Femcel Feminism and Transgrrressive Girlhood
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2024
- Use SHANSPEARE55 to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird sbird.co/3E3VRoq
This month I received...
French Leather by Memo Paris sbird.co/3K82DNV
Dans Les Bois by DIME Beauty sbird.co/3E2Uerj
Néroli & Orchidée by L'Occitane en Provence sbird.co/3YKahC5
-
second channel: @shansorbet
instagram: / shanspeare.jpg
subscribe to T.O.E (it's free): www.shanspeare.com/
support me on ko-fi: ko-fi.com/shanspeare
Hi! I'm Shaniya but I use the moniker Shanspeare on TH-cam. I'm 24, use they/them pronouns, and love all things pop culture! My channel has a lot going on: think Shakespeare meets Baz Luhrmann meets insufferable jester in a relevant but silly costume. I have a bachelor's in English Professional Writing (and basically Literary Analysis--long story) which aids me in the creation of my content. Above all, I wish to emphasize teachability and critical engagement through a fun lens.
Article Sources:
-Wald, Gayle. “Just a Girl? Rock Music, Feminism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth.” Signs, vol. 23, no. 3, 1998, pp. 585-610. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3175302 . Accessed 17 Feb. 2023.
-Showalter, Elaine. “Killing the Angel in the House: The Autonomy of Women Writers.” The Antioch Review, vol. 50, no. 1/2, 1992, pp. 207-20. JSTOR, doi.org/10.2307/4612511 . Accessed 17 Feb. 2023.
-Wikipedia. “The Angel in the House.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ang...
-Ghasemi, Parvin. “VIOLENCE, RAGE, AND SELF-HURT IN SYLVIA PLATH’S POETRY.” CLA Journal, vol. 51, no. 3, 2008, pp. 284-303. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44325429 . Accessed 17 Feb. 2023.
-Epstein et al. “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood.” Georgetown Law, genderjusticeandopportunity.g...
-Marnina Gonick. “Between ‘Girl Power’ and ‘Reviving Ophelia’: Constituting the Neoliberal Girl Subject.” NWSA Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, 2006, pp. 1-23. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4317205. Accessed 21 Feb. 2023.
-Nolan, Megan. “The Functions of Female Rage.” Frieze, www.frieze.com/article/functi...
-Roisin Lanigan. “What is a Femcel?” I-D. i-d.vice.com/en/article/3adzn...
-Williams, Hannah. “The Resurgence of the Monstrous Feminine.” Granta, granta.com/the-resurgence-of-....
-Alverson, Lorelei. “Femcel Feminism: Who Does It Serve?” Political Science at Haverford College. pols.sites.haverford.edu/stud...
-Koch, Amie, and Arthi Kozhumam. “Adultification of Black children negatively impacts their health: Recommendations for health care providers.” Nursing forum vol. 57,5 (2022): 963-967. doi:10.1111/nuf.12736
Videos Mentioned/Cited:
Le, Mina. "Toxic" Femininity: What's Up With Girlbloggers, Female Manipulators, And Femcels?” TH-cam. • "toxic" femininity: wh...
timestamps:
0:00 intro/skit
2:25 thank you to scentbird!
5:41 act one: the year of the femcel
18:45 act two: transgrrressive grrrlhood
39:52 act three: the three -ize's
49:27 outro, goodbye!
Tags:
femcel, female manipulator, girlblogger, fleabag era, fleabag, black swan, girl interrupted, american psycho, female manipulator playlists, riot grrrl, riot grrrl playlist, riot girl, video essay, girlblogger subliminal, balletcore aesthetic, balletcore outfits, tumblr girl, lana del rey, ethel cain, phoebe bridgers, fiona apple, girlhood, whisper girl, coquette, divine feminine, sylvia plath, manic pixie dream girl, my year of rest and relaxation, female rage, 2014 tumblr, adultification, female gaze, bella hadid, lily rose depp, girlblogging, boy eater, man eater, cool girl, dark femininity, this is what makes us girls, pretty when you cry, - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
![[TH] 2024 PMWC x EWC Main Tournament Day 3 | PUBG MOBILE WORLD CUP x ESPORTS WORLD CUP](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3EM6gpHgLk4/mqdefault.jpg)
Use SHANSPEARE55 to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird sbird.co/3E3VRoq Let me know what your ideal fragrance would smell like!
Hi
Femcel is a 4chan op to shame women who don't want to sleep with them, especially virgin shaming.
U look like a femcel %100
Hi I love your videos especially the one about our beauty addiction! Could I please make one suggestion, that when you put text or a picture up that you keep it there for a little while rather than 1 or 2 seconds? It would just make watching and reading highlights more relaxing and organic. Thank you so much!!
i think the lana del ray ‘damaged but hot’ sort of feminism actually just reinforces the sexist notion that female anger is trivial, or a sign of damage in an individual woman, rather than a natural response to legitimate grievances.
I feel the same way. I hate seeing the content about being “damaged” because that word applied to people has such a dehumanizing connotation.
I may not understand so much bcz i don't care about Lana del rey and never encountered anyone in those vibes. But to me, being damaged isn't something bad. It's quite normal you become damaged by this society as a woman. And if men don't respect it, fuck them. I mean, i wouldn't live for their respect or understanding ? But I think I don't get what type of people you mean by damaged and hot / Lana del Rey and I hope you'll be able to explain it to me 🥲
@@mariannebec9871Nah I get what they mean and I agree with you.
*Rey
YOU TELL THEM !!!
i find it interesting that (in my experience) femcels put such an emphasis on oppressive beauty standards. i was in a femcel adjacent community for awhile and never saw a girl who wasn’t skinny in their little mood board things.
yeah, any incel be it male or female is very much into their looks to an unhealthy degree. its very sad.
Well that's bc a big chunk of femcels are autistic or neurodivergent. Being skinny doesn't grant u everything. Also, shanspeare is conflating femcels community with sad girl community and they are NOT the same. True femcels community is very different
I was gonna point out the same thing when I saw what Femcel blogs looked like. It’s definitely ironic how the imagery to represent their idea of feminism is basically a copy-paste of beauty standards.
Could it be self-internalized desires? They seek an aesthetic that they were programmed to consider was "beautiful". Many will eventually realize that it's just a game and it doesn't really matter. They are kind of young.
@@jenniferhunter4074 i agree. further i think the types of girls/women who make up these communities have a sense of entitlement to pretty privilege and their anger stems from not being granted it for some reason or another.
Ablelism is hard core in femcel lands too. Mental health/illness are romantic or artistic fodder, only so long as your body is still "traditionally " visibly the default of movement & space interaction
I’m guessing the reason why people with visible disabilities people who aren’t white, skinny etc are shunned from the clique is cause 1. They can’t relate 2. They’re too absorbed in their own struggles to have room for ones that differ from their own & 3. It probably doesn’t fit their “woe is me”narrative because it makes them aware of their privilege and makes their issues seem silly in comparison. Pretty sure you lot would be rolling your eyes at most of them anyways 😂 your struggles are valid ofc, but no point expressing them to a sad (mean) girl crowd who don’t wanna listen. I think they’re sorely lacking compassion and we shouldn’t be further dividing ourselves when we’re best working together. Plus it’s probably a good thing to be aware of the challenges other’s face to give perspective and motivation for change, rather than just being stuck in an echo chamber.
@@GrungeGalactica yeah my point was twofold 1 it’s not only fatphbia. 2 Disabled people who express depression or other mental health struggles starting in adolescence we are often told “ I would unalive myself in your situation.” Often by medical “professionals “
@@GrungeGalactica also present very white & traditionally "pretty" when my disability isnt obvious
Couldn't agree more. It kept me from really seeking treatment for my issues because I equated my mental health issues with my personality. Without that, who was I?
I mean, femcels want to be the beauty standard. A lot of them are WOC and I think that just integrates with everything else. When you are tired of being put down all your life, wouldn't you like to be the one on top for once? They recognize how pointless and insulting the standards put on women are, but they still want to achieve them. A lot of them, anyway. Some are just tired and want to rant.
"you are very young. and you are learning how to live" for some reason brought me to the verge of tears
My femcel/sad girl era was very highly influenced by the movie Suckerpunch so it made me feel so seen.
me too. Glad to see I am not the only one
I so wish I'd heard something like that when I was growing up!
crying together
iirc a lot of that opening skit is from the book “the subtle art of not giving a f” it’s a rly good read
I love when people think tumblr is dead like it's still very much there making a new gen of sad girls literally just saw that blog post in the beginning on there
i often stumble across pro anna post, they figured out hoe to hid in there. i learned of a thing called mean-spo, they bully the person for eating and for not fitting the body they want. 8ts really sickening and it messed with my mind
@bookish yeah even if it were truly dead you can still feel the echoes of it’s influence on internet culture on like a every other major social media and it’s communities today. It feels like it should a relic of early internet like MySpace but you can still literally make an account it’s funny
@melkydew2943 real, i use it almost everyday
there are so many on pinterest, and they all have their tumblrs linked in their bio
@flamingaish yes!!! i saw a whisper that said "lana stans are suppose to be mean" like. ew
'I was addicted to loneliness and desperation, and because those were my strongest emotions, it felt like it was my destiny to feel them'
thank you for putting this into words
You could have found those words in an incel subreddit if you had the empathy to go look for them.
😮
@@InsightfulZenwhy does a women not entering incel spaces, mean that she does not have empathy?
woah
@@InsightfulZen fuck incels. you need to help yourselves
It's interesting to look at the differences between femcels and regular incels since it seems to me like femcels don't really have the same bitterness towards celibacy and resentment towards the opposite sex? Kinda weird that they're called that imo
They’re called that cause ppl are harsher towards women overall tbh : /
I think a fair bit of the difference is entitlement. Teen guys and men feel entitled to women's bodies. That women owe their bodies to them.
Girls and women just feel sad and left out because that sense of entitlement (in this case to men's bodies) isn't there.
Sidenote - I probably would have been in a femcel community if I had an active footprint online as a teen. But I was bullied mercilessly and didn't want that to extend to the Internet, so I never made any accounts anywhere.
EDIT
Lol at people running with "entitlement" which is not what I said in isolation.
READ WHAT I WROTE. Entitlement TO womens bodies specifically. Like women are consumable objects.
Not general entitlement. Specifically - entitlement to this ~one~ concept.
Women and girls do NOT have the same equal cultural entitlement to men's and boys bodies.
Learn to read!!!
yeah i noticed that too, from what i've seen on the femcel community, aside from the beauty standards i've seen some push, i havent seen anyone say or believe in anything as immoral as the incel community. i don't like that they're being given the feminine version of that name when the incel community is so much worse in comparison
yeah, right? I've lurked on femcel communities such as cc and lolcow where the real poisonous women are, and they for sure talk shit about men and transwomen, but at the same time they dont hold a candle to their male counterparts posts about legalizing p3doph1ilia, nor have i seen any self-proclaimed femcel commit acts of violence whereas male incels do in fact r4pe, stalk, and murder.
yea exactly. its mostly women who are bitter over not having pretty privilege and mad at society not mad at the opposite sex like incels
i spent some time on the femcel subreddit before it got banned - it was SO sad. lots of really brutal stories of rejection and posts about endless loneliness and the pointlessness of trying
Hahahaha. Me too! Then we kinda moved to the pink pill, but it ended up going nowhere. There's still a discord somewhere but meh... It's not the same.
Oh my goooood you're here!!!! 💖💖💖💖
sameee it was so depressive
Maybe the incel board and the femcel board should have gotten together to create a dating pool.
What got them banned?
This is so good, reminds me of reading about the riot grrl trend of reclaiming the word “slut” and how much more difficult or impossible that is for women of color when they are oversexualized from the beginning due to the intersection of racism with their gender experience. Thank you for bringing more attention to these discussions!
I recently came across a clip of a black female activist who brought up how women fighting for the ability to work also failed to acknowledge how black women were already "working". It's not that they're wrong but feminist movements have been defined by white feminism.
I remember picking up on this when I was younger, even without language for it.
so... is that a good thing or a bad thing?
@fish It's a thing.. thing. Trinity put it perfectly. Read her comment.
As an afab of color, I remember back in middle/high school trying to reclaim the word “perverted” when it was being used to threaten me and show me my place. Didn’t work too well; it was apparently way too transgressive to be taken seriously by peers of any color or gender. The point is to exclude people and control our behavior: reality, morality, and our feelings can’t stand in the way of that.
The femcel subreddit was like night and day contrasting to the men’s. I’ve noticed men get angry and blame women, whereas women, we just blame ourselves for not being good enough
laughably untrue and theres plenty of studies to show it, in truth its actually the other way around, femcels constantly blame men and incels in general blame themselves and are all about self improvement, most advice given to incels is basically gym, hobbies and self reflection, laughably the opposite for femcels. just write down incel internalization on google and read up on studies conducted in universities, i think youre only convincing yourself of this since you frequent femcel subs that constantly spew this false narrative, all i have to say is r/chromosomes and r/FDS. in truth, femcel behavior is encouraged in western society while incels are demonized, now what incels subs are your reffering to exactly?
From what I've seen, there is a lot of self-hatred going on with the incels as well. The largest difference, imo, is that femcels seem a lot more motivated to do something, whereas the incels' whole ethos is that it's hopeless and they should all give up and die. Femcels are a lot more similar to male pickup artists in that regard, right along with the creepy "psychology" they use to try and get laid. That said, they feel similarly angry to incels, particularly with directing that anger towards society; the worst kinds of incels I've seen say that they should have state-mandated sex-sl*ves, and the worst kinds of femcels call for the systematic genocide of all men, so the two groups are actually quite similar in the depths of depravity they can reach.
Bc of the notion that men would sleep with a rock if it had a vagina
Bs
so true. the incels are always mad at everyone else
it all comes down to intersectionality for me because yes I was socialized a woman and understand the feelings of rage that a lot of femcels exhibit, but also I am a darkskin black woman and was raised in a majority white community, so rage isn't something I was really allowed to exhibit. it's like trying not to tip the scales in fear of angering someone else, and it usually jus ends with me crying unable to say what's making me cry, whether it's anger or sadness. feels weird man.
Same. It's like I pulled out my own teeth to make the white people around me more comfortable. I smile and laugh when I'm angry and I hate it.
Same here! I find it so strange how black girls tend to be treated like we're invisible at PWI's in a way that black boys/men never are. It can be so isolating and yet expressing how hurtful that is will only make it worse.
@@hexx2211 Black boys/men are invisible at PWIs. Girl the delusion 😭
:( ❤
Or you just numb yourself and find a coping mechanism.
Moment to appreciate how much effort Shanspeare puts into their videos and outfits 💗💗💗
Shanspeare puts more effort into their outfits then I do at school🤩
Literally! Like, if there's a scale for that, that starts from a normal TH-camr and ends with someone like contrapoints or philosophy tube, then they are probably somewhere next to Jessie gender on it
@@tamarbeker1701 definitely sharing a spot they both put in so much effort and look so cool
@@sacrilegioussasquatch yep!
yes! seriously some of the most quality content on youtube
I feel like, whilst I had the potential to fall into the sad girl camp at some point in my adolescence, I always saw it as being exclusively for pretty white girls. Not that you have to be ‘pretty’ or white to feel sad 😅 but that was always the image I associated with it. I didn’t think I could ‘perform’ sadness in the way I saw it being presented so, for better or worse (probably better), I thought “oh this isn’t for me I’ll just do/find something else”
I get that on some level. Being a sad chubby girl was “gross” even if you were white but being a pale skinny girl was romantic. It’s the same with melancholic young men - we usually depict them as being very frail and androgynous, but anything else looks pathetic.
It’s kind if amazing that “sadness” has an aesthetic.
I felt the exact same as well as thinking that "oh that is only for thinner girls" because I grew up as a chubby girl. I remember feeling hurt over this. That I couldn't be perceived as "beautifully tragic and damaged" because I wasn't thin and white. Lmao sounds so dumb looking back.
Reallll im trans and brown and kinda muscular. Not really fat more so just a shorter, stockier dad bod with a bit of a waist and not that big of a tummy. I loooove lana del rey and hyperfemenine aesthetics but i legitimately been fightin off the eds since im like 14 and first realized i am not cis. This shit insane ☠️☠️
I know exactly what you mean. And feel
I feel this. On paper I good fit the aesthetic but I was black and not pale. It was out of reach as my race was the one thing I couldn’t change.
"Rated E for everyone, just like these hands!" I'm dying 😂
Shanspeare's humor is my favorite thing from this channel
i think in the end femcels are just lonely. they idolize lana and nina bc they r able to point out similarities between themselves and the characters. in the lonely world of girlhood these characters feel like friends, somebody who finally, FINALLY, understands.
femcels are a 4chan term to shame women for refusing to sleep with them, virgin shaming especially, it doesn't actually exist.
incel was invented by a woman.
and incels are not lonely?
@@LondonMoneyCashEnterprise why don’t they get together then? Oh right incels attack every woman that is in their vicinity
@@LondonMoneyCashEnterprise oh no incels have plenty of probs too, i think their loneliness tends to manifest differently tho
Let’s not forget Fiona apple lol
In HS I wrote a poem as an antithesis of the Angel in the House. It ended like:
“She will sob on no man’s breast in penitence of the sins of mind or flesh.”
That’s beautiful
I would love to read the rest of your poem, can you share your work?
abracadabra alakazam i am stealing this line as inspiration for some near future
@@maxiwaxipads no plagiarism please
I look at it as meaning she’s an angel cause she’s dead inside & has no sense of self other than taking care of & pleasing her man. It’s not gonna be me, that’s for sure 😂
"I made it past 16 and I didn't think I would, so that has to count to something " I don't think I've ever cried at your videos, this sentence made me bawl. I remember my own youth and how effing hard that was. Great video as usual!
I think that’s how a lot of us who were in the early 2010s tumblr sad girl communities were. Like I spent every year thinking it was going to be the last one until I made it to 22 and now I’m like “I didn’t plan for this”
@@shanelbryant5638 That's how a lot of people are in general from that era. Me and lots of guys I knew growing up didn't expect to live to 25. Some of them didn't..
Part of the femcel/sadgirl culture kinda reminds me of that one Chris Fleming bit “be original but run it by us first”. Like the acceptance (not mainstream in this case but in sub communities) of transgressive behavior, but only if you are conventionally attractive
I see a lot of that in movies too
Riot grrrl was the rejection of gender roles and the patriarchy. A lot of bands, such as Lunachicks (who has an ftm drummer) and Bikini Kill, were trans-inclusionist from the start. Le Tigre happened to have gone to that transphobic event, but had trans/gender nonconforming people within the band. They never went to that event again after realizing it was transphobic. Riot grrl was built on being who you are and not letting “The man” control you, as much of the punk scene was back then and still is.
Yes! Also, Kathleen Hannah is all about trans rights on her social media
absolutely, punk and riot grrrl is inherently trans; even the definition of punk originally meant homosexual. i hear often that punk is black exclusionist however afro punk is very alive and well at least where i live. i also think 90s hip hop and ghetto fabulous culture had its own reaction and relationship with race/class/gender roles
punk and riot will always be for everyone, ive seen nazi "punks" and sexual harassers getting their asses beat in pits at shows. i hope it continues to uphold diversity and anti capitalism.
actually they played it twice and never apologized for playing womyn are womyn. id rather listen to woc fronted rock any day. i used to be a riot grrrl though. i still like sleater kinney. Mr lady records was owned by kaia wilson of team dresch and that was le tigres record label most of their career and she still is to this day transphobic. she honestly didn't get enough backlash for booking le tigre there twice
Yass
@@user-ev5gj8xe2b There were (punk is dead)/are incredibly inclusive punk scenes. It’s been that way since the beginning.
In the U.K Ska was incorporated with a lot of punk.
Bad Brains were major inspiration to many punk bands.
Radio Clash by the Clash was a response to The Message by Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five.
Punk was/is a movement that sought to expand inclusion while continuing to fight for rights.
They had to deal with in fighting due to a smaller number of bands that took a completely different route. Many fought skinheads during and after shows.
This was a part of the hyper masculine appearance of punk. You had to be ready to physically fight.
I liked a good number of Riot Girl bands. Some got on my last nerve. It’s not surprising that there ended up being some contention over trans matters and rights. This was happening in feminism at large in the 1990s.
It was a blip in the grand scheme of things at the time.
Not by design. There was a lot going on. Several matters needed to be addressed.
Oof man I’m white and I had that adult thing happen to me. I can’t imagine how much worse it’d be if I was a poc. For me it’s because I was the oldest, I was also parentified at 12 and before that was told I was mature for my age and other things like that. It scared me up SO BAD as an adult. Being forced to care for my special needs brother, he has autism and had many struggles because of it, completely ruined our relationship and it’s only getting better now that I am 23. My mom denies parentifying me too she says “you did it to yourself” NO I did not, I didn’t CHOOSE ti watch him instead of seeing my friends, I didn’t CHOOSE to walk him home every single day in the Florida heat! I hated it!
Justice for big sisters
This exact thing happened to me, wild. What's wilder is that I'm also autistic.
@@cloudfrost8403 yea idk if I am autistic I think I might be, definitely have adhd. It was difficult taking care of a special needs kid when I was 14 and barely knew how to care for myself even
Momma shoulda did better, period
@@nitrofairywing1541 I agree but I honestly can’t blame just my mom fully, I blame my other family members a lot. My aunt used to babysit us but she didn’t want to anymore o honestly think she didn’t like us very much when we were younger idk why. My dad died so I had to watch my younger brother every single day, my mom was in college to give us a better life. We lived in a trailer living off money from my dad dying and food stamps while she was in college so she physically couldn’t watch him when she was in school. I think more of my family members should have helped more often 🤷♀️ my aunt is always preaching about “family values” yet she wouldn’t help when I was a teen anymore even though she could have. She always says stuff like family is the most important thing in life and she doesn’t get people who cut their families out and stuff like that. Idk I know it’s not their responsibility it’s not their kids but if they had some more compassion I think they should have considering how she is.
My parents raised me without gender expectations. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.
So often I’m now described as “one of the guys,” or “not a woman.”
I used to see this as a height of a compliment because I misogyny was fully in the house. But now my immediate retort is, but I am I woman. I’m not a guy. I was just raised without gendered expectations which is why I don’t “appear feminine” to you.
You said misogyny was in your household yet you were raised without gender expectations huh?
@@bubbles4897 For me I relate to OP, because I was not forced to be feminine or girly or anything, but my dad was definitely very misogynistic. I never got called one of the boys, but I did have a “tomboy” phase. They let me express myself either way feminine or masculine, but there was still a bias against me for my sex (female). People are so caught up in fem vs masc nowadays they forget that sexism is real and it doesn’t typically care about your gender expression.
without gender expectations means you're be allowed to be girly
you had anti-feminine expectations placed upon you
@@treesea6843 I appreciate the response, but I really was only asking OP, since it sounds like a unique experience. I wasn’t asking for anyone else’s assumptions, especially since what you described sounds rather rare
omg your situation just reminds me of my household and childhood
As an intersectional feminist, i really am critical of some femcel spaces where theyre overly ironic because they'll be very trad fem ironically and sometimes go into legit white supremacy territory so i just tiptoe around it
You took the words out of my mouth! I like girly things and love being girly whilst also being powerful and full of rage so the aesthetic can be genuinely appealing until it gets political. Even the Americana aesthetic is too much for me sometimes😭
I am a gross hairy lesbian feminist who also likes other gross hairy women and I find this kind of feminism really alienating.
I don't know how to do makeup. I don't normally wear it, but on occasion I want to put some on and am unable to even do eyeliner. Women who like wearing makeup do not understand this about me. It is a skill I would like to have, but like any skill, it is also work to acquire. Because I have not performed this work, nor do I perform other beauty work like shaving, I am made to feel inferior and ugly. That feels like coercion to me. However, nowadays this is an extremely unpopular opinion.
@@babyqeels same! Like i can be like oh cool ballet stuff then its pro ed and trad wife conservatism- scary
@🌹whimsical reverie🌹 yeah it really is, even if its ironic u can get irony poisoning and start legit believing in the bs
@@babyqeels absolutely everything is political lmao
Though I don't agree with all of the choices my parents made while raising me, one thing I commend them for is not allowing me to have any social media until high school, or interact with media targeted for an older/more mature audience. My mental health has never been all that great, and I imagine would be a lot worse if I was exposed to content I was not yet mature enough to properly process and consume
counterargument: i think its really cool that my parents allowed me to bombard myself with a stream of validation for self loathing and become an edgy internet addict idiot like i had zero social skills for a solid 5 years after i moved out but i'm pretty much fine now
I wish more parents did this.
38:07 this makes me so sad, both in remembering my girlhood, and also in fear of what my daughters will inevitably face. Any sign of strength, independence, and outspokenness is shot down so early. They make us feel problematic, yet if our white peers display the same traits, they’re uplifted and encouraged…told they’ll be a great leader some day.
The sexualization is another terrible experience, outside of and within our own communities. I went the the gyno at 17 and the doctor asked me if I was sexually active. I said no,l and he looked me up and down in disbelief, analyzing my body and premature curves to inform this. He asked me again 3x despite my answering no every time. They aren’t supposed to use the adult speculum on virgin girls/women. He used it anyway without informing me and after he broke my hymen, said “I guess you’re a virgin after all”. I laid there in shock. He didn’t apologize. That’s just one example of how deeply engrained the biases are in our society and how dangerous they are to young black girls. I’m terrified for my future kids.
That is SO. MESSED. UP. I'm sorry that happened to you. Medical racism + sexism is real and terrifying.
so true. so true. girls need to feel validated-that’s why they seek out these communities-but then they need to be guided to something better. told that there feelings are ok but that feeling them forever isn’t the only option
I don't know what else to do. I don't see any other options.
Yesss, feathers
As someone who grew up black, very angry and very sad on tumblr, this hit in an immeasurably specific way.
I couldn't agree more with making sure we're actually listening to girls growing up when they express themselves. Making space for their anger, rage and hurt is vital. Honestly, I wish I had kept a bit more of that anger as I aged 🤣 This is really making me think!
I hate how femcels prop up and emphasize oppressive beauty standards. As a 23y/o femme, any time I felt particularly motivated to achieve toxic/oppressive beauty standards (whatever was trending in my femcel-adjacent online community) it was always an act of self harm. It was like "well I'm already f*cking miserable might as well starve myself" which is a terrible thing to think but *so* easy when you're already in that mindset :(
also I love your videos so much
Yes!! Thank you, as a feminist i find it disturbing that people still do that, femcels arent super atrocious and theyre still victims of patriarchal beauty standards but some of them r straight up pro ed
Because they want to be the beauty standard. I mean, there's lots of talks about how oppressive and useless they are, but at the end of the day an starving man wants food, even if it's McDonald's.
We see the benefits and we starve for them (metaphorically and literally), it's easier to change yourself than the world around you. We don't really care how oppressive they are, because the benefits for fitting in still exists.
I've been thinking that way lately and it's honestly so disconcerting to go through
everyone wants to believe that they are hot and beautiful. if the girls are sad, and they can say that hot girls are sad, it can make. them feel better. but if they feel better and they’re no longer sad, then they’re not hot anymore so in the end i agree w/ u that it isn’t the best idea
just adapt your perspective so that you always think of yourself as hot. hot girls are sad, hot girls are happy, hot girls take care of themselves, etc. positive thinking!
lots of people are pointing it out already but the costume design in these essays are always so cool 😢 amazing vibes all around
As a huge punk and riot grrrl fan I feel like you should know some of the gaps in the story that popular media leaves out. Like how riot grrrl bands were inspired by x-ray spex, a British punk band fronted by poly styrene, a woman who was half black half white, and whose most popular song "oh bondage up yours" set the tone for the riot grrrl genre to come. Also how during and after riot grrrl there was a similar genre made up of only black women (or other women of color depending on who you ask) called sista grrrl or sista punk. Some of my favs from this are the 1865, pleasure venom, skinny girl diet, big Joanie, the objex and the Muslims (although they are fronted by a black queer enby and not a woman like the other bands). Yes the original riot grrrl had a lot of problems, but it's still alive today and better than ever, I don't think it could be written off completely.
I Love big Joanie :) I agree, there’s valid crit but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water
OMG, these are some great resources that I'm going to check out! Thanks for your insightful comment on the history of riotgrrrl.
There's also a lot of really good current femme punk, like Pinkshift, Bad Cop Bad Cop, and Destroy Boys.
Yes!!! Thank you so much for this comment. I’d much rather promote good examples of modern punk than decry the entire genre based on bad classic punk (although not to act like there isn’t bad modern punk we need to criticize too).
Especially because punk is a hotbed of black and queer political activism that I don’t really see in many other genres of music- not that other music isn’t political or activism, but a lot of activists flock to punk because of the thriving communities around it.
It just feels hypocritical to disregard the dozens of amazing bands like those you mentioned because of the actions of transphobic, racist, exclusionist white cis bands.
hearing “you are very young and you are learning how to live” was so cathartic. I desperately wish I could have told my younger self that and made her understand
"whichever gender is funnier at the moment, im gonna be that" so real
Bitsexual and Bitgender are some of my favourite things ever.
long rant, sorry, i had just ended a close friendship with a femcel (modern tiktok femcel) and this was insanely cathartic and really really identified what i saw and put it into words. also you're literally such an enby icon, that black swan outfit was drop dead stunning!! and the ask polly quote was so gentle and kind, it made me tear up real bad :'D
when you talked about how poc didn't seem to exist in those communities, it really made something click for me (we''re both asians and she used to boast about how people would confuse her for a white girl). it also made me think about how (especially with social media and how easy it is to access "blueprints" for building yourself into a certain aesthetic) when you don't/can't exist in a certain aesthetic, you'll have to kill off the parts of yourself that don't fit in order to mold yourself into that very specific shape. and like you said so in the vid, how gender trangressive can you be when you're literally uphold and uplifting the standards that keep other girls down?
i feel like the concept of a femcel is pretty interesting, the retaining and embracing feminity and pretty things while showing off that rage and hurt that you've suffered. but i feel like what really makes a femcel fail the vibe check is the lack of awareness and critical thinking. everything is "ironic" and "funny" but say something enough times and you'll start to believe in it, and the femcel is either ignoring that fact or is entirely unaware. reclaiming things is important, but if you're just slinging around slurs without understanding why or when or who it's appropriate for, then you're just saying slurs. i've also noticed a trend in femcels (at least ones i've met) where they hold men-hating competitions while simultaneously trying to gain as much male attention as possible (in a sort of honey trap way? venus fly trap?) but i feel like in doing so, they just promote competition among women instead of uplifting and solidarity (add that in with the need to be the most unique person in the room and it gets messy).
and i definitely felt like its coping mechanism of some sort, trying to encourage her to find healthier alternatives felt like grasping at something that'd slip out of your hands each time you tried. there's this element of wallowing and hurt that is comfortable to be around because it's what you know best and it's hard to escape patterns. and when you're surrounded by other femcels only encourage that, its like quicksand. the glamourization of suffering is an ugly thing when it's taken uncritically and idk, it's a lot and i wish her all the best.
Honestly your rant made me more at peace with myself and one of my ex-friends.
I'm glad that shaniya mentioned the transphobia in these spaces, bc the terf space online is adjacent to the femcel. man-hating from a place of genuine trauma, and getting completely drawn in as a vulnerable person because you feel you're finally being heard. meanwhile, you internalize these ideas and start hurting innocent people to try to compensate for or deflect the pain you feel onto someone you see as both an easy target and a "threat." it's horrific how fast you become radicalized, not in the fun sexy communist way.
Femcel is a 4chan op to shame women who don't want to sleep with them, especially virgin shaming.
You refer to misandry.
@@zkkitty2436 exactly!!i know her behavior came from a place of neurodivergence and mental health issues piled on top of trauma, but the blatant hatred for hatred's sake felt like a hollow radicalization (especially when femcels keep playing like it's all ironic). where are you aiming this rage? where are you aiming this pain? who are you trying to hurt? what is the end goal? because it's funny??? it starts to become a toxic mudpuddle where you slip while trying to climb out, and people trying to drag you out are likely to slip in as well. and again, with the competition to be the most unique, the most fallen angel in the room, it really sets the femcel up to be hostile to other innocent people who are part of minorities.
i feel like the ironic thing about the femcel community is how it provides a place to relate to and feel seen and validated for your experiences, but only for the people who fit the aesthetic. again (i'm sounding like a broken record haha), the "girlhood" of the femcel and the strict beauty standard and visuals definitely alienate trans girls and girls who had the experiences of hurt and misogyny and discrimination and trauma but simply don't fit the "look." it's like, there's a whole world of people out there just like you!! you just need to lift your head up beyond the perfect pink packaging. it circles back to the whole uniqueness or the need for one's suffering to be unique in particular.
and (sorry this got wayy longer than i meant to) at the end of the day, the reason why i feel young girls and women (coming into adolescence or easing into adulthood) tend to gravitate towards the femcel is because it's a transitional time in life. it's like the ask polly quote (you are very young and learning how to live). there's this need for individual identity and validation and to be been, but the outlet is just so toxic.
All of this!! I think the lana fixation is so emblematic. Even though she’s focused on pain, longing, lost love etc there is always a man involved somewhere, either hurting her, leaving her, or making her happy! “Love you more than those bitches before” is an iconic line for femcels for a reason. In the end they’re finding their reason for existence in their superiority to other women, superior ability to access this ‘locked’ part of relationships (het or not). So frustrating to be close to someone with that mindset. I’m sorry about your friend breakup
I think a lot of Gen Z girls can relate to having a "Psycho and Fun" phase in their teens, inspired by Melanie Martinez and the like.
I think it was an attempt to romantizice our pain, our mental illnesses. A way to say, "I'm not broken, I'm psyco 🤪😈" and thereby gloss over our mental illnesses as a quirk, a set part of our personalities
Yes and I think it's also in part caused by the desire to be/feel attractive: despite feeling so hurt, they are still able to cling on to physical attractiveness bc of these communities
Hey if you're circling the drain of sanity; you might as well have fun with it.
Romantization of mental illness is about how outsiders view mental illness- not a gatkeeping on how people with mental illness choose to see it. What do you want them to cry forever? Get the help they can't get? Let us have our damn catharsis.
@@becuaseimbored3481 but romantizing your own self-destructive and toxic traits isn't healthy, it might actually make things worse. If you're having fun "being psyco" then you might make irresponsible decisions that could hurt you. If you think "being psyco" is just who you are, then you might burn bridges with people who love you and distance yourself by purposefully being irrational or unlikable for fun. It might be cathartic now, and maybe you don't participate in any of this. But I think this type of attitude can be very harmful
“The only place that feels receptive to your pain is the one that actively encourages it because at least they acknowledge it’s there” is such and astute observation and resonated so fucking hard. Made me really sad too
That adultification study changed the way I think about intersectionality and I’ve been using it in the feminism class I’m teaching. This was such a great video and the aesthetics were the cherry on top ☺️
I was friends with the angsty, sad, Lana Del Ray lovers in high school. I'm really glad my mom made sure to tell me that I was probably feeling all types of feelings because lack of life experience + hormones. She always shared her own Black girl teenage angst with me. It helped me communicate those feelings and put things in perspective....Still came out kind of jaded and went to prom with an out, goth lesbian (at a time when that was NOT normal/acceptable) lol. But I was well adjusted and had a decent idea of when I was probably getting worked up over something that I wouldn't care about in, like, 3 years.
This is good point, and being a woman in my thirties who can absolutely relate to this phase of growing up i can now see how much it must just be a natural part of growing up, i too deemed myself broken then and still feel the remnants to this day but now knowing this is continuing is probably going to change my view on myself having context for that experience and now seeing how the internet and social circles is compounding that experience into even more dangerous toxicity worries me… it seems we all just needed guidance and to share the experience s with an older woman who would see and share the context from experience. Iv not seen the innerlives of other teens untill now, it feels late to realise this, this space needs to incorporate all ages all peoples to create something more possitive…
if i find myself with young girls in my life i’ll be sure now to share the darker feelings of my teenage hood with them so they don’t drown in a group of like minded unlead teenagers with hormones and lack of experience. you’d mother was right it absolutely must be those things. If felt like the whole world back then.
@@louiseb6551 you’re right. My grandma also shared her teenage angst with me as well. Her first breakup resulted in her crying to “Misty Blue” for days as she dealt with abuse, racism, and colorism in the deep south. They never dismissed my pain, just told me to understand it was all so much scarier and impactful because I lived so little life. Hormones also meant my mood swings could be wide. Understanding that a mix of previous experience, bodily chemicals, and legitimate emotional response was typically at play kept me from catastrophizing and helps me cope even now that I’m in my 30’s. It also helped me understand that sometimes you need medication for the chemicals in your body. All of this is why I survived and I agree that we need intergenerational support to get through things.
33:28 I'm a black trans man, socialized as a woman in an environment occupied by mostly white people. And oh god, these phrases just took me back, specially the blushing thing, it was such a big deal for me that I questioned *myself* if I was capable of blushing.
There is definetly a point in which dark skin makes so people perceive you as inherently more masculine and brute, I used to think of myself as a 'tomboy' growing up even before I started transitioning, but looking back now it was mostly bc of how other people perceived me. I was never too masculine, I just wasn't hyper feminine, and I know it was related to race bc my white AFAB peers who were just like me or sometimes even more masculine were still seem as more feminine when compared to me.
Hell, I'm a pretty effeminate guy and I'm still seem as more masculine than what I actually am by a lot of people.
"What do we say to the girls who feel like open wounds, the girls who had their labels misread and were filled with salt and cyanide rather than sugar and spice?" That one hit my trans woman ass like a T R U C K
You will never know what it’s like to be a woman. Stfu
Me too 😭
i got chills in a good way 😭
As somebody with a very short attention span, I'm impressed by how easy it is to get immersed into your content. I love you and your videos soo much!!! 😍😍
On a side note, thank you for wearing traditionally feminine clothing as an enby. I'm an enby myself, and I get so happy when I see other enbys that don't feel like they need to be portrayed as androgynous. I can finally say "Oh my god, they just like me for real" lol
Edit: To most of the people replying, it's been nice that we've been able to have fairly productive conversations, regardless of whether we agree or not. It makes me hopeful that despite out differences we still share some common goals like destroying rigid gender roles and expectations, even if we go about it in very different ways.
Are they enby?
Where does it say they are nb?
They say it in the video and also in the description mention their pronouns
@@straberryshinigami15g97 they say it in the video 21:45
In the description of the video they state they use they/them pronouns.
As an AFAB person who also suffered from anguish during their teenage years but never saw their experience through a gendered lense, I can relate yet feel so distant to Riot Girls and Femcels...
My issue with tumblr is I’ve asked them to take down an old blog several times that has so much sensitive information and copyrights violation and personal photos of me and other people and they just won’t….even though I’ve explained all of this…and so it’s really messed up to me how so many of us used it as a safe space but the company itself doesn’t value individual’s safety…I feel for younger people who might overshare etc and I hope everyone is mindful of what they put out there…cuz I know others have been hurt by tumblr so needed to add…
Idk if you will see this but I have so much love for you and your black swan/white swan look was amazing 💕
tumblr is very notorious for not listening to their userbases when they ask them to take down harmful accounts. yet a lot of the times they will take down accounts mass-reported by terfs for instance if someone criticized them. tumblr cares about protecting those who do wrong and not those who are victims on that site. the management of that website is not good at all.
Being socialized as a girl when you're NB is so confusing. Frankly the way women are socialized in general is confusing to put it mildly
Great video as always and from one stranger on the internet to another. I'm glad you made it passed 16
it is really confusing fs. also just wanted to lyk that NB is a term black activists use to refer to non-black poc, and they have requested that nonbinary people use a different term. the commonly accepted term is enby.
wanted to lyk because I didn't pick up on that distinction myself for a while, but it is an important one to make
@@zkkitty2436 AFAIK it’s fine to use n-b, n.b, or n*b, too! I’ve heard some n-b’s find “enby” infantilizing
@@zkkitty2436 i feel NB is just an abbreviation and can have multiple meanings depending on context, peace and love
youre not nonbinary because its not real, youre a woman who spends too much time on social media. you'll grow out of it
I was a girl when I thought I was in love with The Marquis Desade (80's internet non-existence)....I laugh at this now, because I am into adult consensual BDSM, but then it was Dark, Tragic and I saw his "Women" and "Girls" were empowered by their suffering and found pleasure in being "Owned" "Had" someone broken doll that only lives for their master(s)...I would write suicidal essays and poems about giving myself to death as a lover...Romantic drownings blah blah....My reality was filled with witnessing Domestic Violence and severe mental illness, so instead of finding help, I attributed my artistic temperament to these abuses.... I am better due to my scars when really they were wounds in desperate need of healing.
When you are young you only know the experience of your own existence. Hindsight is 20/20. When I saw the movie Quills it rocked my world. Watching it now I still love it, but I can see clearly that the Marquis Desade never loved Kate Winslet's character, he only wanted to possess her virginity. As a young teen I did not pick that up at all. Just like I thought older guys were into me because I was sooooo mature for my age. Insert eyeroll here.
I'm glad you're in a healthier place now!
@@angelaa7388 OH MY GOODNESS Angela, exactly!!!! Its like those assholes have a handbook..."Oh you're mature for your age" "Oh you are the only one that gets me, I can't talk to anyone else like this" Blah Blah Bullshit LOL I agree about Quills, was his intrigue honest, or so self-serving that he just saw her as another vehicle to get what he wanted, like his wife.
@@mayrapakastin Thank you Viivi
Great vid. I would really, really enjoy if you made a video essay about the backlash over She-Hulk. The feminism was not subtle and the tone wasn't always even, but as a woman who has experienced workplace sexual harrassment, I kind of enjoyed the technicolor parodies. A towering, invincible monster woman is such a vivid and hilarious metaphor for feminism. Some men do actively hate women who show assertiveness, competence and confidence. She-Hulk is an archetype which only really fits a certain portion of the female spectrum (not everyone wants such a competitive job) but these ladies exist. Contrary to popular belief, some are even heterosexual (yet like being rather in control in the bedroom!!) It wasn't a perfect show (the ending was off, even for a fourth wall breaking character), but I think it should become a campy cult classic of feminism. There is so much to deconstruct with this comic book character. Comic books are often technicolor metaphorical parodies of life.
However, I have to admit that anyone who makes a vid on this subject (who is not entirely bashing it) will have a huge augmentation of nasty comments. For sure, very vitriolic comments would follow if anyone said anything remotely nice, intelligent or measured about it... At your own risk... This may be a bad suggestion!
I struggle with my own gender so I kind of just let myself ‘be’ a girl. But I do sometimes wonder if being lonely is a mindset I’m stuck in. I’m asexual and possibly on the aro spectrum, but I don’t want to be alone. I know you can be happy in an individual life, but I’d like a partner. At the same time, dating rockets my anxiety and terrifies me.
I apologise if I'm way off-base here, but as someone who thinks they're likely on the ace and aro spectrum as well, is this a separate want for companionship than what close friendship provides? If so, it may be helpful to look specifically for other ace people, as they'd be less likely to expect traditional expressions of sex and romance. If you've already graduated from tertiary education, a dating app might help, if you're currently in tertiary you'll probably be meeting a lot of new people anyway, and if you hang out with other queer people im sure theyd be happy to introduce you to their ace friends if they have any, and if you're in highschool none of this matters, you genuinely won't get anything out of dating when you're that young regardless.
I don't comment on videos often, anxiety go brrr and all that- but I would like to just say as a long time watcher/listener I always have appreciated the immense care and effort you put into your content. I love listening to your voice whenever I draw, so I don't always get to see the incredible visuals you present alongside your extremely eloquent words, but regardless of whether Im watching or listening Im always left feeling in awe. I am not very good at putting my thoughts and feelings into words like you are, but I just hope to express how much I adore your thoughts and creations. You have always inspired me to think more in depth about certain topics and also have helped me recognize struggles I didn't even fully realize I had been suffering with, and help me put into words some of the thoughts I had never been able to express. I genuinely consider you one of my favorite creators, and I am so glad I came across you and your content!
thank you for your dedication to creating thoughtful and beautiful videos, thank you for putting so much care and effort into every topic you cover, I hope to keep listening to your lovely words and thoughts for a long time to come.
too anxious to comment on a video? thats the most pathetic thing i've ever written. i feel so bad for your generation, you guys don't know how to properly interact with others
@@PL-od8fc what the actual fuck is wrong with u? they wrote such a beautiful comment and THATS the part you take from it??
like how hard can it be to just keep your mouth shut if something disgusting or detrimental is about to come out?
this community reminds me so much of my ex best friend and I's friendship, and the way we spiraled each other even deeper into mental illness and encouraged each other to self-harm and starve ourselves :,) I feel so bad for leaving her but I'm so much happier and actually healing now and it seems like she is doing better too
my partner died 2 days after last halloween (2023) i wish they were here today for so many reasons, they were a tortured soul, they lived through so many absolutely horrific experiences before they met me and we were building a humble and joy filled life together, we both had our issues but were working through them, making great progress. i dont want to mention the tragedy that took them away from this world but watching this video made me think about them, i wish they could have seen this, i have never really heard the term femcel before but they were definately into this kind of stuff, its increadibly sad how people become so isolated amongst so many others physically and digitally, and how that isolation damages people, some to the point of ultimate ruin, no matter how beautiful and amazing they are. Thank you for your amazing videos 💚
I love the talk about how transgressions look different depending on who's transgressing. As an infertile woman, my femininity is always challenged.
I don’t have the same experience because I’m not infertile, but I notice just how creepy it is many guys in relationships immediately talk about children like childbirth in itself is just…obtainable or ideal for the women they project it onto. As if that’s all women are worth. Like we don’t have aspirations outside of having children. My last ex would constantly talk about children even though we were only 20 and in college, and I explained I didn’t know if I could have kids. I’m not certain to have infertility, but given my nutritional deficiencies and past with an ED it would be very difficult for me to consider having a child. As if childbirth itself isn’t a painful and scary experience, and as if every women is able to have it. People’s want for you to put out a mini version of yourself in the world completely trumps any actual practicality.
going into this as a riot grrl enjoyer (and reluctantly the one and only mod of r/riotgrrrl) and someone who likes to laugh at femcels so.... this is gonna be good. (said in a very kind way ilyour videos)
okay i just finished the video, and omg im obsessed as usual. something that i have seen while on tumblr has been just how sequesterd / closed, and small the curent femcel community, much like the terfs that are constantly passing around the same two dozen posts about hrrr drr trans people, the femcel community seems almost, cultlike in the amount of group think they all subscribve to and pass around.
hi r/riotgrrrl mod
@@lucarin8191 hello random citizen!
Gurl not you being the only mod 💀
as an autistic nonbinary trans guy, i can safely say that the experiences that these spaces often tout as a definitive experience of "girlhood" is so so narrow. I could never relate to the experiences of my peers growing up socialized as a girl, people didn't treat me the same (likely it was the autism and people's perception of me). It made it really hard to try to connect with others when I felt like I needed to. I also ended up on tumblr as a teen and before I'd realized I was trans, and the "sad girl" aesthetic absolutely reached me. It wasn't ever relatable, even though there was a lot of overlap with things I felt as a mentally ill teenager, but in all honesty the level of despair I'd see (and the sharing of self harm images?!) would disturb and concern me greatly. Idk, I'm a fully grown adult now and I see this kind of behaviour coming to prominence on apps like tik tok and i feel concerned again! People socialized as girls definitely need an outlet and a place where they feel heard and understood by peers, but so much of it devolves into a narrow and dangerous view of what that can mean, especially with the rise of transphobia and racism in this spaces YET AGAIN.
Also your last look was killer, loved it. Great vid!
“auspicious non-binary trans guy”
How to say you were groomed by the internet to internalize your misogyny.
Felt this way too much as a fellow autistic transmasc nonbinary person.
so happy to see this - I've never had the energy to dive beyond the surface of this topic, a shanspeare video is exactly what I need
I can’t explain how infatuated I am with your personality, editing style and overall creativity. Each time I watch your videos I crave even more!! Thank you for putting so much time & effort into these videos!
literally submitting my thesis on femcels in like a month lol 😭 love u shanspeare great video
I think an example of how we unknowingly internalise tragedy as 'desireable' is when we assure ourselves of spectacular glowups after break ups. The messier and sadder the break up, the more glamourous the glow up should be. Though it could just be a way to cope. idk
im a trans guy but when i was younger and didnt realise that abt myself i was def a lana del rey tumblr "girl" and i honestly dont even know how to begin working through the complexity of that experience as a guy lmao. anyway fantastic vid as usual i enjoy your content so much!!!!
This is my first video of yours and the idea that anyone could see you as an angry ANYTHING is insane to me. You hit the nail on the head when you said racism makes you hallucinate, I can only view that through the lens of a trans person but I think transphobia makes people hallucinate in a similar way. Really great video.
I must admit i was on tumblr during that time too and experiencing bad mental health without any support and it did really affect me which is why im sad that sort of stuff is coming back around especially similar things that used to be on tumblr making its way to tiktok
Shanspeare’s outfits and videos are always immaculate. I love their content so much and they put so much effort into all their videos. Every little detail is accounted for! They are truly amazing!
Love the outfit-topic changes. It is such a great way to visually sort information
Another amazing video. Thanks for making this Shanspeare
Genuinely you had me from the instant the video started. I admire how well you craft these essays. You should absolutely call these plays, thank you so much for sharing them with us
Thank you so much for this video. The timing of it couldn't have been more perfect. I've been deep in trying to pull myself out of a nasty mental health relapse for the past month, as well as being physically ill. The last three phrases you repeated really felt like a wake up call, and I wrote them down and put it on my wall.
This is kinda out of pocket, but as a poc afab enby, it made me happy to hear that you are enby too! We don't have much representation, outside of the "skinny tomboyish looking white human" yk?
Anyways, loved the video! I watched it in one go and didn't even realize it was this long till the end. Enjoyed it a lot :))
Thank you for the quality content Shanspeare!! ♥️
I was looking forward to this! Thank you so much
i live for your videos. the outfits, the small sketches, the eloquence, i love it all
I love how well made this is and your talk in end really made me emotional. Im fifteen and I feel like nobody really cared for me. I was in a femcel adjacent community but in Pinterest lmao, my way of coping was eating me up and I always feel like what I am in this period of my will never change. I'm a person of color, specially south east- and in my country mental health will not be taken seriously so I really have no one except a toxic community (that I grew out of). Thank you for discussing this Shanspeare
It's hard to grow up having to navigate all the identities that were stamped onto you and what they meant; being judged by them, all the while not knowing why.
The hurt that comes from not understanding why everything around you seemed so hostile, seemed like it was closing in. The painful conclusion that comes from it. Convinced that you really are the fault. It hurt like hell. SO much.
But my experience, and how I'm breaking free from it and processing the pain? It's mine. It's not something that everyone else has or is ALLOWED to experience in some contexts. I feel like I could have gone down that dark path of just, putting other people down to feed my own suffering if I didn't force myself to confront my own ugliness or bitterness. I'm not saying that like I'm coming from a higher ground- I'm still very much growing.
I hope everyone here realizes that however you process your pain is valid. I wish you so much luck and love.
I'm gonna meet you all at the finish line someday too
Incredible! From the video production to the level of research and your compassionate, concise thesis. A great way to spend an hour.
I really like the citations in the corner as you reference them. Nice touch!
I, for one, am happy you made it past 16. I too didn’t think I would make it past 16. This is my first video of yours that I am watching, and feel very enriched by your dissertation. Thank you for the in depth analysis!
"I'm very, very young and I'm still learning how to live" sums up very nicely how I've managed to come to terms with my identity, with myself and the expectations I put onto myself now during my childhood.
When I was little I would force myself to be as different from the stereotypes of what a girl should be and to be as mature as possible because I was taught that acting like a child was annoying and a bother and I viewed the rebellious teenager archetype as deliberately going against their parents, and thus immoral. Now at fourteen I've come to the realization the "rebelion" is the discovery of one's own identity that unavoidably will clash at some points with the parents and that is necessary for healthy development, and learned that making mistakes, learning, being childish and stupid and reckless is my right. I must try to be a good person, but I have a right to my imperfections. I have to be a good person, not an adult who has their shit together. And I'm very happy now as a result.
Your videos are always so thought provoking! I appreciate the "not trying to give us an answer" approach. And the costumes, the editing were all incredible!!!
I’m so glad I stumbled upon your channel! So many video essayists I’ve heard are white and female. I’ve heard some of these concepts but it is great to hear them from someone who can add the context of their life
Can I just say I love u. I love what you said about being a teenage girl and thinking your pain was your destiny. I worked in the adolescent unit of a psych hospital for a bit and a lot of the kids made some dark mental illness related jokes and I understood that they were just relating and letting off steam but so often I wanted to tell them (especially young girls) what ur going through right now is not the whole of your life and over identifying with the pain isn’t going to help you through it, it only makes it harder to let it go. I wish someone told me that when I was their age.
Slightly different, but I also really like what you said about white womens rage being transgressive (freeing) where for a lot of woc and especially black women it is a stereotype and an expectation that traps them (the opposite of freeing). I love ur videos ❤️
so happy you made a video about this! i’ve been wondering what a “femcel” was for a while and couldn’t ever really get a straight answer and this made it a lot easier to understand! i love watching your videos and hearing your thoughts on these things. you’re literally eating them up on here
Another mind-blowing video essay as usual, Shanspeare. I love that you put the sources in the corner as you're talking as well, its very helpful!
I want to say separately from the topic that the production quality and intro skit/ narratives you’ve been doing lately are so good, they’re like little movies! The aesthetic! The outfits! The face! 🙌🎀💎
GOSH. this is gorgeous, every video of yours feels like a performance in the way it’s crafted. thank you for this perspective, it’s definitely opened my eyes to how I view “rebellion” in my adolescence.
Everything you do is pure magic
Your last few videos have come at the perfect time for me, i appreciate hearing these topics dissected with a true understanding behind why they exist and what they actually entail. Great video as always
You absolutely -slay- kill every video and the fact that you’re able to put them out so often blows my mind. The production value at Shanspeare studios is incredible ❤
speaking of being alone + smoking is gross, I reached a point in my life where I just could not force myself to go into another persons house if they were a smoker [inside their house]ever again. I couldn't invite people over because I'm disabled, and I didn't have the rights most adults take for granted, so i just stopped talking to certain people because I didn't know how to say I was completely grossed out by their smoking and there wasn't any way to fix it because even if they refrain from smoking while I'm there, it's still going to be covering every surface and lingering in the air for hours after. the headaches and gross feelings and needing to completely change my clothes plus have a shower everytime I hung out for an hour at their house just wasn't good math. [chain smokers are awful when they group together. one smoke gets lit, a half dozen will be lit up shortly thereafter]
*EDITED FOR FRAGILITY
@spaceboy.digitallmao yeah the disabled person is the bad person and not the smokers that refuse to not smoke near them. Nice ableism my friend
@Spaceboy Digital If it don’t apply let it fly. Otherwise hit dogs will holler lol
@Spaceboy Digital
Smoking is glorified self harm. Nobody is obligated to accept that. 💀💀
@Spaceboy Digital you might want to seek help
being disabled meant i wasn't paying rent, therefore i literally didn't have the tenant rights you take for granted as a full grown adult.
if i wanted to have guests over, I needed to get permission first. plain and simple that's fucking humiliating and it was a shitty thing my mom put on me and it isolated me in a way that I wasn't going to go into on a simple youtube comment but here the fuck we are!!. I couldn't figure out how to fix this situation to hang out with people I genuinely liked, so I drifted away. not sure how you read a wildly different accounting but I really really hope you can get the help you need.
The beginning and end being tied together almost brought a tear to my eye! Beautifully produced and impactful!
Thank you so much for making this 💖, as a poc NB who also struggled with the topics u talked about when I was growing up (and still do to some degree) and found it difficult to fit in unless I was hurting myself to do so… this resonated so deeply and I will be sharing it with my younger family members.
I heard the term femcel but I didn’t know what they were until now. Also, if I tried to make a femcel looking post about being transgender, gay, neurodivergent or Asian, it would look like satire lmao. Thinness, whiteness, and femininity is heavily romanticized in women and when the femcel community hinges on aestheticism, it doesn’t really make room for intersectionality. There doesn’t even seem to be space for feminism because there’s mysticism in being the “passive sad girl” that avoids actually calling out the patriarchy.
Being a passive sad girl is a privilege only afforded to thin cishet white women and I really wish more women would acknowledge that rather than just dismiss it as us “attacking traditional femininity”. You don’t have to be a riot grrrl feminist to call out patriarchy. And you can still be soft and a feminist.
@@alyssapinon9670 yeah exactly, like there isn't a required aesthetic to be feminist because that's not what it's about anyways. As long as you're pushing the message, then be whatever type of girl or femme that you like. Making a movement into an aesthetic at all is already diluting the message imo.
@@sapphic.flower seeing people who think feminism is a one size fits all type deal makes me want to tear my hair out. And so do the anti feminists who use these types of people to represent the movement as a whole
does anyone know who did the little animated bit around the beginning? such lovely art
Cherryinferno on Instagram does all my channel art! So talented ❤
@@Shanspeare she's absolutely amazing!!! very glad ive now followed her :D
it's cool to see alana's involuntary celibacy project mentioned in a video like this. I hope alana is doing better now :(
When you said Rebecca from yoga at 46:13 I thought of one of my favorite shows - Crazy ex girlfriend. Cannot recommend it enough - so clever and comforting. If you ever wonder what to watch I can promise it will truly leave a mark on you.
As a white AFAB person who has tried to unlearn a lot of the hateful and ignorant stuff I did in my teens, I have to give a heartfelt thank you for this video. When it first came out it helped me realize that a lot of the femcel adjacent communities I was in didn’t make space for people who didn’t look like me. And while I may hold progressive views, I can always be more conscientious of intersectionality in the social media I interact with. I am allowed to be publicly and unapologetically mentally ill, not everyone is given that grace. Revisiting this video made me realize how happy I am to not be in those circles anymore.
Hats off to the thoughtful commentary and costume design as always, Shan. As a fellow bipolar person I am so thankful you made it past 16 with me.
Your point about irony/post-irony reminded me of the concept of 'schroedinger's douchebag' (iirc?) where someone makes an offensive statement and decides whether it was sarcastic or ironic based on the reactions it gets.
i've been so excited for this video! the detail shanspere puts into their costumes and the aesthetics of their videos is always top tier the black swan costume is fucking gorgeous. i love how this analysis is also a call to action. the void of mentors for young people in our society is so palatable, often they turn to people they can even relate to tangentially and look to them for guidance. even though people like lana del rey put little thought into how their work is consumed by young people. and while i don't think everything adults do should be considered for children's consumption, when teens have no one they can look up to with their well being in mind, where else are they supposed to turn?
as someone who spent my teens on tumblr around when shanspeare did while having a collection of undiagnosed mental illnesses, i really appreciate her making content with the perspective of teens in mind. hopefully young people find their way here and look at their communities critically, i just wish they had places to turn to in our isolating society.
First video essay to bring me to tears, I didnt realize how much I needed to hear the ending until I got there. Thank you
Thank you for the insights, as well as admittance of multiple mental health dxs. Im frequently harder on myself as a result of my own dxs and seeing how strong and confident you are in your videos, it gives me hope that maybe one day I can be so brave as to express my own thoughts and opinions publicly, as I frequently have been and feel gaslit as a result. Thank you for all that you do. Youre beautiful. ❤
Wake up, new shanspeare video is up💯👏🏼👏🏼
shan, you are an absolutely splendid legend! love your content, you're so magic
Yesss, I've been waiting for a video on this topic!! You really never disappoint