What's something you used to do/see/say but don't anymore because you don't feel it's right?
Me personally? I've become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women's expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I've matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I've come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of 'humor' really is, and I regret it deeply.
As a millennial, we grew up with the phrases "that's gay" and "that's retarded" (which meant the same thing) and obviously we had to learn to phase those out.
While I never once meant "that's disabled" or "that's homosexual"... We obviously don't say that stuff anymore.
I witnessed something at work a few weeks ago, that caught me off guard. One of the managers was asking for a favour off one of the lads in work, it's a blue collar job so it's never been PC, "Carl, need a favour, can you do such and such" "Can't sorry Steve" "Go on lad don't be gay" "Steve, I've been taking cock for the last 25 years and you asking me to stop for an extra hours work won't stop me"
Everyone around just creased up laughing.
Now THAT sounds like a friendly work environment lol
I learned these real quick in the workplace as a young adult, around a coworker with a mentally disabled child, and with a coworker who was gay. The abstraction is what made using such crude language easy. As soon as I knew someone affected by the words, I snapped out of it.
Abstraction, come to think of it, is what permits a lot of bad behavior.
See, this is why we need more diverse representation in the media now. Manchildren always whine about "diversity ruining everything" when it's really a truer reflection of America's evolving demographics.
I still say "That's pretty gay" but only for things like rainbows or LGBT bumper stickers.
Yep we used to use "that's gay" all the time. Never meant other than that is stupid.
Once upon a brighter time, gay was only colloquially used to convey happiness, unrelated to the sexual connotations there is today.
Such a sad time we live in where everything becomes a sensitive topic that can insult and hurt.
To clarify before I get cancelled to oblivion 😂 - you want your diversity, fine with me, good for you, but please there is no need to be a touchy one and reserve a swathe of labels to get insulted by when it can clearly be decided upon context if it was meant to be insulting or not.
Oh god I've got so many.
My latest one is remembering that you can't really fight fire with fire, unless you're being extraordinarily strategic about it. Attacking bigotry for instance, simply makes it stronger, as it feeds off strife and fear themselves. Remembering why Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. Not out of any great preference, but out of a lack of viable alternatives in her situation.
You can't actually "fight" it. You can exclude it. You can corral it. You can trick it into running itself off a cliff. But you can't actually destroy it by combating it directly, because it feeds off the combat, just like Trump does. You have to outmaneuver it.
Like the black musician who befriended all those kkk members and got them to retire their hoods and leave the kkk. It wasn’t by been mean and condescending he was very nice to them.
There's a WBC member that was being groomed for politics and he was turned by two Jewish guys while he was in university. They killed him with kindness. He wrote a book about it and there's a great NPR interview with him and he talks about it.
... now that I've gotta google... lol
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
I routinely attack bigots on social media. I enjoy writing and their shitty views are basically writing prompts for me.
At no point have I ever expected to change the bigots mind. They're not going to read a social media comment and wake up a new person -- they'd lose their bigot friends and bigot family.
But I have changed the minds of spectators, and thats important. Which is why assholes should never be left unchallenged when they're being assholes, especially on the safety of the internet.
I don't think there's that many spectators wandering around in true states of neutrality wondering whether their various conspiracies are true. Most people lean already, they've been already influenced. Thus, if not approached very strategically, you're actually recruiting for both sides.
Remember, they've attacked rationality and logic themselves. The people who still put faith in rationality and logic, and thus can be convinced with it, were not particularly vulnerable in the first place.
"Conventional wisdom" is a thing. There are people who have adopted propaganda and misinformation as opinions simply because it never crossed their mind to challenge it.
Pride started as a riot. Women's Lib started as a riot. Peaceful demonstrations achieve nothing.
I was totally headed down the alt right pipeline. Throughout highschool I was depressed and lonely. I lost my faith which sent me to the online atheist community which ran out of content, so they started attacking feminists/sjws. I also just distrusted women because I got molested as a child by one and no one took it seriously. This had primed me to just eat up all the content from the MRA/antifeminist crowd. The youtube algorithm, which at the time was absolutely unhinged, pushed me to racist content which I just parroted because I didn't know any better. I didn't understand why things were the way things were, but I was taught who to blame.
What saved me was getting friends. These friends shattered my preconceptions, which sent me to the library, which got me talking to more people, which got me reading more. By the time I finished high school I just became utterly incompatible with the person I used to be. I couldn't take back the things I said to people, but I could join their protests and speak up for them when I heard some heinous shit being said.
I watched a few Jordan Peterson videos out of curiosity, and I will also watch some Joe Rogan clips as well for the same reason. For a while, I was bombarded by alt right YouTube videos. It's so crazy to think just a few clicks can lead you down that path. I was older when I watched so it, so I could obviously discern their real message, but if I was a younger man it would be harder. The algorithm almost seemed to slowly introduce more and more extreme views.
Watch the Pangburn videos of Jordan Peterson debating Sam Harris. It's easy to see what a word-salad regurgitating sophist blowhard Peterson is.
I think it's that people who are into that kind of messaging are really into that kind of messaging and tend to binge-watch whole feeds. Engagement-driven algorithms present more and more of it hoping to get those ad presentations. I hope it's not a nefarious conspiracy to boost right wing propaganda, but I suppose, without the actual algorithm, that we'll never know.
I no longer describe anything as 'lame' or 'retarded' or 'spaz' or their variants. It makes me sad ableism is so ingrained in even the most inclusive spaces even though the same argument has removed the use of 'gay' for the same reasons.
I also avoid dark or dry humour unless I'm confident the people I am talking to know it's absurdist and not a serious opinion. I don't always succeed at this.
I honestly don't think it's ableism. Languages evolve and retarded doesn't mean a mental condition it literally means "dumb". Most people don't even know "lame" is related to a movement conditions and if you did a statistical analysis 99% of use cases are not related to the "original meaning". People are just ignorant of how language works, especially since English is a global language.
Yeah, people made the same arguments about 'gay' and 'fag'.
Retarded was the word of choice medically in the 60's - 80's for people with developmental disabilities. It derives from the Latin word Tardus which means slow or late.
Languages evolve, but the euphemistic treadmill is ongoing. The word 'cretin' derived from the word 'Christian', the person who coined it intended it to mean that people with cognitive impairments were still people worthy of respect. And now it's just a straight up insult. Similar with 'idiot' and 'moron'.
And these days you can look at wojaks which use physical differences like drooling or missing half a head or being physically unattractive in unconventional ways to indicate ignorance or stupidity.
Every word that people use to try to describe people with disabilities respectfully becomes a slur. That's because of ableism. It's just not talked about much.
More on this topic for anyone interested in the euphemism treadmill: https://humanparts.medium.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-mentally-retarded-e3b9eea23018
Would you then advocate that no one should ever use the words "idiot", "moron", or "cretin" ever again? What about "dumb", or "stupid"?
(edit) - People are fun. They actually believe that no human should ever want to throw insults at another human ever again. Fascinating.
I think they have more historical distance from their original intent, but I still try not to use them. I favour more targetted and creative insults, or at least more accurate descriptions of the problem.
What others do is not up to me. But I do encourage thinking about the context of the words we use and how our world view is shaped by the development of language. There are a lot of cultural eccentricities buried in etymology, and many of them are no complimentary.
I try not to use any of those words, but it is hard as they are so prevalent in society, even in my progressive and inclusive circle.
I decided a while ago to substitute all those with the word "Turnip" - as in the vegetable. I doubt anyone could be genuinely offended by that and it sounds good when said - Don't be a Turnip! try it out, its a fun word to use and people seem to be tickled by it.
Im really trying hard to stop calling shit retarded. im 40 dammit its just what we always said :(
Same, even now I've been making an effort not to for years, it still sometimes pops up in my internal monologue. Over-writing preprogrammed habits is hard, I am right there with you.
Is lame ableist? I knew about the other 2, and I think anyone else growing up in the 2000s used them at some point (myself included, don't anymore though), but I've never heard of lame as being a slur.
Lame is kind of an old word for someone or something with a bad leg or legs.
Like how a horse is lame if its leg is broken.
Huh TIL. Tbh lame seems more disconnected than the other two. Looking at the etymology on Google it seems it was last used in that way commonly in the late 1800s, so maybe that is why.
We still use it in English for the original purpose. If I told a native UK/AU/NZ English speaker the horse was shot after a race because it was lame, people wouldn't assume it was because the horse was uncool.
I think lame might get more of a pass because it's very rarely used to describe people any more, so there is a bigger disconnect.
You're right that I have more frequently been described as crippled rather than lame, but I have still experienced some 'fun' double entendre with lame.
That sucks, I'm sorry. Not sure why I'm surprised that people would use the more archaic definition just for cruelty's sake
The interesting part is that it was never intended with malice, it was just a lighthearted bit of a joke. I guess if I had my disability as a kid, I think that would be different. And you laugh along the first few times with them because you know they don't mean harm, but eventually it gets very old and it sinks in that this is how people perceive you - even if unintentionally. It becomes your defining feature and just a constant reminder of how you can't do certain things you want to, and it's worse if your condition is also physically painful it becomes a reminder that you're in pain, even if you've managed to forget for a few happy seconds. It makes it just that little bit more difficult to not think about, when the same word that has been used to describe you just pops up casually in its slang form.
But, for people who have the additional baggage of having how people perceive you as being disabled, when the word has a dual meaning with 'unintelligent' like 'retarded' or 'spaz', its an even more painful sort of othering. It's not one I've experienced personally, but this is why I've tried to stop using words which have a medical + bad thing association... which, as it turned out, was most of the words historically used to describe people with disabilities. It runs deep. Even if I aim the words correctly and precisely, I don't want to make other people feel sad as collateral damage.
I think it actually says something about 'lame' that we mostly only use it to refer to animals now. When you hear it used about yourself or others in the original form, it even has a flavour of dehumanisation that it didn't entirely have before.
Language is a weird thing like that.
Technically yes but I'm disabled and it's literally never seemed ableist to me. I've never heard anyone use it as anything other than "that's a bummer" or "you're ruining the vibe"
I think that specific word has been reformed
You can pry “lame” and “spaz” outta my cold, dead tongue!
Yep, an ADHD diagnosis made me realize how ableist society is, stuff that looks easy for some is insurmountable for others.
The dry absurdist humour being taken seriously is real. Too many times lately I've been getting strange looks to what I thought were obviously absurd jokes/opinions. I've probably been spending too much time online
I think it's partly a symptom of our world being super-connected. There are some loud people out there with some really poorly founded ideas, and opinions which most people would consider absurd. Previously that might be only one or two people in a community, but the internet has changed that for good.
I also try not to do it anymore to help people with disabilities which prevent them from readily picking up on sarcasm like autism. I don't need to accidentally influence someone who has taken me at face value. It's so hard not to revert back to old habits though.
Crap, it never occurred to me that "lame" was even related to disability. I mean, obviously it is - though in my mind that aspect of the word was almost exclusively related to animals. Is lame rude now too?
Seems pretty simple to replace spaz with spez now...
In the 90s, anything bad was "retarded" or "gay". Those don't really fly anymore.
Gay people. When I was much much younger I remember telling a friend that while I didn't have a problem with people doing their own thing, I still didn't like gay people. My friend said I hope when you have kids they're gay. Guess what happened and how I feel about it now. I was such a dumb ass. When my kid came out to me I wept for joy at their bravery. I don't take hard stances on my opinions now and try to remember that my perspective isn't ultimate or necessarily right. There's always a chance that I'm wrong.
There weren't many gay people when I was growing up. At least not openly. I was first introduced to some gays at a gay bar. They basically made me feel like a juicy steak in a meat market (not in a good way). Several comments about my dick within 10 seconds of meeting them.
Today I have many gay friends that I enjoy their company but that was a huge setback for me.
Did you tell them your name? Because I think that might have led them to make some assumptions.
It took one of those meat market experiences to make me self-reflect about how I treated women as a straight man.
Thankfully I was relatively young when it happened, but I'll always regret how I treated women before then.
You know what, I never treated women that way but I certainly gained a lot of empathy for them after that.
It's crazy to me now that there wasn't a single (open) trans or gay person in my high school in the 90s. I sometimes wonder who actually was, but wasn't able to be themselves.
My high school class was in mid-'00s, and there was one girl who very much had that butch/tomboy vibe going on. I drifted away from the class, so only heard rumours after graduation, but I think she never actually came out as anything. On the other hand three others of us (two of whom, including myself, I never would have guessed back in high school) eventually came out as various shades of queer :D
There were a couple of people who were "different" that, in hindsight, it was very obvious they were "confused". Some of them came out later but were much less obvious.
You really tempted fate, there!
I was raised in a fundamental christian extremest environment and stuck with it for 30 years. I'm now a card carrying atheist.
Used to use the word 'retarded' to describe people doing dumb things. Then I realized that not only was it hurtful to people with Down Syndrome - it was inaccurate ... as a person with Down Syndrome would not do the things I was attributing to the phrase.
I don't go around using that word because of how many people find it disrespectful. But, and I ask this out of honest curiousity, why is it offensive in the first place?
I see it as synonymous with 'idiot' or 'stupid' when used colloquially. The argument that it's a medical term doesn't really hold as 'idiot' and 'moron' are also medical terms that refer to a lacking of intellectual acuity. In many ways 'retarded' has the same meaning both colloquially and medically. To be mentally retarded is to be mentally slowed or lacking that similar mental acuity that 'idiot' or 'moron' convey.
Retarded just means slow and it's a perfectly apt description. Where I think people get confused is when retardation is linked with a specific attribute like physical retardation or emotional retardation, those convey very different meanings.
I'm not saying that we should start using it again, but that I find it odd how society has latched onto a very specific word and labelled it as bad in the matter of a decade. At the end of the day, any word that can be used to insult or demean, is rude. It's not the word being used, it's what is meant by them. The term 'Cis-gender ' is also being used in a highly exclusionary way and often times is conveyed as an insult. However, it's real meaning is not insulting in the least.
That one's still unfortunately commonplace. The term isn't used in professional circles anymore because it now just means "stupid."
Yea, I'll correct anyone who says it. People may not love it, but there needs to be people calling out other people for shit. A little different direction, but still similar, is men calling out other men for sexist shit. Sexist men often don't listen to women, but the moment their buddy says something they start to think.
You may lose a few friends doing this, but the people you probably want to be hanging out with will respect you more for it. I find people appreciate being willing to call them out, it takes guts. It takes a real man to call out sexist little boys, and also those who still use the outdated term "retarded" to call someone stupid.
I feel like 'retard' is insensitive to use in current times, but it will have a similar progression to the word idiot. Idiot used to be a medical term, and when used as an insult, I'm sure it was hurtful to the people diagnosed as an idiot by a doctor. Nowadays it is considered pretty tame. I am curious to see if 20 or 30 years from now the word still has the same hurtful connotation to it.
It is also a term used in physics. To retard as a verb means to slow. I feel like it can still be used respectfully in an academic sense.
As far as calling people out for using words in a hurtful way, I am all for it.
I take my coffee black, like my men. A line from the movie Airplane. My wife made me quit saying it, that servers today don't know the movie, and so it's just creepy instead of funny now. :(
Surely they know it's a joke
Don't call me Shirley
Thanks, you two... I needed that. :)
I will say 'I like my coffee like I like my women, black and strong'. My wife is a tiny white girl so I tend to get funny looks when I say it.
My go-to is that I take my coffee like my soul, dark and bitter.
I would probably not say it if it was true though 😊
I used to be a full on incel, it's an easy hole to fall into if you hate yourself. I had to take a good look at myself and realize that I was the problem, and now I'm a far happier person
I was lucky enough that inceldom tried to pull me in before the internet is what it is now. The deacon effect (flawed women are attracted to assholes theory) is what almost got me. If I looked that up and then my youtube algorithm started shoving other things that "seem right" to a 14 year old boy. I would have turned out way worse. Life is already pretty hard to navigate without demonizing half the world.
I've always though that being an incel would be far too easy to get into. Back when I was a young, (even more) socially anxious and depressed teenager, I could see myself definitely agreeing with some of their world views. Thankfully I finally took some responsibility for my own issues, much like you have done, but it's absolutely wild to me that I almost found myself identifying as one of them.
That's good you developed the insight to change. I think a lot of these guys could live happier lives of they looked within and made the effort.
I don't have any regrets about making dead baby jokes when I was much younger, but definitely won't be making them now with an 8 month old daughter.
My 17yo thought I was bullshitting him when we were talking about these jokes. He googled it and was speechless. I was kinda young when they were popular but remember vividly my uncle's telling them often.
Wow, I always thought this was just like a middle school humour thing. Didn't realize it was short lived (that's probably a good thing though lol)
They're very dark, but often quite surreal at the same time.
when's the cutover from baby to toddler?
I've done ny best to shake out ableist, racist, and other harmful speech.
We may be able to speak freely but we are all held accountable for the words we say
Yeah, I hit my teens at the turn of the millennium. Saying "gay," and all it's synonyms, was just an everyday thing. I watched the movie Waiting the other day and was surprised at how they dropped the word faggot almost immediately and repeatedly, until I remembered that's how people talked 20 years ago. It definitely made me think about how if you dial the clock back 60, 70 years, the N word was probably just as commonplace, and society has done a great job of getting rid of that. So I suppose I have hope that we can continue to wipe out hateful speech, we just need a minute.
I feel this is one of the big concerns around cancel culture. I said all types of stuff growing up as a millennial that was fine then, but probably wildly offensive in the future and not great now.
I used to use “gay “ or “ retarded “ as negative adjectives, I no longer do because using someone’s being in a negative light is really mean, and I try not to be mean.
"Gay" was one I never used. "Retarded" is one I don't use any more but still admittedly find kind of funny. I spent a number of years as a kid in the 80s living in New England and for me it will always be "Re-tah-ded."
I miss "Retarded" so much for how it was used in slang but it's pretty irredeemable as a word at this point. Nothing really replaced it as a call-out, which sucks.
Even before it was considered offensive, I generally took the Michael Scott route with the word.
I feel the same about the f-slur for gays. I'm in the LGBT + community and still miss that word too.
I think given enough time it could make a comeback. A few generations of people who used it to refer to the developmental disability will need to die off. Language changes and insults come and go. I'll be dead for sure, but in the meantime when something inane is happening to me I can still go back to my childhood vocab and think to myself, "This is retarded."
It literally is just a substitute for idiot. There are tons of words you can use. Here's a list of 123: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/idiot
I am aware that it has synonyms, but it's not just a substitute for idiot. It meant a specific thing
It means someone has a developmental disability. But that is not how people used it. They used it to call someone an idiot, 100%. If someone did something dumb, they would retort "retard". How is that not exactly how it was/is used? Call them a bafoon, hammerhead, numskull, nincompoop, a schnook, make up a word for all I care. But to use a word that describes someone with a developmental disability should not be used as an insult. Don't complain about there not being a substitute when there's hundreds of options. You just seem to want to use it.
A person you insulted in that was being an idiot, but you used a different, harsher word for specific effect.
That's what isn't replaced. An S-tier idiot, described in one word.
It's probably specific to my social circles, but in the late '00s some of my family and acquaintances started using certain vegetable and food names as synonyms for stupid person. E.g. "you carrot", "you cake". I guess this was a less openly offensive way of disparaging someone's intelligence.
I like this a lot. We should spread this around.
Is this a localised to the US thing? Here in Aus I've never heard removed being used as either an insult or linked to someone with a developmental disability. What context is it used in for a developmental disability?
Did you mean to say "removed"? We're talking about the word "retard"
Interesting. Lemmy.ml has a filter that replaces slurs with removed, so I guess that's what @Event_Horizon@lemmy.ml saw
This illustrates really well why word filters are a terrible idea; they have no regard for the conversational context.
I grew up in the 80s so it was just standard slang until I really thought about it.
I only use the term gay with my friends who are all gay. But usually only when things are so positive it's "gross". I think context matters though as with everything.
I practice meditation quite seriously, but I stopped telling people I'm spiritual. I really am not interested in ghost stories, gods and angels at all.
Me neither. It's alright to learn superstitions and traditional folk beliefs, but what you shouldn't do is allow them to get in the way of safety and productivity. E.g. taking herbal supplements with adverse side effects.
I, too, used to have a phase where I went around telling people I was "agnostic", but looking back, the only real reason I kept saying that was to show an apologist face towards my conservative Christian family. Really I was just atheist, but it took me quite a while for me to be able to confidently say that.
There are two kinds of atheists, gnostic and agnostic. Gnostic atheists claim to know for a fact that there are no gods (an impossible claim) and agnostic atheists don't claim to know it for a fact, but believe it based on the available evidence. Most atheists are agnostic ones. There are gnostic and agnostic theists, as well.
I've heard that distinction as well, but it always struck me as coming from a religious position and working backwards, as if there is something inherently special about belief in a god or gods separate from belief or disbelief in other things that lack evidence.
I don't have to explain that I'm gnostic in my disbelief of vampires even though if a vampire was biting on my neck I'd believe in them. If I saw a sleigh pulled by reindeer flying through the sky, I'd believe in Santa, but absent any evidence and lots of reasons to believe Santa is impossible as an all-knowing, seemingly time-stopping magical being, I don't think we need a qualifier like "gnostic" or "agnostic" when discussing disbelief in Santa, because it is "impossible to know."
Gnostic and Agnostic seems like gotcha terminology for religious folk that capitalize on the more scientific view that if there is proof/evidence something exists, I will believe in it, but until then I will use reason to believe it does not to suggest there is a class of atheists that seems open to the idea of religion and another that doesn't. In reality, if you're starting from the atheist side, it's more:
"I am certain gods do not exist in the same way I am certain vampires and Santa Claus don't exist, in that unless and until reliable evidence is available to suggest they do there is no reason to believe in them. But as with any of my beliefs, if reliable evidence or proof is offered I'm willing to reconsider my position."
The gnostic/agnostic atheist/theist distinction is quite useful. Also the words are fun to pronounce/spell so that's a bonus
Meditation is excellent.
I keep my religion to myself. My beliefs are my own and private. Let others define providence and the unknown how they want, it's none of my business. Better to focus on being a good person and doing good things.
Wait is meditation a "spiritual" act? Or am I misunderstanding?
I thought mediation was just about self control and mindfulness and being calm.
I struggle with using the word spirituality w/ meditation as well, because of the mentioned connotations. But I think this is roughly the definition people use that does kinda fit: "Spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature."
And that feeling does resonate with me a bit. I don't believe in any supernatural or religious deity, but I do believe we're all part of something bigger in a very literal sense. Meditating and being mindful and reflecting on life are ways for me to remember that bigger whole.
So in that sense, I'm "spiritual" but I don't use that word personally.
Thank you. I wish people would stop identifying as "spiritual." For some, it's a way to avoid saying, "I'm evangelical and I want to convert you," for others its "I grew up religious and I don't believe but it feels good," while for others its, "I'm an atheist but I am afraid you will judge me if I say as much." etc. It is a meaningless assertion that makes me suspect someone is vacuous until proven otherwise.
Racism.
While I was never into it myself thankfully, I let it pass a lot in my family. Being in university changed that though, it just feels too uncomfortable to have my family say racist shit in front of me while I have so many people of color as friends. I still struggle to call out their transphobia though but that is due to my own identity issues.
In my early life I was raised in Kansas fundie hell. I graduated to 4chan. To call me racist would have been an understatement; "proud white supremacist", more like. (LOL I used the term "race nationalist" then)
Perhaps my proudest personal achievement has been unraveling that disgusting tapestry of who I was.
Good on ya.
I used to play extreme music some 15 years ago and by God 80% of our humour was variations of calling each other f*gs. It's quite sad cause we didn't have an ounce of préjudice in us we were just wankers with dead end jobs and shit guitars. We met up with the boys a couple months ago and reminisced there was a lot of cringing...
Something rather cringe and obnoxious in hindsight was the over use of the word "ocd" It was quite common in media and in my circles for somebody to say "I'm so ocd" when referring to some perfectly normal thing they do like tidying bookcases and organising things.
It's pretty cringy now and I'd never say it now. I feel bad for saying it... but hey personal growth I guess. I was in school/college at the time too so it was a long time ago. There were a lot of things that were common at school that I used to say that are definitely not pc nowadays and I accept that. I don't pretend to be a perfect and morally righteous invidual. I have flaws as much as the next person
People still throw OCD around like they're the world's quirkiest person "oh that's just my OCD lol"
Grew up in the 80s and 90s. As progressive and openminded as I thought I was then...holy shit there are a lot of words and phrases I won't touch any more because they sound archaic, racist, mysoginistic, or hateful today. Back then they were perfectly acceptable everyday things no one would bat an eye at. It does make me happy that at least in this small arena we seem to have made progress as a society.
(Should add that this is from a US perspective)
I was rewatching some Buffy the vampire Slayer and Buffy asks herself if she's "mentally challenged" in the second episode.
It's kind of crazy to me how I didn't bat an eye at that just 10 years ago when I was watching the show in high school.
Society and language evolve at a truly spectacular rate
I worked with someone who takes care of their older brother.
I don’t use the word “ret*rd” as a dig at someone anymore.
I honestly never used it as anything but playful banter but that word invokes a lot more meaning than I ever intended.
I know that now.
I worked for years with developmentally disabled adults. Saying that word even once was automatic termination.
The word does have medical/mechanical relevance but is so offensive nowadays that it's worth not using it at all.
I graduated high school in 2004. So many slurs back then. So uncomfortable with them now. Good riddance.
That forbidden "f word" used against gay people was dangerously prevalent back then to use in mainstream. I feel the same as you about its usage now
Nothing. Everything is still funny in the right or wrong context.
I basically agree. It's great that we've acknowledged that a lot of things shouldn't be said so casually, but there has also been an over-correction. I'm not going to call people/things "retarded" like I did at 13 years old in 1999, for examlple, but if you're getting butthurt that I wrote the word instead of "the r-word" for an example, you need to calm down.
smoking. growing up in the 80s, everyone was smoking - in bars, restaurants, airplanes, even hospitals.
everyone I knew, their parents smoked tobacco or chewed tobacco. I started smoking myself, around 16 or so, as did all of my friends & even people I didn't associate with. it was just part of the culture - and yes, I was aware at the time that it was a dangerous activity, but kids are stupid.
and then around 15 years ago or so everyone stopped or switched to vaping. now I really only see homeless people smoking. it's quite the culture shift.
I live in Germany. A fourth of men smoke. They started prohibiting smoking in public places and restaurants at some point and then stopped for some reason. The neighbour below me smokes like a chimney on his balcony and the smoke goes right through my windows. It's 37C during the day and I can't air my apartment out at night. It's disgusting.
Come to the Midwest. A crazy number of people smoke here, like straight up cancer sticks smoke. I moved here from Florida, where I felt like you: was a low class thing of the past. In Missouri the booze is cheap and the tobacco plentiful. It's wild.
I feel like the more depressed the economy, the greater the chance that a particular place is a antiquated blast from the past. Years and years ago (2000s) my friends and I took a local road trip to Ford City outside of Pittsburgh. When we got there, there were street lights on, there was a neoclassical town hall building, but not a single car on the road or person on the streets besides us. We went into a bar, and there was NOTHING to indicate that we were in the year 200X. The bar was a time capsule from the early 80s. The TV was old and was playing old reruns, the decor was various shades of brown, yellow marbled glass lights above a pool table. A BUCKET of beer bottles cost $1 and a burger and fries cost $1. It was utterly surreal being in this place - it was the closest thing to a Twilight Zone experience I've ever had.
Definitely depends on the crowd nowadays. I personally see about a 50/50 split between smoking vs vaping among people in the restaurant industry, and those of us who don't do either are definitely the minority. Hopefully tabacco/nicotine products will stop being socially acceptable someday, but I can't imagine it's going to be any time soon with how popular vaping is.
I never realized how frequently I called things “lame” until I said it in front of a coworker paralyzed from a motorcycle accident. Hopefully he understood, but it just took that one glance telling me he heard it for me to stop. To try to stop.
But being lame sucks. That's the point. Someone who is paralysed isn't going to say it doesn't.
Being gay doesn't suck so it should not be used to describe something that does.
Just gonna stop in to say that 'sucks' in your usage is gay/misogynist slur meaning 'sucks dick.'
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/03/suck.html
I looked myself and the term sucks goes back a bit farther than that, though, at least in England. "Sucks to your Auntie!", is an Old English insult meaning "your Auntie be damned!". It was said by a character in Lord of the Flies in 1954. Sinister Street was written by Compton MacKenzie in 1913 and has a sentence that reads, "This kid's in our army, so sucks!".
The term gained popularity in the US in the 1960s, and it isn't really clear whether it reached America from England, or whether Americans reinvented the term from scratch with its own connotations. That being said, I'm sure many if not most people in the US used the term with the intent to imply negativity with regards to homosexuality back when the phrase was new.
Nowadays, I think the the term has been largely separated from its' negative correlation to fellatio. Personally, I never even realized the correlation until I was very far into my adulthood, and most people my age never used the word with that meaning in mind at all.
Come on. Is that really a problem now? I get not calling people gay as an insult. But lame? I don't even think of handicapped people at all when I hear that word.
When people talk about 'privilege,' this is what they mean. When you really stop to think about it, a huge amount of our casual insults/denigrations come down to slurs on anthropomorphized objects. If you believe that propagating such language is hurtful to the people the slur represents, you can make yourself crazy thinking about all the synonyms for 'bad.'
Is it really awful? Who knows...probably depends on the degree, but one can imagine that someone actually living with whatever deviation, someone who spends their life with awareness that their 'lameness' means they will never be the Adonis- or Venus-like advertising model, might become hypersensitive to those words. I'm not saying that we need to shun people who use 'sucks [dick]' or 'lame' instead of 'bad,' but I appreciate the people who make that effort.
It's kind of the bring-your-own-bag approach to inclusivity. Using your own bag at the grocery store isn't going to influence climate change; stopping slur-based judgements isn't going to end discrimination; but they're things an individual can do to feel a little better.
I get that, I really do. Thing is, life is hard and arduous a lot of the time and I have way too many things on my mind to even link a word like 'lame' to a meaning like that.
And a lot of people DO shun other people for using this language, which I get when words like 'gay' are used as an insult.
I'd definitely not call myself privileged because I use the word 'lame' though.
@RobertOwnageJunior @tburkhol It is privilege to not have to worry or even consider how lazy language impacts people who are different from you.
If you can understand why using "gay" with a negative connotation perpetuates harm to LGBTQ+ folks, you can figure out why the same applies to applying negative connotations to language around disablity.
If you don't have to worry about how these negative associations cause harm, that is a privilege.
@RobertOwnageJunior @tburkhol an easy example of unexamined privilege is being able to say "I don’t even think of handicapped people at all when I hear that word."
So can I use dumb? Because some people are relatively unintelligent due to their disability. Will they feel attacked when I say 'this is dumb'? Does that make me privileged?
Like, how specific do we get? Wouldn't it be easier to differentiate between people using these words as insults or otherwise?
I have my problems as well, for example I am unusually tall, which makes for some problems in my day to day life, for example finding the right shoes/clothing. Is someone using the phrase 'huge problem'' privileged? Is there a line we draw, or can we only ever use perfectly neutral phrases.
I am living my life trying to be nice and sensible to everyone, can't that be enough?
Because people are way too easily offended nowadays.
I still use "lame" to this day. What should I be saying instead?
Misogyny in books. I was reading a Morse book. He described the woman of a couple from dyed hair to hammer toes but had no physical description of her husband whatsoever.
Thats the case in all the crime novels. The woman gets decribed in so much detail that its practically an erotica and the guy is described as having a Y chromosome.
No one cares how the female looks, my dear authors, just move on ahead with the story!
Putting people down and using ableism as the punchline in a joke/retort/comment
I know it's controversial, but moving away from "guys" when I address a group and more or less defaulting to "they" when referring to people I don't know.
They was practical, because I deal with so many students exclusively via email, and the majority of them have foreign names where I'd never be able to place a gender anyways if they didn't state pronouns.
Switching away from guys was natural, but I'm in a very male dominated field and I'd heard from women students in my undergrad that they did feel just a bit excluded in a class setting (not as much social settings) when the professor addresses a room of 120 men and 5 women with "Guys", so it just more or less fell to the side in favour of folks/everyone.
I use "guys" even when address a group of women. I feel it's basically become a gender neutral term.
I certainly used to, and used to think it was essentially gender neutral, but again - in certain contexts like a male dominated classroom, the women/nb students could easily feel excluded by it. Outside of that, I also recognized my trans friends had a lot of thoughtless people intentionally misgendering them on the regular just to be mean, and finding small ways to reduce that reinforcement felt better than not. It was also surprisingly not that tough for me to adopt the more neutral language, so if it's a subtle help with no skin off my back it just seems very win-win.
I guess the point is, how sure are you that all the members of the groups you address using your "gender neutral" term feel equally included?
Despite how country/southern y'all comes across it really is the most inclusive and rolls off the tongue like nothing else
I'm in the process of making this switch. I'm a transplant in the US south and I've always been a bit averse to y'all because it feels too southern, but I think that's the one I'm going with. It's the best fit I've found. And I've noticed it getting more popular elsewhere in the world, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it.
Non-binary folks thank you for this as well. 👍
For a brief period in elementary school I used to think that's it's okay to litter - and not by example of my parents (they're fine) but rather because everyone else was doing it.
I'm not proud that I was doing it, but I'm glad that I quickly grew out of it - so much that it now makes my blood boil seeing someone on the street littering (almost to the point of me wanting to slap them across the face).
I played Modern Warfare 2 at 16. That's all I need to say. Not proud of my early internet years
I've become less and less tolerant of antisocial behaviour, like littering or being rude to people at the forefront of businesses (bus drivers, cashiers and the like). It's not easy to step up and publicly shame people but I'm getting there.
I'm not as naive. There usually is no simple solution to complex problems and when someone suggest one it's almost always wrong by definition. It's a messy world and sometimes the right thing to do sounds counter-intuitive
"usually", "almost always" It seems like there is also generally no simple solution to the complex problem of finding solutions!
No point using the word "always" because even one counter-example then nullifies the whole argument
This is a good one. Any political opinion I see starting with "if we just..." or "why don't they just..." I pretty much immediately disregard. If it were that simple, the problem would have already been solved.
I used to slip in to a bit where I was sarcastically a character that took on beliefs basically the exact opposite of my own. I would make sexist or lightly racist (stereotype) jokes that I didn't actually believe but thought were funny. The jokes were ofter at the expense of myself or people like me but involved bringing up other races, sexes, and ethnicities.
I made an effort to stop doing this for a couple reasons. The first being that idk if I'm really good or really bad at sarcasm but a lot of people just wouldn't get my joke and I was afraid people actually believed that was who I was.
Secondly, I had a kid. I realized that she parrots everything I say and do, and she wouldn't understand the layers of the joke and could potentially become what I was making fun of.
I listen to a lot of comedians in podcast and I envy their ability to slip in and out of bits with other comedians knowing they all get it, but for now I make an effort to end that bit.
I think doing those things when it's clear, is fine. As a queer person, when I catch my friends (usually inadvertently) say something queerphobic, I'll lean it and switch it to be critical of the cishet equivalent.
I think when it's clear, and when it's being used for a good reason, then there's no issue. You make a very good point about your child though. They don't usually get the nuances that an adult should.
Quite a few. I grew up in a conservative, racist family. It took me a long time to unwind the problematic casual phrases I grew up with. I'm not proud of it, and I occasionally cringe looking backwards. I realize now the tremendous weight and damage those phrases could do. Now I just try to be better day by day, and to make sure I don't perpetuate those damaging habits in my own children.
I remember as a teen in the 90s in high school, doing a fake gay voice was considered funny and nobody thought twice about it. Even if the person wasn't actually targeting anyone LGBTQ+ specifically, just doing the voice seemed to insinuate the somebody was less than masculine. Like, Oh, the water isn't cold enough for you, let me repeat that request back in a gay voice to make fun of you.
I'm pretty sure if I even tried doing a fake gay voice at work now I would probably be shit-canned pretty quickly, which in a way goes to show how far society has come in not tolerating what would've just been crude humor in earlier times. I know the LGBTQ+ community has worked for decades to get to where they're at today, but it still feels kind of crazy how quickly society changed.
"Rule of thumb" I quit using this one after learning that it referred to a rule where you could legally beat your wife with a switch no wider than your thumb.
"Getting gyped" Learned this one is about associating gypsies with getting screwed over, so people started saying they got gyped because something bad happened.
Stuff I thought was completely innocuous but turns out has really bad connotations, so I dropped them.
I respect your intuition to drop problematic phrases but you may have been lead astray on "rule of thumb" by a very common rumour (Wikipedia calls it 'modern folk etymology') that that is where it originated.
In fact no law ever existed and it was more used in trades as thumbs were an easy mode of measurement available to anyone (similar to the use of feet to measure!)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
The Wikipedia article even explains the "switch" rumour and provides some backstory and explanation to it.
So don't feel weird using Rule of Thumb; it has more to do with carpentry than anything else.
never heard of that, really neat
This one is hard for me because my first wife's biological dad was from a family of ... and I can't even say it. My wife used to say "gypsy," and her family all said gypsies, but I can't say "Romani" either because they weren't technically Romani. The family came from Europe via South America and are a large isolated family up and down the US eastern coast. Most of the rulers of this family clan are wanted by the FBI, and they are involved in everything from penny bunko scams to psychic parlors to carnivals and crooked contracting companies. My late wife's family have been on a lot of TV shows since the 1970s, including 60 minutes and several specials on cable TV channels like Discovery. Everyone called them gypsies.
My wife died before the term "gypsy" started to be recognized as a slur, and I am curious how she would have handled it, because people used to ask her, "Oh Romani?" "No." "Irish Traveler?" "No, they are the Ristick/Ely clan." "... what?" But let me tell you, that family was very weird. Some of them still lived in vardas but most were circulating through private residences in common suburban neighborhoods. They were real hard to catch and pin down because almost all the top family members had multiple aliases, moved around a lot, and even my wife's dad had several marriages, and claimed the kids on his taxes for decades, even if they were in their 30s (which is a problem my wife had to deal with, like having to tell the IRS, "No, I am 33 and married, I not 8 living with my dad in eastern Ohio."). They have a very specific philosophy about their family as "chosen people" who were, as one story goes, forgiven by God because they stole one of the nails from the cross used to crucify Jesus. They don't even consider what they do fraud or stealing any more than you or I would think a monkey owns a camera. I was married to her for 25 years, and heard all sorts of stories about that family, and why my mother-in-law ended up leaving.
Here's an article from 1997 about them.
I did a Google search on the Ristick family and saw a comment you made on Ars Technica Forums, back when you were Punk Walrus and your wife was alive. (At least given the similarity to username and background, I think it's you.) My condolences on your wife. Did her death bring her father's side of the family back into the picture at all? And did she end up writing the book everyone wants to read about the situation? They sound like a fascinating, but exhausting family. I'd think you'd need a robust journalism team to conduct all those interviews.
It is me.
Nope. Her death brought a LOT of people to the funeral, but mostly people she influenced through the anime and science fiction conventions she helped run. I won't rule out her family showing up, but there were 250-300 people in attendance, and obviously I was distracted. She never wrote a book, but she did leave a some... let's say artefacts... of her family. A tarot deck, a book about family life in the early 1900s, and stuff like that. I don't know what to do with them, because I know some of them were stolen, and someone "outside the family" are not supposed to have them. She was never accepted as a "half breed," and part of why her mother left was because of the abuse. I remember hearing about when someone in the family dies, people just "show up" without being notified. It may be apocryphal, legendary without much fact, I dunno. But it was one of those "psychic things" that her family supposedly possessed.
I do know that she found out that her father died (really died this time, not faked his death) around 2002-2003. She knew that her family wouldn't want to speak to her, and if they did, they would probably do so for criminal intent. I remember that she encountered some of her extended family in public (one of the scams was an elderly woman with a small toddler, and an index card with "I am poor, and have no money to my grandchild") and she would say "don't interact with her. Look over there, there, and in that car: that's family keeping an eye on her, and to warn her if things start to go down. Even if you say you know she's a gypsy, yeah, don't do that. They will find you, and hurt you." Some of the men would see a dent in your car and say they could repair it for $200 or something. Hot women would approach you and stroke your hand while they had "visions." She knew all the tricks. She was great at carnivals, too, like how things were rigged.
Depends on the situation. In the corporate world I watch everything I say. When alone or with friends, not very much.
Don't beat yourself up too much for the behaviours and humor of your past. Times change, people grow. Sometimes a behaviour sticks, and thats ok too. We are still human.
I stopped ironically wearing my Putin t-shirt.
Lmao this one is actually pretty funny, like I imagined you staring at it in your wardrobe like 'nah, I probably shouldn't'
And I've been doing that for a year and a half...
I've been trying to degender my language. I grew up saying "thank you (or excuse me, yes/no, etc) sir/ma'am" and then being in customer facing positions for years just absolutely cemented that in my mind to the point where it is an absolute knee jerk reaction to make assumptions about the gender of others. It's an awful habit and makes me cringe every time I do it. I try to either just avoid the gender identifier ("thank you.") which to my mind sounds impolite, or use gender neutral terms like "friend" which REALLY sound impolite. It's tough but I'm working on it! The real trouble is getting my brain to stop gendering others and as a quite elderly millenial who actually identifies as Agender it is an annoying and difficult task. I'm envious of younger folks who won't grow up with these kinds of ideas as a default.
Go with "Thank you, customer"
Really push the dystopia with dead eyes and big smile as you do it.
Very fortunately, I now work from home in a job with basically zero interaction with anyone at all (it's great) so this mostly applies to casual social interactions at say, a grocery store. I have to say though, using your suggestion in this context is actually hilarious and would be super gratifying.
In my last job (which was on a team of all cis women), people shared their pronouns...both singular AND plural (i.e., how they wanted to be referred to in a group). Which is pretty bizarre. Like, what if one person's plural pronoun is "folks" and another's is "friends"...then which term are you supposed to use?
And I came to hate saying "friends" because we weren't friends. It was a soul-sucking corporate gig, and I wasn't part of their mom squad...I never saw them outside of work, and I was always the last to learn about team changes, so let's be real: we aren't friends, we're coworkers. It got creepy being expected to smile and address everyone as "friends"!
FWIW, I have nothing against folks or guys or y'all ;)
This is what bugs me about chosen pronouns, it's like a right someone has to tell other people how to use language, that can get complicated and needs memorization. People should have leeway on the words they use, even if they shouldn't be making unwanted assertions about other peoples gender. Would be better to just have a set of genderless pronouns that are always polite/safe to use.
I resonate deeply with this. I can't be bothered to memorise all these pronouns. I'd of course do it for people I am close to, though.
I'm not trying to sound insensitive (I never come across anything like that in real life), but is it really that bad to assume someone's gender? You literally don't know anything about that person, or how they identify. Do people get offended when you missgender them if it's the first time you've met them?
I could understand someone being offended if you do missgender them every time, but what if it's the first time you're meeting? Just say sorry and then say the correct pronoun.
First of all, I barely gender people (I've always been like this, saying friend, partner, mate...) so I'm really surprised by this new trend. Maybe I'm getting old lol.
It's not so much about offending someone (and yes, people absolutely do sometimes get aggressively upset about it) and more about attempting to change my own mental habits. I believe like race, sexual orientation, and politics, gender is a personal topic that doesn't really need to enter into a casual, never to be repeated interaction between two people. You don't say "excuse me, old person," based on your perceptions of another's appearance. Why is gender any different? It certainly isn't an objective concept or one that can be readily or factually assumed. It's outmoded and unnecessary.
Also, as I commented earlier, if I am using what I mean to be a term of respect to make someone else feel confident and comfortable, and through my language I risk doing the opposite, why would I want to do that if it's something I can personally change?
I'm not British but I just say "cheers mate" to everyone. Works for me.
Interesting that this sir/ma'am thing is very location-dependent. I've been living in Scotland more more than a decade now and I probably heard someone address me as "sir" a grand total of twice. I remember because it always felt so jarring, like why was this random shop assistant speaking to me so subserviently O.o
But I heard in some places (USA?) it's very commonplace.
Can we just create some genderless pronouns instead of asking everyone you meet for theirs? I'd be down with that.
I mean, isn't that exactly what you just used? They/them are genderless pronouns that can be used for both plural and singular subjects. If you don't know someone's gender, it's already what people default to.
Like, "They're sending someone over at 3, but I don't know when they'll get here." Or, "That person? Nah, I don't know them." Or, "Whose is this? Is it yours? Is it theirs?"
When people first started yelling about having to be polite about genders I always found it odd how they'd angrily refuse to use the neutral pronouns already in English, while using those same pronouns in their own sentences without really realizing it.
“Thank you friend” is impolite? Maybe it’s informal, but I think that’s a great solution to the problem. I can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that except maybe an aggro asshole.
Maybe I've just spent too long arguing with aholes on the internet but to me calling someone "friend" comes across as very sarcastic and condescending
Edit, it's like calling someone you don't know "buddy" or "pal"
I'm not your friend, pal!
Listen here, buddy!
I could see it online, yeah. If you use a friendly tone in person it wouldn’t be a problem.
Fair enough! I do use it pretty frequently. I would really like it if someone said that to me, so maybe it isn't as impolite as I perceive it. Thanks.
You know we've gone too far when people feel bad for saying thank you sir/mam...
At one point, people thought we had gone too far because they weren't allowed to say the N word anymore.
Sir and Ma'am are only respectful if the person hears it as such.
That’s fine, but also the vast majority of people are content being called by their assumed pronouns. I’m all for inclusion but I’m not going to erase two perfectly innocuous words from my vocabulary because one person might be sensitive about it.
Use your best judgement, if somebody corrects you then apologize and use their preferred pronoun moving forward. If that’s not good enough, that’s their problem.
Eh, it costs me nothing and actually helps me with a personal goal I have to not make assumptions about someone's identity based on what I perceive. As someone who has been misgendered many times in the past, it truly hurts, and while that may be a personal problem, I don't really love going around potentially causing others to feel hurt in any way.
That’s fair and I appreciate your insight here. I imagine you “know” that those who misgendered you didn’t do so intentionally or intend on being hurtful, but I’m sure it still hurts anyway. I’m sorry for that.
I suppose in the real world, using my best judgement means that if I’m unsure, I skip the gendered pronoun. It still requires an assumption based on perception, admittedly not ideal. But I also view sir and ma’am as a traditional sign of respect and I’ve used them liberally my whole life. I usually give an enthusiastic yes sir or ma’am even at the drive through.
It’s obviously a nuanced discussion that we’re not going to solve here and today, but again I appreciate your non-aggressive take, a perspective I didn’t have before.
Thanks for engaging in productive discussion! And yes, I fully realize that in almost all but very specific and relatively easily identifiable cases, misgendering is something that happens accidentally and is not intended to be injurious. But for anyone who does not identify with their gender assigned at birth, it really does feel super bad.
I love that you also seem to have the same regard for social politness as I do. I feel like as someone who wants to use terms of respect to make others feel confident and comfortable, the possibility that I may accidentally do the very opposite of that is something that makes me want to try and better the way I interact.
Fuck that. NO ONE LEAVES UNTIL WE GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS THING!
Edit: /s just in case
Not all people identify with the two-gender labels. For instance, I'm genderqueer, and I'd feel very dysphoric if someone told me "ma'am."
I'm a cis lady and I don't like being called ma'am. It feels so forced and phony.
I mentioned it to my mom the first time I got "ma'am"ed. I'm a cis woman and I hated it! Mom, who looks much more ma'am-worthy than I, said the same thing. I don't know if anyone wants to be a "ma'am."
I don't care one way or the other as long as it's an attempt at politeness. It's fine.
I agree.
This world is going to hell in a wokebasket if people start thinking about what comes out their fucking mouth.
/s, cos you never fuckin know nowadays.
They don't feel bad for using those terms, they feel bad about using them on someone incorrectly. There's nuance here that is lost on those who struggle to grasp the difference and phrasing things as if we're being forced to stop using them or "delete them from our vocabulary" is counterproductive.
I don't think it is univerally okay to make assumptions about someone's personal identity before you know it. I am happy calling someone sir or ma'am after I know their gender identity. But in a casual interaction between strangers, there is no need for it at all and it is just an ingrained and outdated social convention that I personally am striving to move past.
I like the Battlestar Galactica solution to this: sir should not be gendered. It should just be a term of respect and maybe authority. It's gendered more out of convention than definition. I don't know how we reach that point, but that's my reference. I think it basically has to start with the military. They should stop using ma'am for women and use sir.
I really like this take and love it when I come across it in media.
I automatically reject any arguments based on the "human nature". We know jack shit about our nature.
I reject any argument based on something supposedly being natural. Who draws the line? And nature is a bitch anyway.
I will argue that it is human nature to lie. Dismissing that would be folly.
Anybody that simply dismiss's an argument with valid standing is not worth talking to.
I agree! Too much justified with "human nature" when in reality it's a local cultural discourse and practice. However, I do think we can say some things about humans. Check out The Ethical Primate by Mary Midgley
Definitely adding it to my Todo list, thanks for the suggestion!!
And ideally, we have enough self-control enough to rise above the bad aspects of human nature
Accepting the ability of self-indentification is one of the few exceptions I would be willing to make.
I cannot support it logically, but I truly want to believe in it.
Jokes built on racist stereotypes. Used to be just another part of my family's collection of jokes, but now I don't see the humor in those
For starters I don't listen to the band The Mentors anymore. Also I quit watching gory videos long ago and recently quit watching anything that gets me emotionally charged. So much on the internet serves no constructive purpose, it just riles up emotions. We've all heard "you are what you eat", the same goes for what you put in your eyes and ears
I'm happy for your realisation, OP!
For me it was homophobic and ableist slurs as general words for "bad". It's very common in my native society, so after I started learning more about social justice issues, it took a few years to wean myself off.
Also, looking back, I realise now that in middle school I was lowkey cruel to some classmates, manipulated them for my own amusement. I was never one to bully others, but I was often a bystander entertained by others being bullied. (Even though I was being bullied myself by the same people on other occasions. But I somehow never made that connection with their other victims, I guess my empathy wasn't fully developed back then. Or maybe it was a mental self-defence mechanism, idk.)
Calling everyone "man", "bro", "you guys"
I still do this in the most gender neutral way possible, is this no longer kosher?
Nah it’s fine, you’re fine.
Some might disagree, but IMO it’s actually a show of respect and inclusion. In Star Trek they call all senior officers Sir, regardless of gender. Love it.
What's wrong with that?
That there is 51% of people who usually do not see themselves represented in those words. Y'all and peeps are my favorites.
I always thought those terms were gender neutral. Girls and boys alike use them where I'm from.
I started addressing people online with "Girls" and some completely lost their shit and got incredibly angry. I kinda think different now about addressing whole groups as "Boys".
I realized that the fact people think "Boys" is neutral and cool but "Girls" is basically an insult is a problem. And I don't want to take part in keeping it alive.
As a child, I kind of was pretty greedy and "bullied" my father for most of the time trying to buy the cheaper variants of food or clothing. Now that I know how hard it is to earn money, I really, really feel ashamed of myself for doing that bullshit. I must've put a good amount of stress on my father. I will repay him for all his hard work for me when I get a good paying job in the future. Love you dad!
Making/laughing at jokes surrounding events like 9/11 and the titanic. Out of morbid curiosity, I know far too much about either of them now, they are no longer statistics, and contemplating both genuinely turns my stomach.
There is at least one pretty graphic recording of a phone call from a 9/11 victim trapped on the higher floors, the operator kept trying to reassure her, and it was obvious she knew they were lying. I can't anymore. I've deliberately traumatized myself listening to it, and I've lost my taste for that shit.
But, you know. "If we don't crack jokes, it gets too heavy." Ha-ha, holocaust /s
I was a huge Taylor Swift fan until she knowingly started dating a racist, sexist dirtbag. Dating someone with such views means you excuse those views. I was and am not willing to financially support someone with those views.
I also used to fly a whole lot. Probably once or twice a month on average. I developed a bad conscious about it and just stopped. I allow myself to fly if I absolutely have to (has happened twice so far), but otherwise I only travel by train or bus. My vacation destinations have changed quite a bit, to say the least.
I wish there were destinations for me to go to by train...
Some children Songs I could never sing vor hear again, they make me cringe a lot (racism, sexism, ...)
When I was in middle school a friend of mine used to dress up and call herself a gypsy. Due to where we live, we didn't know that word was tied to a real life culture. We thought it meant fantasy-like hippies.
Years later I found out the actual meaning behind it and freaked out. Sadly I wasn't still in contact with her by that time, or I would've told her. Though her parents would've complained about it...
The full word "gypsy" is not a common pejorative in the US any more (if it ever was) -- if anything, I would argue that as a descriptor, it means someone is a free spirit, that lives a non-normative, romanticized life. That said, it's clear that the US inherited pejorative descriptors from somewhere because "to gyp" is to rip off someone. That said, I wonder if the US adopted "to gyp" as a toned down version of "to jew" after casual anti-semitism rightfully became unacceptable in the public sphere in the 20th century. If so, the lack of a sizeable Roma population in the US probably made "gyp" seem like a suitable alternative to a society that accepts "othering" in the mainstream.
As I've gotten older (65M), I find that I have grown less hurried and hasty to judge.
Hurrying and rushing really doesn't help me to do anything faster or better, so why bother?
You do need to be able to quickly judge and assess people and situations in many settings and for a variety of reasons. That being said, I find that judging people prematurely can fail to appreciate their extenuating or particular circumstances. Everyone's got their own lives, problems and situations. For that matter, everyone can just have a crappy day. Doesn't mean you have to take crap from people, just helps to give the benefit of the doubt where and when feasible.
"if I were you". When I was younger I lack the ability really consider others' situation and put myself in their shoes. Not because I thought I'm better than them but thought I see a better way. I don't exactly remember when I stopped using it but I'm pretty sure it's around when I realized I would beat the shit out of me if I was my own child.
The same as OP
Same. So glad I grew out of that edgy phase.
Tubular.
I've never encountered anything I would describe as "tubular." Except maybe tubes. It just doesn't feel right as general slang.
Haha, I grew up on the California coast and surfed a lot in my youth. The only slang from that era I still use is "bitchen" and I say it as an anachronism, like "groovy".
Sometimes I say "bitchen camero" in reference to a car I like. That's from a song that stuck in my memory. Comes from a punk garage band in the early 90's; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxKt_Wc0m1g
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=wxKt_Wc0m1g
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
How do you feel about "hella?" I find it hilarious how some people in the southern cities absolutely hate it for some reason. But I was born in the Bay Area and grew up in the Central Valley. Felt like we got all the slang from the whole state. I also always latched onto that stereotypical surfer brah stuff. Everyone made fun of it, but I thought it was the coolest. Even the "get pitted, bro, so pitted" guy sounds super cool to me lol
A bitchin' waterslide is tubular.
Not even certain kinds of bells?
I'm mostly succeeding now at not calling another driver "he" by default. I don't know who they are, and can call them something better, as I just did.
"You got gypped"
Always just thought it was the same as being "ripped off" or getting a bad deal. Only in recent years realised that it was in reference to be swindled by a gypsy. I still wondered if the term gypsy was more to do with the lifestyle of the person, like a nomad, and not actually racist but no, gypsies origins are as Romani people. Have since stopped using the term.
Urban Dictionary has a bet each way as to if it is/was racist gypped/gyp't but best not to use it I think
I used to eat meat. Don't anymore because the arguments against it are just that fucking strong. Basically unless you advocate for religious supremacy it's hard to make a cohesive argument in favor of meat consumption.
Maybe I woke up dense, but what does religious supremacy have to do with meat consumption?
Animals were put on this earth for use by humans is the religious supremacy take.
I completely forgot about this thought. Religions are so silly, and I don't care which one (Christianity, Islam...).
I have always thought that the best way to be religious is to be on your own, not through a "Church". There is nothing wrong with believing that there is something greater than us.
nothing?
I'm not a vegetarian, but I try to replace meat with plant based products when possible. I also avoid leather. In modern times I've discovered so many negative things about it. The main thing is livestock farming uses literally ten times more resources and creates ten times more pollution than crop farming. Also the the industrial farming of livestock is amazingly cruel.
It tastes delicious is a pretty good argument
Whenever I start saying "Easy Peasey..." there's always a slightly too long pause before I say "... lemon squeezey "
Christianity.
Can't think of too many, quite honestly. I don't buy into most of the bullshit these days. Moving the goalpost all the time doesn't change the underlying issues and yet that is all most people want to do - make a meaningless gesture to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside even though nothing has changed.
Enjoying anything. Everything is terrible. How dare I...? But seriously. Everything is terrible.
Apple products. When it started to take away the ability to tune the noise cancellation feature on airpod pro, I decided that's it. You can nerf it to say its for the best interest for everyone. But I'm the consumer who paid full price who asked for the feature that was to isolate the noise, not a fucking compromised NC because you say so. You can at least have the decency to let me tune it myself, but no, Apple decides whats best. So fuck it.
The elitist attitudes surrounding Apple products is so unbelievable. "OMG, I have an iPhone!" Yeah, you have an iPhone, so what? You're the best? You can FaceTime your friends, despite you and your friends probably having, like, 7 other apps to do so? And no UI customizability or jailbreaking?
I'm just unable to understand the Apple/iOS hype. It makes my eyes roll. I'm content with my Samsung and Android, thanks.
Saying "I feel retarded"
Diet, lmao.
Cruelty and violence towards intelligent creatures every single day until nearly my 40s.