[ SECRET POST #2022 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2022 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 088 secrets from Secret Submission Post #289.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That whole "poor people aren't allowed to have hobbies or enjoy things" is a bunch of BS. That vast majority of people who use that line are middle class people who have the money but want to spend it elsewhere.

If you are dirt poor and have nothing to your name. How are you listening to the mp3s you've downloaded? You would be too poor for a mp3 player. How are you able to get online to watch a downloaded movie? You would be too poor for a computer and a good connection. And most libraries have an hour long limit for each user. So, you are not watching The Avengers in the middle of the public library.

Even if you are not spending money on movies and comics, themselves, it still costs money to get them for free. (Ironic? Yes.) How actually poor are you if you can still maintain this hobby?

[world_eater]

Eh, you know you don't magically turn middle class when you have a computer and an internet connection?

[(Anonymous)]

No.

Stop it before you hurt yourself.

[(Anonymous)]

This is the most tired, ridiculous argument I have ever heard.

Internet connections are cheap these days. There is free-floating wireless everywhere. Poor people have computers. Do you know why poor people have computers? Because there are programs to get them computers. There are people who became dirt-poor after having purchased these things. They are gifts given to children of poor families by relatives and churches to help them in school and to get a job. Just because someone has a computer, or an ipod, or a cell phone, does not mean that they are not dirt poor.

Just because someone has a luxury item that maybe they scrimped and saved for so their child could entertain themselves on their $20 dollar a month internet connection does not mean they have other money to spend on other things.

It's idiotic, uninformed opinions like yours that hurts the lower classes and lays on the expectations that they must not really have it as bad as they claim because oh look, they have a smart phone! Never mind that it's a beaten-up, refurbished, no data plan phone that can only take incoming calls THEY MUST BE MAKING IT UP, THEY HAVE MONEY SOMEWHERE.

[(Anonymous)]

Plus, a second-hand computer that is a few years old is dirt cheap and more than adequate for downloading stuff. Or a friend or relative might just give it to you after buying a new one.

[anonymouslyyours]

For years I did everything fandom related from a library computer until I got someone's old laptop and my brother and I got it working again.

[thene]

When I first got into fandom there were no computers in my home; I used libraries and internet cafes, and I printed of tons of fics at my sixth-form (three columns, 1cm margins, size 6 font), where student printing was free. I still have some of the better printouts. It was my elder sister who got me into fandom and she'd got a computer for school, so when she came home she saved tons of goodfic on her computer for me to read.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly.

I'm typing from a computer I got for free. It was in a pile of stuff on the side of the road with "free to take". It came with a cord and a bag. I now have a computer and I can access the internet nearly anywhere. The library is my favourite.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't believe people still come out with "you can't be poor if you've got internet access" in this day and age. I mean, you may have had a point in 1990 and I'm not even sure about then, but now? Might as well say someone can't be poor because they've got electricity and running water.

[(Anonymous)]

You would be amazed at some of the stupid shit people say regarding who is "really" poor. I live in an area with a pretty high homeless population, and with the downturn in the economy, more and more of the people you see panhandling are people in their 20's who have recently lost their jobs and homes, or who just never found jobs after college and have nowhere to go. And at least once a week, I hear someone sneering and saying how those kids obviously aren't really homeless, because their clothes look too nice. Because apparently when you lose your home, you're required toss all your clothes and find new ones with holes and stains. Once, I even overheard someone saying a particular girl couldn't be homeless because the cup she was using to panhandle was a Starbucks cup, and Starbucks is expensive. I guess it didn't occur to them that she probably picked up someone else's litter to use.

[(Anonymous)]

i don't understand how you can be homeless in your 20s. don't these kids have families? :(

[anonymouslyyours]

Uh, no. Or at least ones that are not preferable to being homeless. What part don't you understand?

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Not everyone has families with the willingness and means to support them. Sometimes families are willing and able to provide food and shelter, but are abusive and toxic to go back to. And sometimes it's just a matter of just not being able to get to their families when things go wrong, because transportation is way out of your price range.

I think one of the reasons I get so angry about this kind of shit is that I was unemployed and completely broke with thousands of dollars in debt five months after graduating college. And that was years ago, when the economy was significantly better than it is now. Luckily, I had awesome and understanding parents with room and money enough to take me in and a friend who bought me enough gas to get my ass back home. But I know that all that separates younger-me from the kids I see on the street is the generosity and financial solvency of my friends and family, which sadly aren't things everyone has to fall back on.

[(Anonymous)]

DA, with a long-ass story because yeah, it just takes one turn for it all to wind up different.

I feel you, anon. I moved from the East Coast to LA a few weeks after graduation from college in 2006, to some gorgeous SoCal weather and a promising-enough sounding job in print media advertising sales (Ha! Oh, it is to laugh, now, thinking about that. "Promising job in print-media advertising in 2006", more the fool was I). Not the best money ever for LA, but hell -- for a just-grad English major? Palm trees and health insurance and a 401k, enough money to pay my bills if not really enough to sock anything into savings, living that dream.

Cut to the next spring, and my company closed its domestic side of business. That's half our company, out of like ten American offices across the country, laid-off. I got a month's notice -- a lot more than most get -- and hit the ground running, but nothing came of it. I registered for unemployment after a healthy round of internal debate, received one week's check, and then got kicked the fuck off it because I got a part-time job. So my part-time job paid less than I would have received on unemployment, who cares, work is always better, right? The State of California had not one single fuck to spare. So I spent the next five months making coffee at a Borders and netting less than two hundred a month after rent. Did someone live off her credit cards during that time, to buy gas and food? Damn right she did. We ditched cable but kept the internet (my roommate was doing just fine, and I needed *something*), and I was at the point of giving up smoking for the cost (yeah, cause when you're in that situation what you really want to do is add any more stress into your life, but money's money -- I could justify it to myself with the nickels and dimes from our "tip jar" at the store) when it was put-up or shut up time at lease-renewal and I moved back to the East Coast and she moved to the Valley with her boyfriend.

During those five months? I went on TWENTY-SEVEN JOB INTERVIEWS. I spent hours every day drafting cover letters and reworking resumes to suit job postings. Applied to all types of office jobs, and not just those. I'd worked in restaurants all through college, couldn't find a damn thing there either. Anything that looked to make more than I was eeking out I went for, but nothing. Nothing at all.

But, you know. I was young, educated with a college degree, able-bodied. Majority ethnicity and native English-speaker. Smart and personable and presentable. Surely something would come up, since I legit had the deck stacked in my favour. But -- it didn't. Because you know what? Something doesn't always come up, no matter how much it seems like it should based on the surface criteria. Sometimes things just *don't*.

Thank GOD my parents were able and willing to let me come back home and live with them, because otherwise? I had one real friend in LA who I could truly count on in a pinch, my roommate who was from back home. 2600 miles from home and all my friends and family, with one reliable person in a jam? Yeah, time to peace while I could.

I burned my credit on that trip home too, dude. Burned what was left of it and burned it bad, but I had no choice. From LA to the East Coast I spent over $4,000. And this is when gas was like 2.60 most places that summer. Four fucking grand -- between gas, hotels, food, and the awesome and exciting car repairs all along Interstate 40 to get me home. It was -- a thing.

If I didn't have a place to go at the end of that trip? And if I didn't have enough room on a credit card I'd taken out on a whim to get a free t-shirt in college? I would have probably wound up living in whatever town my crappy old car broke down in for good, panhandling for money and sleeping in the backseat with all my wordly belongings until I got lucky and found a job or got unlucky and got into trouble. Which honestly would have been more likely for me at the time. Because guess who, in addition to losing her job, had lost the ability to afford health-insurance and therefore her ability to afford her prescription? Yeah. This girl. That's just how you want to find yourself -- trapped with no money, a broken-down car, no job, and no meds, in some random town where you don't know a soul.

Doesn't happen to anyone, you say? Damn near happened to me, and I'm a middle-class, college-graduate girl from the suburbs who you'd expect to have a safety net. Thank fuck I did have one, or who knows what would have happened to me.

Shit happens, dude, and it happens to young people just like it happens to "adults". I'm thankful all the time that I'm lucky enough to have a good relationship with my parents, and that they were in a position to let me come back home until I got back on my feet -- one year out of college.

TL&DR; Word. People always assume that because you're young and/or educated and/or able-bodied you should be just fine, but it's never a guarantee. Luck and timing play a *big* part in these things and it makes me super angry when people deny that.

[(Anonymous)]

good luck

[(Anonymous)]

Also many of them might be foster care kids who've aged out of the system and now have no where to go because the system doesn't give a fuck if you're 18 and haven't finished high school/can't get a job/can't afford college. Because you're 18 and should be able to fend for yourself now. Never mind that most of them haven't even been taught the skills to live on their own since they've spent so much time bouncing around bad foster homes to learn anything.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, I have a computer, but don't have running water in the place I'm currently living in. :) Sometimes I think I'd prefer water, because dragging it in buckets does suck. :D

[majorshipper]

Fucking this.

[otakugal15]

How about.....I bought a laptop from the left overs from a scholaship before I graduated? A scholarship I got through making a high enough score on the ACT to even be ABLE to get into college in the first place? And now I'm dirt poor cause I have no job experience (i took school too seriously, all to end up with a degree i fucking hate. sigh) and having to rely on my boyfriend (which rankles me like crazy. love the boy, but damn do i hate feeling useless) for internet? Thus why I have a computer and an internet connection to be ABLE to listen to music and download manga/movies/songs/tv shows/books?

Or, I could go to the LIBRARY to get some of that?

OR, I have FRIENDS who have that stuff and I can watch downloaded and/or bought content with them?

(OH NOES. THEY'RE/I'M STEALING!!! CAUSE THEY'RE SHARING SOMETHING WITH ME. AND I DIDN'T BUY IT!!111!!one *headdeask*)

Just cause we're dirt poor doesn't mean we can't find ways around that for fandom and entertainment. B/

[(Anonymous)]

Oh stfu. I don't consider myself poor now (even though I'm living in a tiny apartment on minimum wage, but hey it's MUCH better than when I was living in a shelter), but back when I was? You don't mysteriously lose everything you owned before you lost your money.

I had a laptop and an iPod that I carried around with me in my backpack along with two changes of clothes and a couple bottles of water that I would re-fill whenever I came across a public water fountain. While I slept in the shelter the staff there was nice enough to allow me to recharge my laptop there, and I could recharge my iPod off of my laptop at the same time.

And did you know how easy it is to pick up wifi when you're wandering around town? There are some Starbucks whose wifi signals are strong enough to pick up from a park bench that's far enough away that you don't have staff shooing you away for loitering.

And the thing is? Now that I'm living in an apartment paycheck to paycheck, I DO pay for the luxuries that I can afford. I just have to prioritize that after my gas, electric, water, food and rent. But I no longer read scanlations, and if I want a game I'll wait until I can pay for it. Because now I CAN pay for it.

[darkmanifest]

You do know high-tech wireless phones and plans are super cheap in most of the world these days, right? Some people can get them before they can even get indoor plumbing. I just paid sixty bucks for a no-contract phone with free internet via a particular browser. If I invested in a used laptop for two hundred bucks, I could camp out in the library all day on free WiFi, watching The Avengers between job applications. People can be homeless with quality electronics (since you can charge your phone or computer at any number of public places). So yeah.

[(Anonymous)]

Middle class in your country =/= middle class in other countries. Just saying, though I highly doubt you care. And yes, everyone who doesn't have the spare money to spend it on a shitty expensive hobby must be so poor that they dig their breakfast out of trash bins. Do you use banknotes to wipe your ass, because otherwise I cannot image how can you be that ignorant.