Cw: Mass death and disease. While the mainstream media fawns over the Oscars the COVID situation in India has turned insanely horrific. It's essentially what LA was like back in January but *worse* & with way more people.

And here I am looking at this horror show that's something out of the Black Plague where mass funeral pyres are burning in parking lots in New Delhi, but what are the headlines? Who won the fucking Academy Awards.

Our mainstream media has just devolved from "Manufacturing Consent" & "Society of the Spectacle" right into Edgar Allen Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" where a bunch of rich people use their privilege to hide out from a pandemic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death

And of course the whole point of that novella is that the "Red Death" virus comes in a spectral anthropomorphized form to act out it's cosmic karma on the rich people at a party. Though in real life something like that won't happen. It would be a social collapse.

Though honestly I don't need to read Nietzche, Poe, or hell even anarchists like Kropotkin or Malatesta to know that our current dominant culture of clout chasing, profit, & social climbing is an utterly pointless nihilistic pit. I simply see it every day now.

These past five years and this past year during the pandemic has caused me to re-evaluate absolutely everything. On why I've always felt so out of place & why I felt so alone after my mom died. It's been horrible yet revealing all at the same time.

I won't lie and say that things have been extremely tough. Especially the first year after my mom died as well as during these COVID times. And vile thing is that the problem remains the same.

And the problem is this. When you're at your lowest point people refuse to show up for you. No matter how you feel inside or how much your soul is ripped apart people expect you to always take that first step forward. And on many days I just haven't been able to do that.

My life entirely transformed after what happened to my mom, my dad, and I 5 years ago and especially now after this mass death situation and I can never go back to where I was before. There's too much betrayal, pain, and emotional neglect there.

And this is one of the reasons I embraced mutual aid and other anarchist concepts. It's more than just some distant revolution or some slogan to wave around at a protest. It's a way out of the darkness. And ironically a practical way to find connections in a cold & brutal society

It's also the reason I love @rebeccasugar and her work so much. Because of the world of friendship, kindness, and self acceptance she painted in her work. It meant everything to me when I felt so alone after my mom died.

Her world is everything I've ever wanted out of life. Or, at least my own idealized version of her world. Even though she has had her own struggles there are always her friends there. Who would listen. Who would show compassion. And with her husband @ianjq find true love.

The fact that when or if I ever meet her in real life that she will have no idea what I've gone through or what her art means to me is a constant reminder that the world is unfair. Just like when I think of my future wedding & my mom won't be at it.

And this is one of *SO MANY* reasons why I grew to hate the spectacle, celebrity, and clout chasing. Because
@rebeccasugar was on TV there's that barrier there. The people on the other side of the stage can talk to her no problem. But people like me have to wait in line.

And I *HATE THAT*. With every single fiber of my existence and sense of righteous anger that I have left in me I do. Not because I feel entitled to Rebecca's time or friendship. I hate it on *sheer principle*. Whenever I see systems that treat others as lessers I explode.

Because I go right back to when my mom and dad were talked down to. Or when people like my mom who always saw the good in others & always put others before themselves being treated as invisible or simply humiliated and undervalued.

And just like those people in India who are suffering through the Coronavirus and all the media can talk about are stupid Oscars. Who cares about those dirt poor brown people with a funny accent, religion, and sitar music? We only care about *THE STARS*.

And this is why both for-profit media and hierarchy needs to die. By God it all just needs to simply be abolished from all existence and become a bad memory. It has caused too much grief, too much real life pain, and too much exploitation to justify it's myriad excuses.

Maybe then I could live in a world like in @rebeccasugar's stories. Or in a world more like what my mom would want. Because only with a commitment that rejects narcissism, bigotry and mutual exploitation do stories like #StevenUniverse even have any meaning.

And that's why I became a social revolutionary. Because no institution, no enlightened leader, and no fake marketing savior thought I was worth anything. And that's capitalism and authoritarianism's truest problem. It can only see itself and it's own shallow benefits.

Capitalism is a death cult and the compassion that I fight every day to hold onto is my inspiration to ultimately end that system and every system of domination, bigotry and authoritarianism. Exclusion & ostracism have always been my mortal enemies. My fight is to end them.