Why Diversity is Important in Media

I am an Indian human (technically Bangladeshi—but is that nationality? (Is it even my nationality since I was born in Canada? What IS a nationality? (I think my nationality is either Canadian or American and my ethnicity is Bangladeshi, but that is probably incorrect)). What even is the actual term for my race [I just did some minor Googling and I couldn’t find anything. There are multiple races from Bangladesh] I always just went with Indian (Bangladesh is on the Indian subcontinent) or generic brown).

So I have the average black hair, black eyes, and brown skin combo. But when I was a kid, I thought I was blond with blue eyes.

Seriously.

This wasn’t a color identification issue. If you gave me paint swatches, I could tell you black, brown, yellow, smaragdine, blue, etc.

This was because I had no idea what being blond with blue eyes actually meant. (Or what an Indian person was.) I thought it was a unanimous characteristic for hair and eyes. All hair is stringy, and all hair is blond. All eyeballs are round, and all eyeballs are blue. I watched a LOT of Barbie movies (and Dora the Explorer) and Barbie is blond with blue eyes. Therefore, all humans are blond with blue eyes (or they’re talking animals [thanks Dora]).

Person trying to teach me colors: What color are your hair and eyes?

Mini Arachnid: Blond and blue. (Note that Mini Arachnid has a giant mass of tangled black hair and giant, unblinking black eyes.)

I remember in kindergarten we had to fill out a questionnaire with our eye colors. I don’t quite remember what purpose this served. The options were brown, blue, and green. I chose blue.

When my parents corrected me…

Mini Arachnid (jaw drops): WHAAAAT?

So I asked them what their eye colors are, and they said black. This ensued in another round of dramatic gasping because black wasn’t on the list of options. But their drivers’ licenses listed their eye colors as black. So clearly someone was lying.

So, in conclusion, diversity is important because it prevents confusion among young children.

 

Ask TheWebWeavers #3 || The Chewer

Sophia Ismaa Writes asks…

My aunt chews so loudly. Like, SO loudly that it sounds like there’s a factory operating in her mouth and every single one of the workers there are French kissing each other. I have told her I don’t like it because it gives me flashbacks to someone in my childhood and it makes me uncomfortable. She refuses to change. What do I do?

There are several courses of action that you can take for this particular problem. You have already attempted the most simple and effective one, asking her to stop, but that did not work. Unfortunately, chewing loudly is something that one often doesn’t realize they’re doing. So asking someone to stop might quiet them down for a minute or two, but then they’re right back to chewing like a lawnmower.

It’s quite difficult to change someone else, so the easiest course of action is to change either yourself or your environment.

1. Wear earplugs/noise-canceling headphones
   • This option is, of course, a bit rude. But sometimes drastic measures must be taken. However, the drawback to this plan is that it will be quite difficult to follow the conversation. So it is recommended that one becomes proficient in the art of lip-reading before attempting this method.
2. Avoid eating with your aunt
   • This method is also somewhat rude. But effective. You could claim to be busy or even say you’re eating with other people.
3. If you are cooking…
   1. Make only Jell-O. It’s hard to chew loudly with Jell-O
   2. Make something like spaghetti that requires a lot of slurping (and other disgusting chewing sounds) to eat. Set the table so you are sitting really close to your aunt, and talk with your mouth full during dinner. Later, while there is still food in your mouth, laugh rambunctiously at your own spectacular joke and throw your arm around your aunt in a fit of giggles. Then just stay there on your aunt’s shoulder for a bit and keep eating, making sure to chew obnoxiously in her ear. Add loud slurping for a bit of pizzaz. If you want to get extra credit, laugh again at someone else’s joke later in the meal and “accidentally” spit a piece of food onto her plate.
      • This labor-intensive solution will hopefully make your aunt become more aware of her own chewing.
4. Show her this post.

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Do you have any questions that need answering? Send them to Ask TheWebWeavers using the Contact Page. Please specify if you want your letter to be anonymous. If you want the world to know who you are (otherwise known as this small corner of the internet), we’ll add a link to your blog to help spread the love.

Texting? What’s that?

LOL. BRB. ABC. TTYL. ETC.

Do you know what texting is? I’m going to operate under the assumption that you do know what it is because if you don’t, I’ll be forced to ask, “How oblivious can a person be?”

No one actually calls anymore. No, no, no. That’s so old-fashioned. It’s all about texting now. The blipipity-bloop-bloop buttons that are pressed to send sentences to other peeps. Like a faster version of email (email *scoffs*—so passé). Often, the buttons are quite small, resulting in numerous vexing typos.

But like good old snail-mail, one cannot convey emotions through simple text as well as one can through phone calls or *gasp* face-to-face interaction. Thus, the creation of the emoji.

This weekend, Spinette and I were sitting on a couch. We were less than six inches apart and yet we were texting instead of speaking. And the reasoning we used to validate this behavior was the lack of emoji in real life.

I mean, it’s not like you can use your face to display emotion. No, no, no. It’s all about that emoji.

Also, it should be noted that we were at an emoji-themed birthday party.

Keyword = emoji-themed.

Phones, phones, phones.

A Brief Example…

You are eating lunch with Friend A, B, and C. But you are currently texting Friend D, who is not there. You are texting Friend D because Friend A and B are group-chatting with Friend E and Friend C is staring off into space and slightly drooling and you don’t want to deal with that drool. Since no one at your lunch table is talking to you, you begin to text Friend D to entertain yourself and complain about Friend C’s drool.

Later, you are eating dinner with Friend D, but you are texting Friend C to talk about how awesome the restaurant is. Friend D gets bored of you not paying attention to him and goes off to another table to talk to an ex-boyfriend who has just walked into the restaurant.

The Solution…

If only you were to strike up a conversation. Then Friend A and B would stop texting Friend E because, honestly, you’re far more interesting than her. Friend C (whose phone was taken away because she refused to do the dishes) is intrigued by your conversation and joins in, ceasing to drool. Now, the drool problem is solved and you, Friend A, B, and C will all get your daily dose of Real Life Human Interaction.

And later, you can hold a proper conversation with Friend D so he doesn’t wander away and get caught up in the mess that is Ex-Boyfriend.

TADA

I am brilliant.

Why representation never mattered to me.

Stop Interrupting The Reader

The Ultimate Reader Problem. My brother does this and annoys me to no end. I’ll tell him, “I’m reading now” and he’ll consistently respond with “Okay” and then he’ll just keep talking and talking and talking.

A Stream of Thoughts: Keys

Welcome to another edition of A Stream of Thoughts! In A Stream of Thoughts, a random word generator picks a word for me and I ramble about it. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

But first, life update/warning. We’re at that time of year again! FINALS! *Jazz hands*

I hate finals more than anything else in the world. They are the bane of human existence. *Spews hatred* But because of them, we might probably will be less active on ze blog.

Today’s magic word is…

KEY

There are many types of keys. You have the physical keys that can open an assortment of things, including doors, cars, lockers, safes, treasure chests, bank vaults…

I’m terrified that I’m going to lose my keys and be stuck outside for hours and hours in the rain. But isn’t everyone?

There are also the keys on maps. Also known as “legends”. In my opinion, these are the most boring of all the keys. Why would you look at a key on a map when you could instead look at the pretty map? (Ignore the fact that keys are often necessary to understand a map.) Speaking of which, does anyone know why a key is also called a legend? I get key (because it’s the key to understanding the map), but why legend? I could probably Google it. But eh.

And then there’s the most interesting type of key, the figurative key. The key to their heart (not a literal key unless your crush is a robot), the key to knowledge, etc. There are so many figurative keys. What if they were literal keys, though? What if the key to love was finding a literal key, or the key to becoming the smartest person in the universe was finding a real key? And what if you could take these keys to Walmart and make copies?

I’m hungry.

Going back to my fear of losing my keys and being locked out of the house. Why don’t all houses just have retina scanners on them? I’m not going to lose my eyeball at school. Although I might lose my fingerprint, which is why they don’t use fingerprint scanners.

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Bye.

She’s Having a Baby?!

So last Monday, my cousin’s wife had a baby. I didn’t know she was pregnant.

Sure, big families can be fun with the endless stream of people who are obligated to like you. But they can also be a burden.

When you near forty cousins, there’s a problem. Many problems, in fact. Such as no one telling you that one of them is having a baby. And not being able to remember said baby’s name.

One day your mom will tell you that one of your closest cousin’s has a new wife (He got married?!) or is having another baby (He’s married?!).

And you can never remember a week later that they got married or had a baby.

 

Or sometimes you’ll be at a party and some random stranger will come up to you and the following conversation will ensue:

Stranger: Hey, Arachnid! I’m your aunt! I saw you when you were three. You used to run around without clothes on. Remember?

Arachnid: Oh, hey…yeah. I totally remember that. You’re my favorite relative! How could I possibly forget you? Uhh… Remind me how we’re related?

*Stranger that claims she is your relative holds out her arms for a hug.*

Arachnid (Thinking): Who in the blobfish is this random dude? I’m supposed to HUG her?!

*Arachnid awkwardly shakes the stranger’s hand*

 

I often have difficulties remembering all the members of the Weaver family (There are so many!). I ask my parents beforehand whenever we go to visit family. I still can never remember their names, though.

Most of my cousins are a lot older than me, and they’re all getting married (I’m going to go off on a little tangent about arranged marriages now. One of my cousins is getting married this summer. It was arranged. They talked on Facebook for NINE DAYS when he proposed to her. And she said yes. THEY HAVE NEVER MET IN PERSON. *Ultimate face-palm. Face-palm so hard I accidentally decapitate myself*) And my cousins are all getting married to people with even BIGGER families and then I have to learn all of their names.

A couple months ago, a large portion of my family went to my dad’s brother’s son’s son’s first birthday party. One of my cousin’s friends came to the party and he asked my cousin how he was related to the Birthday Boy.

Friend: How are you guys related?

Cousin: Uhh… He’s my mother’s sister’s husband’s brother’s son’s son.

Friend: …

 

I need to make a flowchart or something to keep track of everyone.

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Do you have any questions that need answering? Send them to Ask TheWebWeavers, our advice column, using the Contact Page.

Ask TheWebWeavers #3 || The Chewer

Sophia Ismaa Writes asks…

My aunt chews so loudly. Like, SO loudly that it sounds like there’s a factory operating in her mouth and every single one of the workers there are French kissing each other. I have told her I don’t like it because it gives me flashbacks to someone in my childhood and it makes me uncomfortable. She refuses to change. What do I do?

There are several courses of action that you can take for this particular problem. You have already attempted the most simple and effective one, asking her to stop, but that did not work. Unfortunately, chewing loudly is something that one often doesn’t realize they’re doing. So asking someone to stop might quiet them down for a minute or two, but then they’re right back to chewing like a lawnmower.

It’s quite difficult to change someone else, so the easiest course of action is to change either yourself or your environment.

1. Wear earplugs/noise-canceling headphones
   • This option is, of course, a bit rude. But sometimes drastic measures must be taken. However, the drawback to this plan is that it will be quite difficult to follow the conversation. So it is recommended that one becomes proficient in the art of lip-reading before attempting this method.
2. Avoid eating with your aunt
   • This method is also somewhat rude. But effective. You could claim to be busy or even say you’re eating with other people.
3. If you are cooking…
   1. Make only Jell-O. It’s hard to chew loudly with Jell-O
   2. Make something like spaghetti that requires a lot of slurping (and other disgusting chewing sounds) to eat. Set the table so you are sitting really close to your aunt, and talk with your mouth full during dinner. Later, while there is still food in your mouth, laugh rambunctiously at your own spectacular joke and throw your arm around your aunt in a fit of giggles. Then just stay there on your aunt’s shoulder for a bit and keep eating, making sure to chew obnoxiously in her ear. Add loud slurping for a bit of pizzaz. If you want to get extra credit, laugh again at someone else’s joke later in the meal and “accidentally” spit a piece of food onto her plate.
      • This labor-intensive solution will hopefully make your aunt become more aware of her own chewing.
4. Show her this post.

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Do you have any questions that need answering? Send them to Ask TheWebWeavers using the Contact Page. Please specify if you want your letter to be anonymous. If you want the world to know who you are (otherwise known as this small corner of the internet), we’ll add a link to your blog to help spread the love.

Ask TheWebWeavers #1 || The Spider Squisher

Welcome one, welcome all, to our brand new advice column, Ask TheWebWeavers!

Our first question is from mainepaperpusher. This one is hypothetical.

Dear WebWeavers, Thank you for helping me with this problem. My boyfriend keeps telling me to squish spiders because he thinks they are creepy but I think they are good luck. What should I do?

I think that you should break up with your boyfriend immediately. Even if he is just suggesting that the spiders be squished and has not actually squished any spiders, even the thought of the act is despicable and cannot be forgiven.

But, I know that people tend to be attached to their boyfriends. So if you actually like him (I can’t imagine how someone would like a spider-squishing monster), you could attempt to educate him in the spider-loving path and if he succeeds, then your liking of him will be validated.

Most people’s instinct to squish spiders comes from the fear of spiders. Therefore, in order to eradicate this behavior, one much educate spider-squishers on the wonder that is spiders.

To do this, I recommend first showing him traditionally adorable pictures of spiders on the internet before progressing to actual pictures of spiders. Also, show him the magic of spider webs. After he can do this without screeching and/or flinching at the more hairy specimens, collect spider webs and have him touch or walk through them. After he can do this without screeching, you will reach the ultimate challenge. Have him hold spiders and gaze at their eight-legged beauty. Maybe take a selfie with the spiders. Have a painting session with the spider. Try multiple spiders.

Tolerance will come first. Acceptance will take time, but it can be achieved.

If your boyfriend can accept spiders as the graceful creatures that they are, you don’t necessarily have to break up with him. But it is recommended that you do.

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Do you have any questions that need answering? Send them to Ask TheWebWeavers using the Contact Page. Please specify if you want your letter to be anonymous. If you want the world to know who you are (otherwise known as this small corner of the internet), we’ll add a link to your blog to help spread the love.

Third Grade Mishaps (Blood Included)

Third grade, like all other grades, is a horrible year. The pressure begins to ramp up, you’re homework gets due dates, drama, etc.

I did lots of stupid things in third grade, such as color my teeth blue with a ballpoint pen; color my entire hand blue with a ballpoint pen; lock myself in my room for hours at a time without food, water, or bathroom breaks to watch ICarly; contract the stomach flu; throw up in the hallway and walk into a random classroom with vomit all over my hands and face; throw up in the hallway again; write a short story about vampires; etc. The list could go on for ages.

But today we’re going to talk about a particular story that took place in third grade.

Like every other mostly sane person, I am in an ongoing war with mosquitos. Mosquitos are horrible (they’re important to the ecosystem but horrible to people). They are horrible and don’t you dare disagree. They suck your blood like greedy vampires and leave itching bumps that swell to the size of plastic Easter eggs.

Mosquitos, on the other hand, love me. They leave everyone else alone and make a feast of me.

Everyone always tells you never to scratch mosquito bites, but I’ve never been one to listen to everyone. But in this case, at least, I should have.

I got a mosquito bite on my left forearm and it swelled to a respectable size. And I itched it. I itched it until it bled.

(Mosquitos are one of the reasons that I despise spring.)

But, thanks to magic and a Band-Aid, the bloody wound eventually scabbed over.

(This post’s about to get somewhat gross. Squeamish readers, click off now.)

Another activity that I participated in as a naive child was the picking of scabs. *Shudders* Don’t worry, dear readers, I don’t do this anymore.

The scab was about a half-inch long (“How do I know this?” you ask. I still have a scar) and it covered a half-inch long wound. (I’m going to call it a wound. It makes the story more dramatic.)

During class, I did the inevitable and picked off the scab.

But, of course, it started bleeding profusely. (What else did I expect?)

So here I am, blood gushing from an open wound, my right hand clapped over it to try and stanch the flow, and my teacher, under the premise that nothing was wrong, merrily teaching away.

Thankfully, a few minutes later, she gave us time to work. I went up to ask the teacher for a Band-Aid, but there was another girl in front of me. I waited patiently behind her, still bleeding.

She needed a Band-Aid as well. For her papercut.

The nightmare then began.

Me: Uh, I need a Band-Aid, too.

Teacher: I’m sorry. We’re out of Band-Aids. Is it an emergency?

Girl: That’s fine. I don’t really need one.

Me: … Yeah. I guess it can wait.

It could not wait. It definitely could not wait.

Soon afterward, the teacher began to teach again. (It is her job, after all.)

And I’m still sitting there. Bleeding profusely.

I lifted my right hand to check if it had stopped bleeding. Nope. And my right hand was coated with blood.

At that point, a classmate, let’s call him Earl Omega, looked right at me. I held eye contact and glared at him with the full force of the laser-firing armada located behind my eyeballs.

I can’t remember what happened afterward because third grade was so long ago.

And now we’ll never know if Little Arachnid ever got that Band-Aid or not.

A Stream of Random Thoughts || Bittersweet

I started this post planning to write about the wonders of bagged milk. I’m sure that when I put “bagged milk” on my list of Blog Post Ideas, I knew exactly what to write in a post, but now I can’t remember and there’s not much you can say about bagged milk without the proper inspiration (aka a recent argument about the wonders of bagged milk).

So I turned to our friend, the random word generator, and today’s topic is…

Bittersweet

So as usual, I’ll just write down words as they float through my head, the starting point being the word “bittersweet”.

“Bittersweet” is often used to describe dark chocolate, the best kind of chocolate. The darker the chocolate gets, the better it is, but often it is not “bittersweet”, it is just bitter.

Recently, while eating 86% cacao dark chocolate, I looked up the correlation between liking bitter flavors and psychopathy. If one likes bitter foods, then they are more likely to be a psychopath.

But worry not, dear nonexistent reader, I am most likely not a psychopath.

You also often hear the term “bittersweet memory”, which refers to a memory that is both sweet and painful to remember. It reminds me quite a bit of nostalgia. But let’s not travel down that dark and twisty path.

Let’s go back to chocolate!

I love all types of chocolate, even white chocolate, which, despite the misleading name, is not chocolate at all. I especially love the chocolate with liquid chocolate inside it.

I want some chocolate right now.

You know those gift boxes with mixed chocolates? I’m sure you’ve gotten at least one. It’s impossible to figure out what’s what. (Yes, I know they come with diagrams, but really, who actually looks at those?) And before you know it, you’re dedicated to finishing a chocolate that you hate.

I really should figure out a better way to end these posts.

the end.

 

How to Speak TXT (TXT=Text)

Text Speak is the magical language naturally spoken by Cell Phones and Teenagers. For Teenagers, Text Speak, or txt Speak, is intuitive and as soon as one turns 13, they find themselves starting to use it more than Normal English.

This guide is not for them. This guide is for the Beginner newly introduced to txting (texting). Those who are either children or have reached the age where they’ve started to forget the intricacies of texting.

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Once you have become fluent in Text Speak, you should start speaking it in real life, too. Do not limit this language to the Cell Phone. People around you will definitely appreciate you more, instead of laughing at the joke they spent months preparing, you say L-O-L. [Note: Always say each individual letter. Never say lol *shudders*]

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Text Speak usually occurs in one of two forms: acronyms or devowelization.

An acronym is when instead of saying/typing an entire phrase, you use the first letters of each of the words in the phrase to make a new word.

For example, LOL stands for Laugh Out Loud.

Super efficient, isn’t it?

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Devowelization is when you pull the vowels, which are completely unnecessary, out of a word. [Note: Ignore the fact that this makes the words impossible to pronounce.]

For example, TXT is “Text” without the “e”. [Note: Also ignore the fact that it take more syllables to say “T-X-T” than it does to say “text”]

Efficiency!

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Let’s practice translating acronyms.

FHRIIBIARAFNSHA

***

Translation: Freddy’s hamster rolled in its ball into a river and Freddy never saw him again.

How did you do? Awesome, I’m sure. And wasn’t that so much more efficient? The number of letters was significantly reduced.

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Now let’s practice translating devowelized phrases.

thts wht frddys mm tld hm nywy. n rl lf, frddys mthr ws ntnsly rttd wth th hmstr, wh ppd n hr brnd nw shs nd sh drnd t n th rvr

***

Translation: That’s what Freddy’s mom told him anyway. In real life, Freddy’s mother was intensely irritated with the hamster, who pooped in her brand new shoes and she drowned it in the river.

Simple, right?

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Despite Text Speak becoming unnecessary with the eradication of flip phones, we should all continue to endorse it and use it continuously because it’s doesn’t use nearly as many letters as Normal English and is so much more efficient.

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TH ND

 

Texting? What’s that?

LOL. BRB. ABC. TTYL. ETC.

Do you know what texting is? I’m going to operate under the assumption that you do know what it is because if you don’t, I’ll be forced to ask, “How oblivious can a person be?”

No one actually calls anymore. No, no, no. That’s so old-fashioned. It’s all about texting now. The blipipity-bloop-bloop buttons that are pressed to send sentences to other peeps. Like a faster version of email (email *scoffs*—so passé). Often, the buttons are quite small, resulting in numerous vexing typos.

But like good old snail-mail, one cannot convey emotions through simple text as well as one can through phone calls or *gasp* face-to-face interaction. Thus, the creation of the emoji.

This weekend, Spinette and I were sitting on a couch. We were less than six inches apart and yet we were texting instead of speaking. And the reasoning we used to validate this behavior was the lack of emoji in real life.

I mean, it’s not like you can use your face to display emotion. No, no, no. It’s all about that emoji.

Also, it should be noted that we were at an emoji-themed birthday party.

Keyword = emoji-themed.

Phones, phones, phones.

A Brief Example…

You are eating lunch with Friend A, B, and C. But you are currently texting Friend D, who is not there. You are texting Friend D because Friend A and B are group-chatting with Friend E and Friend C is staring off into space and slightly drooling and you don’t want to deal with that drool. Since no one at your lunch table is talking to you, you begin to text Friend D to entertain yourself and complain about Friend C’s drool.

Later, you are eating dinner with Friend D, but you are texting Friend C to talk about how awesome the restaurant is. Friend D gets bored of you not paying attention to him and goes off to another table to talk to an ex-boyfriend who has just walked into the restaurant.

The Solution…

If only you were to strike up a conversation. Then Friend A and B would stop texting Friend E because, honestly, you’re far more interesting than her. Friend C (whose phone was taken away because she refused to do the dishes) is intrigued by your conversation and joins in, ceasing to drool. Now, the drool problem is solved and you, Friend A, B, and C will all get your daily dose of Real Life Human Interaction.

And later, you can hold a proper conversation with Friend D so he doesn’t wander away and get caught up in the mess that is Ex-Boyfriend.

TADA

I am brilliant.

When Should You Start Celebrating Christmas?

Christmas should not be celebrated until at least the day after Thanksgiving.

Already, when I go out, I see Christmas decorations everywhere, but only a dusty turkey in the corner to represent Thanksgiving. But, as you probably know, dear nonexistent reader, if you’ve ever interacted with a calendar in your life, that Thanksgiving comes before Christmas. But then why are there more Christmas decorations everywhere, even though Thanksgiving has not yet passed?

By acknowledging the existence of Christmas before Thanksgiving, we are throwing Thanksgiving to the side, allowing it to be overshadowed by Christmas.

Now, I have nothing against Christmas, in fact, I adore Christmas. Who wouldn’t love a holiday where a slightly overweight man breaks into your home with absolutely no repercussions? (Make sure none of your possessions go missing after Christmas.)

I just have a problem when people forget Thanksgiving due to their anticipation of Christmas.

You can put up your tree the day after Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t mind, but not before.

Thanksgiving is the ultimate day of optimism when people are forced to think about how lucky they are and it is important enough not to be forgotten.