A question from the Feminine Chaos AMA launches Kat and Phoebe into a free-associating chat about group chats as commune, men going their own way in the wilderness, “I’m with stupid” merchandise, and the internet newsletters that tell us how to live.
(Psstt! your outro music starts and ends a few minutes before the end)
The "too online/never touches grass/life is hard but I'm a feminist activist heroine despite the disabilities posted in my bio" personality seems identical to the nerd culture one.
Lot of bourgeois white people represented there, though also highly representative of LGBTQ2S++/polyamorous/neurodivergent, all posted in bios.
Lot of people arguing about Star Wars and Tolkien and Marvel, but it sounds like they're mainly wanting to model outraged activism. In it to hate people who don't like bisexual Batman or whatever, rather than to like Batman.
Excellent Podcast.... The conversation about people with an online persona of being the 'good person' and not having the ability to go outside an be normal without dressing everything up in neurotic discourse is what I call 'the weaponisation of consideration'. The British love doing this in smaller ways but often comes down to is an aggressive complaining about how much things would be better if people would only be more considerate in vague and unspecified ways often conflicting with other things you also need to be considerate of.
However this then gives people social anxiety when it's projected onto them and then feels like often the best option is to always just stay at home and do nothing! Or just have normal friends!
It's hilarious to me that Anne Helen Petersen would write a guide to being a normal person when she has cultivated a readership of people who believe Dave Chappelle and Louis CK fans should be unemployable, reading David Foster Wallace is worse than throwing a trashcan through a Starbucks window, and that they should have a say in hiring decisions of companies they don't work for. Weird that they would need help on interpersonal relationships.
I do have an online chat group that has been going for years, but in no way can it replace real-life relationships, much less a spouse (that one actually likes, anyway). We started off as a bunch of homeschool moms with similar educational philosophies and kids of different ages, but I think nearly all of us have retired from the homeschool life at this point; my two are 22 and 19. We talk about life and politics, support each other emotionally, and so on. I love them, but we can't bring each other soup when we're sick. We totally dream about a commune though, preferably on a Scottish island. I think we were going to bring the significant others along...
Holy hell, I read Phoebe's article on The PC dictionary (was a great flashback btw, I graduated in 96 I think) and clicked on the link to drop a comment and there are like 150 comments! Then I realized I was on the Common Sense sub not the FC sub. There is also a interesting ratio of likes to comments (150/219). Great read obviously, folks should check it out:
Related to this discussion, it made me think about something that may be obvious to some but was new to me. It feels really weird to me to chat up people online that I could chat with in person.
The feeling is akin to breaching the professional / private divide. Like if a friend needs your help that involves your profession, or vice versa. This might just be a me thing, but I definitely have a hat I wear when doing my work stuff, vs what I am like normally. It really changes the dynamic in an unsettling way for me.
In person it feels like there is no concept of call/response, its just a topic cloud floating over the table you both are dumping thoughts into. Online it feels like there is a visual measure of how "engaged" each person is, if only by merely glancing at the volume of lines each has contributed.
I don't feel this way with people whom I only interact with online. It seems totally normal to see the ebb and flow of paragraphs vs. single words flip back and forth. Is it just me or is this a thing? It might just be the simple artifice of the interactions (test vs. speech), but it kind of feels like there is more to it.
(Psstt! your outro music starts and ends a few minutes before the end)
The "too online/never touches grass/life is hard but I'm a feminist activist heroine despite the disabilities posted in my bio" personality seems identical to the nerd culture one.
Lot of bourgeois white people represented there, though also highly representative of LGBTQ2S++/polyamorous/neurodivergent, all posted in bios.
Lot of people arguing about Star Wars and Tolkien and Marvel, but it sounds like they're mainly wanting to model outraged activism. In it to hate people who don't like bisexual Batman or whatever, rather than to like Batman.
Thanks, should be fixed now!
Pedants represent!
Excellent Podcast.... The conversation about people with an online persona of being the 'good person' and not having the ability to go outside an be normal without dressing everything up in neurotic discourse is what I call 'the weaponisation of consideration'. The British love doing this in smaller ways but often comes down to is an aggressive complaining about how much things would be better if people would only be more considerate in vague and unspecified ways often conflicting with other things you also need to be considerate of.
However this then gives people social anxiety when it's projected onto them and then feels like often the best option is to always just stay at home and do nothing! Or just have normal friends!
It's hilarious to me that Anne Helen Petersen would write a guide to being a normal person when she has cultivated a readership of people who believe Dave Chappelle and Louis CK fans should be unemployable, reading David Foster Wallace is worse than throwing a trashcan through a Starbucks window, and that they should have a say in hiring decisions of companies they don't work for. Weird that they would need help on interpersonal relationships.
I do have an online chat group that has been going for years, but in no way can it replace real-life relationships, much less a spouse (that one actually likes, anyway). We started off as a bunch of homeschool moms with similar educational philosophies and kids of different ages, but I think nearly all of us have retired from the homeschool life at this point; my two are 22 and 19. We talk about life and politics, support each other emotionally, and so on. I love them, but we can't bring each other soup when we're sick. We totally dream about a commune though, preferably on a Scottish island. I think we were going to bring the significant others along...
Holy hell, I read Phoebe's article on The PC dictionary (was a great flashback btw, I graduated in 96 I think) and clicked on the link to drop a comment and there are like 150 comments! Then I realized I was on the Common Sense sub not the FC sub. There is also a interesting ratio of likes to comments (150/219). Great read obviously, folks should check it out:
https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-origins-of-woke
Anywho, there is a purported 5th edition of the book listed here to borrow (https://openlibrary.org/books/OL16882018M/The_official_politically_correct_dictionary_and_handbook) Would be curious what kind of updates led to 5 editions in three years?!
Related to this discussion, it made me think about something that may be obvious to some but was new to me. It feels really weird to me to chat up people online that I could chat with in person.
The feeling is akin to breaching the professional / private divide. Like if a friend needs your help that involves your profession, or vice versa. This might just be a me thing, but I definitely have a hat I wear when doing my work stuff, vs what I am like normally. It really changes the dynamic in an unsettling way for me.
In person it feels like there is no concept of call/response, its just a topic cloud floating over the table you both are dumping thoughts into. Online it feels like there is a visual measure of how "engaged" each person is, if only by merely glancing at the volume of lines each has contributed.
I don't feel this way with people whom I only interact with online. It seems totally normal to see the ebb and flow of paragraphs vs. single words flip back and forth. Is it just me or is this a thing? It might just be the simple artifice of the interactions (test vs. speech), but it kind of feels like there is more to it.