For those keeping track at home - (if my scrolling over technique worked) There were 15 entries in the Friends (the entire Team Ocelot took a bye!) and 28 entries in the Rivals!
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In yesterday's Green Room I was reminded of something - Idol is a really diverse group. Always has been. I hope it always will be.
I think there have been, and continue to be, dangers of too many people who share the same opinions on things - but hopefully human nature will prevail and we will never go too far down that route.
What I like is taking all of these people with different lives and throwing them in the same room together and see what happens!
There have been times when it's been explosive! There have been times when there was just a spark or two and everyone came to understand each other over time. Each has it's uses.
Heck, there have been times when those forces have been directed against me - sometimes I've responded well and other times "not so well". Because at the end of the day, we're still people and are going to have our good days and bad ones.
That's not just for the people responding either - some days those sharing their ideas aren't at their best at getting across what they actually mean and end up coming across like the jerks! It happens. I've seen it. I know you have as well.
There's a lesson in there somewhere about common humanity bringing us together to discuss how to treat subgroups and individuals. If you locate it, please bring it to the lost and found!
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I keep having these random memory glitches where I have come across something and say "That should be in the Green Room", but when the time comes I keep putting it off until I forget the context.
In this particular case, there was an article that I saw someone share that keeps pinging in my head - (paraphrasing) it said that white cis-males needed to stop writing and/or trying to get published so that non-white cis-male voices could be heard.
I've started to type my own feelings about it, but as a white cis-male, I may be a little biased. ;)
In thinking about it though, I did think it was funny that I had set aside my own writing to concentrate on creating a community that encouraged the writing of so many diverse voices. It wasn't intentional, to gather diverse groups here, but I'm really glad that it happened.