I have a lot of thoughts and a basket case of mental disorders that make it difficult to formulate them into anything other than gibberish.
So I decided to use pictures. Specifically pictures of Jenna Maroney. For who better encapsulates the concept of “me” than Jenna Maroney?
(Although if she calls out sick, her understudies are warmed up and ready)
Expect lots of pictures. A hint of bitterness. Fury Rock (this Fall on NBC). Captions. And theatre references (if you don’t have a throughline of theatre running twixt those veins I shall will myself to reincarnate as you next time ’round the sun).
Now, let’s begin.
This is us. Sort of. For we are simply Chicago sixes thinking we’re a New York ten. When our singing style is throaty and pitchy but we tell ourselves it’s “character” (or as one of my high schooler’s once told me not unkindly but not complimentarily, mine was “unique“). We come into the room loud and confident, having done minimal work (a thrice a year voice lesson and the ability to hit a muddy double when the situation is ripe for it) but gotten cast by life in the guppy pool. A burden This is who we really are. For we chose theatre as a career. Or a hobby. It’s not necessarily an insult, because what we’ve done with those arts and crafts supplies jammed inside our carcasses is neigh near astronomical.Speaking of astronomical, that sure does give us a Chip on our shoulder. Sometimes you use AI. to make an Instagram trend of your face as a Disney character like Chip from BATB.
It happens. Just…try to stop, because the world is burning and AI is definitely assisting it. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/ai-has-environmental-problem-heres-what-world-can-do-aboutThis image will make many an appearance. A mantra, a motif, a theme. This is basically what we think a Republican is. A Republican is someone who will either vote for Kamala Harris as if it’s their deepest darkest secret or someone who’ll vote for Trump and probably still says the n word which, it’s 2024, my white relative in Christ, please know that makes you racist, especially in the rather derogatory way you say it.. Really, they’re just a reflective scapegoat for us to sit comfortably on a garbage heap of confusion on a throne made of ironies on a cushion made of privilege on a-She’s back, and so soon.Anyways, time to talk about genocide. We’re complicit! All of us! Because tax dollars and dulled empathy. But somehow we’re putting that to the side and playing “DW ignoring the sign because she can’t read.” Or saying things like “they’ve been fighting for years why should I care now?”This is what we look like rebranding the genocide happening overseas as a “wait til November and then we’ll fix it. For now, let’s just say it’s everyone’s right to their side of the story!”Life is just a series of power moves. And some of it is social righteousness. I fall for it all the time. This is what I look like trying to be cool to my high schoolers, not realizing I’ve aged from “cool older brother” to “tolerable step-uncle” in their eyes. It’s also what we think of our parasocial relationships with figures such as celebrities, singers, politicians, and queer characters played by straight allies on Marvel shows. I have no idea if this gif will gif, so we’ll see. But many of us do not have a high level of real time traumas going on in our lives, so we glom onto others. Basically, the most accessible trauma is ours too! Listen. We all do it. But sometimes we do it in a way that’s gross, excessive, and way too “the country doing the massive annihilating bombing is the real victim, I can play both sides if I want, that makes me a moral American and anyone different than me is a slut.” What if the theme was “not shaming people who hate what our country has become and are disenfranchised by the system of mess we have in place?”
…Or sluts. That’s a good theme too. With a splash of corporate shilling for good measure.I think that one person on twitter who’s freaked out that “Sabrina Carpenter’s music is too sexual for kids” wouldn’t last a day in Jenna’s thought tapes. Also I’m pretty sure most of my high schoolers are embarrassed that we of a certain ‘ennial listen to Sabrina Carpenter and sing her lyrics at the top of our lungs like our situationship is in anyway groundbreaking (***** if you’re reading this, heartbreak is one thing my ego’s another I beg you don’t embarrass m-)There’s our girl.Fascinating how quickly I went from “genocide is wrong stop both-sidesing it you absolute idiot” to “wah wah a person doesn’t like me.” I feel like an Instagram story during a tragic circumstance (the whipash is real, but we’ve all done it).Wow, spouting rage on a website that is canonically unread, go me I guess?Ultimately it’s us. We should be smarter than this. But most of us are theatre majors or pacifists who have, and please let me know if you follow this analogy, been “cast by life in the guppy pool.”
And that’s a very low-level of informational intelligence and high level of overly emotional intelligence (and an inability to spell, look at my drafts for further evidence).
Factual Intelligence- the US is funding a genocide and pretending they will stop it any day now. They promised! And the US always does what they promise for the American people, ri- *gets tackled by every nihilistic tweeter in town*
Emotional Intelligence- a specific niche knowledge of Patti LuPone’s beef with Madonna, and doing nothing other than yas queening omg-ing her. Heyinternalized homophobia, when did you get here! Sigh. Can’t even stick the landing without that trauma making an appearance.There was a question? There’s a viable answer? Is it Two state? Two party? Two Toed Tom from Abarat, a book series Clive Barker started but seems to have abandoned after destroying the world in Book Three and now we’re left with the ruins of a potentially beautiful world behind us and a blank canvas before us…oh. The only constant is that our world is a blank canvas full of potential. We have a beautiful set of brushes. The issue is the store that sells them is gatekeepingly manipulative like me when my childhood acquaintances wanted to play anything other than what I played but I’m pretty sure their mom said “let him play stuffed animal Pokemon, he has no other friends” and that’s how we ended up playing stuffed animal Pokemon, which theoretically sounds fun but actually just created a bigger mess…Every institution is gatekeeping but it’s up to us to…stop them? I guess? By not giving them our business but there are only two stores so now we have to pick the store that doesn’t want me to be head bulleted by a Bullet Bill of straightness but I still have to pick the one that doesn’t care if I get head bulleted by a Bullet Bill of straightness unless it seems like everyone has an issue with that so if the numbers poll in my favor…oops. I made it about me. We’ve all been there. I’m clearly guilty of it. Another white person with the bare minimum of societal-danger-drama against him projecting onto the situation.And my electrolytes could do with a jolt. Here’s another jolt- trans people and enby people have uteruses, and de rigueur par for the course a la carte bonjour (white woman will post about women losing reproductive care and if I lightly mention “and trans people!” it’s as if I said “women deserve death” ok Jo Row[redacted] there’s a place for everyone, someone getting rights doesn’t mean you lose ’em. Let the Hufflepuffs get a few house points in this overstretched analogy).Back to my cave of depression where I don’t post on instagram because it makes me feel both vistavision saturated in competitiveness and smaller than I am.
Onward and upwards. 
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