Dragons first

October 12, 2016 12:03 PM

I Wore a Tail for 1 Week and Learned Nothing
posted by clorox (45 comments total)

ponderous green ass torch

In case you need a user name....
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Nature, 2014:

When an experiment fails to produce an interesting effect, researchers often shelve the data and move on to another problem. But withholding null results skews the literature in a field, and is a particular worry for clinical medicine and the social sciences.

This article should serve as a model for the social sciences.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

I go home right after work and rip [the tail] off in misery. My cat mounts it and stares at me. So this is Hell.

Reader, this is when I lost control and started audibly giggling at work.
posted by sciatrix at 12:27 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

she has no idea what kind of forces she is playing with
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

it seems like a perfectly nice tail and not that weird at all, but I might be biased because I was just at NYCC.

Also it sounds like she learned a fair bit about tail management and how people react (or don't) to you having a noticinle odd attribute in public and how she felt about those reactions, so I'm not sure it's completely nothing.
posted by Artw at 12:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not meaningless. I derived a great deal of pleasure and mirth from a well-written and amusing article, and this picture is a cracker!
posted by turbid dahlia at 12:37 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have seen a few people wearing tails this year, mostly what look to the untrained eye to be dog or cat tails. Her big green tail is considerably more of a statement.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:37 PM on October 12, 2016

A moment later, I look back to my section of the subway and find that literally every person is quietly staring at me. One taps me on the arm. Oh great, I think, I’m going to have to explain this stupid fucking thing. She points to the ground. Ah, I have dropped three dollar bills.

Not all the time, but sometimes, I <3 New York.
posted by Diablevert at 12:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

I have to [...] sit on the toilet ass-first

I'm not clear on how else one might customarily sit on a toilet.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:40 PM on October 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Hey, it's one way to maintain your comfort bubble!
posted by smirkette at 12:41 PM on October 12, 2016

I have to [...] sit on the toilet ass-first

I’m not clear on how else one might customarily sit on a toilet.

She means ass-to-front, facing the tank.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Otherwise known as the AC Slater.
posted by defenestration at 12:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

First the goat-guy already wins an ig-noble, and this is the next step in that process ?
posted by k5.user at 12:51 PM on October 12, 2016

And as I stand there, nude, save for my underwear, bra, sweater, pants, socks and shoes, I see myself for what I am
posted by miyabo at 1:03 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

She means ass-to-front, facing the tank.

Otherwise known as the AC Slater.

Or the Butters.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:14 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I Wore a Tail for 1 Week and Learned Nothing

Perhaps she soberingly learned that, for the most part, people just don't give a fuck.* I think that's a lesson I certainly would elevate as a Top 10 hack for life.

*Cats, however, apparently find tails irresistible. Duly noted.
posted by Conway at 1:32 PM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Dragons first" is pretty funny. As I've said elsewhere here, I abhor the gratuitous "people presumed to be women should go first" thing, but I will inconsistently say that if I were wearing a tail for some reason and I got dragon privilege I would be totally into it.
posted by Frowner at 1:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

One says, “I like your tail.” The other lets me pass in front of him as I walk to a door: “Dragons first.”

This land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:38 PM on October 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

A moment later, I look back to my section of the subway and find that literally every person is quietly staring at me. One taps me on the arm. Oh great, I think, I’m going to have to explain this stupid fucking thing. She points to the ground. Ah, I have dropped three dollar bills.

That section of the subway map is labelled "Here be dragons".
posted by nubs at 1:44 PM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

i made such horrible wheezy choking noises trying not to screamcackle aloud in the col presby xray waiting room that not only was i subsequently forced to reassure various elderly puerto rican women that i was in fact not dying but i was also required to translate aloud key parts of this terrible terrible article

this was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that until today i did not realize that i had no idea what the fucking word for TAIL is

it is not pequenito culito in case anyone was wondering
posted by poffin boffin at 1:48 PM on October 12, 2016 [33 favorites]

It's hot.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:03 PM on October 12, 2016

Diablevert: "Not all the time, but sometimes, I <3 New York."

Wait. Is this a scam? Because if I know anything about New York, that sounds like a scam. New Yorkers don't talk to strangers unless they're trying to rob them or sell them something.
posted by schmod at 2:11 PM on October 12, 2016

Nah, a quick "Hey, you dropped a thing," is well within NYC etiquette.
posted by Karmakaze at 2:16 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I thought it was a funny article. But as a 9-foot-tall, big-nosed trans girl, I read about this pretty young woman spending a week feeling large and conspicuous and other other other, like she was some whole other species, and I kept thinking, "Really? You leaned nothing?" Maybe if somebody had yelled at her from a passing car or threatened her for being different, she would have learned something.

That sounds more harsh than I meant it. But between my chuckles there were plenty of moments when I went, "Huh." It is a different experience when the tail is a part of you, and taking it off isn't a relief.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:29 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Tails like this were briefly A Thing back in the 90s in the odder parts of the UK that I visited.
posted by scruss at 2:34 PM on October 12, 2016

In the course of various workdays I have encountered a dude in head-to-toe piratewear (including pancake makeup and pencil moustache), a baldheaded dude with metal horns implanted in his noggin, a woman with the lid to a mini-file drawer on her head who kept her change in an uninflated balloon, a kid with pierced elbows, and sundry other fun folk (and those are just what I can remember off the top of my head). Some woman with a fake tail is small potatoes.
posted by jonmc at 2:35 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

a kid with pierced elbows

My first thought when I read this was "dear god what a hassle it must be to take off and put on shirts!" Does that make me weird? (Or just another one of those "glass is the wrong size" rational types?)
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:56 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

this was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that until today i did not realize that i had no idea what the fucking word for TAIL is.

"Cola de dragón"
posted by Omon Ra at 3:15 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am blowing off plans because of my tail—I cannot go to my fancy barre studio and be mocked by all the beautiful engaged women with rippling backs. I’ll never have a rippling back now, just this hideous spike. Like a son, but deaf, dumb, and 100 percent stupid. And also, a tail.

Reader, I LOLd.

There's a fella in my neighbourhood, of the type we in the Antipodes describe as 'a fucken big unit', who bodybuilds at a local gym. At the weekend I saw him at the supermarket, nodded politely in the way that you do to folks you see around who lift gigantic weights recreationally and dress in combat pants, and suddenly had to hard reset my entire mental image of this bloke when I saw he was sporting a long, scruffy, cat-like tail from his hinder parts. Clearly well loved and well-used. Man is a committed tail-wearer.

"You, sir, " thought I, "are O-K."
posted by prismatic7 at 3:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [21 favorites]

I read about this pretty young woman spending a week feeling large and conspicuous and other other other, like she was some whole other species, and I kept thinking, "Really? You leaned nothing?"

If she had come back after volunteering to do a completely idiotic stunt for a week and then proclaimed that she now understood the lived experience of oppression...I don't think I would have found the article amusing.

Which I took to be much of the point, really --- that's the genius of that little moment at the end when she looks in the mirror. We just had a thread on the blue about how much articles like these have become a thing, a set piece, particulalry on the bits of the internet aimed at women. "I experienced outrageous/bizzarre/transgressive/horrible thing and how it taught me to love myself/respect diversity/challenged my preconceptions about what's really horrible." Vacuous empowerment madlibs for a nickle a click.
posted by Diablevert at 4:04 PM on October 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Perhaps the real nothing was inside us all along.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:13 PM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

I Wore a Tail for 1 Week
I was disappointed that this was NOT about The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, who tucks her tail into her pants for her secret identity and it looks like a Kim-Kardashian-esque butt.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Listening to the song as I finished the article really did bring it all together for me.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 4:55 PM on October 12, 2016

there are a surprising number of teens and young adults wearing fur tails around Grand Rapids, Mi. In fact i came upon a group of them at an outing at a pizza shop.
posted by rebent at 4:58 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

a long, scruffy, cat-like tail from his hinder parts

I will confess that each time I see a tail-person with a tail coming out from under their shirt, I wonder how it is attached to their hinder parts.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

If she had come back after volunteering to do a completely idiotic stunt for a week and then proclaimed that she now understood the lived experience of oppression...I don't think I would have found the article amusing.

Well, I think there's quite a gulf between her saying she'd learned what it was to be somebody like me, and her saying she didn't learn anything. I guess some part of me was hoping for a moment where she would question her pretty young able-bodied white lady privilege, where she would realize that things she takes for granted can be very difficult for people who aren't made like her. But she didn't. As she said in the title, she learned nothing. It's kind of surprising that somebody that perceptive and funny could spend a whole week feeling ashamed and dealing with physical limitations and people's comments on the street, and not learn anything. But I think people assumed she was just some cosplay chickie, and this was the big city, so whatever. She never saw the real dark side of being different and conspicuous, and she never made the mental leap that getting gawked at and having to sit on the toilet wrong is an everyday thing for some folks. I don't mean to overthink this or attack her. She's 26, and it's Jezebel.

(At the very least, I would have hoped she would have learned something about furries!)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:55 PM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

there are a surprising number of teens and young adults wearing fur tails around Grand Rapids, Mi.

There are people wearing tails everywhere, really. Most people just don't even register them for some reason. Animal ears are a bit more noticeable, but those get dismissed as "oh, it's a cute cap" more often than not.

I have two tails. I have a giant green yarn tail I made myself (no I won't make you one -- you couldn't afford to pay me a working wage to make it for you), and a much smaller yarn tail I got because... well, the giant green tail is basically impossible to sit down while wearing. It's more of a wolf tail, so it mostly just hangs instead of sticking out being filled with plastic beads. Wearing it on my belt, it hangs down to about 4" above the ground, and it's maybe 8" in diameter so it's hard to miss when I have it on. It certainly is a lot of fun to wear, though. Walking, I can feel it hitting the backs of my calves with each stride. When standing, I can spread my feet a tiny bit and shift my weight a tiny bit from side to side and get a pretty good wag going on with it. I've worn it to fairly large public events (gay pride, a giant food-and-music festival), and I have enjoyed wearing it any time I put it on.

My smaller tail (that I call my "casual wear tail" because I can basically forget I'm wearing it, it's so much smaller than the big green one), I've worn that more frequently at random times out in public. Going to the mall or grocery shopping, for example. I can actually sit down while wearing the casual wear tail, and it weighs basically nothing so it's pretty easy to put it on and then "rediscover" that I'm wearing it later in the day. Fun!

People out in public do comment on the tail(s) when I'm wearing one. But (and as was outlined in the article), people are rarely hostile or insulting about the tail. They mostly acknowledge that this is a thing that is happening, and sometimes want to interact a bit more, but I (like the author) have never been mocked by a stranger for wearing a tail. It might help that I'm over 6' tall with a giant beard and I'm approaching 50, so I do acknowledge a bit of intimidation privilege. But the author of the linked article... it seems most of her problems about wearing a tail stemmed from her own insecurities and feeling like she was drawing attention to herself because of an unusual thing about herself than from anything external and negative that came her way.

I think Ursula Hitler hit on something about this "didn't learn anything" hanger upon which the article has been hung. She didn't once even contemplate people who have facial burn scars or replacement limbs or wheelchairs or even crutches or their arm in a cast/sling. She was so entirely self-conscious during the 5 days (BTW, 5 days is not a week) she wore the tail that there was absolutely no projection or empathy coming out of her at all. Well, a lot of projection, but none of it was projection of empathy, it was all projection of judgement.

I guess the "She's 26, and it's Jezebel" thing is the best way to be generous with her in the midst of her horrific ordeal, but it seems that on the whole she was treated well by her fellow humans (unless she truly regards someone commenting on her tail as cruelty) and that while she was inconvenienced by some of the strictures she placed on herself about her tail-wearing, it was not a horrible experience for her except for the fantasies she spun about it in her own mind.

And she didn't even learn anything by writing about/reflecting on those fantasies and what they might mean in a larger context. But clicking on her name in the article and looking at other things she wrote, I don't think she was the right person to write a possibly introspective article about what it truly means to wear a tail.
posted by hippybear at 12:47 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

She didn't once even contemplate people who have facial burn scars or replacement limbs or wheelchairs or even crutches or their arm in a cast/sling

To be honest, if I had been the author -- I don't think I would have included this in the article either. I probably wouldn't connect wearing oddball fashion to the experience of being a visible minority, and even if I had the thought, I would probably think it was a minimizing and dismissive comparison.

The idea reminds me of those articles where white, Christian women put on a hijab for a week and then pretended to have learned something about what it's like to be a visibly Muslim woman. Except -- they didn't, did they? And no one wants to hear about the experience of being a visibly Muslim woman from someone who's not. It's self-indulgent more than anything.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:10 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Whether you spend six months injured in a wheelchair or glance at a person passing by in a wheelchair, it's very hard to write about "what you learned" from that experience about the lives of people who use wheelchairs, no matter how insightful, without sounding presumptuous.

Just because she claims she learned nothing doesn't mean she learned nothing. It's probably much more effective to just describe her experiences and feelings and let the reader connect whatever dots there are to connect. You wouldn't need to wear a dragon tail if someone can just tell you the lessons you would learn from wearing one.
posted by straight at 4:00 AM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

The constant suspicion that everyone's eyes are on you. Laughing at you when you're buying eggs. Someone holds a door open and maybe they're being just a tiny bit too nice, like they know there's something wrong with you but trying to not draw attention to the fact that they know. Totally sounds like having an anxiety disorder.

Realization: Maybe I've just been wearing a tail my whole life and no one's told me!
posted by giraffe at 9:04 AM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Realization: Maybe I've just been wearing a tail my whole life and no one's told me!
posted by giraffe

I have to say that the tail is the least noticeable thing about giraffes.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

If she had come back after volunteering to do a completely idiotic stunt for a week and then proclaimed that she now understood the lived experience of oppression...I don't think I would have found the article amusing.

Dragon Like Me

I guess the "She's 26, and it's Jezebel" thing is the best way to be generous with her in the midst of her horrific ordeal

TBH that was my first thought about "and learned nothing." Was like, of course, because disaffect is hip these days.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:24 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't help but feel like she was resisting the spirit of the whole thing by trying to hide the tail most of the time. You do a thing like this, the first rule you need to make is "I'm not allowed to hide it". IMHO.

*contemplates the black dragon tail hanging around her closet as outdoor wear* maybe once this typhoon has passed, I don't wanna get it soaked.
posted by egypturnash at 11:46 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

The idea reminds me of those articles where white, Christian women put on a hijab for a week and then pretended to have learned something about what it's like to be a visibly Muslim woman.

I assumed this article was a parody of articles like that.
posted by betweenthebars at 12:12 AM on October 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Some woman with a fake tail is small potatoes.
posted by jonmc at 2:35 PM on October 12

Without a tail, you're just small potatoes.
posted by Violet Hour at 1:03 AM on October 14, 2016