Trying to get attention all the time is hard and not cute! And the lady apparently doesn’t know how to chill, so she gets even more publicity by crowdsourcing her leisure:
And this is a real gem:
I’m taking a few days to take care of myself before what is sure to be an eventful term.
For working people, immigrants, & the poor, self-care is political – not because we want it to be, but bc of the inevitable shaming of someone doing a face mask while financially stressed./1 https://t.co/EWdWFmPwet
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 17, 2018
Well, as HuffPo might say (but wouldn’t), “AoC needs a face mask and Twitter isn’t having it.”
My suggestion for the incumbent Congresswoman:
In light of GOP atrocities, I don’t understand being offended by this. Seems like she’s been working her ass off for the last two years and needs a break.
And taking a week before session starts seems prudent. As an introvert, I find I do better when I give myself time before a months-long marathon of intense and socially draining work.
I searched the string “offend” in this page and it came out only in your post.
a. Did I say I was offended? No, I’m amused.
b. It’s one thing to take some time off, which is fine, but only a narcissist would put it all over social media and invite interaction
c. Seriously? Someone needs SUGGESTIONS on how to relax?
As for GOP atrocities, I guess I should post only about GOP atrocities, right? That is, I should post about what everyone else is posting about.
We will all have to get used to this, I’m afraid. We will see entire generations who have spent most of their lives (or all of their lives) posting and documenting the most mundane details of their frequently ordinary lives. In fact, they probably don’t even feel truly alive unless they are describing or photographing themselves for others to see.
Trump may be the narcissist-in-chief, but there are many similar phenotypes among both his friends and his enemies.
Sad!
Yes, I thought that about all the (fully deserved) mocking of Trump’s use of Twitter, his opponents will avoid making fools of themselves exactly the same way. But no.
I’m not sure it’s offensive so much as it’s just pathetic. You must not be *too* financially stressed if you can still afford facials. Poor people – *truly financially stressed people* – are trying to scrape together change for food and rent, not worrying about who is shaming them for a chemical peel.
Is a face mask a chemical peel? Having never tried either,I assumed that the mask was mud or something, and a peel is something one had to go to the salon for. In my mind, this distinction is relevant if we are talking about discretionary income on a tight budged. A mask costs dollars and pennies, if I recall correctly, while a salon visit would be much more.
Let me womansplain that to you.
A face mask can be any goo on the face with the aim of hydrating the skin, a chemical peel typically has chemicals (such as fruit acids) that will disintegrate the upper surface layer of skin. Theoretically it makes you look younger.
While you can buy cheap(ish) masks at the supermarket, someone who is genuinely cash-strapped would spend a cent on something that is not an essential. When every cent actually matters, food is the priority and perhaps essential detergents for washing clothes etc.
Some women in my country also use home-made “masks” that cost pennies: sliced cucumber, yogurt etc.
I wouldn’t waste good yogurt on my ugly mug, but cucumbers? They’re negative pennies, four seeds in the dirt, a little time, and I couldn’t give them away! Might as well stick them on my face, I couldn’t stand EATING another one!
However, Yoghurt with grated cucumber, some garlic, olive oil, a dash of lemon and some dill or fine herbs (salt and pepper to taste), can be used as a face-mask and subsequently eaten, the Greeks call it Tzatziki.
I prefer to eat both products, but even if I am willing to sacrifice them, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice the time needed to spread them on the skin and then to remove them.
I do some “self-care” – sunscreen in very sunny days and protective cream in very cold days before I go out; and if I forget, I do something after I return, to deal with the damage. But to moisterize perfectly healthy skin in an attempt to marginally slow down ageing (or hide it)… This may be respite to some, but to me, it is hard and futile work :-).
Tu coque is still a fallacy. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong–even if someone else does something worse.
This one’s straining at gnats. I don’t care any more about the personal foibles of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez than I do about those of any of the other (near-anonymous) 98 incoming freshman Representatives who don’t represent my congressional district. She’s bound to be an impuissant backbencher for the next decade or so (assuming she sticks around that long). As such, she’s of no real concern to anyone but her constituents in New York’s 14th congressional district, for whom she won’t be bringing home the pork-barrel bacon the way her establishment predecessor, Joe Crowley, did.
The only thing I care about her is how she votes considering she is in all other respects powerless in the House of Representatives. Is she politically ambitious? Yes. Is she trying to create a following? Yes. This makes her no different than the thousands of her predecessors who walked the halls of Congress. The vast majority of them failed miserably. Will she do any better? Let’s check back in ten years.
And let’s not forget how bad the right is anyway, with all the atrocities. Am I right? Also, she is nothing like Sarah Palin. Am I right?
Ah, my favorite troll has reappeared. I missed you. What happened?
Luv ‘ya, bro!
I hope that Alexandra will vote to ban trolls and twitter haters that always attack womynxOC and ultimately enable GOP atrocities.
I don’t have a problem with her taking a break. In fact I think it’s probably a good idea. I do have a problem with her doing the humble brag of not knowing how to relax plus the publicity hound thing of asking for advice on how to do it.
And if she really doesn’t know how to relax she could just Google “best ways to relax” and she’d probably get a billion hits.
Thank god there is someone to stick up for the right of the poor to do face masks. Workers of the world unite, indeed.
… you have nothing to lose but your clogged pores.
I actually do think there’s something of a class or maybe political divide in the way that work habits are presented and taught. My family was middle class but they were very much of the “Crack that (mental) whip, whip yourself into shape, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work yourself into excellence, and if you don’t you have no one but yourself to blame” mentality. This was enough to get my ADD-esque self through college and grad school but only because I found my coursework relatively easy. While I am annoyed with liberals about many things these days, I 100% think I learned much better work habits and was more able to apply myself after learning various versions of ‘work smarter not harder’. Some of that was via stress management and equanimity training in yoga and meditation, some was in realizing it can be a good thing to spend some time following a passion that technically is work but doesn’t actually feel like ‘work’ at all (the whole “jack of all trades master of none is an important dynamic when you think of people who really excel in various fields today), some of it was knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses and to some extent simply factoring in weaknesses instead of assuming you’ll stamp them out… there were various things, but I feel that overall I do much more work and do better financially these days but I *feel like I’m working much less. So I understand the desire to teach people something more effective than “just push yourself as hard as possible until you’re miserable and can’t stand it!”, but I also see how the framing (facial masks and self-care) is going to make some people see this as a silly fru fru indulgence.
How about you call John Dingell, not your fans on line.
“It’s one thing to take some time off, which is fine, but only a narcissist would put it all over social media and invite interaction”
I agree with PCC(E)’s comment. If she wants to chill and regroup, fine, but why make such a big deal of it, and then politicize it by exploiting poor people.
I must say that I’m so damned sick of the term “self-care.” It’s hideous and it’s become ubiquitous. Ubiquitous, too, in that narcissistically announced on social media by those who indulge in or practice it. It’s become a buzz phrase for magazines, shopping sites, you name it.
This all actually makes sense. First, I can believe she needs time off–preliminary work before something like this has to be tremendous, and taking a breather between “preliminary” and “actual” work is a reasonable idea.
Second, her putting this on social media makes sense. That’s how she obtains political power: her ability to connect with people and turn any action into a political statement. So of course she’s going to make her time off about social justice (SJWs make EVERYTHING about it), and to mitigate it she’s asking The People to contribute. It’s weird, but it’s very much on-brand for her.
If she HADN’T posted on social media about it, there would likely have been backlash of the “How dare she not be working for us?!” variety. Not much, perhaps–but coupled with the gain in SJW credibility she’s no doubt obtained, doing what she did is clearly the best option for her.
Note that none of this says anything about what’s best for the country. I’m merely speaking to her strategy.
This makes sense. I haven’t watched her on instagram, but I see on the web that a large number of people very much enjoy watching her cook instapot recipes while she talks politics. The sharing on social media is really also a generational thing. I have some younger siblings who can’t seem to not overshare on FB, and I’ve asked, do you really want people to know all the messy details of this or that life situation? Their response is that they connect with their friends this way.
Instapot!!1!
That’s it. Last straw.
Re: ‘If she HADN’T posted on social media about it, there would likely have been backlash of the “How dare she not be working for us?!’
How dare she not tell us anything and everything (of no reasonable consequence) going on in her life.
If that’s how you sell yourself, the customer has a reasonable expectation that you’ll do so. If you don’t, the customer has a reasonable expectation of an explanation.
Here’s the thing: She’s not interested in folks like you and me. We’re not her power base. The question isn’t whether WE like what she’s doing, it’s whether THEY like it. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts they do at this point. In a few years, maybe not; time will tell. But for now, this is what her power base expects of her, so it’s logical for her to provide it.
Wait until she realizes a person in congress can get little actually accomplished. Other than going to meetings, talking and voting that is about it. She may want something with more activity that allows her to set goals she can reach.
She’s spent the past ten years attending marxist & direct democracy meetings. I think she’s well-honed in the art of not getting anything substantive done.
Einah!
Perhaps she can study Senator Kamala Harris for tips on how to repeatedly interrupt senate committee hearing witnesses. (Not that Senator Harris is unique in this. The Senate is refulgent with entitled interrupters, and Harris, experienced in interrupting and badgering witnesses as a former prosecutor, has no less a right to egregiously interrupt than her privileged white male colleagues.)
Sound to me like she is taking a page out of the Donald Trump political book. Government by what you say on line. It’s genious. And your fellow congress persons will be really impressed.
I’m like so happy for her.
Even Conservatives like her!
https://earther.gizmodo.com/new-poll-shows-basically-everyone-likes-alexandria-ocas-1831158171
Especially the ones supporting Trump 2020 I bet.
Wow, wow, wow, even a majority of ‘conservative Republican voters’ strongly or somewhat support her? If true there, is still hope. I’m waiting for Mr Pence to embrace her 🙂
Seriously, apart from some inanities about other things, I think a ‘Green New Deal’ is direly needed. There are some problems in ‘fleshing it out'( 🙂 ) and renewables have their problems too, but it is definitely the way to go.
I think that for the new generation of politicians Twitter has become indispensable, one of Mr Trump’s less catastrophic legacies, I guess.
I feel compelled to write a defense of the ideas behind the phrase “Self Care”, while disliking the phrase itself, and not completely disagreeing with PCC.
This is something that gets discussed frequently in the fields of education and social work and for good reason. Burn-out is a serious issue that can lead to serious mental health issues. This is something I know all too well, as I’ve worked in education since 2007, primarily with children with disabilities, and three of those years were in an urban district where I saw and experienced the devistation of crime and poverty on a daily basis and felt absolutely powerless to make a difference. Likewise with my brief stint working with youths who had been sentanced through the juvenile justice system. It is difficult not to be affected by the horrors children in both poor schools and poor communitites have been faced with. It got to me, I covered it up by sleeping, eating, and drinking way too much. This is the opposite of self care. It led to a return of my serious depression and social anxiety, as well as panic attacks and fear of being outdoors or around people.
What self care does mean, whatever one wishes to call it, is taking the time to heal. This might be indulging in favorite hobbies, reading, hiking in nature, exercise, joining a group and attending meetings (for me it would be like Sierra Club or Audubon), travel (if one can afford it) things like that. Notice, these are things I knew I should do, but did not. It’s very similar to the things discussed in Johan Hari’s book “Lost Connections”, or behind the Japanese term “Ikigai”. I have no doubt that running for office is stressful, so I won’t begrudge the young congresswoman-elect, even though I’d point out to her that social media is more likely to hinder than help in her self care.
You were engaged in noble and important work. You paid a price. I hope things have gotten better for you.
Thanks. Things are somewhat less miserable. I did get out of bed, shower, play around on the microscope, and took a short walk, so that’s progress. I don’t think it appears as if the congresswoman-elect has the same issues, but then I never saw Robin Williams or Anthony Bourdain as troubled either. The way she talks about “self care” being political though, I wouldn’t have used that word, but for men, mental health is still an area where other men, and women especially, find it perfectly acceptable to use shame. At least that’s my experience.
To me, “self-care” sounds like a phrase one would read on the cover of a magazine aimed at a female audience. It’s probably just me, since Wikipedia has a page devoted to the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-care
Can’t argue with you on that. And part of the problem is how those magazines or tv shows push the idea, usually jokingly about buying shoes or a second glass of chardonnay, or the way we saw yesterday, with universities pushing play-doh and coloring books.
I volunteer to give her lessons on
one’s reclusivity and hermitess – ness.
Blue
From each according to their ability, to Comrade Alexandria according to her need for attention.
Funny. I just came off the nasty words and phases thread and now read that ‘self-care’ is political. I’m talking like an old man but I don’t think my grandparents worried much about self-care when they immigrated from Central Europe.
I think everyone considers “self-care” but (a) they don’t call it that and (b) they don’t tell everyone about it. My idea of self-care is going for a nice lunch somewhere, reading The Economist while eating it, telling only my wife about it.
Yet another politician in need of some good advice. She needs reminding that her term is in Congress, not as Miss Teen USA. This ia s taste of what Oprah would be like if she ran for office, though even worse due to an excess of self-confidence.
A would be Miss Teen USA or a fake TV entrepreneur/billionaire conman, times have changed (not even mentioning Twitter), I guess we’ll have to learn to live with it.
I’m a working person, and I’m all for self-care. It’s pretty essentially. But my self-care is decidedly nonpolitical. No amount of yoga, meditation, working out, and EMDR therapy is going to make a statement (about anything other than my need to keep in shape), much less change a bad policy.
I’m reminded how the terms “working class” and “working poor” are bandied about in the NY Times. To me these terms reasonably imply those who (domestically or out-sourced overseas) work up a sweat-of-their-brow from their human resource/capital labor, as opposed to the “non-working”/(“Nervous” Investor/Establishment class who only work up a sweat sitting in their cushiony executive suite chairs worrying about how well their investments are performing.
I just meant that my job would be classified as “labor.” 😉
Most importantly, will she let us know how her self-care is progressing on the various social media? I suspect she will.
Um, maybe it’s embarrassing that I know this, but for context, Lilly Singh just did this, and she said she was doing it after some other famous Youtubers who I don’t know were brave enough to do the same. I think it’s kind of a trend right now.
I understand that many people groan at the idea of politicians and Youtubers in any way following the same playbook. But, I don’t know, that is the world we live in now. Hillary Clinton was slammed for not being adept enough in that realm, with attempts to connect with young people by asking them to describe student debt in three emojis or whatever. You’re darned if you do and darned if you don’t in this modern world (sorry, don’t know if swear words are allowed on this site.) Orcasio-Cortez is using the “tell me what you think below in the comments!” format, I think, which is not uncommon with young people.
(An aside – I think any ‘self care’ that takes place outside of 24-48 hour increments during your daily work week is essentially useless, in the same way that I believe studies have found vacations do little to improve job stress. Unless you are way behind on your to-do list or so exhausted that you literally just need to sleep for a few days, whatever was stressing you out will be waiting for you the second you get back to work. For that reason I’m not a fan of ‘self care breaks’ over ‘lifestyle changes’, I think you have to have a workable mix of positive and challenging experiences every single day, if possible.)
Wow! A 29 year old actually posted on Twitter and Instagram on the same day! She has spent the last two years trying to get her new job, and now wants to take a short break before it starts, and get a facial! That hardly ever happens!
What seems to get to people about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that she is so perfectly normal, something we just don’t expect from a politician. She is charismatic and candid, and people don’t know how to deal with that. I am enjoying the show from the sidelines, and so far I think it is great.