TGIF: Shiny Happy People (Patreon)

Hello and happy Friday, Patrons! How is everyone doing today? Okay, I hope. The sun is finally making an appearance today in LA and that's GREAT. I woke up without any clear inspiration on what to write today so this might end up being a little more scattered than normal.

First thing's first, DON'T FORGET the BAR Flies livestream for Trick Mirror will be tomorrow at 12pm PST! I'll post the link for it over here tomorrow once I stumble to get myself situated! As always the stream is open to all patrons, regardless of whether you've started or finished the book. Let's just hang and have a nice lil Saturday afternoon chat. Maybe we'll even make some tea and have some snacks! I dunno we'll have see how FUCKING WILD we can get!! Should we have a tea party? Maybe we should have a tea party. I'll see if I can find some tea for our party. Our kitchen is still nonfunctional, but we have a microwave on the floor that we've been using to heat food and water if needed. Why is it on the floor? I don't know. I think the dining table filled up with a bunch of shit when we were emptying the kitchen before demo and Elliott just put it on the floor and then neither of us have decided to try and make room for it on the table. And it's been funny whenever Elliott has to heat up his leftovers on the floor. I say he's making his "floor food". Because he's more particular about wanting warm food. I don't have to worry about that because I'm a different kind of monster that'll eat food at absolutely any temperature its given. Cold leftovers are one of my love languages as we all know. Either way, the floor microwave is a gross and broken system.

Speaking of gross and broken systems we just watched a brand new docu-series about the Duggar family called "Shiny Happy People" on Amazon and WHEW it's fascinating and gross and frustrating. But I'm glad docs like this get made. There's bad shit happening in these families and the institutions behind them and people should know. If you're interested here's the description:

A limited docuseries exposing the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality tv’s favorite mega-family, The Duggars, and the radical organization behind them: The Institute in Basic Life Principles. As details of the family and their scandals unfold, we realize they’re part of an insidious, much larger threat already in motion, with democracy itself in peril.

I definitely recommend it if you're looking for a new doc to watch and/or, like me, have an ongoing concern about christian conservatives abusing their power and perverse doctrine to harm women and children. Ya know, that light hearted stuff!

I think maybe I mentioned before on the pod or in a post that Elliott introduced me to the WILD world of fundamentalist christian influencers. And oh Lord-and-savior-of-salvation-and-Jesus-friendly-brand-deals, that world be wild. He also introduced me to the FundieSnark community which, exactly as it sounds, snarks on fundies. And oh my whatever-you-believe-in, they are making some funny snarks on some unbelievably righteous fundies. Towards the end of the Shiney Happy People series they touch on the rise of the christian influencer, the new wave of IG and Tiktok accounts filled with toothy, eagerly-dead-behind-the-eyes Bible diehards who promote incredibly outdated teachings wrapped in awkwardly filtered, overzealous videos and livestreams. They're constantly shilling e-books, programs, and workshops teaching you how to be a good christian while also opening up access to their baby registries for their audiences to buy them baby gifts. They HATE drag queens and gay people but they LOVE when a stranger buys their unborn baby a designer backpack. Babies can't even wear backpacks! But they still put that shit on their registries!!! Their righteousness is as shameless as the price points on the bogus programs. I kid you not, one influencer was selling a course teaching people HOW TO MAKE A COURSE TO SELL. Okay, calm down, Helbig, you're getting yourself all riled up. And yeah, I see the irony of rage typing this on a patreon page behind a paywall. I guess I just don't like seemingly shiny happy people trying to convince young people that drag is wrong and gay people are bad, among the other harmful narratives they push against women as submissive to their husbands and the entire trans community ack ack ack.

But, hey, to each their own. It's still endlessly fascinating to me. And maybe it's more saddening then maddening. Maybe they're stuck in a broken system that broke them and they don't even know it. I didn't grow up in an overtly religious household and was lucky to have parents that let us sort of do whatever we wanted when it came to religion (after we finished receiving our Catholic sacraments, of course). Which, I guess, has it's negatives too. I wasn't oppressed by any religious doctrine, but I've been left to my own devices to find meaning. And sometimes that can be a little disorienting. But never bewildering enough to drive me towards religion. It's funny, I'm a clumsy control freak in a lot of areas in my life. I thrive on certainty, as most of us do, and get immediately anxious at the onset of uncertainty. Though it's something I'm getting more of a handle on, especially in the last year. But in terms of spiritually I've always inherently and simply believed "I don't know". (Turns out that catch phrase was deeper than I thought!) To me, the meaning of life and what happens after is too impossible to know, so who am I to insist I have any definitive idea. And deep down I love the magic of that mystery. I love the curiosity it encourages and the beauty that comes from exploring meaning. It's kinda thrilling and definitely frightening to not know. And even more fun to imagine the universe as a cosmic trickster whose comedy show we're sitting in the audience for. Elliott's really championed the idea that the universe is a big ol infinite trickster and I can't say I disagree. That's probably the closest I get to "faith" of some kind. But I get why people are religious. I get that there are good teachings and values and community. I get the safety of a solid belief system, and the comfort of knowing your purpose in life. There's nothing else you have to wonder about when that's settled. Like Steve Jobs wearing black turtlenecks every day so he didn't have to use his big smart brain to consider other clothing options. The critical thinking is removed, all you have to do is wake up and put on the turtleneck/belief system. Also, like Steve's turtlenecks, seems like these religious institutions can be dark and strangling. Eeeeeeee. Okay, I gotta abort.

That's what she said.

Who said?

NOT THE FUNDIE CHRISTIAN INFLUENCER, THAT'S FOR SURE.

Okay, I gotta wrap this up! I didn't expect to go on a lil tangent about religion but, shit, here we are. And I mean absolutely no offense to anyone out there who's religious, I respect the beauty of belief. I'm just a girl, watching from the outside through the church's stained glass windows, trying to maintain my own cringy, curious vibe. Don't worry, I'll be making great use of my adult time by continuing to explore my fascination with the christian fundie influencer community as they spew their nonsense rhetoric onto the internet like dirty water from on overflowing toilet. That's what all recent Master's grads do, right? Cute! If you're curious, this woman Jen runs a channel called FundieFridays where she makes excellent content exploring "different aspects of Christian fundamentalism, American conservative politics, pop culture and queer issues in a humorous and semi-educational way." I love her stuff! It's really well researched and just plain entertaining. Plus, she's featured in the doc, that's actually how we first found out about it. Welp, I'm sure this post wasn't what you expected as much as it wasn't what I expected lol. I like to keep you guessing each week! Thanks for letting me let out a little rant. A teeny lil internet queef about my conservative christian concerns. And we only just scratched the surface. Maybe we can keep this convo going for the stream tomorrow or maybe we give it a god damn break and get back to talking about things like new age Jesus/Judas....the Arianna/Rachel scandal of biblical proportions. That VPR reunion part 2 was A DOOOOOOZY. Now all I can picture is one of the two other guys that were getting crucified next to Jesus screaming at Judas "You're a worm with a mustache!". Okay, this post is now potentially offensive, gotta go! Thanks, as always for being here! And see ya tomorrow! 💚G