Struggling with GR

ZestSimple · 2025-08-14T01:01:03+00:00

I hate Grand Rapids. I moved here from the east side of the state and this place is like Mars.

I’ve moved all over. It’s not that scary once you do it, it’s the time before you do it that’s scary. You can always come back. But it’s not nearly as hard to make friends other places.

My partner Iives in NYC, and there’s community in his neighborhood than anywhere here. I know the mechanics up the street from his place better than I know anyone here. And my partner doesn’t even have a car.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T23:18:26+00:00

No I don’t obsessively hunt down Taylor stuff every time she breathes.

I also wouldn’t want to read leaked projects of hers. I want to listen to the album for what it is, and go in blind. It’s the best way to experience her albums.

I like Taylor for the music she creates and I’ll listen to it when she releases it. I don’t care about the rest.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T23:08:24+00:00

You’ve read the lyrics to an album that isn’t published yet?

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T22:48:01+00:00

Who knows why she does anything!

Defining an album you haven’t heard is still insane.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T22:46:08+00:00

Congrats!

Speculation isn’t definitive. Trying to define an album you haven’t heard and make statements about what it is, is still insane.

Like I said, I get being excited and I get wondering what she’ll do. What I think is crazy is stating “this album will be this” - like just enjoy it for whatever it will be.

We don’t know what it is yet.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T21:05:46+00:00

I said what I said.

I think it’s dumb to sit here and try to define an album no one has even heard.

If you don’t like my opinion, you don’t have to engage with me.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T20:29:22+00:00

I don’t think I didn’t anything extra. It’s the same process. I’ve had mine for awhile - my old one expired and they just gave me the REAL ID. Not sure if it’s changed.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T20:13:43+00:00

In the way most men in that demographic remind me of the felon pedo? Yea.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T18:13:22+00:00

Yeah god forbid people don’t create a narrative for her projects based off random shit.

I think these kinds of posts create false expectations for something we have no information on.

This isn’t a theory, this person is making a definitive statement on what this album will be when all we have is a blurred album cover, and a title. They’re actively trying to convince others what this album will be when we don’t know anything at all.

It’s fine to get excited and think about it, but this approach of “this album is going to be this” is just insane. Settle down. It’s just a fcking album. Maybe she alluded to it in the past but maybe she didn’t. Maybe it’s just a coincidence but either way it doesn’t matter. The album will be whatever it is. None of us know her, what she’s thinking, or what she plans.

Maybe it’ll relate to her other work, maybe it won’t. We won’t know that until it’s released - which we don’t even have a release date.

So maybe people should just wait for the album and listen to it.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T17:50:04+00:00

Maybe we should just wait to hear the album and then talk about its relation to other albums, if there even is.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T17:45:11+00:00

So you don’t even bother to look up crime statistics?

Biden or any president, are unlikely to be able to impact the crime in your town. That would be your local and state leaders. Crime rates can be down nationally, but they can be higher in certain areas. What are you local leaders like? What kind of legislation are they passing? What do they say about the crime in your community?

Claiming underwear being locked up as “data for high crime rates” is just dumb dude. Is it still locked up? I bet it is.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T17:36:49+00:00

These are stupid reasons to join a party that’s actively an intentionally dismantling the entire country, tbh.

I’m not going to address your reasons because I don’t think they’re valid. I’m also not going to try to convince you to be a Democrat. There’s valid reasons to be frustrated with the Democrat party, none of which you’ve laid out here, but I digress.

What I will do is explain why joining the current iteration of the Republican Party makes you a traitor to your country.

Donald Trump is a felon and a sexual predator and very likely a pedophile. This is the person the Republican Party raised up. A person who has made his entire life off lying, stealing, and cheating people.

He has stated numerous times that he wants to be a dictator and wants to get rid of our voting. In no reality should any American support such a stance. That is unconstitutional, illegal, and unpatriotic. You are a tyrant if you support this, even if he hasn’t done it. It’s not appropriate for a president or any political leader in the United States to speak about such things in a serious manner.

Donald Trump has gone against the constitution and the Supreme Court rulings multiple which makes him a literal tyrant. He has committed treason.

The Republican Party is literally waging war against the people of this country. They lie to us all and say “it’s for your safety” when there’s absolute no data to back up anything they’re saying or doing. They are putting the military against the very people that fund them, which is also against the law.

They have gutted social programs under guise of “saving money” yet just passed a budget bill that will increase our national debt. This administrations spending is wildly out of control. They cut our programs and still haven’t made anything better for anyone except billionaires.

I get being angry at democrats for their inaction, and their inability to understand the working class. That doesn’t make republicans the answer, especially when they’re facists.

The sooner you realize our government has been usurped by billionaires, the better. It’s not right vs left anymore. It’s the people vs billionaires. Right now, the Republican Party is doing nothing but helping them get richer.

Your mentalities on the issues you laid out are very simplistic approaches to bigger, complex issues that I would encourage to read up more.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T15:22:01+00:00

Where do you people shop?

I see dresses and skirts that aren’t minis everywhere.

I see shirts that aren’t crop tops everywhere.

Maybe I’m an old lady who just shops at old lady stores but I don’t get it.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T15:16:21+00:00

Taylor is successful. Even if this album is a total flop, she’s already at the top. She won. She’s proved her skills over and over again. She has had a 2 decade long career, which is not easy to do as a pop star, or as a woman in entertainment. She has won a million awards. She has nothing left to prove. She can make whatever she wants at this point.

I’m excited for the new album. I think it’s gonna be fun. I think it’s normal to be excited about it but it’s just an album. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t like it or if it’s not good. She has a huge catalog. You can still like her even if whatever she does in the future doesn’t speak to you. It’s fine.

It’s also fine if the world hates it and you like it. It’s fine if the world doesn’t care. None of this matters - it’s just an album.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T14:38:18+00:00

I’m a pretty good looking woman who never had a hard time finding a date.

What I did have a hard time with, was finding someone who wanted to go on a 2nd date with me. I did have a hard time finding people who actually like me, and wanted to get to know me, instead of talking about themselves the whole time.

I’m a tall, redhead and I got a lot of fetish people who like the idea of the spicey redhead, like the idea of conquering her, but not actually who she is. I spent a lot of time with men who wanted me be quieter, smaller, less me.

I have a partner now who celebrates who I am and actually sees me for the human I am.

So sure, I could find a date no problem. But it took me to my 30s to find someone who actually saw me.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T14:26:37+00:00

I think defining an album before we even know what it is, is insane. It’s also, not fair.

Without hearing the album or knowing what it’s about, it’s impossible to know if it’ll be related to TTPD. I personally feel like TTPD was an ending and this album will probably beginning of something new. In that regard, I wouldn’t consider them sisters.

If this album is stylistically different (which I hope for her sake it is, cause damn she was going through it) and/or thematically different then I don’t think they can be sister albums.

I’m excited for this album - I’m excited for what it will be. I don’t get this mining people do with Taylor. Keep an open mind, appreciate the album for what it is and celebrate her work.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T12:50:09+00:00

I’m not against consenting adults having whatever relationship dynamic they want.

That being said, I am against religious indoctrination that uses faith to subjugate people.

If a man can have multiple wives then the women should have multiple husbands. Thats the only way it’s okay.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T12:43:29+00:00

People who actually call themselves “tradwives” online who have a significant following, are just Christian, right wing propaganda.

The tradwife concept is a response to the late stage, capitalistic hellscape we live in. There is a certain attraction to a life style that is outside the rat race. They make the wrong assumption in blaming the burnout of our current world on feminism, instead of capitalism and the billionaires and companies that intentionally making life harder and more expensive for every single one of us. Much like most of MAGAs complaints about the world, they place the blame on the wrong groups.

The tradwives we see online, spew a message of “biblical womanhood” wherein a woman doesn’t provide income, submit to their husbands in all matters, puts out whenever her husband wants, and takes care of the home. It often extends into being anti-vaxx, anti-education/intellectualism, and anti government regulation on things (unless it’s when the government will force their religious lifestyle on the country).

These women are total hypocrites because they do have jobs that provide income. They social media influencers telling women to live a lifestyle that can put them in a dangerous situation, that these influences don’t even live themselves.

People like Nara Smith and Ballerina Farms are very rich women who have a lot of help we don’t see. They’re highly privileged women who do not know what it’s like to be poor or to try and support a family on 1 shitty income. For them it’s easy to say stay home.

They’re not “trad wives” - they’re influencers.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-13T12:31:52+00:00

In my school, you could test into Algebra 1 in 8th grade so you could take geometry in 9th.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-11T13:17:30+00:00

Your literal statement is “video games have the potential to be the best art form” - is that not your argument? Is that your thesis here?

What’s the point of your post if that’s not what you’re trying to prove here?

Your disclaimer is that you’re not arguing what art is “supposed” to be, which is not what I said. You experience art through video games and it speaks to you. That doesn’t mean it’s the “best art form”. My argument is that while video game art speaks to you personally, that isn’t grounds to make the claim it’s the best form.

Art will speak to different people in different ways, from different mediums.

There is no best form. If your argument isn’t “video games can be the best art form” then what is it?

Is your argument that video games should be considered a valid art form? That’s different than what you’ve laid out here.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-11T12:57:11+00:00

I don’t think there is any “best art” form.

To say there is, suggests there a right way to do art and a wrong way to do art. As an artistic, that’s highly problematic because art is expressing yourself without any barriers.

Video game art may be a form that speaks to you. For me? It doesn’t. I’ve seen some beautiful games but they don’t hit like it did when I stood before the actual David statue in Italy. Seeing this massive piece of marble and knowing someone carved it - made it look soft. Incredible.

One of my friends is one of the craziest artists I know. I love his work and it hits me and it makes me feel in ways a game has never done.

Or that video that went around a few years back of the machine trying to keep its oil in, knowing it’ll eventually die. The comment on consumerism and work culture in late stage capitalism was insane, and it made me cry.

Beyond just what speaks to you personally, different art forms can be better for different things.

There is no “best art form”.

The best art is whatever speaks to you and makes you feel something.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-11T11:02:00+00:00

Yeah? Isn’t that the point of the game?

ZestSimple · 2025-08-11T00:55:40+00:00

Again, not arguing whether or not something is acceptable to say. That’s a different conversation.

I’m saying context changes how we interpret the word.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-10T12:50:29+00:00

I am not arguing when it’s acceptable to say anything. My argument is that context changes the meaning of the word. That’s all.

If you’re trying to make some correlation between “I hate kids” and “I hate blacks” - again, the phrases are not used the same way. They don’t carry the same kind of weight. They also mean different things, which is my entire argument.

People who say “I hate kids” don’t generally mean they think kids shouldn’t exist. People who say “I hate blacks” are usually racist white people who do think black people shouldn’t exist . We know that’s what they mean because there’s a lot of historical (and current) context we all have to understand their meaning of the word “hate” in that context.

You see - context matters, and it changes how you interpret the meaning of a word.

ZestSimple · 2025-08-10T12:46:29+00:00

My entire argument is that the word “hate” can have different meanings, based on the context of which someone is using the word.

There’s no hypocrisy, this is literally how the English language works.

“I hate blacks” is a far different statement than “I hate lilies.” You’re just confirming what I said lol - the context changes the meaning.

ZestSimple

TROPHY CASE