Yet another gay site that elides the fact that 18% of the population of the US resides in rural areas. Go through their city list for Georgia and you'll find NOTHING in rural northeast Georgia.
Having lived in large cities - Atlanta, NYC, Munich, Seoul, Houston, Portland - much of my life, I know that they're magnets for gays from the most remote of areas who often want to connect with the people they love back home: Their friends who also use the same site. But, sites like Moovz don't seem to wish to have those people participate, or if they do, they have to choose a random city an hour or more away, and often have to choose between random cities, none of which make any sort of geographic sense because of the distance, and therefore get lost to their friends and acquaintances who give up looking for them online.
I'm sure the folks behind these sites would say that they reach some high percentage of the population, but think about this for a moment: The ones left out in the cold because of this behavior are the ones ALWAYS left out in the cold. They're the same people, over and over, who basically get a hand held up indicating to them that they don't matter on these sites.
I've heard from some that I've written to about it - one being one of the Top 3 gay sites...you know, the one with the orange themed background - whose responses are so hilariously off-topic that even a cursory glance shows that they didn't bother to read your request. Or, like that same orange-themed site, will have some bizarro geographics (check out Georgia's geographic breakout on it when you need a good laugh - overlapping areas using terms created by a state tourism department which NO ONE actually uses. One city will be in one named area, and the next over will be in a different one, but then the one past that city will be in the same area as the first city..?!?!)
Occasionally you'll get a response from other users like, "Well move then!", but they completely fail to grasp that your career is often tied to the area you live in. There aren't many farms in the middle of cities. There are no mines in the middle of cities in the US that I know of. Timber isn't cut for lumber or fiber in many cities. So, the very people who bring you your food, your mined minerals (to create things like the gadgets this very technology operate on), and the building materials that built the buildings you reside in are wholly forgotten. Again. And again. And again. Ad nauseum.
OK, if you launch with a non-inclusive list, that's fixable. That orange-themed site added a few towns...after years of requesting them, although they have one town in Georgia - Fitzgerald - listed as being in the Atlanta metro area when in reality it's 175 miles away, so they're listening, just not very well. And they're clearly too distracted to simply google it.
On almost any gay site, there is a gulf of philosophical difference between rural and urban gays, and without a doubt, the majority of that can be laid right in the laps of our urban-residing brethren. It would be nice to have a fabric of unity that stretches from coast to coast, but you can't achieve that if you have giant holes of exclusion in the very areas where the products that sustain you come from. True, there is animosity going both directions, but I remember a time when rural gays looked for support from their urban peers, and got nothing, despite the fact that rural gays showed up at Prides all across the republic - and yes, I'm aware that Prides are usually civic ventures. But the support comes from the community, as far out as it reaches. Now though, with our online lives becoming increasingly important to us, the support that rural gays showed is not only not reciprocated, it's shunned by virtue of exclusion from participating in any community-oriented - and I mean the rural communities in which we live - sort of way. If I don't have the tool to round up a group of my local gays readily available, then it will be difficult to get them together at all.
The old Gay.com used to do a stellar job of giving everyone - urban, suburban, exurban, or rural - a chance, a place, and a tool that might act as...pardon the Tolkienism..."One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them".
Every time I hear of a new gay site launch, I hope it will give us that chance. It seems like Moovz isn't that site, but I won't rule it out. Yet.
Showing posts with label city. Show all posts
Showing posts with label city. Show all posts
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Heere Bee Dragons!
I have so much respect for my fellow veterans, but after a recent comment forum exchange, I realize that many of them are as duped by Christo-Fascism as non-veterans.
When did this country become so partisan? Personally, I lay much of the blame on country music artists. People like Hank Williams, Jr. sought not to broaden horizons for those they entertained but to narrowly focus them - using the most insidious way they could: entertainment - on how different they were from "city folk".
I know it's not all one-sided, either. Let me start by saying that in my 54 years, I've lived about equally between some of the world's largest cities, and some pretty rural areas. Still, I know people who think that if you live in a rural area, you deserve not to have high-speed internet, cable TV, or any of the other luxuries afforded to urban dwellers. However, if you point out that, using the same logic, they don't deserve food, fresh water, or building resources including wood and metals, they come back that living in rural areas is a choice. That's true, it is. But does that mean that we shouldn't expect to enjoy modernity? Really?
The difference that I've found is this: The city dwellers tend to focus on a single individual. Yeah, they might make fun of yokels, but hey, even we ruralistas make fun of them. But the country folk tend to paint with a much broader brush. I don't know many city dwellers who haven't traveled and visited rural areas. OK, I don't know ANY who haven't. But I know TONS of rural folk who have never done anything more than pass quickly through a city, or have made a flying trip into one, such as Atlanta, and got out as quickly as possible. How does that qualify someone to make sweeping generalizations about city dwellers? Well, it doesn't.
Back in the Age of Disco, people like Hank Williams, Jr. made a living by rousing the rabble. He made it sound like any country dweller could be thrown into the wild and thrive, when the reality is that most of them wouldn't make it any longer than a city dweller would; Winn Dixie isn't legal game.
Add to that that the GOP had an epiphany concerning connecting itself to the rising, mainly rural, religious fundamentalism movement and which noticed entertainers like Williams in the mix, and it was the perfect storm. Fueling that was the end of the millennium approaching which signaled to some the return of Jesus Christ and it wound up being a maelstrom that swept the hickest, bubba-est, beer-drinking-est, church-going-est idiots into the limelight, and eventually even the White House.
The GOP knew that, despite what they preached on Sundays, love doesn't sell, but hate would fill their coffers, their churches, and their desired elected offices.
And here we are. Today, we all seem to fall in one of these three camps: Normal, Left-leaning, or Heere Bee Dragons!
When did this country become so partisan? Personally, I lay much of the blame on country music artists. People like Hank Williams, Jr. sought not to broaden horizons for those they entertained but to narrowly focus them - using the most insidious way they could: entertainment - on how different they were from "city folk".
I know it's not all one-sided, either. Let me start by saying that in my 54 years, I've lived about equally between some of the world's largest cities, and some pretty rural areas. Still, I know people who think that if you live in a rural area, you deserve not to have high-speed internet, cable TV, or any of the other luxuries afforded to urban dwellers. However, if you point out that, using the same logic, they don't deserve food, fresh water, or building resources including wood and metals, they come back that living in rural areas is a choice. That's true, it is. But does that mean that we shouldn't expect to enjoy modernity? Really?
The difference that I've found is this: The city dwellers tend to focus on a single individual. Yeah, they might make fun of yokels, but hey, even we ruralistas make fun of them. But the country folk tend to paint with a much broader brush. I don't know many city dwellers who haven't traveled and visited rural areas. OK, I don't know ANY who haven't. But I know TONS of rural folk who have never done anything more than pass quickly through a city, or have made a flying trip into one, such as Atlanta, and got out as quickly as possible. How does that qualify someone to make sweeping generalizations about city dwellers? Well, it doesn't.
Back in the Age of Disco, people like Hank Williams, Jr. made a living by rousing the rabble. He made it sound like any country dweller could be thrown into the wild and thrive, when the reality is that most of them wouldn't make it any longer than a city dweller would; Winn Dixie isn't legal game.
Add to that that the GOP had an epiphany concerning connecting itself to the rising, mainly rural, religious fundamentalism movement and which noticed entertainers like Williams in the mix, and it was the perfect storm. Fueling that was the end of the millennium approaching which signaled to some the return of Jesus Christ and it wound up being a maelstrom that swept the hickest, bubba-est, beer-drinking-est, church-going-est idiots into the limelight, and eventually even the White House.
The GOP knew that, despite what they preached on Sundays, love doesn't sell, but hate would fill their coffers, their churches, and their desired elected offices.
And here we are. Today, we all seem to fall in one of these three camps: Normal, Left-leaning, or Heere Bee Dragons!
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