MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

Part of the reason why Generation X is exhausted is a video which begins with the assertion that the term girls girl is Internet, slang of some variety. One which came into existence in response to the term ‘pick me’.

Now I know how my parents felt when I tried to tell them that flared jeans were a new thing.

The term girls girl probably predates me by a little bit. I am 51 years old. You tripped into it last week while scrolling TikTok and assumed that it is an Internet phenomenon.

I am an old school girls girl. That means I want what my friends and what women want for themselves, for the most part. Also, it means that if a dude cheats on me, the person who is most responsible, the person who I’m going to be trying to burn down is him, not her. Though yes of course she has her part.

I pick my friends based on whether or not their girls girls. Whether or not they understand that we don’t have to be the same person.

We don’t have to agree on all the things, but there is mutual respect and appreciation. And by that I mean; respect for boundaries, and appreciation for who the other person is without attempting to either assimilate them, or become them.

One of the things I learned when I was in my 20s talking about being a girls girl (this is before the term ‘pick-me’ entered Internet lexicon) is that there are women who are like, ‘you know women just don’t like me’ or, ‘I don’t have any women friends.’

Almost without exclusion every single one of them has crossed the line between ‘mine and thine’ when it came to one of their girlfriends and their girlfriend’s man.

I will say the Internet has evolved the phrase, ‘girls girl’. When I was young, it was mostly about having goals and being in relationships with other women who had goals and supporting each other in said endeavors.

It meant knowing that you could trust each other. Whether it’s hold somebody’s hair back to tell you when your slip was showing or when you had toilet paper on your shoe. Or that you’d completely lost the plot over some life crisis.

It also meant you could leave them in a room by themselves with your man, and it never even occurred to you that they would flirt, turn on the girly girl charm; that he was practically a eunuch in her eyes, for all the good he’d do her.

But as White white feminism began to dominate the zeitgeist, feminism became less about restructuring the world. And more about becoming the new bosses. Getting the power. Whatever that took.

And the intimate romantic/friendship sphere was not immune to the pantsuit-ing of (especially white) American women.

Being a girls girl stopped being about knowing that you had someone at your back who you could trust to watch your drink when you’re in a club.

Or who you know will get you home if you end up slightly overserved at the end of the night.

Or who you know will show up to pick you up from the emergency room with a little box of chocolates and teas, when you end up taking a little ambulance ride for your first major panic attack.

And yes, I know that was a very specific example, but the specificity of the examples are all about the ways in which we are willing to be community for and go out of our way to show up for each other.

Instead, it became way to sort of ‘why can’t a woman be more like a man’ things.

So now, instead of holding someone’s hair back, you’re offering to hold other people back in order for your friend to get a particular space.

Whether they are qualified for that space or not, simply because you now have the power.

It is the willingness to be friends’ alibis when they’re cheating on their boyfriends or husbands.

It’s a willingness to pretend that women are right just because they’re women.

The definition has shifted. I don’t blame you for wanting to distance yourself from it.

I personally still will always be a girls girl, but I don’t accept the change in definition

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

I love swoop but her cultural analysis is…in its nascent stage when it comes to race. The video kind of suggested the Yinka, the bride who revealing her emails between her and Cole “from seven years ago” was an example of clout chasing.

Like it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the helpless sick rage you feel when someone chooses the happiest, biggest event of your life as an opportunity to take a poke at you for being an ‘uppity Negress’.

swoop reveals the weakness of her cultural lens, by joking that Kendrick was referencing the Yinkas of the world with ‘Not Like Us’. I’m like🤨. Were you not paying attention?

Given Kendrick’s own wealth and the circles he in which he moves, Yinka *is* the us he to which he was referring.

She is exactly like the us who knows (as shown at the BAFTA’s, no amount of money or status protects *us* from antiblackness) but maybe once in a very great while misogynoir is expensive.

What obligation did she have to protect Cole after he “you obviously can’t afford this Straight Out Of Compton, so don’t even ask”-ed her? It’s always interesting how Black people (especially Black women) are expected to be the cultural shock-absorbers to keep white people comfortable.

Defending ourselves, or even revealing our poor treatment opens us up to charges of clout-chasing, malice and/or playing the victim. Sometimes we even do this to each other as in this situation.

If I’m honest don’t believe it was just Cole’s tone in the emails that set him back. One obvious thing is that the owners of the Glambot just watched him shove potentially thousands of dollars out the door in order to be anti-black. It happened too fast.

Kinda the way the news about Marilyn Manson was still headed to people’s inboxes before his team started cutting ties with him.

Hollywood only moves this fast out of spite, or because they know the person’s previously well-known (though not well publicized) bad behavior has caught up with them.

Less obviously, we don’t know what or who else was coming for him behind the scenes. He was not the first Glambot operator, and the next one is unlikely to be the last.

Cole will land on his feet somewhere, in some place. Certain people become enraged when it looks like someone was ‘taken down’ by a Black woman. He’ll get work off the back of that alone.

Because. I will continue to say this. There is no such thing as cancel culture if you are rich, famous, or white. Minor though it is, Cole has fame.

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

I do not ever apologize for my disability. But I do have loved ones who are affected, who are harmed by some of the limitations it places on me.

It’s important for those of us who are disabled to remember that empathy is not a one-way street. I am still an adult, I am still a member of the community. And if my disability causes me to dent, damage, demean someone else’s sense of humanity. That hurt matters to me.

Earlier, I alluded to my harmful limitations and want to tie it to my praxis here: humanity and dignity is not optional; and kindness, clarity and compassion are how I try to move.

One truth about my disability is that there are ways it’s harder on those who love me than on me.

When dropping out of their lives weeks, months at a time with no warning, I’m often encased in a protective mental fuzziness regarding anything beyond my immediate needs.

This includes a sense of disconnect from my people. One they often feel.

And of course, it hurts them. Makes them question our bond all while trying to logic the situation, knowing I’m very ill and hating it for me.

But they also feel abandoned.

Because they were.

It wasn’t my intent, I couldn’t prevent, or fix it. But the real effect is one minute I was there, the next I was gone.

And gone in a way (depending on how long it lasts, 6 months this last time) that forces them to grieve me a little. But also places an added burden of maintaining a sense of connection for both of us while I’m away, with no idea when or if I’ll return.

That’s a lot for people to hold. Damn right I apologize. Damn right I hold space for their ambivalence, their need for reassurance and proactivity on my part when I’m better enough to reconnect.

The BAFTAS. When a person from one marginalized group is likely to harm another, harm reduction must be the goal.

And truthfully, if the venue failed to plan properly. That still leaves the agency of the disabled person.

Black people deserve to attend events where they celebrate and are celebrated without being dehumanized. Our humanity and dignity is not optional.

3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

The conversations of the past couple of weeks were enlightening. Revealing more about some than they knew they were sharing. But also highlighting the needs of those among the community who have Tourette’s. Their balanced, nuanced takes are much appreciated.

At the beginning of all of this, my question was: ‘Why did John Davidson associate the n word with Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo? Why is it whenever he fires off that particular word it hits its intended target?’

I didn’t have a good answer. In my mind slurs are indelibly linked with white people rather than the people they’re intended to target. But that’s not my brain on Tourette’s. I put the question aside.

About a week later someone asked *me* the answer to the same question. And I immediately understood the answer.

What about you? What are your thoughts?

3 months ago | [YT] | 1

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

‪@thenewsagents‬
As an American Black woman, it’s amazing how incapable people (hosts included) are of multitasking mentally and empathetically.

And how many lack an even passing understanding of nuance.

First about the size of the kerfuffle. A) we don’t play about ours. B) the uk has a Black population of 3% whose concerns you regularly ignore.

This is the complicated question of how to do inclusion well when you invite people from multiple groups at the margins into a space, knowing one is likely to harm the others.

Supposedly BAFTA has at least one smart person working for them who either thought this through, or knew enough to hire a disability coordinator.

No? Okay.

It took me less than hour to come up with plans and contingencies detailed in my videos.

Before yet another white British person accuses me of ignorance about Tourette’s. I’ve had people with TS in my life.

And I’ve probably known of John Davidson longer than many of you have. I saw “John’s Not Mad” as a teenager. And then later, “The Boy Can’t Help It”.

This was a stunning failure of UK institutions that revealed systemic antiblackness is alive and well there.

While an announcement was made warning people of strong language. No part of that warning included the possibility of slurs.

Warner Bros executives immediately requested and were assured the word would be edited out of the broadcast. It was not.

The fact that no one from BAFTA checked in with Lindo and Jordan after they left the stage, or the *two Black women* at whom the word was directed that night, is unconscionable.

Before more white people from the UK tell me that it is just a word and I should “get over it”.

This word was likely the last one my grandfather heard before his murder. My mother was 7.

I found out that being Black was more than skin color at 5 years old when a child told me he couldn’t be my friend, because his mother said I was an “N word”.

I knew it was bad. I knew I felt ashamed. I went home and asked my mom what it was and what I’d done wrong.

Most Black people have similar experiences.

Before more white people from the UK tell me I’m ableist for not automatically assuming that John can’t have Tourette’s and also be racist; or for thinking he should apologize.

That’s ridiculous.

Multiple things can be true at once. And Black people have no reason to assume he isn’t. We have no reason to assume any particular white person is incapable of racism. Stop the gaslighting.

The fact remains once the n word was in the air directed at black people from a white person, racism was experienced. I 100% believe that John had no control and was horrified.

But it’s also true that John does pick and choose when to apologize. He apologized to the queen. He also apologized during at least one interview recently.

This was as Hannah Beachler (one of the women who experienced the n word from John that night while going in to dinner) put it “an impossible situation”.

Mostly because of lack of planning as someone recently said, inclusion without proper preparation, is just exploitation.

Black people were hurt and angry. Rightfully so. Due to failures from top to bottom, they were invited to your country, only to have slurs thrown at them publicly with no protection.

And no real apologies made until after the PR disaster made it impossible not to.

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

An episode every woman needs, whether she knows it or not. ‪@TheCindyNoirShow‬

4 months ago | [YT] | 1

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

I just hyped this awesome creator ‪@CeciliaRegina275‬

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

16:10 So this is an idiotic take. And let me tell you why. I am a person for whom the military has been the family business for five generations in an unbroken line.

The problem for any service member obeying an illegal order, especially one which can be classified as a war crime.

Following illegal orders leaves them open, to not only being tried domestically (because you know administrations only last for so long) and convicted of a crime here in the United States of America, but because some of the things that have been going on breach international law, they they have left themselves open to being tried in international court.

Of course it is very unlikely that American soldiers would be surrendered to an international court for trial, but they can be tried in absentia.

Should they be convicted and an international warrant issued for them, if they enter a country which recognizes the jurisdiction of the international court they can find themselves arrested. And suddenly it’s dangerous for them to travel internationally.

“I was just following orders,” doesn’t cut any ice when it comes to facing the consequences of breaking domestic and international law as an active duty member of the armed forces.

Even if they don’t end up in jail, or even if they are tried and not convicted, that’s a lot of hassle, expense, and most importantly dishonor, for a service person to face.

6 months ago | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

Loved this video so much, the depth and breadth of ‪@FDSignifire‬ analysis of deeply complex and nuanced issues is handled with sensitivity and care. I’d just like to offer a slightly different take on engaging with Jaxn’s content.

For myself I spent a lot of time watching it pre-my favorite ex and love of my life (so far), it was a tool that helped bolster me in my own philosophies and habits when it came to how I moved with men.

I am usually quite contentedly single. The idea of being with someone just to have *someone* never appealed. But I’d have my wobbles sometimes. Thinking there was something wrong with me, or wondering at how the most messed up people managed to couple up, but I was alone.

At those times and others Jaxn’s content was a great boost. And I want to say again, because it aligned with my own thinking when it came to vetting men.

For instance, one of my favorite videos, “The First Time He Takes Your Temperature, Burn Him” described how guys will sometimes do/say something inappropriate or boundary-testy to see how we react, see what they can get away with.

Now, I’ve been accused of being unfair, too quick to dismiss dudes, too picky etc. The way I felt, ‘test me with BS and I will always pass…your behind right out the door’.

But every once in a while, self-doubt and the voices of others would give me a bit of a wobble. His videos were especially great for those moments. Plus he was nice eye candy.

However comma, I never trusted him as a person.

When a person in the relationship space looks like him and never clarifies his relationship status I find that sus. At the very least it says he’s trying to give the illusion of availability. Or worse, he might be the type to take advantage of his audience.

That and indications of grandiosity made me use him as a tool to bolster my own way of moving. Right up until the day he revealed what an actual tool he was.

I’m wondering if we can just take what resonates from a creator and leave the rest without getting super deep into who they are. Unless they turn out to be actively harmful. I love FD’s content. I’ve learned so much from him. But I don’t *know* him. And I don’t need to in order to benefit.

I’ll also say when it comes to Jaxn no shame, no shade to women taken in by him and his grift. Looking back, he was extremely manipulative of his audience with this weird ‘come hither, stay back’ dance he did.

And he’s narcissistic.

Which again I say, ‘special dispensation for narcissists and sociopaths’.

We get taken in by them because they’re abnormal freaks whose entire existence is built on finding new ways to trick people. They have pieces missing which makes it really difficult for normal people keep their guards up around them.

Another reason for putting up guardrails against how deep we let parasocial relationships get.

6 months ago | [YT] | 0

MECFSPrincess: A View From The Bridge

Hi everyone, welcome to my new YouTube Community! Now you can post on my channel, too. To get started, tell me in a post what you'd like to see next on my channel.
Visit my Community: youtube.com/@mecfsprincess/community

6 months ago | [YT] | 0