When I was little, I had no dreams for the future. Mostly because I didn’t think I had one, nor did I really want to live. I just made my way through each day, hanging on until the end. Oh, wait. I had one dream. That was to be an actor. I loved to perform and would jump off the coffee table, yelling, “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!” as I threw my arms in the air. No idea why. But then I never saw anyone who looked like me on TV except for the extras in M*A*S*H (which I hated, by the way), so I sadly concluded that there was no place in the business for me.
I did do some theater when I was in high school and in my twenties. The latter was with Theater Mu, which was the first regional Asian American theater. It was a great experience, but the company itself had a lot of issues. I did some solo performing after that in which I wrote, directed, practiced, and performed the pieces all by myself. That was great because I like being in control. It’s funny because my most memorable one had me stripping to my undies in front of a hundred or so women, and it was exhilirating. It wasn’t prurient, mind, but a piece about finding out who you really were.
I gave up on it in my thirties. No real reason. Well, if I were to be brutally honest, gaining weight probably had something to do with it. Plus, Taiji. Once I started doing that, I did not really feel compelled to go back to performing. Now, however, I have the urge to do it again.
It was my first love, and only now do I have the confidence to do it. Hm. I was just thinking that if I want to do videos (not want, but have to because blogging is dead), then I can combine the two. Performing and video, I mean. I’ve seen people do what I would call sketch comedy for their content creation, which is interesting.
Many of the people who do it aren’t that good at it, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I’ts personality-driven, and it’s peppy perky that people seem to like–when it comes to women. With men, it’s shouting a lot. Loudly. With many hand gestures. It’s fucking annoying.
Side note: I find it discouraging that in the year of our pleasure, 2023, diversity still is not considered important for many content creators. I watch a lot of British content creators, which I like in general, but they are not exactly up on diversity. There’s a popular cooking channel that I used to be subscribed to called Sorted. But, given their stubborn refusal to have anyone but white dudes on, well, I’m done. Yes, occasionally, there’s a white woman or a man of color, but it’s so rare. One of thein staff chefs is now a man of color, but he acts like one of the lads. They have a series in which they try to cook a burger in less than ten minutes. Each guy made his best burger and they’ve invited guest chefs to do the same. They’ve had half a dozen plus the original four staff members and no women. That’s when I quit watching them completely.
Many minorities don’t like the token minority because that one minority often doesn’t feel real. I agree, but at the same time, if there isn’t even a token minority, then that means the company/people in charge aren’t even thinking about it. That’s how I feel with Sorted. They don’t even think about having diversity. Seriously. Ten dudes (all but one white) making burgers. They couldn’t think of one woman they could ask?
The sad truth, though, is that misogyny is really strong on the internet. I mean, it’s strong in real life, too, but it’s even easier to let your isms fly on the internet. And, I’ll be frank, dudes don’t consume media made by women, but women will consume media made by men. This was true with in-person media and it’s true online. Girls will read books with boys as the main protagonist, but not vice-versa. It’s the same online. There are certain areas in which women flourish–such as fashion and baking. Cooking, too, but to a lesser extent. Makeup, also. Too. But in other areas, nope. There are a few in gaming, but it’s predominantly men. Same in the variety type of content.
This is frustrating because I do not want to do makeup, fashion, or cooking. I used to bake back in the day, but I haven’t done it in decades. I just don’t have the patience to do all the sifting and measuring and whatnot. Plus, I don’t want to learn all the proper substitutions.
Let’s not even talk about nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, and agender people (not to mention any other gender minority). The problem is that for now, I call myself agender, but it’s such a small part of my identity. If I did content creation, it would not be around this topic for the most part. I might do a video or two on it, but it’s not something I care about much. Yes, I think about it and ponder it, but it’s more because gender is baffling to me in general, not because it’s important to me. In fact, the reason it’s baffilng to me is beacuse it seems so important to many people.
I guess I would understand it better if I understood what it meant to be a woman. There are the people with rigid expectations for gender roles, and I most definitely do not agree with them. But then, there are people who say that being a woman is whatever you want it to be. Which, I much prefer that, but then I don’t understand the point of having the word at all. If it can mean anything, then doesn’t it actually mean nothing?
More to the point, I can’t reconcile the idea that it means nothing with the idea that it has a rigid definition. I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the middle, but I just don’t know what it actually means. Yes, I think about things too deeply, but it’s just beyond my ken to actually feel like a woman (thanks, Shania).
In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter. I am who I am, and I make no apologies for it.