Anonymous asked: Why did you study law? Do you ever use any knowledge gained in your law degree? Genuine question as a current law student.
I studied law for one reason: Because I could. Which isn’t really the greatest reason to do anything, but in this case it was something that enlightened me, rather than detracted from my life.
I graduated from high school at the top of my class and law was really the only option. I also decided to get a Media & Communications degree in tandem with that, and in retrospect, for what I do now, Law was infinitely more helpful. Any sort of arts related degrees are just for twatty cinema nerds to sit about and try to prove that they have the most insightful psychoanalysis to make. It’s fun, especially because I got top marks in my class for my dissertation on Buffy, but basically completely useless.
I use knowledge gained in my law degree every day, but not in the “letter of the law” way I would be if I was actually working in the legal profession. My inter-personal skills, ability to deal with stress, analytical skills, practicality, ability to problem solve, to structure my thoughts and organize my life; all this comes from that period in my life. Law school was a brilliantly ordered chaos for me.
And I really think, before law school, I’d never been so happy. As much as I knew I didn’t want to practice, I was not only able to exercise my brain in really new and exciting ways, I made some of the best, lifelong friends a person could wish for there, and because I was constantly challenged, I learned a lot about myself and the person I wanted to be that I don’t know if I would have learned so soon otherwise. Oh and a thick skin. Law school definitely helped thicken my skin.
So on both a social and educative level, it really made me re-evaluate the way I consume and percieve the world around me, and that’s something I carry with me in the day-to-day. Being able to hold something up—a person, an act, an opinion—and spin it like a basketball on the tip of my finger, so as too see all the angles; that was the most important take away from law school for me. That inclusive thought process became organic and like learning another language, I started to be able to think like that automatically, and as a writer it’s benefited me massively.
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So I’ve been called “ugly” a lot today on the Internet, and I shudder to think how I would feel right now if I was someone who cared what people on the Internet thought of me. Or if I was someone who cared if I am “ugly” or not.
Now, I feel like I need to say a few things, not to defend myself, or to gain sympathy, or anything like that, but just to really make it clear how stupid the idea of physical ugliness is. Everyone is different, and there is no standard for “pretty” or “beautiful”. There’s one that exists between uneducated idiots, but that doesn’t make it real or true in any way. Like chemtrails. Or racism. A norm for “attractive” is not correct simply by the virtue that it exists.
“Ugly” is a word, in my opinion, that we should stop applying to the physically of humans beings. Because your face—that will never be the ugliest thing about you. You might think your face is pretty or not pretty, whatever; what will be the ultimate decider in whether or not you are ugly is the way you treat other people.
My biggest concern is not if I am attractive to other people or not. In fact, here is a non-exhaustive list of things that are more important to me than attractiveness:
- Being kind to the people I love.
- Eating good food and doing enough exercise so I don’t become a decrepit old lady.
- Telling funny jokes.
- Having sex every now and again.
- Giving up subway seats to old ladies, helping people up the stairs when they have groceries and 6 babies, and just being a nice person to the people around me generally.
- Watching too many episodes of The League in a row.
- Laughing my guts out.
- God Usher’s good.
- Working hard at my career.
- Worrying about the education and health care systems in America.
- Finding a way to buy all the dresses I want.
- Hugging all my amazing friends as often as possible.
- Burritos.
And that’s not even scratching the surface! What I’m trying to say is let’s not be preoccupied with or malicious about the way people look. This is not a relevant or even vaguely important gripe to have about someone. It’s absurd, and in the end says more about you than it does about the person you’re attacking. Yeah. Sucks to be you huh.
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Why Don’t Dudes Like My Crotchless Panties?
“It’s inherently accepted in sex—even in what we deem “healthy” and “nonviolent” sexual relationships—that women will do things they don’t really love to please a man, like suck on his balls or go doggy style. In my experience, as well as the experiences of many women I speak with about sex regularly, there’s rarely even a polite question put forward before a man follows his impulses in the bedroom. That is to say, oftentimes a dude will just try and stick it up your butt without notice.”
— Read the rest of Why Don’t Dudes Like My Crotchless Panties at VICE
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Here’s some more unsolicited advice for those seeking to pitch stories to publications.
Most publications have a set tone, strong voice, and key visual aesthetic. There is an editor in charge to make sure these things are adhered to. DO NOT argue when your editor tells you an idea needs to be tweaked to appeal to the site’s audience better, ESPECIALLY where it is YOU that has approached the editor with the pitch. The editor is trying to help you fit in with a pre-established code while also striving to maintain that code. DO NOT passive aggressively take the piss out of you editor’s suggestions.
At the same time, don’t let an editor take the piss out of you. For instance, if your work is altered beyond reason and published with your name on it WITHOUT your prior approval, it’s OK to say something about it. It’s not OK to be a dick about it though, especially if you want to write for the publication again.
As a Managing Editor, I can tell you, we, as a people, have zero time on our hands. Sometimes I’m so busy I hold in pee for hours, and then when I finally go it’s sort of stuck in there and I have to push a little to get it out. So if an editor takes the time to workshop an idea with you, DON’T BE A FUCKING CUNT ABOUT IT, because the editor is doing you a massive favor, probably because they think you’re great. An editor will only invest time in you if you’re worth it; no editor is going to spend time workshopping with someone they think is shit, so don’t try to undermine the editor’s suggestions for your idea. Take them on board as constructive criticism; the editor is NOT trying to sabotage you. The editor is trying to do the best for your work and their product.
If you don’t like your editor’s suggestions, bow out gracefully, and take your work elsewhere. At the end of the day, even if you think your editor is wrong (and even if they are objectively wrong), it doesn’t fucking matter. The editor is the final arbiter of what is right for the site they work for, and while that shouldn’t allow them to take unwarranted liberties with your finished work, when it comes to workshopping ideas, listen to them, or get the fuck out.
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“As Monáe raps, “She who writes the movie owns the script and the sequel / So why ain’t the stealing of my rights made illegal,” grounds gender and sex equality back in the most simplest of its interests. Instantly, this resonates in the everyday life of a woman who, in a city like New York, can’t make it a block down the street without being cat called. And that’s not even a scratch against the culture of rape, not just America, but the world over; against institutionalized inequality in work places; against prejudice toward non-heteronormative sexual alignment; against the subordinate worth of female sexuality in both romantic and non-romantic interactions; against the overarching dismissal of feminine values as somehow “lesser” and the female resolve as unequivocally weaker. Stripped of the grand designs of Beyoncé’s nation building in “Run The World”, Katy’s militant “Part Of Me” or Ke$ha’s ballsy “Blah Blah Blah”, “Q.U.E.E.N.” asks for something far more humble for women, but something so very important to feminine empowerment that we’d be lost without it: respect.”
— Read: Janelle Monáe and Erykah Badu’s “Q.U.E.E.N” Is The Feminist Anthem We’ve Waited 10 Years For
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Anonymous asked: Firstly love your writing. I find it really interesting and hilarious. Secondly you are a very very beautiful girl and I wish I irrationally hated more things so I would be of interest to you. Finally im curious of your views about people's fantasies, do you think they are something that should remain fantasy? Or should they be explored? Have you ever helped someone's? Or had weird ones confided in you? Do you have one? Thanks.
I assume you’re talking about sexual fantasies? In that case, I think yes, of course they should be explored, if they they are being explored by consenting adult humas and they don’t cause harm to any unwitting third parties. For instance, those people whose fantasy is women stepping on and killing little animals with high heels should definitely, under no circumstances, explore their fantasies. And people who act on their fantasies about children should be hanged.
But you know, if you want to dress up like a filthy parking inspector in crotchless panties and beat someone for a traffic infringement before riding them on the bonnet of their car, go for it! I think all my fantasies involve role play, and right now it’s a tight competition between being a “sexy vampire slayer” or a “sexy mother of dragons”.
Also let it be known that no one is of interest to me at this point or until further notice unless they are made entirely of chicken burritos with extra cheese, sour cream and guacamole.
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Halloween 2010, with my best gals.
(Source: scrapbooketc)
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When I was doing my Media & Communications degree (yes I have two degrees, stop it, I know I’m a nerd), I distinctly remember in a Journalism class, a woman from The Age (a high circulation Australian daily newspaper), coming in as a guest lecturer. She said something that still resonates with me now, because I still hear that things like this are being taught in classrooms. She said “You will never make any money writing on the Internet. You will only make a living in print.”
Which I now know to be utter fucking bullshit, of course, seeing as I make the entire living that I depend on to pay rent, bills, eat, clothe myself etc. working solely with digital publications. And now, as a Managing Editor, I can see the damage that this misnomer causes. Every time I get an email from a college graduate wanting to contribute to the site, it’s painfully evident that they have no idea how digital publishing operates. They send me cover letters, resumes, dozens of clips; all things you’d need to put forward for a print job, but none of which are necessary to become a contributor on a digital culture site.
I think a lot of the time people end up missing out on making money from digital work because a. they’re fed the line that there is none, which they take for granted and b. they act like such noobs they get taken advantage of. Really, an education in “writing” (or any subcategory there of) should include a unit on digital publishing. So right now I’m going to give a piece of unsolicited advice to anyone who is looking to have their work published online: your editor doesn’t care where you graduated from or if you wrote for the school newspaper. DO NOT WASTE SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS IN AN EMAIL OUTLINING THIS. I don’t have time to read that shit; what I do have time for, is a clear, concise IDEA FOR A STORY. If you’ve written for any notable publications, or have a solid Twitter following, include these in no more than one sentence. Then, and this is the important part: PITCH. In no uncertain terms, and using the unique voice with which you write, tell the editor EXACTLY what it is you are going to do for them.
Whether you’re a published writer or not, go into it with this attitude: the editor needs you more than you need them. It’s probably not true, but if you’re confident, bold, and display your ideas succinctly and (I can’t stress this enough) aren’t boring the fucking pants off the person reading the email, you will be taken seriously. Digital is not about your academic credentials; it’s about your voice. As an editor, what I want to know about that voice is: What does it sound like, and more importantly what are you going to do with it?
And if you fail in a career as a freelancer in the digital world (if I’ve made it sound easy, it’s not, it’s really fucking hard), there are a million other jobs you could do in the digital sphere. For instance, YOU could be the editor and YOU could write semi-perturbed, strongly worded Tumblr posts whenever you get annoyed at clueless college grads who haven’t been taught the digital hustle.
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What a lot of you probably don’t know about me is that I used to be a pretty popular fashion blogger in Australia. I stopped doing that when I realized liking fashion isn’t the same as liking clothes, and while I’m most certainly into clothes (into clothes like a FOX), fashion is something I think is pretty stupid, mostly because the “scene” that goes with it is full of fucking cunts (yeah, I went there), and also because I enjoy burritos, OK! Anyway the point is I just got this leather skirt in the post from ASOS, which I have affectionately dubbed my “Preggers Kimmy K” skirt, and my hair looks particularly nice today, so I decided to get back to my roots and share some fashun photography with you (including bonus outtakes!). And yes, I was being a ballerina in the first one and subtly flirty in a chewing gum commercial sort of way in the second two, in case you had any doubt about it.
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LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW BEYONCE IS BITING KATY’S STYLE.
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![[.gif via OhNoTheyDidn’t and To Porcelain, To Ivory, to Steel]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/e287467c7d1579168eb6c19858808b08/tumblr_mm8gk3sCiF1qbepq8o1_500.gif)
