Nina WildflowerShame.
I'm not making a musical advent calendar this year.
I did it for 3 years. I don't need to do it again.
A little🧵about wearing a mask, and shame.
#YuleMasking #ChristmasFever
I'm still playing lots of Christmas songs in December!
But I'm not going to spend ages video-editing and posting to multiple platforms.
If it worked, then it worked.
It's time to try something else.
Winter Time (Robert Louis Stevenson)
#YuleMasking #ChristmasFever
By mid-2022, the greatest threat to my family was SHAME.
That people would try to shame me, as a teacher, or shame my children into giving up our efforts to protect ourselves.
“It's a shame you're not playing music.”
“It's a shame the boys aren't ___”
#UseItOrLoseIt
We knew our children would face social pressure to stop protecting themselves.
There were lots of things we tried to help them resist shame. We were PREPARED when they entered school.
Posting music is something I'd done for years during the before times. Usually to overwhelming disinterest.
As with a few other things, some trolls miscalculated.
A masked video in late November 2022 became the most popular thing I'd ever posted online.
So I quickly threw a few songs together.
Wooh! Double-figure likes!
Anyway, 3 years is enough. I’ll have other music up this month. Maybe some threads on nightclubs, Halloween, #UseItOrLoseIt, & #CauseAndEffect.
I have teenage children. It's not enough to simply focus on survival.
They need to feel that they are growing up, and having a relatively normal experience.
If they feel ashamed, they will give up.
Mask pics attract trolls, but trolls and bots avoid my musical posts. It's hard to troll videos of people living their lives in masks.
Maybe their operators realise that bot activity would just demonstrate that it's possible to live an active life while protecting your health.
Anyone who posts on here is aware that our efforts may be completely futile.
Maybe masked advent calendars worked. Maybe they didn't.
But I don't see any more “you can't teach in a mask” posts. Maybe that was us.
bsky.app/profile/nina...
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x3gpijgmj3weai5xjxlpuab3/post/3ldhepzctlc2p
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x3gpijgmj3weai5xjxlpuab3/post/3ldhepzctlc2p
YOU DO NOT NEED TO LISTEN TO MY MASKED MUSIC VIDEOS!
They are a way for me to say “I'm not ashamed.”
(This is my second best Christmas song. The best song I've written is a Christmas song. #ChristmasFever)
bsky.app/profile/nina...
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x3gpijgmj3weai5xjxlpuab3/post/3lencqdppls2a
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x3gpijgmj3weai5xjxlpuab3/post/3lencqdppls2a
Shame is a powerful way to get people to give up protecting their health.
The prevalence of mental health slurs to refer to masking is not surprising.
We haven't won the battle against those who try to shame us just yet.
But we haven't lost that fight either.