u/pbandj-throwaway

Growing up, I’ve always been extremely insecure about myself and always had really low self-esteem. It’s probably a result of my mom always putting me down for the littlest things.

I only recently realized just how much my self-hatred actually affects the quality of my everyday life in different ways. Since I’ve always had low self-esteem, I thought the self-hatred was just some underlying feelings that I kept to myself. It never occurred to me just how much I have let my insecurities seep through and infect my personality/mindset.

I barely go out because I hate the way I look. I’m extremely socially anxious because I view myself as stupid and unlikable, so I think that everything I say is wrong or dumb or annoying. Every time I make a small mistake, I blow it out of proportion and torture myself by thinking about that mistake over and over again so I can keep feeling guilty.

It’s little things like these that have gradually become very stressful over the years. I would like to feel good about myself for once and to stop dwelling on mistakes, but I’m not even sure where to start. I have a whole decade worth of self-hatred to unpack.

Any advice?

Currently have a love-hate relationship with school right now. Glad to be getting a degree but I have also not been in a good mental mindset for it, and I have been progressively becoming more and more burnt out. As a result I procrastinate like crazy, and submit sloppy work at times. Occasionally I don’t submit work at all.

It’s really bad. As much as I understand the value of my education, I can’t seem to just lock in and properly do what I need to. It’s literally just a mental barrier that is stopping myself from succeeding, and yet I have no idea how to overcome it. I’m getting by thanks to the graciousness of the professors I’ve had so far, but it’s also so frustrating and maddening that I can’t get myself to do things right without it having to come to this. Any advice when it comes to getting over huge mental blocks?

Got a TikTok of KiiiKiii’s Jiyu eating a piece of bread. She was eating it in what seemed to be a rather performative-ly cute manner, and this of course sparked criticism and backlash in the comments section. It brought me back to Wonyoung’s strawberry “controversy.”

It’s rather clear that everything about kpop and its idols is manufactured to attract customers’ attention and investments. I’m certain a good chunk of idols play things up in order to catch interest, so I find it interesting that if you slip up and make it a little too obvious then you instantly catch heat from the audiences.

Correct me if I’m wrong and if certain groups do have a big say in their creative directions (I’m not super deep into kpop culture rn), but I’m assuming a good chunk of idols are just doing whatever they’re being told to do. My impression is that the goal with idols is to market them, and so their teams are in charge of fashioning and perfecting their “brand” using whatever’s fresh, new, and/or trendy.

And so if most idols are not even in charge of what their brand is, I have no idea why people care so much about who’s copying who, when in reality none/majority of it were never the idols’ original ideas and concepts to begin with. To me, it just feels like an attempt to act superior that their group is being “copied off of”

Hello all, I’m a university student with a part time job in tutoring at an adult education office. Recently I just got assigned to two ESL students, and I’m a bit at a loss on where to start because their level of English comprehension and speech is quite limited. I’ve never had to teach English from scratch before so this is completely new territory for me. Any pointers or advice on what areas are most important to cover? Is there anything crucial to note that I might overlook as a native eng speaker?

If this adds any context, I’m helping tutor them to take the CASAS STEPS reading exam.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this!

Recently saw a post on TikTok about a young artist displaying their art improvement within the span of five months. Without a doubt, they improved tremendously in such a short span of time in regards to the handling of their tools and understanding of proportions and such. However, the drawings they were producing were pure copies of already existing anime artworks. This incited some controversy within the comments, where some defined a true artist as something like “one capable of producing their own original imagery”, and others responding that a “copy” is art nevertheless, and that it still requires a level of artistic skill.

So now I am curious as to what other artists have to say on this matter: can imitations of pre-existing artworks and the people who produce such works be called true art/artists? And is it potentially elitist to think otherwise?