Don’t worry about what Seagoon said tbh. My urgroßvater (great grandfather) was captured by the Russians and spent the rest of the war in an actual gulag, he suddenly returned home after the war ended. He could not and would not eat with his family, and would only make himself a sandwich when everyone else was finished (he didn’t trust anything he didn’t make himself due to his experience). And yet, I have joked many times, while going to work, “welp back to the gulag”.
It’s an offhand joke, and not worth worrying about tbh. I only said the above to state that everyone has different opinions, and different ways of coping and joking, and I personally do not see an issue with what you said.
But yes, doom scrolling, reading about the US and worrying, it doesn’t help our mental state. It’s feels heavy and insurmountable.
But, you have us and your hobbies, and while it may be difficult to do everything you want, you can still find joy and peace away from those news sites/reddit/whatever. They are nothing more than enragement engagement machines designed to make us feel angry, sad, and helpless. But you are amazing, kind, considerate, thoughtful, clever, you have so much to offer the world. Don’t have to take any advice from me, but overall it’s better to avoid the sites that bring us down. You are an integral part of this community 💜💜💜
chingatello@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
We certainly live in dark times. The times only get darker if we cannot joke about them.
No one has a monopoly on horror.
No one should make you feel like you cannot joke about those horrors.
It is not tasteless to joke about the horrors that exist, and have existed. It’s tasteless to pretend they didn’t exist, don’t exist.
I want you to forgive yourself for making light. We NEED light.
The dead have already suffered. The dead do not command us. The dead do not control us.
Live for the living. Laugh for the living. Laugh for yourself. Laugh for me. Laugh for us. Laugh because we need laughter.
Here is one of my favourite jokes:
A holocaust survivor dies of old age and goes to heaven. When he gets there he meets God and tells him a holocaust joke.
God says, “That’s not funny.”
And the man says, “I guess you had to be there.”
melbaboutown@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I’m fucking scared. This tide has been growing there and here, and certain things have been more mask off since the annoying orange took power in 2016.
Fascism doesn’t come openly. It comes to ‘clean up’ your country, give you more jobs, do something about those awful people. Drop the price of eggs and petrol/gas.
That’s how it happens. People focus on the promises of a better quality of daily life, think ‘surely these extreme things would never happen’. And then you’ve lost Roe and Wade and some very loaded and ominous proposals are being made.
And fascism creeps. It doesn’t limit itself to one minority, or one country.
Ugh. Sorry to make this cosy thread all dark. It would have cost me nothing to have kept my yap shut
chingatello@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I think it would have cost you more than you think to remain silent. I am glad you are sharing these fears. The cozy places are the best places to share our fears, because they are the places we feel safe.
There’s a quite famous poem about not speaking out until it was too late, not speaking out until there is no one to speak out… Better to speak, I think.