again, as I’ve said before), my impression was that lots of folks on all sides, including you, got too aggressive too quick.

    And if I didn’t speak up more at the time, that’s the reason. It had become a shitstorm by the time I read it, and I didn’t want to wade into the middle.

    Yonmei: What’s the point of phrasing a nice objection to the Daily Mail? I started out nice on the Royal Wedding thread, and it turned out being nice didn’t matter if you were bringing up stuff Jill did not want to know about?

    Your first contribution to the first Royal Wedding thread I found in a quick search, in its entirety: “Oh God. I had figured that if I didn’t go on the Internet for 24 hours before the bloody thing started (and stayed away for 24 hours till all the maunderings were done) I could avoid reading getting triggered into venting rage about the bloody Royal Family and their bloody weddings. Evidently not.”

    Yonmei: Jill doesn’t want to know that the Daily Mail is a evil bloody rag full of lies, so what does it matter in what tone I point that out – I’ll still get slammed for bringing it up?

    If your position is that constructive dialogue is impossible here, why stay? More to the point, why keep complaining that there’s not more constructive dialogue here?

    If you think this site’s comments can be made better, be the change you want to see in the world. If you don’t, what’s the point of continuing to pretend otherwise?

  126. Sorry the formatting didn’t quite work out. I guessed wrong on how to do multiple blockquotes. What’s me and what’s Yonmei should be clear from context, I hope.

  127. umami: I think Jill would think twice before linking to Fox News, and that if she did link to Fox News that many, many, people would call her out in the comments for giving them pageviews.

    I wouldn’t care. Fox News has some of the highest rated programs in the US. My 2 cent page view isn’t keeping Murdoch in business. True story – I sometimes look at Fox News without being bamboozled by anyone! And if it bothered me, I would accept that I have agency and can take measures to keep from visiting Fox News.

  128. Love these lists…as a result of all the good ideas, my own list would be way too long to a) post and b) fit in between now and Saturday (though I always HAVE been a good multitasker…hmmm).

    My somewhat crotchety but endearing late grandfather used to say, when confronted with door knockers lecturing about the rapture, that he wished the damn thing would come already and take all these a$$holes away. I still think of that every time I hear an end-of-the-world story 🙂

  129. If it wasn’t about you, it wasn’t about you, PA. But I’d prefer you didn’t quote me and then respond to a bunch of things I didn’t say. In particular the “bamboozled” thing. I know something like that was said by Yonmei. I am not Yonmei.

  130. Tom Foolery:
    In the last days before the rapture, I would come on Feministe and derail every thread I could because for me, being obnoxious is like heroin.

    And confuse the hell out of random commentors who don’t realize you’re joking 😛

  131. I have nearly 13 years clean. Wasn’t triggered in the least.

    *high-five* 10 yrs clean myself.

    And this is the problem, isn’t it. The Special White Lady Saviors deciding for *everyone* – especially groups that they themselves DON’T BELONG TO – what is out of bounds.

    I’m fucking tired of it. They think they can speak for everyone, because they’re so SPECIAL and CARING and TOLERANT. It’s overbearing, self-righteous sanctimony.

    There is a world of goddamn difference between calling something out because you PERSONALLY are triggered and calling out because you’re privileged enough to think you speak for others, without, of course, even bothering to allow them to speak for themselves.

  132. @umami, you conjectured about what would happen with a FoxNews link. I provided you with one anecdotal piece of evidence. I’m sorry the first piece of evidence you received did not support your hypothesis. I also was completely unaware that I couldn’t use your comment as a jumping off point about how ridiculous demands from other commenters are ridiculous. Rulez of the internet = learned.

  133. Jill,

    I know this may be a totally-unworthy-of-your-time thing to do, but may I make a suggestion that you perhaps will find helpful?

    If it was possible, it might be advantageous to create a second entry after each blog entry, where you can direct people to continue commenting on a point that has been made repeatedly over and over again. This way if you decide you’ve had enough of the same argument you can close the comments on the original thread and direct people to the comment thread, therefore keeping the original post to a representative number of relevant comments (i.e. when you feel like it,) without censoring anyone’s voice.

  134. without censoring anyone’s voice.

    Jill, why didn’t you tell us you got elected as the U.S. Government?

  135. If it was possible, it might be advantageous to create a second entry after each blog entry, where you can direct people to continue commenting on a point that has been made repeatedly over and over again. This way if you decide you’ve had enough of the same argument you can close the comments on the original thread and direct people to the comment thread, therefore keeping the original post to a representative number of relevant comments (i.e. when you feel like it,) without censoring anyone’s voice.

    Yes, Jill, please create a cesspool!

    Also, what Rare Vos said.

  136. All this dredging up of the Daily Heil (the paper that declared support for Hitler in 1938!) has reminded me of something else I’d like to do for the end of the world: create a mallet of empathy (or axe of loving kindness, thankyou Munchkin) and hit DM columnist Jan Moir with it… Alternatively I can always reread Charlie Brooker’s splendid eviceration of Moir: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir

    On second thoughts, I think I’ll read/watch as much Brooker as I can between now and the end of the world 😉

  137. Opheelia – ha that’s genius. And frankly if the Rapture WERE to happen at such a moment I think God would take us up on the basis we’d be much more amusing company for the heavenly host.
    Rayuela – It’d be a toughie to put together in a day but we’ll see what we can do! Hubby is a magician…

  138. Opheelia:

    Plus, Tahiti is an archipelago, so all you suckers on the mainland will have a lot more zombies to deal with, since I don’t think they can drive boats.

    According to the book World War Z, http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/worldwarz/
    the zombies will just wander around under the ocean in swarms until they find land. So you should still have some kind of fortification on your Tahitian shelter!

  139. Let’s see –

    Destroy all texts by Nietzsche & Kant except a single annotated copy that explains to future sensient life that not every human held such ridiculous ideas.

    Drink 64oz of sprite and pee off the tallest balcony I can find.

    Prepare a zombie apocalypse survival kit per the CDC website (there is one)

    Break into a sees candy store and so my wife can eat maple walnut – the actual name of her favorite candy – until she pukes.

    Change my handle on feministe to something shorter.

  140. My list differs based on whether other people are calm about their impending fate. If others are calm about it, then “others” includes the police, and thus my list becomes boring shit like “sit at home, get high as fuck, and re-re-re-watch UHF until my eyes bleed”.

    But! If there’s “panicking into error”, my list!:

    * Send an email to everyone I can think of, describing what I think of them.

    * Go home and get my bat.

    * Loot a car store for a car.

    * Loot a grocery store for personal foods and pet foods.

    * Go to as many animal shelters and suchlike as I can, and make sure that the animals can get free.

    * Run away with a few of the kitties, while I’m at it.

    If the world is ending, I worry about whether they’ll be trapped when all the humans are gone. 🙁

  141. Opheelia: Now I have to learn to train sharks by tomorrow.

    Careful, because if your sharks get bit by zombies you’ll have zombie sharks.

    My list is getting really long.

    I know, right? Eternal damnation requires so much prep work.

  142. I know, right? Eternal damnation requires so much prep work.

    LOL. Winner! Please accept this handknit internet.

  143. “I know, right? Eternal damnation requires so much prep work.”

    Srsly, I’ve been preparing for, what, like 30-35 years now.

  144. 1) Sex. More sex, at any point between the following items.
    2) Hop in a high-performance jet (say, a MiG-25), get to about 5000ft, hit the afterburners, smoke a bowl, and scream across the landscape at Mach 3 while tripping balls.
    3) Get a cheap purple suit, slap on some creepy white and red makeup, and introduce a little anarchy to this stuck-up burg.
    4) As an extension of 3), join a rebellion and fight the power.
    5) Play with high explosives and abandoned high-rises and skyscrapers.
    6) Massive. Dance. Party. Lots of drugs and debauchery.
    7) Rest up, cuddle with my sweetie and our kitties, and prepare for the post-“rapture” resistance against the extradimensional being that kidnapped my fellow humans and is trying to break the will of those of us still around through increasingly destructive disasters and mass attacks. It will be something straight out of a post-apocalyptic anime flick, or maybe a Final Fantasy game, and I will face it with my fist raised and my head held high.
    8) But before that… BONFIRE PARTY!!!

  145. What I don’t understand is how many people *haven’t* done LSD. Are the young people not into it anymore like they were in my day, the 90’s? Can I just tell you that you’re likely to have a better trip if you wait until the tail end of it may NOT coincide with the end of times? And that it’s GREAT and not something you need put on a damn bucket list?

    Old ex-druggie signing off, see you all either in heaven or hell

  146. What I don’t understand is how many people *haven’t* done LSD.

    I was totally thinking the same thing. I thought it was one of the standards everyone has tried at least once. I learned something new today.

  147. Rare Vos: I was totally thinking the same thing. I thought it was one of the standards everyone has tried at least once. I learned something new today.

    Ditto. Although, I’ll say that LSD was one of the drugs that was always super fun until, like, six hours in and I was ready to be done and go to bed and the drug was decidedly not. At which point I was all, no, I do NOT want to watch The Wall again or have melty sex or play with fire, one of which always inevitably happened.

  148. I do NOT want to watch The Wall again

    OMG That was one of the most terrifying trips of my life. The other was when we watched The Wizard of Oz.

  149. Joan Kelly: What I don’t understand is how many people *haven’t* done LSD. Are the young people not into it anymore like they were in my day, the 90′s?

    I have no idea how people get their drugs now, but the LSD that I did in the 90s was from the punk rock kids who went to the GD and Phish shows SPECIFICALLY to score LSD. I never thought I’d have regret over the loss of Phish or the Grateful Dead, but right now I feel pangs of regret for Kids Of Today (TM). Ya’ll are missing out.

  150. Rare Vos:
    Did you do the Wizard of Oz /Dark Side of the Moon thing?

    Anyone who hasn’t, you still have time!

  151. Regarding the lack of drug use: My only drug use, ever, honest to god, was a SINGLE hit of weed.

  152. Joan Kelly: What I don’t understand is how many people *haven’t* done LSD. Are the young people not into it anymore like they were in my day, the 90′s?

    The cycle of rebellion – whatever one generation likes, the next abhors.

  153. Florence: Ditto.Although, I’ll say that LSD was one of the drugs that was always super fun until, like, six hours in and I was ready to be done and go to bed and the drug was decidedly not. At which point I was all, no, I do NOT want to watch The Wall again or have melty sex or play with fire, one of which always inevitably happened.

    Yeah, I hear that. Nothing quite like being eight hours in and being ready to be done tripping and realizing you have hours to go yet. And that is even assuming you can tell time.

  154. outrageandsprinkles:
    Regarding the lack of drug use: My only drug use, ever, honest to god, was a SINGLE hit of weed.

    How was it? I was never into it, but smoked it if it was there.

  155. Well I think I’m a pretty darn cool young person and I’m not into drugs. Although I do appreciate the occasional ibuprofen for a headache.

    It’s been really fun reading all of your fantasies. Keep ’em coming!

  156. Florence: Ditto.Although, I’ll say that LSD was one of the drugs that was always super fun until, like, six hours in and I was ready to be done and go to bed and the drug was decidedly not. At which point I was all, no, I do NOT want to watch The Wall again or have melty sex or play with fire, one of which always inevitably happened.

    Florence, that’s exactly why I never liked acid. Haven’t done it since the early days of the first President Bush.

    The drug I DO miss was Ecstasy. But I’d still pick Disneyland with my daughter.

  157. @Florence
    It was….. dry. I don’t think I could ever get into it because my lungs just felt hot and dry and I got dizzy and I really didn’t like the taste. Apparently I am a lightweight though, one longish drag felt equivalent to an entire drink.

  158. okay, ee-motherfucking-gads to sex on LSD (did it once, still not over it) and definitely I should have added for anyone who hasn’t done it and might, you seriously need to plan out your environment and activities. Music, being out in “nature” (i.e. the campus of UC Santa Cruz) – good. Television – extremely chance-y. I once had a partially bad trip watching Arsenio Hall because Bronson Pinchot was in the audience in old lady drag and it was a “bit” they were doing but I couldn’t tell if a) the audience knew it was really Bronson Pinchot and not an old lady saying tee-hee-unexpected-old-lady-things or b) anyone thought it was genuinely funny which led to c) my feeling completely alienated from the whole of human kind and I couldn’t stop crying for a while.

    HOWEVER – we watched Cool as Ice (yes, the Vanilla Ice movie) prior to Arsenio and that was smooth sailing. Planning is key, that’s all I’m saying.

  159. Rare Vos: OMG That was one of the most terrifying trips of my life. The other was when we watched The Wizard of Oz.

    OMG That was one of the most terrifying trips of my life. The other was when we watched The Wizard of Oz”

    Hannibal on shrooms. We actually thought that was a good idea. After Finding Nemo, obviously.

  160. If the world does come to an end today, part of me will be… relieved. All the evil shit that happens is coming to an end, will be punished and/or it’s all in the Hands of God. It’s strange but does anyone else get that feeling?

  161. Tony:
    If the world does come to an end today, part of me will be… relieved. All the evil shit that happens is coming to an end, will be punished and/or it’s all in the Hands of God. It’s strange but does anyone else get that feeling?

    Nope. Any God that thought this was a good idea is a total shit. I would rather not spend all of eternity with that pompous asshat. Who knows what fucked up shit he would come up with next.

  162. So… where the hell is Jesus? It’s past noon in Germany – you’d think the apocalypse would start on time.

  163. Dress up everyday like a different badass character (ninja, pirate, Starbuck, Norma Rae and so on) and act accordingly.

    Become Buffy during the nights and impart my own brand of justice on mean-spirited people.

    Puppies galore.

  164. Arkady:
    Happy, silly feelings changed to anger right now. Someone took Camping seriously and tried to kill herself and her two daughters: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/while_harold_camping_sits_safe.php

    *sigh* This is what I’ve been worrying about all day. I knew it was going to happen. I mean, it didn’t *cause* it – a person who does that was most likely going to find a reason to do it at some point (whether religious or otherwise) – but it contributes.

  165. 1. MDMA. Lots and *lots* of MDMA.
    2. In a similar vein, try coke. It’s always been on my list of things never to touch because I suspect I’ll like it too much, but if the world’s going to end…
    3. Bungee jumping!
    4. Have an threesome. Or try something new and different and have an orgy!
    5. Get a very short, very trendy haircut. Possibly get it dyed, too.
    6. Get tattoos of vines and flowers all over my body – around my torso, under my boobs, around my arms.
    7. Do a *lot* of clubbing. Especially while under the influence of MDMA.
    8. Go to a very fancy spa and get a manicure and pedicure and body wrap and facial and full body massage etc etc etc.

  166. yeah… that is super-disturbing. kinda takes the humor out of it… it sounds like all three are going to be ok though…

  167. Heroin has nothing on MDMA! If the world were ending I would spend my last days rolling my face off.

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