uhhh if they say so

if anyone has to have this choice explained to them, that’s someone I just fundamentally cannot understand.

respectfully, what am I even looking at — sausages and sad looking potatoes, sure, but also __???

“irritating” is EXACTLY the right descriptor 🥴

it was extremely Not For Me.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

(was all this an excuse to go on another sanguine "I love my students and coworkers"-posting-spree early on a Saturday morning? without adding much to the quoted research above? well idk, who can possibly say, really.)

anyway, tl;dr: even if the kids ("kids") are a mess in various widely chronicled ways, their broadly shared values, commitments, motivations seem pretty clear in my day-to-day work and in analyses like that from Profs. Bonica & Grumbach – and for me, that's more than welcome in this moment.

it's hard to feel defeatist teaching them, much less working alongside them: ~50% of my union, and an overwhelming majority of our younger comrades in an organized-but-unrecognized unit, are between 18 and 28. across the board, compassion and determination are more than just some youthful affect.

the (many) Gen Z folks I interact with are...not exactly a randomly sampled/representative bunch (those attending the New School or Fordham are, uh, *quite particular* types!), but the upshot resonates. with areas of generational near-consensus come many nuances, as they're all figuring things out.

now THAT would be a true dream team 🫠🫡

every. last. one. of. them.

actually ... fair, fair. there's at least a little competition among these types. 🥴

defenders of monstrous men are obsessed with turning righteous denunciations of them into some sort of political or strategic error — “we eat our own, diminish our movement,” whatever.

even if that zero-sum view was apt (it is not), like those of many others, his ideas are *also* dogshit!