the part of this essay that goes through the whole "not that there's anything wrong with that!!!" era of mainstream culture is a gut punch when you lay it out so starkly! we just grew up in that shit and it microwaved our brains

lol thank you!! it was really wild to research all this, it just kept rabbit-holing as i was like "whoa it WAS like that growing up..." and like, how the "progressive" things back then are practically simply offensive now lol