u/filthytelestial

A size 8 shoe is 1" too long. The manufacturing company has confidently assured me that the difference between a 7 and 8 is just 1/6" in length. By that logic even the smallest size (4) will be 1/3" too long.

AI chatbot or not, this is some nonsense.

It's almost like they don't want us to be able to make an informed decision. We assume just going down a full size will be enough, but since they can't explain their own math, there's no reason to trust that it wouldn't be better to go down 2 sizes.

The shoe they said is an 8 is NOT for a size 8 foot. By their logic it's for a foot six sizes larger. So size 14? It's fucking stupid.

The brand in question is Vionic but other companies use the same nonsensical math.

To me it is evidence of the double empathy problem in action. It's a demonstration of the general breakdown in reciprocity between those people who will never be forced to try, and those who are forced to try, day in and day out.

Those of us who rank quite low on the social hierarchy are pressured all the time to make an effort to understand the woes of people more privileged than ourselves. They're rarely, if ever, pressured to do the same for us in return.

For one nearly universal example, take the audience for any classic story with a male protagonist. Everyone learns those stories. They're required reading in grade school. Female students are assumed and expected to be able to relate to male main characters all the time. For the most part though, the reverse is not expected of male students. So boys and men casually reject stories about girls and women, saying "I can't relate." And they expect zero push-back on that statement. It's rare to hear it challenged. "But you could try though, right?"

This has been on my mind tonight as I've been rehearsing a discussion that happened in my book club some weeks back. We were reading Frankenstein. I was the only one that caught onto what were obvious themes, to me, of an abusive and neglectful parent/child relationship. The three or four brief comments I made to this effect were resoundingly ignored by the entire group. I say they were ignored because their silent, expressionless, non-reaction to what I'd said stood in stark contrast to the way other rather fanciful theories voiced by others (that IMO had little basis in the actual text) were received, with warmth and playful or even serious interest by the group.

No one in the group is the kind to shy away from serious subject matter, we've gotten into plenty of heavy subjects before. But on this occasion, they were simply uninterested in entertaining the idea that Dr. Frankenstein represented a neglectful parent. The final time I spoke that night, very briefly as I knew that they weren't interested in my take, there was finally something other than silence when I finished. One person said "I can't relate, sorry" and several of the others nodded and made noises of agreement. And that was the end of it. I wish I'd just said quite simply, "but you could try to, right?"

I'm not sure if I'm going to be returning to the group. They keep cancelling meetings at the last minute anyway without so much as checking in with the quieter people like myself if we're okay with them cancelling on us over and over.

To be clear, I'm not talking about people refusing to try to relate to an unimportant hobby or interest like sports or entertainment. (Unless the person they're not trying to relate to is their own child, of course.) But when it comes to inequality, abuse, and the other subjects that matter most.. being unwilling to even try is pretty damn selfish and cold.

The brand would be tiny and minimally successful. Not profitable, never hyped, devoid of a "brand aesthetic." The products themselves would be the focus, so the packaging would be unremarkable.

To start I'd sell single eyeshadows that aren't pretty on their own. They look downright drab on their own, because they would be meant for muted coloring. They might look uninteresting when swatched on a forearm. It may be that only when they're on the more delicate variety of colors on a human face that they'd look appealing.

They'd be modeled by someone with the exact undertone and saturation that each given product was created to suit. The model would be wearing no other makeup, and no self-tanner. There'd be photos of the pan, the wrist swatch, and the face. Three photos of each to illustrate the product in different lighting conditions.

They'd never be pictured next to colors or on skin tones that clearly aren't meant to go with them. There'd be no pretense that a particular color designed for one type of coloring could possibly look equally (and market-ably) pretty on a variety of types of coloring. There'd be no unrealistic claims.

There'd be no inaccurate descriptions of the color itself. If I don't have, say, a shimmer or a matte on offer that compliments a given pan, I wouldn't shoehorn a color in that only works with the other in a very specific light and only at a certain angle.

Products that contain gold, copper, bronze etc. would never be referred to as cool. Vivid colors would never be referred to as muted just because they happen to look that way in the pan. Obvious pinks would never be called lilac or lavender. Obvious mauves would never be called taupe or vice-versa.

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TL;DR: I don't know anything about formulations or pigments. But I suspect that if I wasn't trying to be all things to all people it might be possible to offer a subtle but large range of gorgeous, understated, muted eyeshadows. You want a greyed taupe that leans lavender? A slightly deeper version of that with some shimmer. A greyed lavender without the taupe. One nearly identical but with a grey that leans more silver than pewter? No problem.

Anyone who can't appreciate the distinctions between those colors could simply go enjoy the multitude of bold iridescent and multichromed neon colors on offer from other brands.

(I'm not looking for product recommendations. This isn't that kind of rant. Thank you.)

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Edit:

This post is very clearly about MUTED coloring. Their repeated attempts to reduce this to being about fair/pale skin are ridiculous. They both clearly don't know what muted means, and are just looking to pick a fight.