what is the point of oscar the grouch on sesame street?
It’s okay to not like things and it’s okay to be unhappy. He was created from the idea that “non-destructive deviance” would go over well with kids.
THANK YOU!
Basically, the point of Oscar the Grouch is so that kids know it’s okay to have fucking emotions and moods that aren’t all cheery. That’s the fucking point. And that’s even more important to the kids who are living in harsh realities. Realities where their families are falling apart or they’re not getting food every day or they’re getting abused. Telling them it’s okay to express that they are NOT HAPPY because they are HURTING is so fucking important I cannot even say it.
Big Bird is nice, but goddamn, when you’re a kid who’s hungry and you just got beat by your caretaker and all you wanna do is hole up somewhere and tell everyone else to go away because you don’t even have words for how bad things feel? Big Bird is not your dude. Cheery happy, “well, let’s play a happy game!” Big Bird ain’t cutting it for you. Oscar the Grouch is your dude. Oscar the Grouch is the dude who tells you it’s okay to put the lid on your garbage can and be alone and be upset.
Big Bird tries to talk you out of being upset (and maybe sometimes that’s okay). But Oscar the Grouch teaches you that, no, it’s okay to be upset and you have every right to stay upset and grouchy and unhappy until you’re at a point where that can change. Oscar the Grouch teaches you that you have a right to your emotions, whatever they are.
On a more advanced level, the point of Oscar is to start teaching kids that it’s okay to have boundaries, it’s okay to want to just go into your trash can (home/safe place) and not be bothered, it’s okay to defend those boundaries and say “go away!” when you want people to go the fuck away and that you can still have a place on Sesame Street. That not everyone has to be shiny, happy Big Bird.
That’s the point of Oscar the Grouch.
“what is the point of oscar the grouch” who even made you
Also Oscar the Grouch *likes* things that no one else likes and he’s completely unapologetic about it.
The fact that people tell you things you like are stupid doesn’t make it’s true. He loves trash. He loves it because it’s trash. That’s important too.
As is the fact that *even though everyone thinks his interests are stupid*, people don’t take his trash away and they don’t drag him out of his can.
Also he has *fantastic* body language. Boundary laden but also very emotional. And just the way he likes stuff and expresses interest…
…Oscar the Grouch = awesome.
This is a wonderful series of texts post that needs to be shared with all of you
if you published A Modest Proposal on tumblr you would get about a 45 minute grace period before people started helpfully informing you in the notes that cannibalism is a real thing that does happen sometimes and also if you think about it poor people are effectively being eaten by the rich, especially children, so even though op was joking it's actually a serious issue
@ jonathan swift did you know sometimes poor people's bodies ARE actually exploited by the rich irl
Historically insensitive that he specifically recommends eating Irish babies. It's like he's not even aware of England's colonial occupation of Ireland.
A thing about parenting is that there are a lot of behaviors that you want to encourage your future adult to have that are SO HARD TO HANDLE in children.
He HAS whatever body autonomy I can grant but I really need to marshal some arguments about not letting other children cut his hair while he’s IN class.
OK ok OK ok ONE like we can do whatever we want with our bodies as long as it’s safe but there’s a time and place like for example we only do flips on grass, in houses, or on gym mats. Being naked is also a behavior for specific circumstances like inside a house or swimming in the woods! Hair cutting is like flips or taking off all your clothes!
Two it creates a mess and is really itchy, so we have to plan to do it somewhere where we can clean it up easily and take a bath afterwards and Not! In! Your! Kindergarten! Art! Class!
Three other kids might see how much fun you’re having getting your hair cut and also cut their hair and then be sad about how their hair looks. I know YOU don’t mind (and apparently Malachi is some kind of genius kindergartner barber??) but they might mind how they look, you have to set an example.
Four the teachers get to set the rules for the classroom and if you break those rules then you don’t fill out your sticker chart. I’m pretty sure hair cutting — even consensual hair cutting — breaks a rule. You can check. Ask a hypothetical question. Don’t tell them you’ve been doing this for weeks, they might get upset.
“There aren’t enough hours in a day.” There are actually. The problem is that we think 40 hour work weeks are an unavoidable fact of life.
The problem is that everyone has to work 8 hours, pretty much no exceptions, and with getting ready time + (unpaid) lunch + commute, “8 hours” is actually anywhere between 9 and 12, every single day, with more work to do when you get home because our society and culture was built around having one member of the household home full time and nothing has changed now that almost everyone works.
No wonder Americans are reliant on DoorDash and fast food, there’s no time or energy to cook. No one wonder mental and physical health are in shambles, many just spent all day sitting in fluorescent lights with little to no stimulation. “Just wake up earlier” “Just meal prep”… these are ok short-term, individual solutions, but the broader, systemic issue is obvious. We aren’t built for this. There’s no work-life balance. Genuinely, I think if our culture could normalize a shorter work week, many individuals’ biggest problems would simply evaporate.
“Normal” test results are not the relief people think they are. When you wake up in pain and continue to be in pain for hours every day and your tests come back normal you don’t stop being in pain.
when *routine* tests come back normal: a good sign! your body continues to function as it should!
when *diagnostic* tests come back normal: bad! this means you're gonna have to do even more tests in hopes of finding out whatever the fuck is clearly going wrong in your body
my hot take is that medicine and essential medicine-adjacent things like baby formula should have regulated and transparent profit margin limitations (like mark cuban's online pharmacy thing)
you get the cost of manufacturing, a 10% profit margin, $X to pay labor, and that is IT
ideally it should be FUCKING FREE OH MY GOD
but in lieu of that, a perfect example THAT ALREADY EXISTS AND IS PROVEN TO BE DO-ABLE
getting lost in boston is fun because I turned around on a street corner three times and some guy yelled "hey stupid! the bus is that way!" very helpful interaction and accurate insult, 10/10 no notes
one time I walked around a building a couple times looking for a bathroom and this guy went "this bitch thinks she's on a merrygoround, where the fuck are you tryna go? bathroom? one floor down to the right behind the door that says bathroom."