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
That’s not funny at all. I would report Steve to HR immediately.
Steve is the HR manager
You’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an asshole.
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.
People don’t complain about diversity usually, they complain about bad writing. It needs to be part of a story and not just a checkbox
deleted by creator
If hollywood could figure out how to make well-written diverse stories it’d remove the ability for bigots to obfuscate by lumping themselves in with people who just don’t like the writing
On it.
Huh
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.
Removed by mod
I think you’re applying very limited and anecdotal definitions that most people don’t/didn’t strictly adhere to.
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.
deleted by creator
Recently started watching News Radio again, my SO was like wait “Joe Rogan? That Joe Rogan?” It is sad.
deleted by creator
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 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.
Ive spent a good time in MRA subs. It’s not a bad thing. We need someone to bring to light the disparity in family and divorce court. We need people fighting for men’s parental rights.
There are people who go way too far into the red pill and incel territory. But MRA on its own has merits and are often fighting just for egality in the aspects of our society where women are given undue preferential treatment. There is nothing biological which makes a woman a more competent caregiver or more able to love a child. Additionally, society is changing and women are more likely to be in the work force, even in a relationship, making the idea of alimony dated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was in high school in the late 70s and early 80s. Nobody was out. But people kind of knew. One time I was on a train into the city (San Francisco), and I saw two students along with one of our teachers headed there. I thought that was kind of cool, but seemed also a bit dangerous and ill-advised at the time. I am fairly certain that our very popular senior class president was gay. Very sadly, he took his own life.
You really tempted fate, there!
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.
I agree that the issue is ahem idiotic. I just avoid using it now because I don’t like to offend people generally. But people should also have thicker skin. Jesus
deleted by creator
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.
Fire retardant, for example.
I have ADHD so I call my self retarded at work all the time when I fuck up (blue-collar job so that kinda shit Flys there more than at a white-collar job) It kinda helps me not feel insecure. I know people think that of me so by calling my self that constantly it doesn’t get to me as much
On the bright side, it was replaced with the much more fun Darwin award winner/finalist.
On the bright side, it was replaced with the much more fun Darwin award winner/finalist.
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
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 😊
Growing up in the 90s, we would always say things were ‘gay’ even though we had nothing against homosexuals. It was just the thing to say. Yeah, definitely should not have been saying that.
I was raised in a fundamental christian extremest environment and stuck with it for 30 years. I’m now a card carrying atheist.
I was raised Baptist, with all the shitty bells and whistles. I’m now an agnostic theist. Part of me is still fond of Christianity, but definitely not the more eyebrow-raising stuff nor the church.
I am proud of my new theistic beliefs now, as they remain rational and embrace how little we really can know. And now I validate atheism as rational and normal too. At least in principle— some atheists can be as cultish and angry as some Christians or some vegans or any other community that focuses on world-scale beliefs and issues. But I digress.
Congrats on getting away from extremists and forming your own beliefs, fam.
If you’re carrying a card you’re still in a cult.
TIL my local library is a cult
The cult of the shhhs
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 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 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.”
It’s not coming from a religious position. Theistic religions tout gnostic theism, full stop. The reason agnostic vs gnostic atheism is a thing is purely because belief in god is such a big deal socially. It’s a claim that can’t help but be addressed because of how ingrained it is in everyday life (particularly in the US). If people were inclined to discriminate against you based on your belief or non-belief in vampires or Santa Claus, then your stance on them would be just as prominent. Your quote at the bottom is agnostic atheism, but it doesn’t necessarily say anything about being “open to religion.” If there were some sort of proof that a god or gods existed, it doesn’t mean that any religion is correct about them. For example, I know for a fact that the god of the Bible does not exist because he’s a clearly defined character and the nature of the world disproves his existence. However, I don’t claim to know that no gods exist, period.
Do gnostic atheist even exist? I think the distinction is only there to tease people who think that you can really know anything…
They do, and people who think they know everything are very unpleasant to talk to!
Ugh, I can imagine. I think gnostic $anything$ would be unpleasant to talk to.
The gnostic/agnostic atheist/theist distinction is quite useful. Also the words are fun to pronounce/spell so that’s a bonus
And a general rule is that both gnostic atheists and gnostic theists are insufferable.
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.
That’s what most people think, but when you go on long meditation retreats the experiences that you can have are quite profound and very far beyond being calm and in control. Those experiences are transformative. Spiritual is not really a bad word for it, except that with meditation it is all so very clear. You can explain exactly what happened, what the transformative insight was and how it changes your perspective. It is spiritual, yet lucid and repeatable.
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.
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.
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.
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”
I’m Australian, it used to be very common. You might be too young?
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.
deleted by creator
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.”
Nothing really replaced it as a call-out, which sucks.
There are lots of words one can use: “Wanker”, “Idiot”, “Dumb-ass”.
Would using the term dumb not be just as bad as retarded? Both are medical terms defining issues that people didn’t choose.
This is why this is such a stupid thing to get upset about. It’s hypocritical to argue against one word and accept the other.
Wanker is the closest in approximate meaning, but I’m not British
If you’re British you’ll know what I mean. Wanker isn’t interchangeable with idiot 100%. There’s more… Edge?
Wanker isn’t close to retard.
Wanker is someone that is an arsehole. Retard is someone who is an idiot.
So what you’re saying is you do agree with my point that there isn’t another perfect word for it, since wanker means “asshole idiot”
But isn’t using wanker as as insult sex negative?! /s
P. S. I’ve always wanted to say ‘You bloody wanker’ after seeing British television as a child but haven’t had a chance so far.
deleted by creator
I grew up in the 80s so it was just standard slang until I really thought about it.
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…
