My name is Steve. I am a security guard, fiction writer, and avid, sometimes voracious reader. I play video games and write fiction and books and argue online about things I will never have direct control or power over because I don't know any better. I am, as an old term would put it, something of an autodidact. Recovering biblioholic, perhaps. Maybe not recovering… look, I can quit when I want to, alright?!
So. Blogs. They're a thing. I am the internet equivalent of an old man shaking a fist at the clouds so I can be behind the times here and there. I have no reddit account (though Google means I can use it anyway), I use FB sparingly to interact with family who don't use Discord or such, and I use Discord because AIM shut down and ICQ is long gone. I registered on Twitter and promptly ignored it and now laugh quietly in schadenfreude as a spoiled brat billionaire burns it down. No sir, social media and I are, at best, passing acquaintances, and I have harsh opinions as to their lifestyle.
Now, another thing about me is my mind never wants to shut up. Going to sleep can be a challenge unless I'm tired because my brain likes to keep running, even through the fog of sleep apnea. Whenever I don't have something actively demanding mental power, I find my mind wandering to begin considering things. Many things. All sorts of subjects. And then I kinda do this mental equivalent of masticating them, chewing and testing the ideas, thinking about them and thinking about the thinking. Then I have this tendency to just go into explanations about this or that to people as a part of conversation, which is how talking on Discord about the current issues in Gaza led to me talking about the Nuremberg Trials and how Alfried Krupp got away with slavery and mass murder. (Go read William Manchester's The Arms of Krupp).
As for my name for this blog about an autodidact blathering about random subjects to occupy spare brain power (which may end up with a vlog adjacent since I do a lot of this thinking driving home from work or walking, points where I am not typing - assuming I decide to inflict my nasally-pitched voice upon your tender ears anyway), as you can guess it is rooted in my own self-aware tendency to sometimes talk about something like the other person does not know what is being discussed. It's like mansplaining, but broader.
Namely, if I can sum up the concept of mansplaining as being rooted in this idea:
"I, a man, know X, and I assume you, a woman, do not know X because you are not a man, ergo I shall explain it to you"
…then "Stevesplaining" amounts to this:
"I, Steve, know X, and I assume you, Person Who Is Not Steve, do not know X because you are not me, ergo I shall explain it to you".
It's very annoying. I catch myself sometimes doing this. I blame it on a lingering eagerness to sound learned and smart and a tendency to just blather ideas at people regardless of whether they want to hear them or if they know what I'm talking about, perhaps better than I do. So I'm naming this blog after this concept because A) I will be blathering and B) it's both funny and self-deprecating, and I'm assuming that will make people laugh and not do the internet equivalent of throwing rotten vegetables at me.
A vain hope, but it is there.
Anyway, this is my rambling introduction. I may edit the aforementioned Krupp thing to be a followup post soon but other than that, I have no set schedule or content consideration. But I do have something of a mission statement.
I'm not out to persuade you. Lots of people write blogs or do vlogs or other things to persuade others that their way is right. I'd just be one of many. I'm out for the purpose of getting folks to think. Think about things, think about thinking. Not just "what is that" but "why do I think about it this way?". Self-reflection and recognition of personal biases can help people avoid falling into terrible ideas through manipulation of their emotions and perceptions, and I feel this is vital in our current mutual cognitive space where social media algorithms keep feeding us free dopamine hits through confirmation bias.
Let's see how well I do.
…..what, you're still here? Why? You can't want me to exercise this concept on the idea of "Mansplaining", can you?... you do, don't you. sigh Alright.
The word itself just invokes an image. This douchebro slouched beside a woman, yammering away about a subject as if she's utterly ignorant of it and yet she's wearing a lab coat that says "phlebotomist" while he's explaining blood chemistry to her as if she's a particularly dull eight year old. The idea of a man who condescendingly tells people things he knows as if he is the only person alive who has this knowledge and has deigned to provide you the fruit of this unique resource. You half expect him to raise a sign saying "now applause" the moment his monologue ends.
It's a striking image. And given the nature of people, it's certainly happened before. But then you start to think about it and you wonder how common this particular sequence is, then you start to wonder just how you define it. Where does mansplaining begin and end? Does it apply every time some guy starts confidently talking about a subject without determining the listener's knowledge? Is confidence in any form integral to the concept of mansplaining, or can someone be mansplaining simply because they're speaking of the subject in any tone? For that matter, what is it if it's a woman explaining a subject confidently to a man as if he is ignorant, without verifying whether or not he is? Is that "womansplaining"? "Ladysplaining?" It's still as arrogant and condescending, but it doesn't feel the same, I imagine. Or maybe it does to you.
It's an interesting subject to consider because the concept of mansplaining is rooted into wider matters of how the sexes interact. The presumption of male superiority, of subjects that are just inherently masculine in the knowledge, of course a woman (or someone insufficiently masculine) wouldn't know it. The general concept of a culture being patriarchal has this potential social interaction baked right in, whatever the actual truth of who would know what.
Maybe it's also a form of pickup attempt in some cases? "See how much I know? I'm smart, you should be interested in me."
Either way, it's something people should be self-aware of when deciding they want to show someone how smart they are. You may just be the one confidently explaining to an expert your not-so-deep understanding of a subject they've made their career out of. I'd recommend venturing for someone's knowledge on a subject before commencing your dissertation.
Or be like me and just develop a bizarre tendency to verbalize your thoughts.
Hopefully, the next entry of this blog will be more interesting. Or it'll be me shaking my fist and screaming "CURSE YOU, JOHN MCCLOY! CUUUUUUUURSE YOOOOOU!!!"
