Data Collection

Page 3: The Unsearchable Web

We were talking to our therapist the other day. Yeah, therapist. We advocated for it to our students. Told them about our experiences. How we reached out when we were in college. Just like in business, we don’t give advice we don’t take ourselves.

We’re working on our communication. Our second home was the university, our home town is Fort Collins, but our first home is and will always be the trailer park. We were given the best opportunity we were afforded. That’s respectable. Sacrificial. One day you’ll wake up with your bike gone. Someone needed it even more than you. Free range parenting consisting of kids across the street making an assumed daycare of your yard. Other parents that recognize the rule of law, rule of man, and the rule of the belt.

If we’re ever able to culminate a future generation of misfits again, we were going to go as far as requiring therapy. If you’re a straggler, show me you’ve reached out to academic services or checked up on your mental health. You’re part of the solar system. We’ve long disproven geocentrism. You will communicate with ground control. Lost In Space, won’t be your story.

Back to our problems.

Somehow the topic of masculinity came up. Or something with men and therapy. It reminded us there was some therapist who discussed men communicating in terms like honor, respect. Granted we were wrong in our memory. It’s more about allowing space for men to be vulnerable. No matter. We were determined to track this down. It obviously struck something in us, that we remember it, even hazily.

These were some of our Googley search terms:

None of these resulted in anything close to what we were looking for. Respectably, Brené Brown was eventually included in our search. We had the fortune of someone sharing this with us years ago.

Finally, out desperation, we fire up our new friend Deepseek. It took 2 turns to get what we were looking for.

Again, Brené Brown was included in the results. But, this time. Jackpot.

Model loading included, it probably took us about 5 min. Googling, oh, probably 30 min before giving up. Links to actual therapists. Various SEO self help articles. Nothing that we were looking for. We feel like our search was not substantially different between tools.

We’re now caught in this space between things we can’t trust. Google has been overrun by money making. It used to aggregate the worlds knowledge. Provide utility. Usefulness. Ran by product 101, build something people need. Does it spark joy? If it doesn’t, well, I guess you can play monopoly.

++++++++++

We want to clarify some of our thoughts on masculinity. We’re using gendered terms here. There’s also this tech bro transformed “masculinity” meme lately. I guess they’ve hit puberty.

Joe Rogan, into nootropics cool. Joe Rogan, into whatever the hell it is now. No thank you. We don’t condone it.

We know that masculinity has a strong feminine component.

We grew up with a disabled parent. We’ve had experiences ourselves to know physical strength is an aberration. Strength is in the beliefs you hold no matter how far you might stray. The intent of your actions. It’s being compassionate, caring, selfless, making opportunities for others to achieve their potential.

If you’re viewed as aggressive, independent, strong. What are you when you can be none of those things?

Resources: