Read on Twitter
Sometime last year I bought this book for $1.90 online, specifically because--I gotta be transparent here--I thought it was freaking hilarious. However, after what I thought was going to be a pure-lulz read, I actually found myself with a lot of thoughts. "Y2k For Women" :(1/n)
Firstly: this woman is genuinely hilarious. She's gotta be a bit more self-aware than my first glance at the cover gave her credit for. Gems like this corona prepper deja-vu:
This passage I found genuinely sobering. I want you guys to remember this is coming from an evangelical, happily married, gender-roles-are-sacred type writer. How was it not obvious to me why this book might have been written and sold to women worldwide?
She calls her self unskilled or "not a techie" a lot, but consistently, I find evidence that she's parsed whatever jargon/buzzwords she was getting from the industry at the time into something that would turn this situation into a manageable risk assessment for homemakers.
The further I read, the more I realize: Y2K was confusing as shit. Datetimes were a real issue. At this moment, I'm afraid I have to interject with a tidbit from this morning's exploration of Mayan time-tracking and date formatting--the juxtaposition is too good. "Long Count" is:
Mesoamerican spacetime astronomy magicians had our ass BEAT about a thousand+ years before memory meant storage and not ritual/story-telling. The logic was written long before our COBOL programs ever even laid eyes on a timestamp.
Anyway. Back to Karen. Karen S. Anderson, the evangelical house wife and sociocultural/Y2K expert. What a strange mirroring here in metaphor: ancient languages, calendar keeping, hieroglyphic interpretation after the fact--but it's all just about about legacy code issues. Woah
Did y'all who write code for a living know people could explain our bullshit this way? Like, we know it's dense and inaccessible to a lot of people, but did you ever imagine the Karen S. Andersons of the world would have to explain it like this? *Have* to?
The next few images from the book I want to share without commentary, because they're remarkable. Truly. Karen is so above those camper/Rambo preppers she described earlier in the book -- this is valuable documentation for disasters anytime. Peep food storage checklist:
And documentation/reference for portable power/generators...
Finally, this one. I can't thank God enough for women such as Karen S, (or @carlyfindlay) who are willing to work to advocate for disabled lives. My brother has non-verbal autism and is fully dependent on caretakers every day. He is my world. I can't.
Can't let my girl Karen off the hook entirely though. Anderson, who by all signs at this point is a legit disaster preparedness expert, wanted to throw this in alongside food storage and home surgery. Karen, if you're out there, this is a roast. Ur being roasted.
"Home decorating for Y2K" is the magical headline I wanted and needed when I bought this book, but In all seriousness, I'm really impressed with Anderson's work. I found myself grateful for the perspective from an "outsider". Tech is a bubble at times and this is...not that. Lol.
Whatever the opposite of our techy hubris/ego is, I think it's somehow contained in this book. Our values differ a lot, but this is why it's so goddamn important to LISTEN to people who feel at odds with your bubble. We're not opposing armies, not good vs evil. Be curious. Learn
Side note that may only make sense if you bore with my enormous tweetstorm about maya views on spacetime and the "folded fabric" universe model this morning--Got my materials all set for the next Y2K. Blending Karen's stuff w/ Mayan's calendar skills/apocalypse chill. Bring it
