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Notes -
https://archive.ph/IWYc8
A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose.
There's some real gems in here, and I feel bad for the one remaining owner and wish they/them the best, now that they've seen how positive, supportive, and inclusive their chosen subculture isn't.
This is also an example of the Internet showing me exactly what I want. Even when I'm browsing substack not logged in, it can somehow target me and my hobby horses.
A "Lesbian" Bar (which seems to really be a Queer Leftist establishment ridden with trannies) was until recently a Masks Required establishment; they planned to allow some days each week in which masks were optional rather than mandatory. Histrionics ensued. You'd think the article was a hit-piece from a right-wing rag, but the Boston Globe is only conservative if you're standing near the Left Pole.
I post it here at the risk of it being Boo-Outgroup, but I'm actually slightly gladdened. The neighborhood where I do most of my socializing is ridden with queer leftists who still mask, but "enforcement" is limited to the occasional DIY show or rave that's specifically targeted at maskies. However bad it is here, it's not as bad as a small town in Massachusetts.
People are still masking in the year of our Lord 2026?! I had to check the date. I had expected it to be from 2022.
About 30% of black people and 10% of white people in my town still mask, and this is the rust belt, not Massachusetts.
This kind of thing is so wild to me every time I hear it. Always makes me wonder what made it stick in certain places. I live in a deep-blue city and stopped regularly seeing mask-wearers in probably 2022, maybe 2023 at the latest. They’re not gone, but they’re quite rare. Under 1% of people I see walking around, easily. I suppose it could just be my circles but I actually spend a fair amount time in left-leaning or left-friendly spaces, like small bookstores and punk concerts, and they’re very rare even there.
Of the ones I do see it’s probably 40% young visibly-neurotic women, 15% obvious trans people (perhaps some overlap here for the ones who pass well), 40% frail-looking elderly white people (usually women), and 5% ghetto and/or homeless black people (often under the chin or similar, this group I truly don’t understand). I don’t even remember the last time I saw a young man with a mask; the last time I recall noticing someone with a mask was a (visibly neurotic) young woman at a concert, accompanied by her unmasked boyfriend.
Actually, having typed that, I do occasionally see Asian people out and about with masks. But I don’t mentally count them as “mask wearers” because they’re clearly doing it in a sane and culturally-normal way. I do sometimes think it would’ve been good if we had come out of Covid adopting the East Asian norm of “go out wearing a facemask when you’re contagious with something”, but both sides contributed to this being impossible, and obviously just going back to normal is far better than living under the Permanent Covid Regime would’ve been.
Yeah, I wish I could count on masked people having a cold.
As it is they're either brain-broke on politics, currently stealing or reinventing human sexuality from first principles....badly.
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