Blog

2024 "Ins and Outs"

Word Count: 942

Just like most people of my demographic, my eyes are glued to my Tiktok for you page for about twenty minutes to an hour a day. In between some of the most horrific human rights violations caught on tape and the reemergence, reimagining and rebranding of the infomercial, I’ve also seen a fantastic trend of “ins and outs” for the new year.

Ins

Financial literacy and budgeting

I’ll be real here and say I did not do very well in my economics courses. However, current economic events are important to at least keep an eye on. With my interest in Ponzi schemes and fraud, I’ve been introduced to some pretty interesting financial analysis. Given the state of Everything there’s only so much we can do, but a little eye out on the markets and our bank accounts can go a long way. I had a lot of sudden and unfortunate expenses in the last couple years, and I’m hoping that this year will be a little less chaotic, but of course that’s something that I will budget for and be pleasantly surprised and grateful if I don’t have to dip into.

Reading more books

This is always a goal of mine, so I’m still bringing it into this year as well. This year I specifically want to read more fiction, as that’s something that’s always been difficult for me. I just have a hard time sitting down, and with non-fiction I don’t have to track a narrative and characters in the same way as I do with a fictional novel. The books I’m really excited for are A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. I have a whole stack of non-fiction books I’m also excited for, but we’d be here for another 10 000 words if I were to list all of them.

The joy of creation and the sharing of creation!

One of the hardest things I’ve been dealing with as an artist lately is having so so many ideas, even ideas I’ve written down and developed or drawn out, and few places to really share them. Of course I share with my friends, but sending a screenshot of a doc is very different from being able to send the whole doc itself with all the little details they can scroll through! This year I want to get my Toyhou.se and even some of my OC writings (scarey) to a place where I can happily and proudly share them with more than two people. I want MORE people to visit my worlds! This also goes for my knitting and crochet. I work all the time. So hard. But by the time I finish a project I’m happy with, I end up giving it to the recipient before I remember to take a picture and share it! I want to do better this year.

Outs

Overconsumption

This one I feel goes without saying, as it’s on a lot of people’s “outs” list. I’ve always been a “stock up for later” person in regard to my hobbies (gaming and crafting,) so I have accumulated a lot of Stuff that I meant to tackle “later,” however when later came I was so overwhelmed I didn’t know where to start (and in some cases just went out and bought something Else!!). This year I want to work more from my various piles and stashes, and spend the “nothing” time where I usually sit mouth-open head empty at my text editor for half an hour at a time actually engaging my brain with stories or crafts, working through what I already have. I still haven’t played the Guardians of the Galaxy game I bought in 2022!! How embarrassing.

“Girl math” or “bimbofication”

I wholeheartedly reject this rapidly-evolving trend of basically “joking” about how being a woman inherently makes you dumb. I understand a few “I’m just a dumb girl” jokes here and there but seeing it spreading across platforms in multiple subjects, as well as The Body Shop ad I saw co-opting the “girl math” meme just makes me feel sick. And while I know there are absolutely some who will look at me and say “Oh, it’s not that deep Bear you’re overreacting, it’s just a joke,” but the reality is that these jokes just parrot the same kind of misogyny that is already believed about women: that they’re irrational, dumb, and not worthy of being taken seriously. Rowan Ellis made a fantastic video on this topic “the perpetual infantilisation of millennial women.” I’m not dumb. You’re not dumb. And the dumbness absolutely does NOT come from being “just a girl.”

Most of all this year, I think it’s going to be more important than ever to be kind. I was a little irreverent about it but really, all across the world there are absolutely unspeakable acts that are being enacted on everyday people in Palestine, in Sudan, in the Congo, and other places that get even less attention. We weren’t meant to witness this kind of violence and to feel this much grief and horror, and it’s so disheartening to see the inaction and the way that the international organisations designed to act in these scenarios really aren’t doing much. Do what you can, what you’re able to, and like I said just be kind to people around you. You really never know who has a direct personal connection to any one of these ongoing atrocities. It’s lonely, and scary, and we really only have each other.

Cheers,

Bear.