A Millenial's Guide to Technology

If you're reading this post, congratulations!

You've managed to turn on a computer, connect it to the internet through either a ethernet cable or wifi, open a browser and through either clicking on a Facebook link or clicking a link on a Google search.

If you're saying to yourself, "Yeah, Admiral Obvious, get to the point." Then this post probably isn't for you.

If you're wondering what a browser is, then please, read on.

This post is by no means comprehensive, it probably won't tell you what to do to fix your specific problem, but if you read on you might learn the methods you can use to

Chances are you're the parent or grandparent of a Millennial or Gen Z (iGen, post-Millennial, whatever). They're the 10-30 year old offspring you turn to when you have a computer problem, and they get frustrated. They roll their eyes and act like you've asked them the stupidest question in the world when you tell them your internet won't work and can they please come fix it even though they live three hours away (love you mom).

Still wondering what a browser is? It's a program on your computer that connects you to the internet. You might know it better as Firefox or Chrome or Safari or Edge or (please get help switching to ANYTHING ELSE) Internet Explorer. You might only know it as the colorful icon (small image you click on to "open the internet") that each of these programs uses.

The five most common internet browser icons.

See, it's not that we millennials think you're stupid. We think you're technologically incompetent even though you managed to print off and bring home chain emails and jokes from work years before most of us were glued to the screen. Which is okay. Technology, especially the internet variety has been changing at a very fast pace. You've probably read about it in a newspaper or heard about it on the local news (meanwhile your kids are reading blog posts on social media that make fun of the fact that you still read a physical newspaper and watch the local news even though corporate media is controlled by the 1% and frames most of what it shows in highly biased ways despite the lofty journalistic goals of objectivity).

So how do you keep up?

First and foremost you have to be willing to experiment. If your kid is fixing your computer for you, unless you've done something devastatingly wrong like wipe the entire contents of your hardrive (which how you could do that on accident is beyond me), they're probably just clicking around randomly until they find something that looks like it might be working. 

It just looks like computer magic because their reflexes are a lot faster than yours. Most of us can tell if clicking on something helped within two seconds. That's why when your wonder child is at work windows (the screens on your monitor, a.k.a. the part of the computer you look at) seem to pop up and disappear before you get a chance to look at them.

Second (if you're connected to the internet), Google is your friend. Or at least your merciful Search Overlord. 

You've used Google. You've probably even used Bing and Yahoo or even Ask back in the day. They're search engines that look at everything on the internet for pages relevant to whatever search terms you've entered. Technically when someone tells you to "Google something" they mean "Use the Google webpage to search something" or sometimes just "look something up on the internet" (though Google doesn't like the latter so much).

But sometimes Google doesn't give you what you want. 

Pop quiz!

You hear a song you like on the radio and the DJ doesn't mention the name or the artist so when you get home you decide to Google it. What do you put into the search bar?

If you answered something along the lines of "What is the name of the ______ song?" or "Who sings the ________ song?" You're not searching like a millennial.

You see, most search engines are what's called keyword-based searches. You put in the most important/relevant information and it searches the internet for those keywords and ranks them by whatever system that site uses. Asking questions like the above are what's called natural language searches because they sound like natural language. You're asking the same way you would ask your friend Susan.

A millennial would take the a few words from the chorus of the song and add the word lyrics to the end of the search. 

Compare the search results you get from "If your love was a broken stereo lyrics" to "Who sings the broken stereo song?" Completely different. And if you're looking for the Sean Fournier song, one will get you better results.

This means of course that in order to troubleshoot your computer problems you'll have more success if you search like a millennial. How do you get the results you want?

You have to know what your problem is and if you don't know, make an educated guess. Is it a hardware or software problem (is it a thing you use to work the computer not working like your mouse or keyboard or a program you've installed on your computer)? Are you on a touchscreen device or a computer/laptop? Is there an error message?

Error messages, even though they're telling you something is wrong are a huge help toward fixing your problem. If you can, never close (x out of) an error message until you've written down what the error message says. They usually tell you what's wrong or have something like "Error x300n9" that you can Google. Because if you have an error, guaranteed someone else on the internet has had that same error and has either posted how they fixed it or gotten help from whatever company makes the program/computer causing the error.

Information like brand, model, version of whatever program you're having trouble with can all help you find what you're looking for. The more specific you can be about what's wrong, the more likely you are to have success. 

"Mouse won't click" is better than "mouse won't work."

Sometimes you can't look things up with Google. Maybe your internet isn't working for one of a variety of potential reasons and that's the problem you're trying to fix. 

Left to fend for yourself you have to resort back to that click until something works method. If it helps, pretend you're an archaeologist studying a dead culture's technology. Use the scientific method. 

If the internet is the problem, is it really the problem? You might have noticed back when I was talking about browsers that they connect you to the internet, but they aren't your connection to the internet. That's either the wireless router (wifi) or ethernet cable connecting your device to the modem (the thing plugged into the wall that you probably got from your internet provider). If you're on wireless, first ask if it's just your device having issues or all of them. That will change whether or not you try to fix your router or you computer. 

General rule of thumb, make sure everything is turned on properly. If on wireless, make sure your device is connecting to your router. You can find that either in settings or by clicking the thing on your computer that looks like some variation of this:

It's an old joke, but sometimes turning your computer off and back on again can reset whatever is causing your problem. Know where the power button is.

Lastly, and this is the most important one on here, know when something is beyond your ability to fix. I know this post is all about teaching you to be self-sufficient out in the world wide web. This is particularly true of hardware problems, unless you feel comfortable and confident in your ability to take apart your computer and replace parts without breaking anything. 

If you're on the phone with tech support (whether that be your offspring or a customer service rep) be nice, answer their questions, stay calm, if you get to a point where you think you know what you're doing, tell them if you click on or enter anything because they're probably going down a giant checklist and if you skip steps it will confuse them.

tl;dr here's a handy xkdc flowchart that you can refer to.

Much props to this post for inspiring me to write this. 

National Coming Out Day 2015: Questions, Comments, Concerns

I owe a huge debt to the women, trans folk, and people of color in my life for making me aware of these kinds of issues. Any thought relating to social justice is intersectional and relates to issues of queerness and it would be irresponsible of me not to acknowledge that up front. I think about it constantly because I'm surrounded by it and I couldn't name the dozens of sources that implicitly or explicitly influenced this post through Facebook posts, tumblr links, articles (academic or otherwise). But I wouldn't/couldn't say this without you.

I've been "out" my entire adult life.

What that means has changed and evolved over the years from the somewhat scared and questioning teenager devouring every scrap of (sometimes dubiously age-appropriate) information available at the local library to the internally raging queer questioning everything sitting at their computer writing for you today. So yesterday when I posted on Facebook for National Coming Out Day, I wasn't surprised that the majority of responses were loving and supportive. I've long since backed away from the kind of people who wouldn't love me and people like me.

But this isn't an "It Gets Better" moment.

While coming out is a continuous action, I'll save you the Gender Trouble spiel on discursive repetition and performativity. No matter how "out" you are, there will always be people and institutions too ignorant or oblivious to know without it being spelled out. That's called heteronormativity and is part of the larger cultural problem of assuming everyone we meet is straight until proven otherwise. I'm guilty of it (not as much as 10 years ago and I'm better at internally questioning that assumption, but such is the pain of the culture I was raised into).

So why come out?

First, I want to specify my use of queer as opposed to gay. I know there's still a lot of intra-community debate over the use of the term queer. Historically it has been used as a slur and a lot of people are uncomfortable with the associations that can be drawn from the archaic definition where it means weird. Those are valid reasons not to label yourself queer. As a college-educated person, I take the more postmodern route where queer is an anti-label. I'm okay with you calling me gay, but identifying myself as queer I'm saying you can never be fully sure what I mean. I could mean I'm bisexual, pansexual, aromantic homosexual or one of myriad sexual orientations that make up our beautiful alphabet soup. Complicate that with the fact that queer has also been used as an umbrella term to encapsulate the entire LGBTQAA2I+ and this too has been contested. In short:

Not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you.

Question sexuality. Question your sexuality. Question ideas of romance and attraction. Even if you're sure you're straight, there's always room for questioning. What does that mean to you? Where do you draw that line? What is gender or sex and why do you base your sexuality on the gender of your partner instead of other characteristics that make them such an awesome person? Do you differentiate between romantic vs sexual feelings and how does that affect your perception of self?

Second, I come out because I'm in a safe and secure place to come out. I'm supported. I'm in a loving relationship. I don't experience a constant threat of violence because of my sexuality.

There's a lot of radical queer reaction to National Coming Out Day as a compulsory outing where it's found problematic that there's this perception that if you're lesbian or gay or queer and don't come out you're a shame to the community. And I agree. That kind of thinking is wrong. Because even if you stay in the closet, you're just as queer as anyone else. Come out when and to who you want to. If that means only the one confidant you trust, the whole world, or anonymous strangers on the internet, that's your choice and that's valid. And if anyone outs you without your consent, please give them hell (and take this as a warning not to do so).

We have a huge infrastructure problem for queer folk in most of the world. Addiction centers and homeless shelters and most schools aren't equipped to handle the unique pressures and challenges faced by LGBT people. There are places where you can get fired for no reason. And other places where you can't look/act gay without threat of physical violence. Throw in racial diversity or disability or refusal to comply with gender norms and I'm sure you can see how much of a struggle it can be just to exist. It's a dangerous world out there if you're too far from socially designated "normal." For a lot of people there are more pressing concerns than being out. Being out and being a role model is good and all, but collectively we've got a lot of work ahead of us.

National Coming Out Day is like the Hallmark version of Valentine's Day but put on by Big Gay Inc. It's mostly for show, gives extra treats to those who can afford it and leaves some people out in the dust. But there is good that can come of it and that's what I want to focus on here.

Third (they always have to come in threes), I can come out because I have the privilege of support to make it safe to do so, and by making myself more visible, I'm inviting anyone reading this to contact me. Ask questions. Use me as a sounding board for your own exploration. I might not have all your answers and I can't tell you what/who you are, but during undergrad I worked in offices called the Queer Resource Center (formerly the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance), Sexual Awareness Center and the Women's Center, I've probably heard or read something similar before. I have access to resources, I know people, and at the very least I might be able to rephrase your question to help you get the kind of answers you're looking for. If you worry your question is offensive, I'll tell you why but I'll do my best to answer anyway. No judgments and confidential.

That's what I meant when I said "like the truth, we're out there."

Unless you've deliberately cut them out of your life and are vitriolically anti-LGBT (in which case congrats on finding this post and reading this far hopefully something I've said has pushed you to reconsider), you know queer people. Statistically it's true, but also you don't know the sexuality of the people around you (remember that heteronormativity I mentioned?). Just because a man and a woman are in a relationship doesn't mean either or both of them are straight. Bi- and pansexuality aren't nullified by relationship status.

They might be in the closet. They might be out to everyone except you. They might not be out to you because it hasn't come up yet. They might be flaming rainbow colors and because you've never been exposed to queer communities you have no references to identify clear and intentional signifiers that this person is anything but straight (yes, this happens, and full disclosure, when queer people hang out we do discuss the artful obliviousness of the straight people we're made to interact with because of school or work because the logical leaps a person will make to ignore the fact that a queer person is frothing rainbows and anti-assimilationist theory right in front of them are the stuff that queers stand-up is made of).

I'm not coming out for me. Some people do and find empowerment in owning their sexuality. Good for them. I'm coming out for the questioning kid sitting quietly in the front row to fly under the radar, for my straight friends whose minds are currently in process of being blown. I'm coming out because there's way more in this world than most of us care to explore.

White men being violent assholes

or why I'll always pick a shitty, campy queer film over a critically-acclaimed American television drama

Look, I'm not going to hold it against you for liking things like Breaking Bad or True Detective or what have you crime drama on FX or HBO. There are lots of them and many of them are amazingly done with great storylines, beautiful cinematography, superb acting, and probably unnecessary amounts of misogyny (implicit or otherwise).

But most of them can be boiled down to one simple, five-word description: white men being violent assholes.

And I have absolutely no interest in that. It's partly the whole realistic crime drama thing, I don't care to indulge in the Great American Pastime of glorified Cops and Robbers (now in HD). But it's also definitely the violent white assholes. If you put it on for me, I'll get on my computer and pay little enough attention that I couldn't tell you more than what happened a minute ago.

It's a violent kind of apathy,  the kind where I'm sure if you had a camera pointed at me you could watch my eyes glaze over into a blank haze of disinterest. Even talking about it now, I'm struggling to express exactly how much I don't care because that means I have to fake caring enough to express it, but for you, I'll power through.

It's not just the violence, I've watched films like Lars von Trier's Antichrist and found the gritty, gore perfectly acceptable. The film wouldn't have worked without it. I was a fan of MTV's Teen Wolf until the writer's decided to kill of Allison's character when the actress decided she didn't want to continue working on a show that wasn't fully utilizing her talents (at least that's how I understand it).

It's not the white men or them being assholes, the majority of our media is saturated with that (because we Americans are kind of assholes, just look at our news). I love Australian Josh Thomas's brainchild Please Like Me which is mostly about white men being assholes (but in a funny Australian way as they try to figure themselves out) with the occasional racist characterization of one of the characters.  I've laughed at almost two seasons worth of The League, which is a comedy about "friends" in a fantasy football league together rife with sexist, racist, homophobic, etc language being horrible to each other in the name of competition.

Perhaps what I don't like is the way these violent white assholes are glorified. They're the protagonists and while by no means is it ever implied that we're supposed to emulate them (infiltrate underground crime rings or start meth labs, etc), they often end up living very sad, broken lives, but in allowing ourselves to be caught up in the viewing we identify with them. We are caught in the whirlpooling spiral that is their tragedy; it's not glorification in the sense that there is glory, but an elevation of focus.

I'm not about that.

So why shitty, campy queer films? There's very little (if any) cinematic merit to most of them and the acting is horrible at best, but my Netflix history is littered with them (usually marked with one or two stars), and to be honest, I don't really watch them either, it's more that choose to put them on in the background while I do other things.

You could make the argument that I myself am a shitty, campy queer, which wouldn't be too far off the mark. We so often like to allow ourselves to play into that narcissistic tendency of staring at ourselves after all. But I'm not a fantasy footballer (I've lived near Seattle all my life and still couldn't pick Russell Wilson out of a lineup) or Australian or a werewolf. I don't tune out when my roommate puts on Fringe or when my boyfriend puts on sports anime.

So if it's not the violence or the whiteness or men or the assholes, then my only conclusion is that it's something about the combination of all of these in the context of an American drama that bores me. That no matter how "good" it is, you'll never get me to watch it.

And I guess all I have to say to that is feel free to invite me to your next tv marathon, but don't be surprised if I wander off to the kitchen to make snacks.

Fall Update

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. My shorter-term attentions have turned elsewhere and I seem to have accumulated projects.

Still, I can't quite bring myself to drop this blog. There's quite the archive of my thought explorations and identity formation (even a handy explanation of acelessthan3 if people need the refresher). I walk a widdershins path. It's part of being queer, so there will always be a space for more widdershin writings.

That was corny, but no apologies and no regrets.

So here's what I've been doing while I've been mostly ignoring this blog:

I've been getting involved with the local poetry scene. I go to the weekly meetings of Bellingham poetrynight. I'm in process of self-publishing a small booklet of poetry. I'm investing more time in reading and writing poetry than I am the kind of theory that has frequently made appearances on this blog.

I've actually started work on volume two of the Prostate Poems, as well as a second book(let) I'm going to call "Terra-ble: The Organic Grocer Haiku and other poems" which will (surprise) prominently feature the Organic Grocer Haiku, which are about what they sound like: haiku written for and inspired by my work at an organic and natural foods store.

I'm growing my hair out for Sakura-Con 2015. I have never taken so many pills daily in my life. It makes for expensive piss, but I can tell already my hair is growing faster than normal. Though that may also be related to working at an organic grocery store and eating better, but this is not the place to examine that particular cause and effect.

I want to write more letters. I've always been fond of the idea of having pen pals and have had many over the years (perhaps I should restart the Postcard Poems as another project. And just what is it with me and P-alliterative projects?). I'm told I write like a british novel character but use trite and accurate phrases like "fuck off to the east coast" which I'm still not entirely sure what that means, but I'll take it. Cursive cursive cursive. It takes a few stamps to get a few envelopes, though, so perhaps I'll just start writing and see what responses come my way.

As we enter fall, I find myself faced with the idea of applying to grad school. On the one hand, if I want to do anything relating to physical therapy, it's required. But on the other, that's several thousand more dollars of potential debt and at least two more years of school when I just finished my undergrad. There's many things I'm willing to commit to, but at this point in my life I'm not sure if that is one of them.

So I'm creating. I'm still growing and learning and if people have suggestions of things I should look into, please, throw them my way. Or gently toss them. Or send me a polite rude message.

The Naked Truth: Continuing a Discussion on Anger

[Trigger warning for racial microaggressions]

So I went to this event at my alma mater this past weekend called the Naked Truth on Stereotypes. I had a lot of thoughts about the event and the presentation, but I'll save that for another time and just say congrats to the cast for doing a good job.

I did want to discuss something that happened during/after the event however. During the discussion portion at the end of the event, a person asked why everyone was so angry and why so many of the stories up on stage featured anger as strongly as they did. 

The cast and folks with Social HeArtistry did a wonderful job answering the question and redirecting, but after the show this person was having a conversation with my friend and seemed pretty upset at the idea of anger and how showcasing frustration at stereotypes can reinforce those stereotypes of being an angry person of color and even went so far as to ask how in its net cultural impact this anger was any different than the angry preachers spewing hate in the public square every spring. 

This of course was a huge red flag for me, and I understand the nuance that anger by itself is unproductive and you can't just get angry and yell, but that's in itself an unfair comparison. bell hooks talks about how anger is often a necessary tool toward creating change and how accusations of anger are often a tool to silence people. Denial of anger is often a tool to pacify and appease the ruling classes into accepting the marginalized (see specifically, black voices), but doing so at the expense of those further in the margins and the reality of the inequalities that exist to keep them marginalized (and justifiably angry).

I don't believe that's exactly the case here, but it is relevant to the larger discussion. Anger is a necessary starting point. But you have to do something with that anger that if you want to see change. 

That's why TNTS had a discussion at the end of the event, to unpack the anger on stage and talk about next steps in creating and sustaining a community that won't allow these racialized aggressions to be normalized. That's part of what my opening quote is missing: you can be angry out of love (be it love for yourself or your community) and through those two feelings demand that oppression stop. But the anger and hate of racist and homophobic preachers is not the same as the anger of oppressed people. One is backed up by a fucked up society that has a longstanding history of voicing those same hatreds. The other is frustration with the effects those hatreds have on people's everyday lives.

TNTS is an exaggeration. It presents the stereotypes faced by marginalized groups in a stark, not every stereotype that each performer talked about was a direct quote of some fucked up thing said to them every day. They don't need to be, because even being faced with those kind of intrusive, ignorant questions once is more than enough to be angry. They don't even have to be directed at you so much as merely at someone like you for them to hold true as symptoms of the toxic and ignorant environment most of our society is for people of color.That's what frustrated me, it doesn't matter if the stories up on stage were everyday lived experiences, not when the media and our classes and casual "innocent" comments perpetuate the same thing with impunity. 

Yes, people start from a place of ignorance, and many microaggressions come from a well-meaning place, but we cannot equate ignorance to innocence when toxic messages limit people's ability to grow and change. There's a phrase that's been going around a lot, that "intent means nothing in the face of impact" and this especially holds true when the impact creates a harmful environment. 

This situation is one where the intent of venting long-held frustrations is being outright ignored in favor of the impact that some people (meaning those with privilege, be it racial, class or otherwise) might be turned off by the anger they've been sheltered from. But if the intent of a privileged person entering a space like TNTS is to learn, why are they not learning? Why are they not listening to the message behind the anger? I often hear the idea that education is a two-way street and the voices of the oppressed need to meet the ignorant where they're at. While this is valid, a two-way street does not mean equal when one side as a collective often walks the other direction when you approach them. 

That's one of the distinctions that makes discussions around power and privilege difficult, that makes this post difficult for me to write: often there's a disconnect between privileged folk and marginalized folk where the responsibility of learning is so disconnected from the content of the discussion that you could almost say there are two overlapping conversations happening at the same time. One being a dialogue within the strictures of the dominant social narrative and the other more a monologue resisting and criticizing the dominant narrative that's attempting to reframe the discussion and asking that you not respond, in privilege our voices don't matter.

On an academic, ideological level, I understand the resistance to this reframing. It's threatening and it closes off discussion in the traditional sense. Discussions not based in the rhetoric of logic and rational thought (i.e. those of the kind of passion/anger I talk about above) are often criticized for seeking to be above criticism because they refuse the voice of traditional ideas of argumentation. Undoubtedly in talks about race and feminist thought especially it will come up in comments. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's true, these discussions are not above criticism, but often times such criticisms based in rationalism are framed and worded in ways that invalidate lived experience.

While the larger theoretical discussion between privilege and oppression might create illogical and seemingly unfair asks when the oppressed push back, I think a lot of that theoretical thought loses some of its footing when the reality of lived experience (usually anecdotal, but so reoccurring that to deny it would be its own fallacy) is so overwhelming. It's hard to take criticism when it essentially says "the way you're describing reality is subjective and therefore wrong." I don't have a way to reconcile this, or even know if I'm describing what I'm trying to describe accurately because there's so much going on.

Thoughts, reflections, counterpoints, examples all welcome.