MetaFilter

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

My last comment ever on Metafilter, on my last post ever on Metafilter, was deleted. So I'll leave it here for posterity, assuming the mods don't wipe it here too. Contact me via email, I'll leave my profile up but I'm done trying to participate here. Best wishes to the community here...at least those of you who give a shit about the poor.

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I’d like to be clear that I understand there is an open thread on PG&E’s power shutoffs in California, but I do not consider this post to be about that topic, I consider it to be about how those shutoffs are affecting the most vulnerable - and under-reported on - in our state. There was more than considerable tone-deafness in that thread, along with accusations of things like “concern trolling” that were let to stand in that post.

I sincerely hope that my comment history on Metafilter as well as my personal activism sufficiently document that I have serious concern for the most impoverished in my home state, who are bearing the lion’s share of the hardship due to these power outages. They are the people on the margins, those standing closest to the edges of our society, those who will be pushed off when the panicking crowd that is the other classes surges towards them.

I consider them worthy of their own OP at a minimum, but frankly I have reached a point where I doubt that Metafilter is a community that has any sensitivity to the struggles of America’s lowest income class. I believe we as a community have demonstrated what I consider to be some of the most progressive thinking in regards to inclusion around demographics like sexual orientation, gender identification, race, disabilities, and even mental disabilities and neurodiversity. When it comes to those things, I’m proud to tell people about our community. When it comes to wealth inequality, I personally believe we’re no better than anywhere else: we prefer not to hear about that kind of inclusion because it might impact our own bottom line, to have to, you know, share.

I understand that this is a topic I am close to. I was asked to step away from the conversation in the previous thread when I got too blinded with rage to respond calmly to it. Hearing our users complain about losing food in their fridge while I know people personally who that meant they would miss meals when the power was out and for days afterwards was personally very hard for me to stomach.

I took 2 weeks off to consider cutting ties with this community altogether over this. I feel this topic deserves it’s own post and conversation and consideration. I feel that the most impoverished among us are just as important to this very difficult conversation / situation in our state, and that their voices matter. I feel that their voices make the larger majority of us uncomfortable, and as such they are vastly under-reported on and unwelcome in our common dialogue, on the internet, on Metafilter, or anywhere else. This post is my attempt to speak up for that with civility and dignity. I hope that won’t be silenced. At least not here. Maybe that’s a stupid hope though.

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I don't really think time matters. So, in one way, I've got lots of it.

Stuff I've done:
How did your coffee cup get here? Supply Chain Management! (sb)
Product Testing
Writing my brother's paper
The blind experiment (sb)
The dog kennel on the roof of Macy's (sb; I'm convinced Mad Men ripped this story for one of their episodes)
Requiem for a fashion industry
Two top tips for rocking your interview

Grab bag:
Harriet's last rabbit
The people of NYC
On helping the homeless
Lexi was my friend
Getting rid of yourself: How a real Christian acts
Shoes for Butho (sb)

Questions:
Why are you talking at me?
How to approach relationships
How to give them up
What's it like to dream?

Fictional:
Craigslist dating
While she was sleeping
A future with no bees

Commentary:
The Circle of Abercrombie
China in Africa
On Dementia
Horrible human nature
Thoughts on 9/11
Memoirs of the rave scene

Deleted (new category!):
What lies in Lake Tahoe (this story was understandably deleted as it didn't belong in AskMe, but I couldn't resist - original question here)