"I just can't believe it!"

flutteringinfl

You guys, I couldn't either. And I also couldn't not share this with y'all.

So I'm on the phone with a student. She's a regular with us, always sweet and pleasant. Today's no exception. I'm helping her set up an appointment, when all of a sudden she gasps. It was the kind of gasp one might let out upon learning of the death of a loved one, or at least a bad injury. She starts ranting.

"Oh my God! I can't believe it! I just don't believe it!"

Of course I ask her if everything's okay and in the words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up, this is what she said:

"My partner just tagged me in a Facebook post about untouched photos of Beyonce and I just...I can't believe it! Oh my God!"

Like I said, I couldn't not tell you all about this. Untouched photos of Beyonce are serious business.

PrettyGirlLost

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

flutteringinfl

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me your Canadian! ;-)

Nope. 'Murican

But hey, she called because she wanted to get assistance with one of her classes. And it was a STEM class! I guess I can handle a bit of celebrity ogling if they're serious about their education too.

amelisha

@PrettyGirlLost, people have been saying that since ancient Rome. Come on, taking Beyonce seriously has no impact on whether or not someone also takes, you know, serious stuff seriously too.

I think that's pretty cute, personally. I have a lot of friends like that, people who are so smart and intellectually/politically/academically/etc. involved, who simultaneously nurse deep affection for celebrities, fashion, pop music, baby animals, or whatever else and I love it when they let that stuff loose unexpectedly.

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

@PrettyGirlLost, people have been saying that since ancient Rome. Come on, taking Beyonce seriously has no impact on whether or not someone also takes, you know, serious stuff seriously too.

I think that's pretty cute, personally. I have a lot of friends like that, people who are so smart and intellectually/politically/academically/etc. involved, who simultaneously nurse deep affection for celebrities, fashion, pop music, baby animals, or whatever else and I love it when they let that stuff loose unexpectedly.

Pretty sure lead poisoning led to the fall of Rome, not kids freaking out over stupid shit like Queen B's photos.

flutteringinfl said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me your Canadian! ;-)

Nope. 'Murican

But hey, she called because she wanted to get assistance with one of her classes. And it was a STEM class! I guess I can handle a bit of celebrity ogling if they're serious about their education too.

Well,let's hope.  Being in STEM doesn't automatically remove all moronic tendencies, though.  ;-)

You'd be shocked if I told you how many times I have to explain to PIs  and fellows/grad students who want to do microarray studies what the difference is between technical and biological replicates, and why you need at least an N of 5-7 in order to have a shot at publishing array data.  And these are people who have years of research and designing experiments under their belts, so you'd think they'd know better ><

flutteringinfl

amelisha said:

@PrettyGirlLost, people have been saying that since ancient Rome. Come on, taking Beyonce seriously has no impact on whether or not someone also takes, you know, serious stuff seriously too.

I think that's pretty cute, personally. I have a lot of friends like that, people who are so smart and intellectually/politically/academically/etc. involved, who simultaneously nurse deep affection for celebrities, fashion, pop music, baby animals, or whatever else and I love it when they let that stuff loose unexpectedly.

I guess I have my moments too, and the actual celebrity in question shouldn't make it more or less funny. When Edward Hermann died, I was so sad and assumed my dad would be sad too because we used to watch Gilmore Girls together. So I called him up and said, "I have something really sad to tell you." He assumed I'd be telling him about the death or illness or someone we knew, and was surprised when I said the name of a celebrity.

But I still think the conversation with the student was pretty cute.

VulgarGirl

KatieinBkln

I saw a shot of these "shocking" photos really briefly today. It looked like Beyonce had...a little bit of acne? The kind you get from constantly having to wear a shit-ton of makeup, as someone in her line of work must? I really didn't see what was shocking about it.

It makes me sad that we are shocked when people do not look like the photoshopped versions of themselves. Every time someone tries to tell me that "People aren't that dumb; they should know the difference between an ad and real life" I want to direct them to these kinds of "shocking!" reveals. If people were in fact differentiating between a photoshopped ad and real life, no one would be shocked at all when a celebrity (who is still objectively beautiful in these pics, for godssake!) is revealed to have human skin.

PrettyGirlLost

KatieinBkln said:

I saw a shot of these "shocking" photos really briefly today. It looked like Beyonce had...a little bit of acne? The kind you get from constantly having to wear a shit-ton of makeup, as someone in her line of work must? I really didn't see what was shocking about it.

It makes me sad that we are shocked when people do not look like the photoshopped versions of themselves. Every time someone tries to tell me that "People aren't that dumb; they should know the difference between an ad and real life" I want to direct them to these kinds of "shocking!" reveals. If people were in fact differentiating between a photoshopped ad and real life, no one would be shocked at all when a celebrity (who is still objectively beautiful in these pics, for godssake!) is revealed to have human skin.

Yep.  You'd think by now, with how many of these unretouched "leaks" have made it public, that no one would ever look at another photo in a magazine, an ad on TV, or another celebrity selfie and think that it wasn't heavily retouched and manipulated.

Duh, people.

I don't understand all the outrageous outrage by Beyonce's fans, though.  So you're mad that she's actually human, like the rest of us, and has to rely on makeup and Photoshop to achieve that flawless look?  Or are you mad because proof of her humanity was leaked and now her cover is blown?

I thinkn it's better for our collective self esteem when this shit happens!

amelisha

I don't think I communicated that clearly. I intended to say that people have been claiming that the youth are the problem since ancient Rome, not that they actually WERE the problem, lol. Graffiti in ancient Pompeii lamenting kids today and all that, @PrettyGirlLost. I think the Cicero quote about it might just be apocryphal as I don't seem to find it as I google, but there's possibly Socrates too:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

I don't think I communicated that clearly. I intended to say that people have been claiming that the youth are the problem since ancient Rome, not that they actually WERE the problem, lol. Graffiti in ancient Pompeii lamenting kids today and all that, @PrettyGirlLost. I think the Cicero quote about it might just be apocryphal as I don't seem to find it as I google, but there's possibly Socrates too:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

And look, they were correct!

novella1186

This reminds me of the customer service office I used to work in; there were a bunch of ladies (aged 30s to 60s) who were OBSESSED with celebrity gossip. I used to bring science magazines to work cuz I'm a nerd and like to read about new breakthroughs and whatnot. 

This was back when they first sent out the Kepler telescope and had found 10 candidate planets that could have potentially be new Earths. 

Me: "Did you hear about the new planets they've found? There are 10 already that could be considered similar to Earth, and could potentially support life, and the telescope JUST started looking, and it only covers a very narrow scope when you consider how big space is! And it has found 10!" 

Co-worker: *long pause.... "Did you hear that Jennifer Aniston is getting married?" 

amelisha

You're...saying that young people have been ruining societies for the past two thousand years?

That's pretty cynical even for TK, man.

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

You're...saying that young people have been ruining societies for the past two thousand years?

That's pretty cynical even for TK, man.

Yep,  Socrates was pretty accurate there.

Of course we also have the Baby Boomers to thank for bankrupting Social Security, which I'm sure isn't going to do society any favors.  And if I did my math correctly GenX and GenY are contributing to the attachment parenting epidemic. . . which has spawned so many special snowflakes.

KatieinBkln

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

You're...saying that young people have been ruining societies for the past two thousand years?

That's pretty cynical even for TK, man.

Yep,  Socrates was pretty accurate there.

Of course we also have the Baby Boomers to thank for bankrupting Social Security, which I'm sure isn't going to do society any favors.  And if I did my math correctly GenX and GenY are contributing to the attachment parenting epidemic. . . which has spawned so many special snowflakes.

Everyone is terrible, yay!

amelisha

I hope it's just time to head over to that "wrong side of the bed" thread or something. I don't have room in my worldview for misanthropy. *shrug*

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

I hope it's just time to head over to that "wrong side of the bed" thread or something. I don't have room in my worldview for misanthropy. *shrug*

Do you always take everything so literally?

Do you have room in your worldview for sarcasm or "tongue in cheek" banter?

amelisha

As opposed to...?

I guess if you were being sarcastic about hating everyone and everything, I didn't find it funny. Sorry.

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

As opposed to...?

I guess if you were being sarcastic about hating everyone and everything, I didn't find it funny. Sorry.

Honey, I was trolling you because you were taking everything I said literally. . . in a thread where I assumed the OP was made to illicit an eyeroll kind of response.

I have said in the past that I hate people because they tend to suck, but I don't seriously hate humankind, sheesh.

amelisha

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

As opposed to...?

I guess if you were being sarcastic about hating everyone and everything, I didn't find it funny. Sorry.

Honey, I was trolling you because you were taking everything I said literally. . . in a thread where I assumed the OP was made to illicit an eyeroll kind of response.

I have said in the past that I hate people because they tend to suck, but I don't seriously hate humankind, sheesh.

I'm not your honey.

"Taking everything so literally"? Yeah, I'm responding to WHAT YOU SAID. Obviously. 

I think it's really silly when people start talking about "kids today" like you did in your original post, so I commented on it, and you apparently decided to take that as, I dunno, an opportunity to act like the world is so terrible to "troll" me? Okay...?

I'm just not really sure what the point was here, other than to make me wonder who peed in your cornflakes this morning. Bye, Felicia.

PrettyGirlLost

amelisha said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

As opposed to...?

I guess if you were being sarcastic about hating everyone and everything, I didn't find it funny. Sorry.

Honey, I was trolling you because you were taking everything I said literally. . . in a thread where I assumed the OP was made to illicit an eyeroll kind of response.

I have said in the past that I hate people because they tend to suck, but I don't seriously hate humankind, sheesh.

I'm not your honey.

"Taking everything so literally"? Yeah, I'm responding to WHAT YOU SAID. Obviously. 

I think it's really silly when people start talking about "kids today" like you did in your original post, so I commented on it, and you apparently decided to take that as, I dunno, an opportunity to act like the world is so terrible to "troll" me? Okay...?

I'm just not really sure what the point was here, other than to make me wonder who peed in your cornflakes this morning. Bye, Felicia.

I figured you knew my posting personality well enough to know I was being tongue in cheek and was just joking around. . . guess not. 

Lol, no one peed in my cereal- I'm not in a bad mood at all.  Are you?

larrygaga

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

And just who is raising this youth?

PrettyGirlLost

larrygaga said:

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

And just who is raising this youth?

GenX or GenY should be old enough to have college aged kids, right?  Then again, it takes a village, right?

ashley8918

amelisha said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

As opposed to...?

I guess if you were being sarcastic about hating everyone and everything, I didn't find it funny. Sorry.

Honey, I was trolling you because you were taking everything I said literally. . . in a thread where I assumed the OP was made to illicit an eyeroll kind of response.

I have said in the past that I hate people because they tend to suck, but I don't seriously hate humankind, sheesh.

I'm not your honey.

"Taking everything so literally"? Yeah, I'm responding to WHAT YOU SAID. Obviously. 

I think it's really silly when people start talking about "kids today" like you did in your original post, so I commented on it, and you apparently decided to take that as, I dunno, an opportunity to act like the world is so terrible to "troll" me? Okay...?

I'm just not really sure what the point was here, other than to make me wonder who peed in your cornflakes this morning. Bye, Felicia.

I... WUT. Are we really getting all up-in-arms about sarcasm?

flutteringinfl

larrygaga said:

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

By George. Beyonce wins again!

PrettyGirlLost

ashley8918 said:

amelisha said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

amelisha said:

As opposed to...?

I guess if you were being sarcastic about hating everyone and everything, I didn't find it funny. Sorry.

Honey, I was trolling you because you were taking everything I said literally. . . in a thread where I assumed the OP was made to illicit an eyeroll kind of response.

I have said in the past that I hate people because they tend to suck, but I don't seriously hate humankind, sheesh.

I'm not your honey.

"Taking everything so literally"? Yeah, I'm responding to WHAT YOU SAID. Obviously. 

I think it's really silly when people start talking about "kids today" like you did in your original post, so I commented on it, and you apparently decided to take that as, I dunno, an opportunity to act like the world is so terrible to "troll" me? Okay...?

I'm just not really sure what the point was here, other than to make me wonder who peed in your cornflakes this morning. Bye, Felicia.

I... WUT. Are we really getting all up-in-arms about sarcasm?

Apparently one can't make posts joking about Kumis or Kefir either.

VulgarGirl

PrettyGirlLost said:

larrygaga said:

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

And just who is raising this youth?

GenX or GenY should be old enough to have college aged kids, right?  Then again, it takes a village, right?

My parents fall into GenX....I am very done with college and almost 30.

What...they started young they had shit to do.

PrettyGirlLost

MagicInk said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

larrygaga said:

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

And just who is raising this youth?

GenX or GenY should be old enough to have college aged kids, right?  Then again, it takes a village, right?

My parents fall into GenX....I am very done with college and almost 30.

What...they started young they had shit to do.

I never claimed to be able to Math correctly!

I can't actually keep track of all the labels the sociologists or whomever put on the generations, anyways.  I know Baby Boomers bc they were post WWII because everyone was so relieved not to be speaking German they just banged like crazy.

VulgarGirl

I just looked up the pictures because I can and....for real they evened out her skin tone, covered some bumps on her cheek and it looks like she has some slight lines around her mouth they toned down. Like they're still there but they aren't as prominent.

I heard on the radio today though that Kim K. pays some chick 100g's to be on call to photoshop her selfies before Kim posts them on-line. I want to apply for that job. I'm not actually good at photoshop but I will learn.

Also the youth of today is not ruining society. It's the homos. It's always been the homos, it's always gonna be the homos. So fuck off youth, we've been here longer and we've doing a better job.

flutteringinfl

PrettyGirlLost said:

MagicInk said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

larrygaga said:

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

And just who is raising this youth?

GenX or GenY should be old enough to have college aged kids, right?  Then again, it takes a village, right?

My parents fall into GenX....I am very done with college and almost 30.

What...they started young they had shit to do.

I never claimed to be able to Math correctly!

I can't actually keep track of all the labels the sociologists or whomever put on the generations, anyways.  I know Baby Boomers bc they were post WWII because everyone was so relieved not to be speaking German they just banged like crazy.

That's how my dad explained it to me. He's a baby boomer.

I don't know if I count as Generation Y or Millenial. I'm 27.

PrettyGirlLost

MagicInk said:

I just looked up the pictures because I can and....for real they evened out her skin tone, covered some bumps on her cheek and it looks like she has some slight lines around her mouth they toned down. Like they're still there but they aren't as prominent.

I heard on the radio today though that Kim K. pays some chick 100g's to be on call to photoshop her selfies before Kim posts them on-line. I want to apply for that job. I'm not actually good at photoshop but I will learn.  Holy Shit!  I piss around with Photoshop all.the.time.  Ugh ><

Also the youth of today is not ruining society. It's the homos. It's always been the homos, it's always gonna be the homos. So fuck off youth, we've been here longer and we've doing a better job. 

flutteringinfl said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

MagicInk said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

larrygaga said:

It was a big enough deal for you to make a thread about it.

PrettyGirlLost said:

The youth of this country will be our downfall ><

Wait. . .please tell me you're Canadian! ;-)

And just who is raising this youth?

GenX or GenY should be old enough to have college aged kids, right?  Then again, it takes a village, right?

My parents fall into GenX....I am very done with college and almost 30.

What...they started young they had shit to do.

I never claimed to be able to Math correctly!

I can't actually keep track of all the labels the sociologists or whomever put on the generations, anyways.  I know Baby Boomers bc they were post WWII because everyone was so relieved not to be speaking German they just banged like crazy.

That's how my dad explained it to me. He's a baby boomer.

I don't know if I count as Generation Y or Millenial. I'm 27.

I think it depends on what source you look at, but you could be either.